Edited from this story

With Taiwanese youngsters increasingly drawn to Western hamburgers and fries, government researchers are trying to lure them back with something more traditional - sort of: rainbow-colored rice.

Yellow rice gets its hue from curcumin, an herb that’s a spice in curries and is believed by some to be an antioxidant that may help prevent cancer. Green rice comes from the nutritious bitter gourd, often used in Asian soups and stir-fried dishes. Pink comes from tomato, and purple from a mixture of vegetables.

The colored rice will likely cost about twice as much as plain rice.

Besides the obligatory “wow aren’t they weird in Asia” reaction (which is ridiculous, because didn’t green ketchup start in the US, after all?), it seems like the story is equal parts science and technology, culture, marketing, fashion, and of course economics (2x for healthy rice? nice price!).

Technorati: rice, design, Taiwan, research, fashion, culture, technology, food, grocery, marketing, economics, healthy

I’m one of the co-founders of a relatively new blog Does Size Matter? in conjunction with a few other people (in fact there’s a new co-author listed today that I’ve never heard of!). We’re looking at the business of design - not exactly how design can help business, but the hiring, selecting, using, positioning etc. of design services - where design is constructed as broadly as possible in terms of a professional service - be it “research” or “strategy” or “interface design” or “graphic design” or “innovation” - whatever.

We’re hoping to create dialogue rather than just blurt out stuff that seems interesting, so check it out if you’re interested, and add a comment…

Technorati: design, business, blog, blogging, collaboration, writing, discussion

Here’s what I’ve seen outside an Au Bon Pain store in Manhattan on two separate nights - a huge amount of food being discarded. Easily noticeable is dozens of bagels; no doubt other stuff as well.

Does Manhattan no longer have a hunger or homeless problem? Where is the food rescue organizations to pick this up and deliver it to someone who can use it? I’m not picking on Au Bon Pain specifically, it’s just what I’ve seen casually walking about. No doubt the problem/opportunity is more widespread than simply one store that I observed personally.

I ate dinner in Chinatown last night (despite picking a Chowhound etc. fave, I wasn’t that impressed, I’ve had better in SF and environs easily), and had quite a bit left over. I took it to go, even though being in a hotel there was no way to eat it. But the homeless dude I saw on the way in had packed up, and I couldn’t find anyone in Midtown either. But there are these buildings with atrium (atria? I dunno - they each only have one) that are designated public space (is this a tax thing or what?) and open til 10pm. I walked by one and there were many people playing chess. It wasn’t clear to me if these people had homes or money or were just chess enthusiasts, or if it was a mixture. I saw a lot of backpacks that seemed fairly full. I walked in nonchalantly past the security guard, and just left my food on an empty table. It’ll probably get thrown out, but if those people are in need, maybe someone will take it.

And just for some extra context - I don’t give money to people on the street. Ever. I rarely look or acknowledge, etc. I’m not boasting about what I did yesterday, or defending what I do normally, it’s just who I am and how I’ve chosen for now to handle these things.

What does motivate me more than any sense of “charity” or “giving” as an abhorrence of waste. My leftovers and the Au Bon Pain bounty are waste that could be leveraged. That appeals to something in me. One thing I’ve done is start a local freecycle group that allows people to exchange unwanted goods instead of tossing ‘em out.

Technorati: garbage, waste, homeless, food+rescue, freecycle, New+York+City, Chinatown, Au+Bon+Pain, NYC

Electric Lady Studios has now become a video store. I think this is fairly recent, but I’m not 100%. Kinda depressing; the studio has been there for a long long time.

Oops. See comments.

Technorati: video, retail, Hendrix, legend, studio, ladyland, Electric+Ladyland, Electric+Lady, Electric+Lady+Land

If they spend all this money to advertise a show and then a disaster happens and the show isn’t going to go on, wouldn’t they ante up with the budget to remove those ads? It’s almost a month old, which is bad, and of course the show never premiered. It just seems sloppy and embarassing. Won’t the MTA take them down themselves?

Technorati: chapelle, advertising, subway, mta, New+York+City, NYC

Another prop to occupy their minds.

Technorati: NYC, MTA, subway, New+York+City, device, handheld

Saw this in a building today. To gain entry, you had to walk up to a machine - a video camera on a podium with a small screen - and state your name and who you were there to see. It wasn’t quite like some Star-Wars-esque door or anything; the machine stood in the middle of a open area, with straps-on-posts to guide you to the right place. Further, there was a security attendant/hostess who stood sat many feet behind the podium at her own desk and sort of offered guidance/instructions on how to proceed. I didn’t feel comfortable taking pictures of it, unfortunately. The machine was covered with signage made out of the same red plastic with white letters - there were several signs visible to address various interactions and warnings. Very kludgey, and since no one checked ID or called up to the floor you were planning to visit, it didn’t feel very secure, even if they had me on tape.

BTW - I guess there’s something new called Blogger Images whereby you can upload images to a Blogger blog. I only found out about it because there was some problem with it and the Blogger Status feed I subscribe to had info. I actually couldnt’ find any sort of announcement about it. Thanks for nothing, Blogger.

Technorati: security, building, visitor, entrance, kludge, interface

Yesterday I was selected for secondary screening while going through airport security at SFO. It started off rather typically, with no explanation from the person who checks ID and boarding passes, only an instruction to follow a certain path. It�d be nice at that point if they told you what was going on. I follow the path I was directed to � a long and narrow corridor between the wall and those straps-on-poles (were that I was hip enough to name those by brand!) � a long and twisting path that eventually reached a dead-end. I was confused, so I turned around only to find a security person was ducking under the straps to join me.

He was exceedingly polite, and extremely patient while I did as he requested, provided boarding pass, unloaded my laptop, took off my shoes. He made suggestions gently (�I�ll get you a container for you to put your bag and your shoes in�). And he told me what was going to happen next (�If you could come with me, sir, we�ll just stand here and wait to go through�).

Instead of treating me like a presumed criminal, I actually felt a bit of privilege. Partly by singled out, but partly because of a certain experience of access. My bags were put through the X-ray machine ahead of others, with somebody carrying them for me and getting the nod to lay them on the belt as soon as possible. Meanwhile, I was able to stand out of the line, in a space in the middle where no one else could stand (since they had to remain in line). I went through the metal detector myself and was directed to a little holding area. After a call of �male, secondary� went out, I encountered a man waiting there for me told me immediately (calling me sir) where I could go next, pointing to an area that required me to pass the end of the X-ray machine, and go around behind. And then I was �free� to traipse over there myself, crossing several zones and lines that the normal passenger wouldn�t go through.

Two different people greeted me there, one of whom smiled nervously (the nervous smile of youth and introversion, simply) at me with a mouth full of braces. He dealt with my bag, and another did the search. They weren�t extroverted, they weren�t bossy, they were comfortable and friendly. Stand like an airplane, palms up. Face this way, so you can see your bags being searched. I never felt manhandled. The warned me my wallet and keys would be re-X-rayed.

I have been to the hairdresser (oops, I mean barber) and been treated more like a piece of meat than today. Or that all-too-familiar experience (like last week at Ross Dress For Less) when the cashier was engaged in a phone conversation for the entire duration of my transaction. Or the flight attendant on yesterday�s flight who walked through the cabin distributing the �snack� (Oreo, cheese spread, cracker-wafer-thing, world�s-smallest-box-of-raisins) with an amazing lack of interpersonal energy � no eye contact, no words, just place the snacks on the trays and move along.

Anyway, while traveling, all of my clothes and toiletries were in checked baggage, so I�m sure that reduced the sense of violation of having stuff opened, touched, looked at.

Two interactions felt more like cooperation than victimization, and they were small but significant. In one part of the search of my b, the wanded the button that closes my jeans � and of course it beeped. They asked me to twist it over (a gesture that is difficult to describe but is akin to walking around with your collar up, rather than any kind of underwear-proximal violation) and he said �good enough� in response. Secondly, when my bags were finished being searched, the bag-handling guy put a lot of hole punches into the boarding pass. When the wanding guy returned with my re-x-rayed wallet and keys, he asked me if the other agent had punched my boarding pass.

I suppose those may be signals of lax security, but I�m only talking about it from my perspective, the traveler. I think I finished up before anyone who entered the regular line before I did, and I got �special� treatment that didn�t make me feel bad or weird. And I wasn�t in a rush so I wasn�t worried about that, either.

Overall, it was an incredibly powerful reframe - from being a suspect to receiving valet service. Some minor cues (with a different mindset behind them, no doubt) changed the perspective of an ordinary experience about 180 degrees.

Technorati: airport, sfo, travel, security, service, touchpoint

Potted Meat Museum

Technorati: food, food+museum, grocery, collecting

John Fiedler, voice of Piglet, dies at 80 while Paul Winchell, voice of Tigger dies at 82

I’ll always remember Fiedler for his apperance as Jack the Ripper (or the evil space entity that has taken on many forms throughout history including Jack the Ripper and the various spacey aliases they give him) - “kill you all….kill you all!”

Here’s an interesting brand extension story

The John Deere name will be featured on the entrance sign for the subdivision with homes ranging from roughly $375,000 to $500,000. The purchase price includes a choice of landscape designs prepared and installed by Deere. Thousands of dollars worth of riding lawnmowers, leaf-blowers and other equipment will fill one of the three garage bays.

St. Lawrence Homes vice president Rick Ohmann says the John Deere link should amount to a stamp of approval for people who care about having a beautifully landscaped yard from the day they move in.

It was that promise, not the John Deere name, that attracted Joseph Crayton to sign a contract this month to build a 3,100 square foot house. ‘It wasn’t my primary decision-driver, but it was great to have,’ Crayton, 37, said of the Deere name associated with his new home. ‘A lot of us are brand conscious.’

John Deere officials look for the strategy to help broaden their products’ appeal among people who may associate the name strictly with tractors and lawnmowers.

‘The ultimate message is to have homeowners consider John Deere as the place they can turn for all of the things they need to take care of their yard. Right now, we might only be considered as a place to buy equipment,’ said Tosh Brinkerhoff with Deere & Co.’s consumer equipment division in nearby Cary. ‘We feel like this community is a way that we can showcase our abilities.’

Read the full story

Not the first time, incidentally, that John Deere has sought an unusual co-brand. Videogames?

Technorati: brand, branding, John+Deere, community, cobrand, cobranding

Link

A new film, Me & Mickey D, is by a filmmaker who ate at McDonald’s for 30 days and lost weight.

NRO: Would you recommend anyone eat McDonald’s for 30 days?

Whaley: Actually I think a lot of people do, at least for a few meals a week. Tens of millions of people eat there every day without ill effect. As for a 30-day diet to lose weight? That’s up to the individual. This was not intended to promote a McDonald’s diet for losing weight, it was meant to demonstrate that some of our current belief systems are incorrect.
…
NRO: Besides the obvious, Super-Size-Me-is-wrong/be responsible/McDonald’s-can’t-make-you-fat,-only-the- choices-you-make-can message, what is the overall point of your documentary?

Whaley: Simply to encourage people to take more responsibility for their own lives and to appreciate the concept of freedom of choice that we have in the U.S. I also hope to inspire people to get out and move around more. Forget about ‘exercising,’ just get out there and celebrate your life by staying busy and productive. ‘Eat to live, don’t live to eat.’ � Moliere

Technorati: supersize+me, morgan+spurlock, Soso+Whaley, McDonalds, Me+and+Mickey+D, documentary, diet, food

Amazing that my Licensing Show experience was an entire year ago. Times flies. Read about last year’s experience in a previous FreshMeat and check out this NYT story about this year’s event.

At the Licensing 2005 show, which runs through today at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, other cartoon and real-life characters are also in search of comebacks, including Richie Rich, Casper the Friendly Ghost and Liberace.

“Nostalgia is a hit,” said Mike Alic, general manager of the show, as he stood under a depiction of Superman stopping an 18-wheeler from falling off a bridge. “The people running the licensing business had these brands in their childhood, and they appreciate the decreased risk of going with already proven track records.”

Necco, one of the country’s oldest candy companies, is pushing its flagship wafers and Clark bar icons to apparel makers. “There’s comfort with the familiar,” said Ross Misher, president of Brand Central LLC, the Los Angeles-based licensing agency representing Necco.

Kellogg is a partner with 20 licensees to produce products including Norman Rockwell-printed ceramic cereal bowls. The company is drawing from its own century-old archive of more than a million pieces of art that includes works by Rockwell, J. C. Leyendecker and Andrew Loomis, and has a domestic deal for a 1960’s style Tony the Tiger bikini that is already a hit in Japan.

The cereal maker has signed off on licensed stationery and puzzles to help it reintroduce the original Snap! Crackle! and Pop! characters from its Rice Krispies brand, as well as Sugar Pops Pete and Smaxey the seal, the long-retired spokescritter for Sugar Smacks. (Now known as Honey Smacks, and touted by Dig’Em frog.)

Throwback marketing is also being used for toys, with the Care Bears, My Little Pony and the Cabbage Patch Kid characters displayed prominently at the show.

Hasbro is heavily promoting Transformers, the toy robots that first hit the big time during the Reagan era. Interest in the brand had been declining until 2002, when the toymaker joined with the Cartoon Network to introduce three new generations of characters. Hasbro is currently working with DreamWorks and Paramount for a Transformers movie, and exploring deals with licensees to support the movie’s release with apparel, video games and even Transformer bandages.

“We’re bringing it back in a way that dads can relive their childhoods with their children,” said Bryony Bouyer, a senior vice president at Hasbro.

In addition to Underdog, Classic Media is promoting Richie Rich, Peter Cottontail and Mr. Peabody, the time-traveling, bespectacled genius dog. Classic has sought deals to get these and other classic animation and children’s programming back into the mainstream, including making Mr. Magoo a co-star with Tiger Woods in an American Express ad, and having Lassie scare off a cougar in a commercial for General Electric.

Classic Media is also promoting Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties, Roger Ramjet and Gerald McBoing Boing , which will have a new series on the Cartoon Network.

“These characters have an emotional tug that sticks around,” said Leslie Levine, Classic’s head of worldwide licensing.

I Love Liberace, a Las Vegas-based company that secured exclusive worldwide licensing rights from Liberace’s estate, has a booth with towels, bags and clothing featuring Liberace kicking like a Rockette. In addition to having trademarked the phrase “Mr. Showmanship,” the company aims to roll out Liberace barbecue sauce, complete with edible glitter.

Much of the old imagery is being revised with the help of new technology.

After a 19-year hiatus, Superman is expected to hit movie theaters next year with a healthy helping of computer-generated imagery. And the jingle “Everyone knows it’s Slinky” is now available as a cellphone ring tone.

TV Guide is offering 1960’s-era TV theme songs over cellphones, with wireless trivia games as well.

Technorati: LIMA, licensing, Fresh+Meat, Licensing+Show, brands

Full story

A disc jockey at a top Ottawa rock station has been booted off the air for playing Stompin’ Tom Connors — and nothing but Stompin’ Tom — to protest the singer’s exclusion from the Live 8 concert lineup.

But what remains unclear today is whether Jeff Brown, who says he has not been fired from his job at CHEZ 106.1, has his tongue tucked firmly in his cheek.

Mr. Brown, program director at the station, began playing Stompin’ Tom tunes Tuesday afternoon during his drive-home show, which airs from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

After hearing the lineup of Canada’s version of Live 8, Mr. Brown said, he ‘went on a rant about how we have Celine Dion representing Canada via satellite from Las Vegas, and how true Canadian icons were being overlooked, namely Stompin’ Tom,’ Mr. Brown explained yesterday in an e-mail to a Citizen reporter.

‘At this point I vowed to play nothing but Stompin’ Tom on my show until (Live 8 organizers) Bob Geldof and Michael Cohl recognized the influence that this true icon has in this country and add him to the bill.’

…

While Stompin’ Tom has a devoted following in Canada, it is unlikely Bob Geldof has ever heard Bud The Spud or other Stompin’ Tom-penned tunes about everyday life in Canada’s small towns and cities.

On Tuesday’s show, Mr. Brown played Stompin’ Tom’s Big Joe Mufferaw continuously for about a half an hour.

Mr. Brown said reaction to his Stompin’ Tom binge was immediate.

‘The moment we started playing Stompin’ Tom, the phones went insane (like I have never seen in 15 years of radio) … 99 per cent of people were in support that we needed to get Stompin Tom on the Live 8 bill.

‘It just shows you how like no other artist this man transcends all boundaries and truly speaks for the country.”

Another random email comes my way

Hi Steve:

I am hoping to get a picture of a UPS truck/driver delivering packages to horses in a corral. One of the horses needs to have a big pencil in his mouth - like he’s signing for his packages.
This is for a PowerPoint presentation to be used one time. UPS wanted tons of red tape to make this happen. I need it by 6/27/05
Any thoughts?

I did recently blog a photo of a UPS truck, but still, why would someone ask me this? I sought some explanation

sorry. I am searching for UPS pictures and I ran across yours. You seemed like a very creative type. thought you might have some interesting ideas.
Nothing ventured…nothing gained.

Interesting how people use the Internet. As Tom sez It would be perfect to show a monkey clinging for dear life to the antenna of a fast-moving 1972 Nova. Can we get that? Somebody write to that Portigal guy

Technorati: UPS, horse, mouth, pencil, bizarre, random, email

This type of rule may be largely symbolic, but the issue at question does deal with the meaning and usage of symbols, so perhaps it’s appropriate. It’s interesting to see a stand taken for effective communication and creating a smoother more usable “interface” to an organization. Organizations - the more bureaucratic, the better - become very focused on their insides, and not their outsides, thinking about their own processes and nomenclature and expecting their customers to adapt to their systems. It’s unfriendly, takes more effort, frustrating, distancing, and ultimately requires more work on their part to actually clarify or correct mistakes.

Contra Costa County supervisors who use certain dirty words during weekly meetings will have to cough up $1 fines. Under a new policy unanimously adopted Tuesday, bureaucratic acronyms like EIR, LAFCO, ABAG and RFP will be verboten in the board chambers in Martinez, not just from the supervisors’ podium but also in all written materials for board meetings.

‘We throw them around all the time,'’ said Supervisor John Gioia of Richmond, who proposed making Contra Costa the first county in California to adopt the anti-acronym stand. Politicians and bureaucrats there now must use phrases instead — environmental impact report, the Local Agency Formation Commission, the Association of Bay Area Governments and Request for Proposals.

He asserted that the public, whether sitting in the chambers or watching on television, can be confused when government officials engage in alphabet-soup discussions of programs.

Link

Just last week I received a letter from the Canadian passport office. It was a piece of paper with 2 dozen check boxes available, each indicating a different type of problem. The problem with my form was checked, a couple of words appended, and a pointer to a code (”see PPT 0S1″ - although was that 0 or O was unclear) - but no indication of what that code was, how to find the information in that code, and ultimately what to do with the information and card they sent me. No return envelope or instructions about where to mail it. I filled out the attached card and went to the web and found the mailing address and put it in the mail. When it arrives, will they be able to link this supplement with the information they have on file? I never found PPT 0S1. Really crappy experience for something as crucial as a passport. And this is, of course, typical. Especially for governmental agencies.

So, kudos to Contra Costa County for a SITRD! (step in the right direction)

Technorati: jargon, lingo, shibboleth, bureaucracy, government, Contra+Costa

In a previous post I reviewed Tiger Power, a new breakfast cereal from Kellogg’s. I just came across kind of a funny and slightly more attitude-filled review here.

Technorati: grocery, packaging, review, taste+test, cereal

In a previous entry I wrote about being approached by a PR firm (ineptly, at that) to blog about their new product. I still haven’t got mine yet, so I haven’t been able to blog about ‘em. But meanwhile I found someone else’s experience/reaction in being approached with the same spiel. A good discussion ensues. However, I’m miffed no one asked me to discuss Glad Press’n Seal here on All This ChittahChattah. Hmm.

Technorati: Hefty, pactiv, PR, blogging, Hass+MS&L

From Garrick Van Buren’s Work Better Weblog

One of my current projects has a major survey component. The survey ends with:

�If you�d be open to follow up questions, enter your email address below.�

There�s about a 60 / 40 split on responses with emails and those without. The responses without email addresses have skipped questions, irrelevant answers, and are generally unusable. This is so much the case, that I�ve found it a better use of time to check for an email address first - then read the response.

It�s interesting that people comfortable with being contacted give useful answers, while those providing non-useful responses don�t provide a way to be contacted.

Conventional wisdom on requiring accountability has it backward. Accountable people want to be responsible for their actions. Those that aren�t don�t. Forcing it doesn�t change anything.

This is purely anecdotal of course, and may not generalize to other surveys about other topics, but nonetheless seemed an interesting data point.

Technorati: survey, research+methodology, honesty, anonymous, anonymity

NPUC 2005 - The future of portable computing.

July 11. I’m going. Anyone else?

Technorati: NPUC, IBM, Almaden, ubicomp, Silicon+Valley, conference

In a previous post I told a story about receiving mistaken invoices from my online backup service. It was a LOT of money and I made the mistake of reading my email during a bit of insomnia, and of course, my adrenalin surged unhappily even though I convinced myself it was probably a mistake (but it was tricky; the first review I read about this service, Data Deposit Box, explained how if your software creates temp files in the target directory, you may find yourself uploading HUGE HUGE files to their system and being charged for it - and at least once in that previous month I found that my DVD software had put some several gigabyte file down without telling me, etc. etc. so I had some rational basis for concern), and eventually they let us all know that they had sent these three invoices out by mistake.

So I blogged the story, because, hey, I’ve got a blog and I’m going to use it.

But the company I blogged about wasn’t too happy.

From: “Peter Carroll”
To:
Subject: The Data Deposit Box problem
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 09:43:07 -0400

Steve,

We are again very sorry for the error that caused you to receive those emails. It was an embarrassing mistake that will never happen again.

I read your blog on the topic with horror this morning. We have all worked hard to communicate with our customers and clean up the mess this caused. These were only internal reminder emails for our accounting people to manually bill a couple of our very large clients. No customers were billed.

Clearly this was a dark day in our history that we would all like to put behind us. Unfortunately, with your blog showing up in Google I fear we will be reliving it over and over for months or years to come.

Would you consider removing your post in exchange for 3 months of free Data Deposit Box service? I assume you are otherwise happy with our service. This gesture would be greatly appreciated by everyone at Data Deposit Box.

Sincerely

Peter Carroll, CTO

This really threw me for a loop. I’m supposed to feel bad for them? I guess I do, but what about me? My monthly bill is about $20.00, so they’re asking me to basically censor myself in support of their corporate goals, for about $60.00. I don’t want to go off on a major integrity high-horse type of deal, but really? $60? Maybe they should offer me the three free months as a gesture of good will in apology for the upset. But not make it contigent upon me zipping my mouth.

Further, there’s an element of quiet coercion here, and really, isn’t a backup company’s core offering involving trust? I don’t feel they are behaving in a trustworthy fashion. And what if I refuse to take the posting down? Will that mean that maybe my data might (oops! We are SOOOO sorry) go away? Probably not, but even the fact that this exchange has raised the spectre of data loss suggests their approach to me was a wrong one.

I’m not out to change the world with this blog, and I’m still getting used to the fact (after nearly 4 years) that this blog can have some impact, but I stand by what I wrote.

I didn’t bother to share with people, by the way, my “icon” experience. Here’s a support request I sent in

Admittedly, this is a low-priority request, but I wanted at least to request it…

Every once in a while the icon in the system tray disappears and then reappears. This causes all the task bar entries to shift rapidly back and forth - in other words, it’s a fair amount of motion along the bottom of the screen. It’s VERY distracting. It’d be great if that didn’t happen, if it just stayed live all the time, or I’d be willing to disable the icon if that meant I could avoid this problem. I’ve seen this happen with other programs (I think PopFile had it with a recent version) and it cosmetic, but it’s also impacting concentration and productivity, so it is important in that way.

They responded nicely, and quickly

We had a problem with our icon in that it would disappear and we were unable to determine why it was happening. We decided to destroy and recreate the icon periodically to stop this from happening.

I will add a registry setting to the client application to allow you to disable this. The option will not appear in our options program, but will be only available via registry changes.

I will let you know once this is ready and send you instructions on the name of the key.

I’m no programmer, but a tech friend of mine was aghast at the problem and also the kludgey solution. Didn’t give him faith in their technical chops. Anyway, shortly thereafter they sent the registry key instructions. Playing with the Windows registry is sort of a dangerous manipulation of the secret guts of how things work. One typo can ruin stuff. Anyway, they told me what kind of key to create and what to put in it. And there was a typo in their instructions.

Under Software/Acpana/Backup/username please add a ERG_SZ value with the name DoIconRefresh and set the value to 0

ERG_SZ should be REG_SZ. I didn’t know that, but I figured it out. Still doesn’t give you the best confidence in them.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand - the blog entry. I wrote them back

Peter, I’m awfully surprised that you’d ask a customer to delete a posting they made about your product! And further that you’d offer me roughly $60 to do so!

Moreover, this sort of thing really impacts the feeling of trust between me and Data Deposit Box - if I refuse, what will happen to my data? For a service that provides backup, I would suggest that the trust is pretty important and this exchange kind of threatens that trust.

Steve

and heard back

If you refuse, nothing will happen to your data. I only ask that you please consider removing your post because of the ongoing negative impact it will have on our company.

As you point out, trust is a very fragile thing. Nobody understands that more than we do. There was nothing malicious in our action. It was an honest mistake and we have worked very hard to repair the damage it caused. My fear is that your post will continue to show up in Google and new damage will continue to happen.

Expression of individual opinion is very important right. But please consider what the effect is when they are amplified by Google. I�m sure you do not intend to cause us ongoing damage to our reputation. If you did, I am sure you would no longer be a customer. But negative comments are may times more powerful than positive.

I offered you some free service only as a gesture of good faith. I had no other intentions. If you are not comfortable with that I understand. Was our response to our customers not sufficient or appropriate in you mind? Is there anything more you feel we should do?

I truly hope you can forgive us for this mishap. If not, I apologize again and wish you all the best.

I don’t want to be a villain, or hurt this poor company. Discussions of forgiveness and malice and all this seem very emotional and very personal. Perhaps I need to be more judicious of my stories of bad service or bad experiences. I don’t think I’m using this a bully pulpit, though. Even though they won’t be happy to see their exchange with me also blogged, I feel it’s important. Look, this isn’t Disney sending a cease-and-desist letter or anything dramatic like that, but it’s a request to stop saying something bad about a company, because an honest experience (and really, that was NOT a screed, I’ve written screeds, that was mostly sharing an experience and sharing my own horror at it) is just that. What happened to me. My truth.

I’m still a customer of Data Deposit Box. They offer a unique pricing advantage (you pay what you backup, not by choosing from a variety of sizes that you think you need to store) and a unique backup process (you backup files pretty much all the time not on a schedule). They claim to offer multiple copies of files (versions 1 2 and 3) that change over time, but I haven’t figured that out. It may be working, or may not. I don’t know yet.

And, I’ve had a frightening billing mistake with them, and I’ve had a somewhat slapdash if effective and rapid support for something very cosmetic. I’m laying it out there for you to decide for yourself.

I’ve excerpted the best bits, but feel free to read the full story

British potato farmers demonstrated outside Parliament on Monday to publicize their bid to remove the term ‘couch potato’ from the Oxford English Dictionary, arguing that the description of slothful TV addicts harms the vegetable’s image.

The group of about 30 farmers carried signs that read ‘couch potato out’ and ‘ban the term couch potato.’ A similar rally took place in Oxford, central England.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term ‘couch potato’ as ‘a person who spends leisure time passively or idly sitting around, especially watching television or video tapes.’

The British Potato Council says the phrase makes the vegetable seem unhealthy. It wants the expression stripped from the dictionary and replaced in everyday speech with the term ‘couch slouch.’

‘The potato industry are fed up with the disservice that ‘couch potato’ does to our product when we have an inherently healthy product,’ said Kathryn Race, head of marketing at the British Potato Council, a body set up by the government to run advertising campaigns promoting potato consumption and research issues linked to the vegetable.

‘Potatoes have been around for many, many years, but increasingly, with all the coverage that dieting & healthy eating gets in general, we need to make sure that potatoes remain a popular food,’ Race said.”

It’s hard to tell how serious they are. The article makes them sound very serious. Perhaps if I lived in Britain I’d understand the tone a bit better. As a PR stunt, it’s brilliant. It will raise awareness or whatever. As a piece of consumer education, it’s obviously ridiculous. You can’t angrily protest to get people to stop thinking something or making an association. Genie is out of the bottle, right? I’m going to quietly hope it’s the former.

Technorati: potato, protest, UK, Britian, OED, Oxford+English+Dictionary, couch+potato, grocery, food, brand

My friend Alan has a blog that I’ve just been checking out. It’s kinda funny on several levels. Each post is a strange or disturbing comedic observation, most of them rather terse. You might compare to Steven Wright but I’m sure any serious student of late 20th Century comedy could explain what that presumption is incorrect.

What amuses me is that each entry is several days apart, and when one reads through the various entries it almost begs the question of how it took Alan so long to make yet another pithy observation.

Alan, of course, is much funnier than his blog. Even though he may make the same kind of comments, the flat tone of the blog is completely different than his intense delivery. And the minimalist tone of the blog isn’t as funny as his detailed storytelling.

Somehow I should also mention that he has a talking vagina animation on his website.

Technorati: blog, blogger, blogging, humor, humour, sarcasm, attitude, comedy, storytelling

I’m back to NYC in one week, this time for a week or so. I end up staying Midtown East, which is not a great area for restaurants etc. so any suggestions are certainly welcome.

I’m hoping to check out the new MoMa when I’m there, but also hopi