Enhancing the UI design of iTunes’ ‘Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps’

In this first article in a new category of entries ‘Design it better’, I’m going to take things, usually websites or applications, I’ve used or seen that have potential, but could be designed in a better way.

I’m also going to provide an insight into some of the thinking that went in to the design enhancement so you can see why it was necessary. While the example is trivial and the solution obvious, you’ll see there are other solutions that could have been used, and why the selected one is better.

The first thing I’m going to cover is a new feature found in iTunes 9.1 called ‘Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps’.

Read more »

The Apple iPad: So close, yet so far

Introduction

The iPad is both the best and worst kept secret to come from the computing powerhouse / genius of Apple. Like many, prior to its launch, I’ve been reading the various rumour sites imagining what it might be like, what I need from it and trying to discern fact from fiction. Now that it’s here, I’ve done a quick synopsis of what I think are its strengths and weaknesses based on the available Apple information.

Read more »

Lina: Promising write once – run everywhere

Developing applications for multiple platforms

The guys at Lina are promising write once – run everywhere, using the native look-and-feel of the host operating system. This was also the promise of Java, which also uses a virtual machine to run the binary code.

It certainly looks interesting, but the FAQ on the site says there will be a 2x performance hit (i.e. applications will run at half the speed of a native version). Other solutions, like using a VMWare, VirtualPC and Parallels for the Macintosh provide alternative approaches to running applications from one platform on another. These tools work best when the host operating system is running on an x86 processor, meaning that virtualisation speed is around 80% of the host processor – which is a very good level of performance. This occurs because the virtualised processor is the same as the processor and there is limited need to translate the instructions.

However, their disadvantage is that you need to buy the host operating system (e.g. running Parallels on the Macintosh requires that you buy MS Windows to run a windows application inside the virtual machine). This can be an unecessary overhead and cost on the end user.

There are also alternative to Lina, such as Wine, which allows a lot of compiled / binary Windows applications (including Office 2000) to run on Linux. If you’re writing your application in .Net, then you can also use Mono, which works essentially in the same way as Wine but is restricted to running .Net applications. Mono is a cross platform simulation of the .Net framework.

What next?

There are many different solutions available to creating an application and running it on multiple platforms – until there is a unified platform for computing where developers can write once and run everywhere – with the same version, no emulation and no virtualisation.

This is as close or as far away as the major players choose to make it, or until some truly disruptive technology platform comes along and reshapes the playing field. I have some ideas about this that are well into development…

Fujitsu P1610 ultra mobile tablet PC – A mobile winner

I finally got sick of lugging around my old laptop (Dell Inspiron 8600). Don’t get me wrong, it still is a great machine. The reason I bought it was for the massive 15.4 inch screen packing 1920×1200 pixels. I have very good eyesight and I could have three documents open side by side (e.g. two word docs and a visio or powerpoint file). But after a while, I got sick of its 3.5kg weight. My computer bag regularly weighed 7 – 9kgs after a few notepads, powerpack, mouse, iPod, etc.

I’d been doing some shopping around for a new sub notebook / UMPC. I seriously considered the new Samsung Q1Ultra, but finally settled on the Fujitsu P1610. If you’re in the market for a sub-notebook / TabletPC, I strongly recommend taking one for a test drive. Read on for the strengths and weaknesses.

(Images borrowed from http://www.fujitsu.com/sg/services/computing/pc/products/notebook/p1610/gallery.html)

Read more »

Managing for success (Part 7) – Thanking people with thought when they help you

On Friday I presented on my consulting work to the 2IC of the Commonwealth Bank. For those of you who don’t know, it’s the biggest bank in Australia and amongst the top 3 largest listed companies by market cap.

The meeting was with the 2IC, his direct team and peer team members. This was the elite of the Bank and it wasn’t just a little intimidating – it was very intimidating.

And one person in the room took it upon himself to say ‘Good morning, Craig’. Making a point of being friendly and acknowledging that we knew each other. He basically said to me ‘there’s at least one friendy in the room’.

Michael didn’t need to to this. There was nothing in it for him. If you read one of my other recent posts, you’ll see how important it is to do things because they should be done, not because you do it for some material gain.

My responsibility in this interaction is to ensure I thank him for doing it. And not just a quick ‘Thanks, Michael’ email, but one that describes that I knew what he was doing to help.

My email was essentially ‘thanks for making a friendly gesture in an intimidating meeting’. Being precise like that shows him that I put as much thought into my ‘thanks’ as he did in his initial gesture.

People like to be acknowledged for the things they do, especially when they don’t have to do what they did.

Managing for success (Part 6) – Doing things you don’t really have to

I was again talking with one of my students this week and we were talking abou interactions with other people.

The particular situation she was experiencing related to one of her lecturers. The lecturer is new at the game and was clearly struggling to gain the confidence of the students and conduct the lecture in a constructive and meaningful way.

My student described how the class was becoming very dissatisfied with the lecturer and were starting to behave in less then helpful ways. There was general dissent and the students were making it known to the lecturer. unfortunately, the lecturer responded in turn, and around it went.

It’s so easy to fall in behind group behaviour and be like all the others. It’s much easier to criticise than it is to help. And much easier to watch than it is to become actively involved.

Our discussion about this took the direction of what she (my student) can do to actually help the situation, rather than make things worth. The idea is that she can actually engage with the lecturer and provide feedback on how things have transpired and how things can b done better.

I know it sounds a little trite – you’re probably thinking that anyone would do that. However, what I’ve noticed is that most people don’t actually do it. It’s simpler and less threatening if you don’t start a conversation about difficult things – i.e. how to give someone constructive feedback when they’re doing a really poor job at something.

The point of this, is that instead of letting things be like they are, get involved, provide feedback, help out – even when you don’t need to and won’t actually gain anything from it. You do it, because no-one else will.

What’s the worst that can happen? They don’t listen, they get angry, they think you’re nosy. But now it’s actually their problem. You made the effort.

Don’t let it dishearten you. In the long run, you’ll make a difference. Most people like receiving feedback, especially when it’s done well. But that’s a topic for another day.

You’re probably asking your self what did I do to help. Well, I rang the Head of School and talked to him about the feedback I was hearing. I asked about how the lecturer was being supported and even made some suggestions about other things that can be done.

Again, what’s the worst that can happen? The Head says ‘thanks but it’s all in hand’. Nope, that didn’t happen. He understood my motive, took the feedback on board and gave me an undertaking to take an active role in supporting the lecturer. It turns out that he didn’t quite realise how things really were.

I would say that that’s a pretty positive outcome – I wonder what would’ve transpired if I hadn’t made the call. Who knows? But at least I did what I could.

Now, this post is not about being a martyr, or about how I’m a martyr. People who know me would never associate that word with my personality!!! The point is that I got involved when I didn’t have to.

It’s not about throwing your weight around or being a sticky-beak. It’s about genuinely wanting things to be different and if there’s an opportunity to make a difference to someone, despite the fact there is no material gain for me, then I think that’s a good thing.

Not everyone wants feedback, but that’s not your problem because you can’t predict whether someone will want feedback until you try. If you’re not sure, you can always ask them: ‘would you mind if I gave you some feedback on that?’ They’ll either say yes or no and you take it from there. If they say no, then you go about your business and work with people who are interested in getting feedback.

You can’t help everyone – work with the ones you can.

Managing for success (Part 5) – Trusting people

This week’s discussion with one of my students brought up a very important issue about how managers treat staff.

She (my student) commented to me that whenever she comes in she always notices that people email to the group that they are working from home. She asks me about how do I know that they’re really working?

Simply, I trust that people are actually working from home. Do I know they are actually working from home – yes. Why? I trust that they are, therefore they must be.

I know that sounds illogical since I don’t really know what they’re doing because I’m not there with them. But at the end of the day, I trust that they are doing the right thing – and that’s good enough.

Let’s look at what happens if you don’t trust people. Managers who don’t trust their staff are continuously monitoring people, trying to catch them out. What these managers don’t realise is that they are creating the very environment that will cause people to do things that reinforce the managers lack of trust. Or the manager will interpret some seemingly innocuous behaviour as an indicator of doing something untrustworthy. It’s a vicious circle with only one outcome.

In contrast, it’s much easier to start with the view that people are trustworthy and will do the right thing. By doing this, you also set up an environment where people do things that indicate trustworthiness.

Fortunately, you will be right most of the time (whichever view you take!!!). I’ve only experienced 2 or 3 serious breaches of conduct over the last 9 years of running PTG where people outright lied or did something that was in very poor form. Those people no longer work for my company, either because they left or were exited.

It’s dissapointing that this happens, especially when you make a real effort to trust them and ‘this is what you get for it’. But you can’t think that way. It poisons your view of people and causes you to behave in a reactionary way and take away people’s freedom to make their own choices.

Rest assured that the odds are very much in your favour if you start with a positive view of people’s motives. You will get what you look for.

Managing for success (Part 4) – Offloading unnecessary decision making

We regularly have students working with us as they do a placement as part of their degree. Specifically, UNSW and Macquarie University students studying for a Masters degree in industrial psychology are required to complete around 1,000 hours of placements over the two year full time.

I spent some time with one of them discussing how I run PTG Global. We talked about some of the things I do while running PTG. The first thing was about the nature of the people I employ.

When I started PTG (some 9 years ago), it was always clear to me that I needed to employ people who could compensate for the things I was not strong at. It’s often treated gliby when people say they employ people better than they are, or who can succeed them, but I don’t think people actually do it. It’s very threatening to employ people who are smarter and/or better than you are. And I imagine that managers are concerned that they might lose their job if there are people better than they are in the pool.

But the reality is that as a manager, you need to make yourself ‘dispensable’. That is, if you aren’t there for any reason, and all work stops, then it’s clear that you aren’t doing your job. Although i’m in the position where I own and operate PTG, it’s critical that I have people who can maintain things while I’m not there.

A client recently said to me after the week-long road trip we were on ‘I bet you’ll have a million things to do when you get back on monday’. I said to him ‘If I have a million things on, then I’m not a very good manager’.

It’s one of those things – we’d like to think we get great people around us, but a lot of people don’t do it. I’ve found it critical in my business to ensure people are empowered to make decisions.

How do you do this? It’s really quite simple and I do a couple of key things:

1. I let people make decisions
2. I provide some broad parameters for things in and out of their decision making authority (e.g. You make any performance management decisions and I’ll make salary decisions – truth is, I’ve even let that go now)
3. If people ask me things things that should decide on their own, I say something like ‘I don’t need to know about it – just do whatever you think is right’. If you do this a few times, people soon get the hint – but you must have the boundaries in place.
4. If people make a decision that’s not right, it nearly always can be fixed – so there’s no need to come down hard on people. As they say, ‘Shit happens’ – no-one dies, nothing bad happens in my line of work.

If you don’t offload as much as possible in the way of day-to-day decisions, your staff will wait until you get back to make the decision for them and nothing will get done. You will have become a road block in the business.

Keep focussed on managing and growing your business – you can’t do this if your always making day-to-day decisions for your staff.

The continued folly of wired broadband

The continued political battles between Liberal, Labor, Telstra and the ACCC over wired broadband is not helping anyone. Various press articles (here and here) portray a pointless point scoring game where the winner is nobody and the loser is the consumer.

I’ve covered it before, but the only real solution is wireless broadband. There is no point to spending $4 – $5 billion on a new wired network when wireless networks like Telstra’s Next-G exist.

The Government, Telstra and G9 should instead invest in a single wireless broadband network. Next-G is based on UMTS and consumers can receive data at up to 3.6Mbps (enough to stream DVD quality video using Mpeg4) with near-future improvements up to 14.4Mbps. 4G UMTS will provide 100Mbps down and 50Mbps up.

With a strong propensity for people to use mobile phones as their primary communication device over fixed land lines, the need to have a wired phone line reduces. Quite a few people have active land lines only for their ADSL connection and not for general phone usage.

Wireless broadband is the only solution for a relatively mobile population – people change address or move around for work. Why should consumers have to pay for fixed line internet and wireless internet, let alone the connect / disconnect fees and related time delays in re-activating services?

Wireless broadband, like Next-G also serves the needs of rural and regional populations – an important issue for Australia.

Why doesn’t the Government insist on saving $4B and instead remove the Next-G inrastructure from Telstra’s direct control and seek investment from the G9 consortium? A single network improves the quality of service and experience for consumers. There is greater choice as manufacturers need to build for only one technology variation, and costs are down because consumers do not need to pay for 2 or more networks in their access fees.

The wireless account and access can be shared across consumers’ desktops, laptops and mobile phones, increasing its appeal and revenue opportunities for service providers and people use more online services in more environments.

The psychology of water restrictions – new approaches

One of the things that I never understand is why we are not all on national, permanent and maximum water restrictions, regardless of how much rain falls. We are, after all, the second driest continent in the world.

I was in Wagga this week and they’ve taken an interesting approach to managing water usage. The policy is essentially something like: no sprinklers between 10am and 5pm. That’s it.

Read more »