Three usability tips from my weekend of surfing the net

This last weekend I started looking for a rental property - I’ve never had to do that before so it’s a brand new experience for me. But we are building a house so we need to rent somewhere while the build happens. It opened up a whole new world of pain from a digital perspective. I don’t know if anyone at realestate.com or any of the many real estate agents will read this post, but I really wish they would as there are some very, very frustrating usability issues with the way the whole real estate market communicates with its renters. I actually started to wonder if people even want me to rent their house! Well here are a couple of things I would change that would help them put the customer (me) first. 

Don’t deploy new the functionality if it is a poor user experience.

Realestate.com.au have this fantastic functionality where you can bring up a map, enter all your details and then find a place that meets your criteria. It’s a great piece of functionality and I wish every real estate site had something similar (rent.com.au - something for the future!). However, if you move the map, then click on a house, when you go “back to search” everything has reverted back to where you started from and all of your “criteria” has disappeared. So if you have spent 10 minutes refining your search, moving the map so its just right, then zooming in to the area you want to focus on - that’s now all gone. You need to spend another 10 minutes doing it all again! So while the map functionality is great - the couple of times I’ve used it it’s been a terrible user experience and actually made me go looking for other web sites! That’s when I found rent.com.au but more about them later.

Don’t think something is working great just because you have a positive response - measure the negative as well!

I received some confirmation emails that had these massive headers at the top of the email. I was out and about looking at all the houses I had shortlisted so I was trying to read these emails on my mobile phone (like every other person out looking at houses on the weekend). But when you open these emails, because of the size of the banner, the text is tiny. You have to turn your phone sideways, then using both fingers zoom out the text. Its takes 2-3 times as long to simply read an email! When I spoke to one of the agents at the open for inspection, he said he had complained and he gets complaints all the time, but the marketing department say its getting a good response. Seems the marketing department is a slave to the stats from their web site and are not listening to “real” negative feedback here. I wondered how much damage this was actually doing to this company’s brand!

Don’t make ridiculous demands on people in the name of “security”.

Ok, I’m not a security expert, but I don’t think we need to insist on 10 letter passwords to make our logins safe. I personally use a product that stores all my passwords and generates a new password automatically, so it’s not a massive deal as I can just get my password program to generate a 10 digit password that includes a capital letter, a number etc. However most people are not like me and most people use the same password for everything. What you should do is insist that its safer than most - so a capital (maybe), a number and a special character should be part of the password and then it is unlikely to be “guessed” with some random word or number generator. Making stupid demands on people who are trying to log in to your web site just creates barriers - and you haven’t even started to “work” with them yet! The site that made me sign up then proceeded to ask me all about the house I was applying for - yet I’d just been referred to this site by the agents site and in that referral was the house address - why couldn’t they also pass the details I was now being asked to enter? These are simple things guys, why are you making it so easy for someone else to come along, build a better solution and steal your business. This is the digital world we live in - its not like a retail front where its difficult to go to another store that seals your stuff - we just go to Google and type in what we need and we almost always get a page full of options!

So from my weekend of frustration I came to the conclusion that with a little bit of focus on some detail, these companies could really grab a hold in their markets and differentiate. I wonder who will make the investment…... 

Smart watches one year on...

Around April last year was the last post about my Garmin Fenix3 smart watch. Since then the platform has stabilised and I've had zero technical issues with the watch. Garmin are still sending plenty of updates, but it's to add new functionality and fitness "apps" and the quality of the code seems to be fine.

About 6 months ago I also bought an Apple Watch, mainly because I was travelling and only wanted to take one watch that could track any workouts I did while away and automatically sync on the timezones as we travelled. I came back in love with this watch as an everyday "accessory" however as a fitness watch it left a lot to be desired. The Apple apps used to track fitness are woeful in comparison to what you get from your Garmin watch. It also doesn't synch with other fitness apps which can be a little annoying, particularly given it saves all the workout data in the Apple Health app on your phone. The health app allows you to save data from Strava (and other fitness apps) but not the other way around!

So now that I have both how do I use my watches? Easy question to answer! Anything related to fitness I wear my Garmin which measures heart rate, cadence, vertical oscillation (when running),  speed, maps my run/ride/swim, SWOLF (for Golf or swimming), ground contact time, power (when riding), stress score (though I don't find this particularly useful as it essentially just measures your heart rate), lactate threshold, I find the recovery check as you start your workout a nice touch as is the recovery time estimate when you stop, You can log all your swim drills and now with the new HRM strap I can record my heart rate in the water (which gets stored in the strap until the strap can reconnect with the watch and download.

I use my Apple watch as a smart watch. So if I'm travelling or I know I have a day full of meetings and want to be able to see my next appointment or who is calling, emailing or texting me during those meetings without getting my phone out. The Apple watch design is beautiful (as with much of what Apple produces) and the light tap you get when it wants to notify you of something is better than any other smart device I know of - certainly a whole lot better than the crazy vibration you experience with the Garmin when it wants to notify you of a text message!

As a fitness tool the Apple watch could be so much better (even integrating with apps like Strava would be a massive lead forward), but that wasn't what it was designed for. Likewise as a smart watch the Garmin is pretty basic and doesn't quite reach the heady heights of the Apple watch (think ease of use, design, UX, UI etc). But as a fitness watch the Fenix 3 is easily the best on the market - bar none.

Latest Garmin update for the fenix3

There is a new OS update for the fenix 3 doanloaded earlier this week. It's caused the watch to freeze 3 times now, basically a similar issue to what happened when I downloaded a watch face from the App Store. Not sure if there will be a fix coming soon, but hopefully it won't take too long as I've stopped wearing the watch as its a pain to have to reboot every time the watch face freezes!

Parkrun - a great way to get fit and stay fit

Had to share this story, you can see it and others at www.parkrun.com.au...

‘I Run!’ by Chrys Stevenson

As I stood at the starting line of the Golden Beach parkrun with 150 other runners, I thought to myself, “How the hell did I get myself into this?” Less than two years ago I was a proud couch potato. I weighed 129 kg and wore size 24 jeans. I was a keen equestrian in my teen years, but I never ran – not even as a child. Sports days at high school were spent in “Detention Room C” as I refused to participate in physical activities. I called myself a ‘conscientious objector’! In August 2013, after more than two decades as an obese adult, I decided it was time to shed the fat suit. Now in my mid-50s, I had reconnected with a man I dated in my 20s. He made no demands upon me to lose weight, but I decided my body no longer reflected how I felt about myself. It was time to change. As a skeptic, I rejected fad diets, elimination diets, expensive weight loss programs and home-delivered frozen foods. Instead I determined that weight loss was a simple matter of mathematics: burn more calories than you eat. I modified (rather than revolutionised) my diet, reduced portion sizes, filled my oversized wine glass with soda water or Diet Coke instead of Sauvignon Blanc and joined the local gym. I committed to doing some kind of exercise every day; walking, swimming, light weights - even gardening. The kilos quickly melted off and my fitness level improved. I maintained a steady weight-loss of 1kg per week; I was regularly walking 5km and could swim 25 laps of the Olympic pool. I was no athlete but I was fitter than I’d ever been in my life. Once I reached my goal weight, my gym trainer encouraged me to run. Run? I couldn’t run! Was he mad? At first I ran with all the grace of a tranquilised giraffe. But, soon, I fell into a rhythm. It wasn’t long before I graduated from running half the length of the gym’s carpark to a gentle 850m jog into the local village – and then, back! By now I had shed a massive 65 kg – half my original body weight! I’d gone from Size 24 to Size 10-12. My weight-loss goal achieved, my trainer urged me to set a new challenge. I decided I’d try to run 5 km without stopping by Easter 2015. I wrote it in texta and pinned it to the notice board in the gym. I hadn’t yet run 5 km. The best I’d achieved was 3.9. Could I go the distance? I didn’t know. A chance meeting on Facebook with a parkrunner from South Africa alerted me to the Golden Beach parkrun. It seemed like a good chance to achieve my goal. Perhaps running with others would give me the extra adrenaline boost I needed to run that extra kilometre. “Go!” yelled the event director and I took off in the middle of the pack. Soon, the fastest runners began passing me. Then people who were clearly older and (ahem) larger than me trotted past, followed by people with dogs, ladies with prams and (oh, the humiliation) seven year old children! At one point I looked behind me and there was no-one there. I was dead last of the runners. It did occur to me to pull out there and then and save myself the embarrassment of finishing last, but I decided there was more disgrace in not completing the course. So, I kept on at my slow, but steady pace; a tortoise amongst a leap of hares. I reached the half way point and looped back on the home run. Now (as someone at my gym had promised me) I began passing some of the runners who’d started too fast and were running out of puff. That spurred me on - not only could I run, I could pass people! I finished the course having maintained the same steady 8 km/hour pace throughout. I was slow, but I didn’t stop or walk once. “38 minutes and 44 seconds!” yelled the time-keeper as I crossed the finish line and the crowd applauded and shouted, “Well done!” I was reminded of the t-shirt that reads, “I run. I’m slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter, but I run!” I run! Who knew I could do that? Now I’m thinking, “Maybe I could run a bit faster …”

Portarlington race review

The portarlington tri is the 4th race in the Gatorade series and their longest sprint distance race. Apparently this was the 29th running of the portarlington tri and the winner of the inaugural event was competing in my age group! This race is longer than the others in the series as its supposed to help competitors step up to Olympic distance in the final race of the year (coming up on the 30th). Consequently it was the longest race I had done in my very short time doing triathlon. Being a few hrs out of Melbourne, the majority of competitors stay somewhere on the peninsula and so have a short ride, walk or commute to the venue. We ended up booking a house in portarlington so I had a short drive to the foreshore where there is plenty of parking. The venue itself is great although the transition area is right at the bottom of a hill so your riding and running up a hill before you get onto a relatively flat course - something I should have taken better notice of when setting up for the race.

For me I was not worried about finishing the distance, though an 800m ocean swim was further than I'd swum in the ocean before and the swim leg is easily my worst leg. I figured with the relatively flat course I would be able to make up time on the ride and the run, particularly given my run had continued to improve over the season and I was now regularly clocking under 5min/klm pace. I didn't count on having an upset stomach though and this made it a race where I was never going to get close to my PB's in anything other than race distances. I had checked out the setup on the Garmin the night before and figured it was all setup and ready to go. Start the triathlon app as you go into the swim, hit lap at the start and finish of each transition and stop at the end. Easy! Mostly the watch worked great but for some reason,at the end of the event, the swim details don't have any map associated. It seems to have largely got the distance correct (if you assume that walking and porpoising in the water is not counted as swimming by the watch), but it didn't send distance details to strava when it synced. I'm not entirely sure what happened as it picked up map details for the other two legs. The only thing I can think of is that while I was waiting in the water for my swim wave to start, I started the app, made sure we had a gps signal (which came through really quickly) and then didn't think about it again until just before the starting hooter sounded and I realized my watch had reverted back to a normal watch. I hit start again just as the hooter sounded, saw it was on the triathlon app, hit start again to start the app, then one more time to get the little green triangle (like "play" on your CD player) which seems to be what the Fenix3 displays to indicate an app has started. I figured all would be fine but as I mentioned, it didn't seem to track the swim and produce a swim map, though it may have been down to user error, but I probably won't know till my next open water swim.

In terms of the race, the start was good and I felt good for the first 200m of the swim before making the turn at the end of the pier. While we had been waiting for our start the wind had whipped up and so as we turned, we turned into some reasonable swell. I struggled for the 300m out the front of the pier and then when we turned back to shore I took a short rest and felt good for the final 200m or so. IHowever in the swell  had swallowed a heap of water - in fact so much that I walked the last 30 meters into shore (or maybe the tide was out, it was either that or me drinking it all, who can tell). I guess I could have swum the last little bit and I'm not sure which would have been faster, but there is something about having your feet on (relatively) firm ground when your a poor swimmer. Headed into T1 and the watch says I was over 4 minutes - poor! It may well have been though as I had to put on socks and I came out of the water a little slower than I probably should have for no other reason than a lack of concentration. I got the bike gear on and ran out past the mount line and realized I had made a real rookie mistake. I had the wrong gear selected for trying to start on a hill and wasted about 2 minutes trying to get my feet in the pedals and get going up the hill. But once I was going the legs felt good. Unfortunately the stomach didn't. I felt really bloated from the seawater and really wanted to throw up. I didn't, but managed to burp up a lot of sea water over the next few klm's (sorry if your eating your breakfast!). Whilst my legs were feeling good, the 20-30klm/hr southerly was now squarely in my face, and remained so up to about the 13-14 klm mark, so I tired quickly. However when we turned off the coats road we turned into the only hilly part of the course, so whilst my speed increased, it wasn't considerable and it took a bit more from my legs. I was starting to feel ok though and was getting through my Gatorade which I usually carry on the bike for a little carb intake during the bike leg. The last 7 klm's I was motoring and managing to average over 35klm/hr and was actually feeling quit good. Into T2 and as soon as I started running it all fell apart. My stomach started cramping along with my left calf and as I walked up the stairs out of the transition area I felt really disheartened, thinking I might have to walk the whole way to get this done. I started a "Cliffy young" shuffle and managed to get a few klm's down the road. I couldn't stand straight because of my stomach, though my calf had come good and my legs felt fine by about 3 klm in. The stomach never quite recovered and consequently my run leg was pretty poor, though when I looked at the times I actually thought it was going to be worse than it was. So I finished feeling not so good with a very average time, but I did finish and I had a couple of good lessons learnt.

1. Be more careful about what you eat the night before, particularly if your allergic to anything.

2. Know something about the course and select the right gear for your bike before you get on it and try riding!

Garmin Fenix 3 - Day 8

I read an article yesterday on the Apple watch in Smart company. You can see the full article here.

There seems to be a common thought emerging from a number of tech analysts which makes me think most of them can't think outside the current leaders in this space (being Apple and Samsung...or perhaps Microsoft). What the analysts seem to be missing is the fact that the whole smart watch revolution will be about data. So the people that are going to pick this up first may not be the normal "bleeding edge" tech savvy people that bought the first iPhone, but sports people are all about tracking data to improve their fitness/sport. Seems the geek bloggers don't understand the audience that demand for these devices are going to be driven by.

At the end of a week wearing the watch full time I have to say I really enjoy the smart notifications, its a functional watch and the only down side is, as an everyday watch, its quite large. Though having said that I know that there are plenty of people wearing gigantic watches on their wrists these days. I'm just not used to having my sleeve unable to fit over the top of my watch!

Garmin fenix - day 7

Battery is at 44% at the moment. I've used a little more today due to the run session from this morning when I had the watch running for about an hour in the run "app". That clearly takes more battery than if your not connected to satellites!

Satellite connection was a tiny bit slower than the other day, but I think it was probably faster than my 910. Jury is still out on this point though and I'd like to connect a few more times before I make any judgement. Note I have glonass turned on at this point, so I assume it should be faster to get satellite reception.

Not much to add from my run session this morning. It was dark so I didn't look at the watch until I got home. I do like the little summary you get at the end of the run though and everything associated with a session has become easier (except the actual running) with the different interface and fenix3 buttons.

Though speaking of it being dark, I was out last night at a Cirq de solei (great show by the way) and couldn't read the time but just flick on the back light and the time becomes easily viewable - try doing that with your standard analogue (though I'm conscious that I could do that with my digital watch that I bought in 1985 when digital watches were all the rage).

No more sessions scheduled now till Sunday morning. I plan on wearing the watch during my race and trialling the new "triathlon" app on the watch. I havent worn my watch in a race before so hopefully the wet suuit arm won't get stuck while I'm trying to transition to the bike leg. But then again, my transition times are so woeful it will hardly make a difference!

Garmin fenix 3 - day 6

We had the funky unresponsive issue again today. This time at exactly 12.05pm. Reset fixed it and I decided to change back to the analogue watch face that comes with the device rather than the downloaded app from the App Store. My assumption at the moment is that the downloaded watch face has a bug in it, but I will know more tomorrow at around 12!

Used the watch swimming tonight. Once again really easy to start. Just hit start, select the swim app, then pool swim then get in the pool hit start again and start swimming! The only issue seemed to be that I lost 25m in every 100 I swam. This also happened when I first started using my 910 so am wondering whether it needs to get to know your stroke (or something). The last 200m it seemed to measure correctly so we will see how it goes in the race on Sunday. One thing that was a real improvement on the 910 was when you stopped each set and hit the lap button, it told you the distance of the last set and started a timer so you can see how long you are resting. So if you want to put 10 seconds (or whatever time your training plan requires) in between each set then this is perfect. I did find the screen a little difficult to read with my goggles on but I had the same issue with the 910, so it's not a backward step and given my goggles have a tint it's probably more to do with my goggles than the watch. Turning on the backlight for a few seconds seemed to help a little (and turning on the backlight is as easy as touching the on/off button).

Once again the swim uploaded as soon as I got to my locker and my phone connected to the Garmin. It then sent my swim details directly to Garmin connect and Garmin connect then sent it straight to strava. Before I had changed out of my togs I had comments on strava! For anyone (like me) that loves to see the data on the net this is great! 

Also noticed today that the other apps that I had downloaded are now on the watch. So somehow, someway, they have automatically downloaded to the watch! Also noticed that there was a watch update available today but once again, the download continued to fail. So I assume if I just leave it eventually it will find a way to download to the watch. Will see in a few days.

You may have noticed that the apple watch was announced today. There was an idiot at tech geek or one of the other blogger sites that said the apple watch was going to kill any demand for the fenix3. Now that I've looked at the specs for the apple watch I have to say I don't think so. The only thing that might cause you to buy an apple watch is the apple App Store which will no doubt be significantly better than the Garmin App Store. But if you want the watch as a sports watch, the apple watch doesn't come close. So I don't think Garmin has anything to worry about. The other reason to buy a Garmin rather than an apple is the battery life. I recharged the battery to 100% overnight on Saturday. Now, 4 full days later and with a couple of exercise sessions done and dusted, the battery is showing 57%. I have to say that's pretty impressive, particularly given I've been getting quite a few notifications so the watch is buzzing quite a bit and the Bluetooth connection doesn't seem to be causing too many issues with the battery life. The apple watch battery will barely last a day. No contest.

Garmin Fenix 3 - Day 5

Something a little bit funky happened with the watch today! At the stroke of 12 the watch starting vibrating and would not respond to any buttons. The only way to get it to being responding again was to reset it (hold the light button for greater than 25 seconds). It restarted and didn't seem to have an issue after that. I was using one of the downloaded watch faces so I don't know if that was an issue with the app or the watch. Regardless its clearly a bug with one or the other! First time its happened though so I'm not sure why it was different today to any other day.

I also had an opportunity to use the music controls while I was in the car. Seems that these controls only work within iTunes. While I was playing music in iTunes (actually using iTunes radio) i was able to pause, rewind and fast forward. It worked beautifully. However if I was playing a podcast and I hit the play button on my watch, it would immediately start the iTunes app and begin playing the last song. So it doesn't work for playing podcast or e-books.

Have been refining the notifications I receive and now only receiving work notifications and a few others (like Facebook and phone). This works well during my day as I can see in a meeting when I get any important text/emails without taking my phone out and also get notified of upcoming meetings. Those notifications can sometimes be missed if I'm out and about and not sitting at my desk so I'm finding that quite handy.

No exercise today so no testing of the watch in action - hoping to swim tomorrow so that should be a good test and the first time I've put the watch in the water!

Garmin fenix3 - day 4

The synch issues remain. I decided to reset the watch last night and then reconnect it with the phone. When I set it all up again the watch face app that wasn't synched automatically came across to the watch, but the one that had already synced didn't come across. Hmmm, not sure what to do next as resetting was the last resort. I might just leave it and see if at some point the other one somehow syncs. Will wait and see!

Anyway, finally got out for a run. First I had to synch the HRM and also the foot pod which was about as easy as it can get. Each activity is setup as an app in the watch so selecting run and then going into settings allowed me to connect both devices with no issues. 

Staring the run app doesn't start your run but sets the watch up to go look for satellites. It seemed to find satellites a whole lot quicker than my 910 but I will reserve judgement on that for now as maybe that was a one off. One thing I did notice was how crisp and clear the screen is. It's so much easier to read than my 910. Even while running I could glance at the watch and very easily see the display. 

While running everything worked as expected. I have left all the defaults at this point so the default screen showed time pace and distance. At the 5min mark I was told that my recovery was good, which surprised me as I was still running and my heart rate should have been going up not down, I also didn't get the recovery message when I had finished so not sure why that was the case. Anyway, minor glitch. At the 6 klm mark I apparently hit one of my previously set goals and the screen displayed the words goal with a little soccer ball. Cute. Finished with an easy 8klm today as I'm still not feeling 100% and I'm racing on Sunday so don't want to overdo it and miss my race (I slept through my alarm for this race last year and missed the start so really want to make sure I get it done this year!). 

I stopped the watch at the end of the run and as I walked into the house the watch paired with my phone automatically. I then was given the option to resume or save my run. I chose to save it and it immediately synched with Garmin connect. Before I even sat down I had been given kudos on strava! Nice!

With the new HRM strap the device records vertical oscillation which apparently helps with your running form. The manual has some details about what constitutes good form and it suggests between 6.7 and 8.3 is excellent. Under 6.7 is "superior". Most if the time I was under 8.3 so I guess thats good! During my run I often notice my run form has deteriorated and I catch myself. I then straighten up and improve my run form. I'm thinking of adding this data field to one of the 8 screens so I can see if it actually makes a difference. It would be easy to review while running. Did I mention how clear the screen is?

Ok, so my run is now uploaded to Garmin connect. Not a lot of different information to what I was getting previously for run. Oscillation, foot contact time and temperature are thee new fields. Just reviewing the temperature readings and they seem to be way out. Looked up the manual and it says that your body temperature can have an impact on the reading so (and I quote) "remove the watch from your wrist and wait 20-30 minutes". Um, don't think thats going to happen. So not sure when I would use this - perhaps when your out hiking and you want to know what the temperature is when you wake up?

Still haven't completely solved the app store synching problems as yet. Tried to add a new "data field" app and its giving me the out of space error message again. But what I did find is the two watch faces I tried to download are both now loaded on the watch. So it's looking like the last app to be downloaded is the one that gets "stuck" and won't load till you try loading another app. Will test this theory further over the coming days. 

I haven't tried to research to see if anyone else is having the same problem. At this point I don't really care if I can't download an extra app or data field. So I'm just hitting synch each time I think about it believing that it may just fix itself. I'll take a look around the forums a little later on - but maybe Garmin will release an update in the meantime that will solve the problem.

Garmin Fenix3 - day3

Today I got to wear the watch all day and I am really liking the look of the watch, it really looks great! Certainly looks as good as my Oris diving watch with a face that's about the same size and a similar black rubber wrist band. I had turned off Twitter notifications so was only receiving email, Sms and call notifications and found this to be really handy. Especially when driving when you don't want to take your phone out of your pocket and review text messages but a quick glance told me if I needed to respond quickly or not.

I noticed that the watch OS update yesterday also added a widget for music controls. I haven't had a chance to use this yet, but given I almost always listen to my phone when I'm in the car (podcasts and iTunes Radio) I'm hoping this will be really handy. Will try this out next week on my drive to work.

Still feeling some effects from the flu (and a little from the wedding last night) so skipped the run again today and therefore no review of the fitness details at this point. Hoping to be able to get out tomorrow for a run/bike or swim so will be able to get a feel for how it works on the fitness track!

Other than the issue with downloading from the App Store I haven't had any other issues. I read a review that said the Bluetooth kept dropping out for that reviewer but I haven't had that issue at any point and the Bluetooth automatically connected this morning when I picked up the watch and put it on.

Looking forward to my exercise session tomorrow!

Garmin Fenix3 - Day 2

I've been fighting a flu all week and with my nieces wedding coming up this evening I decided to skip the planned run in my training plan - so I didn't get to take the watch outside for a test. However, I did connect it to my iMac (which was as simple as opening Garmin Express and clicking on add a device) and immediately tried to download something from the "app" store. I tried to download a new "watch face" app but it didn't work. I kept getting an error saying there was no storage left on the device however it was clear that there was plenty of space given I had not downloaded anything as yet. So I decided I would go back and check for updates. Seems there was an update for Garmin express and an update for the watch. Once I downloaded both the new watch face downloaded and displayed. Cool! I also managed to setup wifi so that when I finish an activity it will upload as soon as I walk in the door at home. Seems you can setup as many as 3 different wifi networks which should be plenty for anyone that wants to make sure they get their workouts loaded as quickly as possible. Its certainly an improvement on the 910 where the connection was via Ant so I had to always wait till I was home and near my Mac before I could upload my activities.

So I thought I would explore what else is on the app store. There isn't anything much yet - maybe I should learn this new language that Garmin have created? Or maybe I should just wait for someone who knows what they are doing! Anyway, I decided to download one of the other watch faces as it looked kinda cool, but then I started getting the out of memory error again and couldn't seem to work out why. Seems Garmin still have plenty of work to do on the software they are running on these new devices!

That was about as far as I got before I was being shouted at to get away from the computer and get into the car so we could get to the wedding. I was also told that I could not wear "that" watch to the wedding - but I personally thought it was fine and later at the wedding I even saw a guy wearing a Garmin 920 which looked ridiculous compared to the sleek and sporty lines of the Fenix3. However, best not to argue on days where stress levels can be high (like when weddings, birthdays and other "significant" events are on).

Garmin Fenix3 - day 1

Just unboxed my Garmin Fenix3 and when I posted the photo to facebook a number of people asked for a review - so I figured I would use my blog here to keep people up to date with the good and the bad.

Watch is nicely packaged in a box that resembles a quality watch. No issues when I opened the watch from the box, everything that was supposed to be there was there and the battery had about 50% charge so turned on straight away. It is a very attractive piece of kit - I had it sitting next to my xt910 which is now showing its age by comparison. The buttons have a really nice feel to them though going from the 910 to the fenix3 is not intuitive and you will need to relearn each of the buttons. Having the start/stop/select button as the largest is a good idea though.

First thing I did was set the time (which I did manually, later setting this to auto so it gets set from the satellites which is far more convenient). I couldn't set the date but by the next morning the date had set itself (how I still am not sure as I hadn't connected it to satellites overnight). There is no way to set the date so my assumption is it just gets set by connection to the phone or some other means. There is nothing in the manual at all about "date" so I can only assume on this point.

I then paired with my phone which was super easy and took no time at all using the Garmin connect app (I already had this on my phone but if you don't have it I suggest you download it). As soon as it was paired I started receiving notifications. On my phone I have notifications for email and twitter and this started to get a bit too much by the end of the night. So I will probably turn the Twitter notifications off. The SMS and Call notifications were great though as I often miss sms and calls when I'm out with my phone in my pocket - particularly as I usually have the ring turned off and just have my phone on vibrate. So with this watch on you should never miss a call!

I tuned the watch off for the night given I didn't get home till late so didn't get a lot of time to "play" with it. Looking forward to getting a bit more time with it tomorrow.

Why Virgin Australia will be successful

I've posted recently about my experiences with Australia's two airlines and the contrasting customer service I've received on both. My business currently flies with Virgin after recently changing our policy of flying with Qantas. The poor service simply became inexcusable. But I'm not sure it is the fault of the staff, but more of the management. Today there was a quote from Virgin Australia CEO John Borgetthi, who said it is the airline’s crew who decide ultimately what passengers will experience. To me, that summed up the current differences between to the two airlines. This is what he said:

“We have consumer feedback, emails, random surveys but one of the most important elements of information is the crew because they see things every day and they know what works and doesn’t and what should be changed,” he said.

“The majority of the changes we have made have come from the crew.

“We talk about the cabin interior and making seats bigger and more comfortable, but above all I think what the people want apart from a smooth operation is service – a friendly, genuine, engaging service. And that’s something we have got and will continue to provide as we have but step up one more level, which we will,” he said.

For any company that really believes in customer service you must do exactly what John suggests you do - look after your staff, listen to your staff, but most of all empower your staff!

Outsourcing - better for who?

Yesterday the Westpac IT systems went down due to some air conditioning failures. Westpac were quick to point out that all of their hardware is managed by a third party (in this case IBM). From Westpacs point of view, they now have an opportunity to recover some of ther losses from IBM due to the service level agreements that they will have in place. However, I doubt any Westpac customers will have an opportunity to recover lost revenue or lost time or increased inconvenience.

It also brings into question exactly who benefits from these massive outsourcing deals that are done by larger enterprises. In my experience, they are highly competitive which means the organisations that win these contracts are operating on razor thin margins. The first thing they do is get rid of any "excess" staff. The next thing they do is make a risk assessment on the hardware that they "inherit" and see how long they can get away with not replacing anything. They then look at where they can possibly recover some costs by hitting the organisation, in this case Westpac, with change requests or contract variations that will keep the entire engagement in the black. The main beneficiary of all of this is Westpac themselves. They get a lower cost service and they get someone else to blame and cover costs if something goes wrong. A good friend of mine recently left one of the large outsourcing companies as the pressure was too much for him. His company had underbid to win the business and they couldn't take enough cost out to make it profitable. So he was constantly managing a customer that was almost always very unhappy.

If a large organisation (be they a bank or telco or any industry that serves consumers) really cared about their customer base then they would look to manage their IT with a customer focus, rather than with a razor sharp cost only focus. But perhaps the banking shareholders wouldn't like that.

Empower your employees!

Today I traveled on a plane from Sydney to Melbourne. I was flying with Virgin Blue (after recently moving all our business to VB from Qantas) and I had purchased my flight for around $70. All good! But it was a pleasant surprise when, just as the seat belt sign was turned off, the hostess came up and offered to shift me and my wife up to the front to sit in two premium economy seats! I'm a gold FF these days with Virgin, and that's how I was chosen for this excellent "gift" but it struck me that this had never ever occurred on any flights that I was on with Qantas, despite being a gold (and for the last 3 years Platinum) FF. So in 10 years holding the status of either Gold or Platinum with QANTAS, the only thing they had ever done for me was refuse me upgrades (despite me saying I would pay or use points). Many of those upgrade requests were even more infuriating when I would get on the plane only to discover there were empty business class seats - but for Qantas, rules are rules. It really goes to show how great you can male a customer feel by having a truly customer focused team on the ground. But the most important point from this story is to empower you front line people to make decisions that impact positively on your customers. This was something that I learned when I was working for PeopleSoft and, in my view, was one of the main reasons peoplesoft became the huge company it did.

So well done Virgin Blue and thanks for the upgrade. I think QANTAS has a lot to learn to ensure it remains the number one Australian airline.

NBN....why oh why

You can imagine my surprise when I heard that there were issues with cost blowouts on the NBN. There are now some saying it will never happen as the contractors cannot actually build any network for the price that the government is expecting from them. If it goes ahead, once again the public will have to pay for this infrastructure that 95% of Australia simply doesn't need.

I want to know why the government aren't spending 40Billion on public transport? Or Health? Perhaps those were considered too hard. I can imagine Mr. Conroy saying something like "hey lets lays some cables in the ground and get some extra votes from rural Australia - how hard can that be".

If only Australia had some real leadership in the parliament.

Wishlist for the next mobile device

There is one item that is sadly lacking in EVERY computing device that represents our words with text. It is something that, had it been available, would have saved me counteless hours of counselling (thats me of others you understand!), arguments, bad weekends and lost opportunities.

Its a "sarcasm" font. I suspect it would look a lot like comic sans serif which already has the comic aspects imbedded, but more improtantly,when someone saw it they would know immeidately - oh, he was just being sarcastic!

My Dog

It just hit me!

My dog sleeps about 20 hours a day.

She has her food prepared for her.

She can eat whenever she wants, 24/7/365.

Her meals are provided at no cost to her.

She visits the Dr. once a year for her check-up, and again during the year if any medical needs arise.

For this she pays nothing, and nothing is required of her.

She lives in a nice neighborhood in a house that is much larger than she needs, but she is not required to do any upkeep. If she makes a mess, someone else cleans it up.

She has her choice of luxurious places to sleep.

She receives these accommodations absolutely free.

She is living like a Queen, and has absolutely no expenses whatsoever.

All of her costs are picked up by others who go out and earn a living every day.

I was just thinking about all this, and suddenly it hit me like a brick in the head.......

My dog is a POLITICIAN

(not original - but funny don't you think :) )

Customer Expectations

I've written before on customer expectations and how important it is to set these appropriately, but a recent experience really highlights how important it is to not only set the appropriate expectation to your customer - but to deliver on that expectation. Here is my story:

I've flown Qantas pretty much exclusively for the last 7 years. I'm currently a Platinum frequent flyer and have been for about 3 years. As a Platinum level FF I have high expectations. I don't expect to be kept waiting to check in, I expect access to the first class lounge, I expect the odd upgrade and I expect to get my seat preferences. In the 7 years I've been with Qantas I've had just one upgrade. It was from business to first on a trip from Hong Kong to Sydney - but in 7 years (3 as Platinum) this did not meet with my expectations. I expect flexibility but increasingly Qantas would not allow a last minute change when checking in - no matter how much you were prepared to pay! Not what I expected as a Platinum FF. Finally, and this was the last straw, I recently did a trip to the US flying Qantas. The first issue was when I went to check in at Melbourne. I stood waiting in the first class line while about 20 people were served in the economy queue. Not what I expected (and if I had actually paid for a first class ticket I probably would have asked for my money back there and then!). Eventually I was served - not even a sorry for the wait! The entire trip (and this trip consisted of 7 flights) I didn't once get my seat preference - though the worst was on the 15 hour flight back from LA to Sydney when my wife and I were in the middle of a bank of 4 with two singles on either side. This is probably the worst seat on the plane - and NOT what I expected. Qantas had raised my expectations to a high level with their tiered FF program - and then failed to deliver on every one of the expectations I had.

So, on the back of that, I decided that Platinum was actually of limited value to me, and I moved all my business to Virgin Blue (we are an account that spends just on 6 figures, so this is a reasonable amount of business that Qantas has lost).
Virgin Blue, for moving the account to them, immediately gave me Gold status. My first flight with Virgin I arrived at the counter ahead of time and asked, hopefully, whether there were any flights leaving earlier. Based on my Qantas experience I expected a stony faced response that they couldn't do anything (I didn't purchase the fully flexible fare) and that I would just have to wait. But no, the Virgin attendant got me onto the next flight (delaying the gate closure so she could get me a seat) AND upgraded me to premium economy!

Now I know that all airlines screw up eventually - they have to given the number of people involved in their service delivery. But given my Virgin Blue experience it will be a long time before Qantas is in a position to win back my personal business and my companies business. The QANTAS CEO was recently quoted as saying he wanted to win back some of the share they had lost from Virgin - but I don't see that happening if they continue to set high expectations for their customers, then fail to deliver on ANY of those expectations.

The point for this post? Don't set an expectation that you cannot deliver on. Decide what you want to be and stick to it. If you want to offer tiered service levels, then you better be damn sure you can meet the high expectations you are setting for the top tier standard.
Tell me about your experiences. When did you have an expectation set too high and the organization failed to deliver? How did you feel about that? Did it make you take your business elsewhere?