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Why We Should Care That Payphones Are Going Extinct
By crooky | September 5, 2008
While working in a public space at the University of British Columbia’s downtown Vancouver campus earlier this week, I was confronted by a very distraught young man who needed to find a payphone. He’d been looking for 20 minutes. I was in fact sitting where there had once been a payphone just six months prior. Where did it go? When I asked someone from the University, they said “Telus just came by one day and ripped them all out. They didn’t even phone us to tell us they were going to do that.”
This isn’t an isolated incident. Payphones are going the way of the Dodo at a rapid pace across North America and there are some serious consequences. Before we get into that, let’s look at why payphones are being removed from public spaces:
In 1997, there were over two million payphones in the US and I am sure there were much more than that before the advent of the cell phone in the mid-1980s. Today, there are just over a million payphones in the US. In Canada, payphones are dissapearing more slowly than they are in the US - at a rate of about 4% annually but the rate at which they are being removed has increased dramatically in the last few years.
Why are they being removed? They’re owned and operated by telephone companies and the telephone companies say the profitability on payphones has been dropping an average of 17% per year for years and they want to get out of the market completely before it becomes a money pit for the company.
While payphones have been disappearing, cell phone ownership has been soaring. In 1984, there were only 92,000 cell phone owners in the entire US. Now there’s almost 250 million - almost one for every man, woman and child in that country. Canada has similar penetration rates. Prices on phones and airtime have been dropping like stones. You may soon be able to buy disposable cell phones with air time out of vending machines. This, the telephone companies have argued, is what’s killing the market for pay phones and I can’t find fault with their assessment of the situation from a business perspective.
However, like most things, there is more at stake than money whenever you decide to stop offering a service completely. Here are my two biggest concerns:
1. Low-income individuals
Granted, cell phone adoption rates are high. As a society, we’ve come to accept that cell phones are an integral part of our lives. We suck up the $30-75/month that a cell phone plan costs for the convenience.
For some families - even $30/month is too much. Growing up in the 80s in BC, there were times when the economy wasn’t doing so good. My Dad works in an industry that is closely tied to the lumber industry and when the lumber industry is in the toilet (which it is, periodically), my Dad’s company was in trouble.
There was a period of several years where my family was very low income. My dad worked several paper routes to keep food on the table but I can’t imagine us being able to afford a cell phone.
So what? Why do poor people need to use the phone? Lots of reasons. What if you’re stranded somewhere? What if you can’t find someone that you need to meet? What if you need to call an ambulance? For most of us, that’s not a big concern because we can always pick up our cell phones and call for help. For some, a payphone is their only choice. Think about it - if a perfect stranger came up to you and asked to borrow your cell phone to make a call, would you let them? Most people wouldn’t. It’s like asking someone if you can use their toothbrush.
There will always be a need for payphones amongst the economically disadvantaged and no, it’s not a popular market but there are social implications associated with setting this group adrift.
2. Natural Disasters
Here in Vancouver, we like to pretend that natural disasters are things that happen to other people. We live on a gigantic fault line! At some point, the earth is going to try and toss Vancouver into the sea. Most geologists agree it’s a matter of “when”, not “if”.
During my undergrad at Simon Fraser University, I had the priviledge of working with the good people at the Centre for Policy Research on Science and Technology (CPROST). This group specializes in telecommunications research and policy. Several researchers there specialize in disaster communications management and here’s their take on cell phones during a natural disaster: they’re not going to work.
One of two things is likely to happen during a disaster:
- everyone is going to call their loved ones when the dust settles to see if they’re alright and crash the cell network (it happens everytime the major fireworks competition happens here in the summer. As soon as the fireworks end, everyone tries to call someone on their cell and the system goes down), OR
- the physical infrastructure of the cellular network will be damaged and no one will be able to make calls.
Sure, hard line telephones are also susceptible to physical damage but they’re a lot harder to overload with calls than the cellular networks. I think it’s a good idea to have a minimum number of payphones around to facilitate communication during a disaster.
At the end of the day, the telephone market is de-regulated in North America so no one can force phone companies to keep providing a service that bleeds money. In 2007, AT&T announced that it was going to sell off the last 60,000 payphones it was operating in the US and I wouldn’t be surprized to see telephone companies in Canada do the same in the near future.
There are smaller, independent companies that operate modest payphone networks that may pick up where the big telephone companies leave off but I believe that payphones are on the verge of dissapearing outside of trainstations and airports.
For more information on payphones and the payphone market, check out The Payphone Project.
Topics: Policy, Technology, social issues | No Comments »
How I Started Reading Banned Books at 13
By crooky | September 4, 2008
I came to a shocking realization today after reading a post entitled “25 Banned Books You Should Read Today” [READ]- the very first book I chose when I got my adult library card at age 13 is on this list of banned books. Talk about starting off on the right foot!
The book itself - Fallen Angels - isn’t going to win any literature prizes for its writing but the characters (from what I remember) are interesting and it’s about the Vietnam War - an interesting topic unto itself. The reason why it’s banned in several states?
“Vulgar language, sexual explicitness, or violent imagery that is gratuitously employed.” [READ]
Sure, the book has crude and vulgar language and if you didn’t know my family, you would probably blame the book for my swearing habit that I have today. I think the real reason this book is banned is because it puts controversial ideas in the heads of young people. Although it was written in 1988, it touches on themes that our youth today face when they look at what’s going on in Iraq and Afghanistan - humans acting inhuman towards one another while acting in the name of something greater than themselves.
There are other books out there that I have resonated with that I suggest people check out if they find mainstream literature a bit dull:
1. Ender’s Game
This is my favourite book of all time. I just lent my dogeared copy to the teenager that lives next door for a book report. It might be made into a major Hollywood film soon so best read it now so you can say you read the book before you saw the movie. Ender’s Game is required reading in many highschools around the world now and is treated like a psychology textbook at the Marine Corps University at Quantico.
The reason you should read it is because it describes how a military industrial economy can turn someone naive and innocent into a military machine using psychology and mild forms of torture. It’s hard to remember while you’re reading the book that the protagonist is a pre-pubescent boy - not an adult.
With that kind of a background, how can you not read the book now?
2. The Trial of Henry Kissinger
As we move into an era where people are calling for George W. Bush’s blood, it’s good to look back at a previous generations’ Dick Cheney - Henry Kissinger. Henry Kissinger will probably never sit in front of a war crimes tribunal in the Hague but that doesn’t stop the author of this book from presenting the prosecution’s evidence in what is a fictional trial of the man.
The descriptions of the mechanisms that kept the US mired in Vietnam in this book are eerily similar to what we’re now learning about why the US is currently occupying Iraq. It’s controversial but it’s worth a read.
This book is another non-fiction title but it’s fascinating and accesible to the layperson in its coverage of both modern and ancient cryptography. If you don’t understand how digital encryption works on your web browser, read this book. You’ll know enough to get through life.
It’s also filled with interesting stories about Bletchley Park and the German Enigma machines of World War II fame.
4. A Short History of Nearly Everything
This book is the only book in our house that is read all the time, over and over again. We have the hard-cover illustrated version but the cheap version is just as good. This book is a basic layperson’s guide to all science. It ranges from the history of radio carbon dating to the academic wars that have been fought over the right to name plants after genitalia or a bitter enemy.
If you’re not a scientist by trade, you need to have this book in your home. It’s a bit out of date these days but goes as far as delving into string theory and quantum physics - some of the very experiments that will be running at CERN LHC later this month - I think.
In any case, this book is as close as you’re going to get the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Burnt Out… ScrapBlogging… Someone Kill Me
By crooky | August 28, 2008
I know I haven’t been posting much this week. I’ve completely overloaded with deadlines and projects wrapping up this week. In an e-mail conversation back and forth with my friend Caroline this evening… she double dog dared me to do a ScrapBlog. Here is the horrific result:
Enjoy.
Topics: Levity | 1 Comment »
Geotagging + Kubrick Mashup = The Future
By crooky | August 25, 2008
Last night, I watched a fascinating documentary about the late, great filmmaker Stanley Kubrick [READ]. He was certainly a visionary filmmaker and what’s recently come to light is the fact that he was also a meticulous researcher in pursuit of the perfect film. It occurs to me that there are synergies between Kubrick’s obsession with cataloging public spaces and what many of us are trying to do today with every public space.
See the following video for a taste of his “boxes”:
What struck me when watching this was the fact that he was trying to single-handedly acheieve was Google Streetview [READ (and yes, I think the tour guide is "special")] is trying to do - show referenceable photos of every common place everywhere. Kubrick takes it a step further and looks inside private residences but the intent is the same - to catalog public spaces.
His boxes are like folders on a harddrive that one accesses when you want to know what pub doorways in Islington, London, UK look like.
Here we are today, nearly ten years after the death of Stanley Kubrick and we are immersed in a world that he would love - one where Google Streetview cars do the catalogging for you. Or, if you prefer to do your own catalogging, we have cameras with built-in GPS that can pinpoint the exact location where you took the photo.
Once you start to marry this kind of technologies with services like Microsoft Photosynth [see demo below], you can imagine how close to the world inside Kubrick’s head we get.
Why not take it a step further? Why not be able to link comprehensive photo catalogs of places with stories, reviews and other interfaces? I’d love to be able to plan a party by looking at the location and nearby services. Think of what this would do for wedding photographers.
The potential really boggles the mind. What do you think? What kinds of services would Kubrick meets geotagging meets Photosynth enable?
Topics: Technology | No Comments »
How to Reach Out to Your Stakeholders
By crooky | August 23, 2008
A lot of people don’t know this about me but before I became a consultant, I was a marketing/communications/public relations guy. Working with stakeholder groups was a big part of what I did for a living and when I did grad school at SFU, I even wrote my thesis on stakeholder engagement [READ]. Sometimes, for the sake of convenience, we try to reach out to stakeholders using their easiest means possible - electronic communications. I’ve been pushed in recent years to leverage electronic communications for stakeholder engagement and I’m learning that this is not an effective way to reach out to folks.
Electronic panels, e-mail campaigns and web forums are not community engagement. They’re substitutes for community engagement. I firmly believe that people want to hear a friendly voice on the phone or shake your hand and see your smile. When I was with Dow Chemicals, we would go out into the community and spend face time with our neighbours. When I was with ICBC, we spent a lot of time on the road talking with our stakeholders about drinking and driving as well as new safety programs we were introducing.
Just yesterday, I sent out a mass e-mail to a stakeholder group that I represent through my involvement with the SFU Alumni Association Board of Directors. One of the responses really caught my eye:
“I also agree about social media use through things like LinkedIn. What I think you should focus on in strategic planning is how to make the [SFU] alumni association a place of emotional connection for younger graduates. This emotional connection does not happen when someone like you, whom I’ve never met, connects with me. It happens, rather, when someone I went to school with reaches out to me.”
That’s an important point that a lot of folks miss when they try to leverage Facebook or LinkedIn for their organization - relationships are key. You can’t, as I tried to do, show up out of the blue and interject into someone’s social network. You need to establish the connections in real life (in person or over the phone) and then work your way into social media networks.
In my grad school thesis, I laid out four best-practice methodologies for effectively engage your stakeholders:
1. Appropriate timing
2. A fair participation process
3. Meaningful input from all stakeholders
4. Adequate provision of technical information
Translated into more general principles, here’s what you need to consider:
1. Make sure that you provide enough time for everyone to give their input. Take into consideration if it’s a time people are normally on vacation or not. Also know that you need to give most people 4-8 weeks to respond. Everyone’s busy.
2. Make sure that you’re not favouring input from one group of stakeholders over another. Don’t avoid input from people that you know are going to say controversial things. Their input counts too.
3. Make sure that everyone gets a chance to be heard and that you’re not just putting something to a vote. Dissent and disagreement needs to be recorded as well as agreement. Also make sure that you get your stakeholders involved at the planning stages of a project, not just at the decision points. The earlier you can get people involved, the better.
4. Make sure you give as much information to your stakeholders as possible. No, you don’t need to give them hardcopies of everything. In this day and age, I think electronic repositories of documentation are the norm. However, you need to let people know where this information is and/or provide them copies of the information on portable media like a CD or USB key.
Topics: Policy, social issues | 1 Comment »
How to Scold Professionals Effectively
By crooky | August 21, 2008
Outside of the school system, calling a peer or a superior on their faults is generally not socially acceptable. For example, you can’t tell a co-worker that their work is not up to the standards of your employer. That’s your boss’ job. Despite the saying “sh*t rolls downhill”, there are some circumstances when it is appropriate to dish out criticism laterally or even up the foodchain. This posting tells you how to do this without getting fired/ostracized/burnt at the stake.
1. Don’t get baited into an emotional confrontation
I’m in the middle of managing an RFP process for one of my clients at the moment. We had dozens of bidders - only eight of whom met the submission guidelines for the project. Some of them submitted their bids through eLance.com - a site which gives you the ability to accept or decline proposals with a click of a button.
I went through the bids I received on eLance and “declined” all bids that did not meet the very explicit requirements of our RFP. In our RFP, we stated that we had the right to outright reject any bids that did not meet the submission requirements of the RFP. One of the vendors that I rejected for not sending us what we asked for completely flipped his lid and sent me a scathing e-mail calling me “unprofessional”, etc… because his bid was rejected.
I was pissed when I got this note because he didn’t miss our requirements by a little… he missed them by a lot. Because the client that I am doing this work for is sensitive to bad publicity, I made sure I responded to his e-mail with the highest of decorum and addressed his failings to meet the requirements of the RFP. That’s all I can do without getting into trouble.
You can’t let someone who pushes your buttons provoke you into saying something regretable - especially in writing. I’ve made this mistake in the past and I think I’ve learned from it. Remember - anyone who is willing to stick their neck out and send you a scathing e-mail is probably not above calling your superiors/client to tear a strip off of them.
2. Make it about you
If you have a boss or a client that is making your life hell and you want to give them an earful - don’t. It’s never a good idea. I hate to recommend to anyone that they be passive-aggressive about anything but that’s almost the only thing you can do in this kind of situation.
Make the problems about you, not them. Talk about the work environment or the working relationship as though its independent of the two of you. For example, if your boss is creating a toxic work environment, tell them that you find the office environment to be very tense, stressful and non-productive and that it’s hampering your ability to do your job.
If they try to nail you down to say who is making the environment stressful and toxic, don’t tell them. Say “I’m not really sure where its coming from. Office politics is one of those things that everyone contributes to. Maybe we should have a facilitator come in and help us through this.” Then you let the facilitator tell your boss that they’re Ghengis Khan, not you.
3. Talk it out
This only works with people that you already have a good working relationship with or at least an amicable one. The last thing you want to do is escalate the situation by going over their head to their supervisor or something like that. The ideal situation is one in which you talk it out with the person - face to face, not via e-mail or over the phone.
Most often what you’ll find is that the root of the problem you’re having with someone is mis-communication. They might not have been aware that you were expecting a certain outcome or they might have something else going on in their life that has been preventing them from moving forward.
In any case, having the conversation face to face, outside of the office, makes it a lot less confrontational than it would if you lodged a formal complaint with their supervisor, etc…
Some of this stuff might seem like common sense but I’ve made mistakes myself and know other people who consistently dish out criticism in the wrong way and get burnt for their troubles.
Topics: Business of Consulting, social issues | No Comments »
Outlook on Optimism in 2008: Not Good
By crooky | August 19, 2008
No, this isn’t an article about Obama. A recent study has shown that hope, not optimism, is an effective way to combat depression. [READ]. I want to extend this finding to the realm of social isolation - a plague in our society that I believe causes more depression and illness than any other source. If you accept this hypothesis, then hope is an effective way to combat social isolation. I’ve been writing a bit about social isolation and its impact on small business owners. [READ]
In the article quoted above, Dr. Cheavens says:
“Hope is different from optimism, which is a generalized expectancy that good things will happen. Hope involves having goals, along with the desire and plan to achieve them.”
I think this distinction is the key. I always say you can wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first. While it may seem like a bit of a no-brainer, this theory proves that when people come up with a plan of action to get themselves out of their funk, they quite frequently get out of their funk.
Here are some suggestions for ditching your personal optimism in favour of hope:
1. Loneliness
The sad-sack optimist says:
“I’m sure I’ll get some friends at some point.”
After which, the optimist goes back to masturbating while watching America’s Got Talent and eating Doritos.
The carpe diem-oriented hope-monger says:
“Man, I’m lonely. I’m going to join Toastmasters to meet some new people and learn a skill.”
2. Financial Success
The self-ham-stringing optimist says:
“I just read the Millionaire Mind and it says if I think like a rich person, I’ll get rich! Here I go… thinking about being rich… any minute now…. yeah. Feeling richer already.”
Just wait and see how rich they feel when they see the Visa bill that includes their Millionaire Mind motivational seminar fee.
The hope-a-matic miracle machine says:
“Hmmm… I’m not making as much money as I’d like. Maybe I should market myself more effectively, follow up on leads, get out there and network and spruce up my website.”
3. Assets
Cleopatra, the Queen of Denial (Optimist) says:
“I’m sure I’ll be a home owner within the next three years. The market is going down!”
Bob HOPE says:
“I just flew back from the bank and boy, are my arms tired! Turns out that if I keep socking money away in my RRSPs, I can borrow against them for my downpayment on a home at a later date, interest free!”
I think you get the idea. Optimism is a close cousin to Naivety. Hope is more like a plan of attack that you expect to succeed at. If you want to end your social isolation, you can’t wish it away. You need to come up with a plan of action and do something about it. Yes, some of the potential solutions might put you outside your comfort zone but the positive outcomes will be worth it.
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Aaron “Crooky” Cruikshank is the Principal and Founder of Friuch Consulting. He has written professionally about science and technology for over ten years.
Topics: Business of Consulting, social issues | No Comments »
Is Your Blog A Force for Good or Awesome?
By crooky | August 15, 2008
I always encourage people who own their own businesses to blog. It’s a great way to drive traffic to your site and at some level, fulfills that narcissistic drive we have to see our own words in print. There are a few things you can do with your blog to give back. This post talks about them.
1. reCAPTCHA
If you’re an Internet regular, you’ll have seen a CAPTCHA form at some point (see example below). What CAPTCHA does is combat spammers who would use your comments section to try to sell your readers Viagra or anime porn. It forces them to input a highly distorted text to verify that they are a human and not a computer program.
Computer software is not very good at pattern recognition which is why there are programs like Galaxy Zoo that rely on human’s innate ability to recognize patterns. the reCAPTCHA project uses unreadable optical character recognition (OCR) output from archival scanners as CAPTCHA text instead of creating new distorted text.
That way, everyone who has to use a CAPTCHA entry form to post a comment on your blog is actually helping Carnegie Mellon University researchers digitize old books for future generations to enjoy. I’ve recently added this feature to my own blog thanks to a tip from my wonderful Webmaster - Marta Ekert.
If you have CAPTCHA on your site, you should consider using reCAPTCHA.
2. Blog Action Day
My good friends at Envato (formerly Eden.cc) started Blog Action Day last year - a mass blogging event that saw more than 20,000 bloggers post on the same day to raise awareness of evironmental issues.
This years’ project is calling on everyone to post on October 15, 2008 on the topic of “poverty”. I encourage you to join me in discussing poverty on your own blogs this year. Just click the banner above to register your blog for this worthwhile project.
Ps. Cyan and Collis from Envato are going to be in Vancouver on vacation sometime soon. If you’d like to join us for a drink, drop me a line.
3. Give Some Profile to Local NGOs
I do a lot of work with non-profit organizations like the Learning Disabilities Association of BC and the SFU Alumni Association. These worthy causes need all of the publicity that they can get and I recommend you spend some time on your blog talking about the great organizations you work with.
If anyone has any other suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
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Aaron “Crooky” Cruikshank is the Principal and Founder of Friuch Consulting. He has written professionally about science and technology for over ten years.
Topics: social issues | 1 Comment »
Friuch Consulting Continues to Evolve
By crooky | August 13, 2008
Over the past five years, Friuch Consulting has grown into a well-respected consultancy in the Metro Vancouver area. With over $130,000 in projects under management this year alone, the success of Friuch Consulting is starting to outstrip my ability to deliver best-in-class work to all of my clients. In order to better manage this success and nurture my project pipeline, I’ve been talking with a number of other local consultants in Vancouver with complementary skills and experience about forming a new consulting firm with multiple partners and a more professional look and feel.
At the same time, I’ve also recently taken on a long-term project with the Asia Pacific Gateway Skills Table where I will be their Project Manager part-time for the next three years. I start in that role on October 1, 2008. I will be writing in more detail soon as I learn what this role entails. It’s a new organization with an ambitious mandate and I’m excited about being a part of it.
In the few days a week I will have left after my role with the Asia Pacific Gateway Skills Table, I intend to focus my time on the following activities:
1. Developing my adult education business (contact me if you’re interested in more details)
2. Work towards the formation of a new medium-sized consulting firm in Vancouver with some key colleagues
3. Work on some projects with friends such as a business book and some interesting web properties
4. Spend time coaching other consultants who are new to the industry on getting established, setting up their infrastructure and networks and hopefully helping them find work
While I have no intention of shutting down Friuch Consulting, its scope and scale may be limited going forward as I take on new adventures, build new companies and follow my passions. If you notice a change in the content of this blog towards advice for consultants, it’s intentional.
Thanks for all of your support over the past five years and I hope you’ll follow me as I grow into new roles and responsibilities.
- Aaron
Topics: Business of Consulting | 5 Comments »
Market Opportunity: Gen Y Coaching?
By crooky | August 11, 2008
I just came out of a meeting with some colleagues this morning where we had a deep discussion about “what’s wrong with Generation Y”. We’re doing a project right now for the University of British Columbia who wants to develop a new program that targets recent (within 5 years) graduates of environmental engineering/geological engineering type programs. The issue of “the Generation Y” problem came up.
This was an awkward discussion for me to have because my two co-workers are at least 15 years older than me and probably in the early Gen Xer generation/late Baby Boomer generation. As I’ve mentioned in a previous article, I’m 30 years old so any discussion panning “anyone under 30″ makes me very uncomfortable.
Here’s the gist of why my co-workers think Generation Y is “difficult”:
1. They believe that Generation Y has a “self entitlement” problem.
2. They believe that Generation Y needs “too much reassurance” and that they don’t perform well after getting negative feedback.
3. They believe that Generation Y doesn’t know how to do problem solving and are not self-sufficient.
They also told me that HR managers at one of the Big Five accounting firms has been coaching Baby Boomer managers on how to “deal with” Generation Y employees. Their take on the situation?
“This is [the babyboomers] fault. These employees are the same generation as your children. You, as a cohort of parents have turned them into the kind of problem employees you’re complaining about now.”
To me, this isn’t a contructive way to approach this issue. How does saying “it’s your fault” enable managers to work more effectively with this generation if it’s true that they are as difficult to work with as some people imply?
What I see is a market opportunity. It’s possible that people in my age range (early 30s) can act as a bridge between early Gen Xers and late Babyboomers who are complaining about Gen Yers. I’m not in Gen Y but I understand a lot of the cultural reference points, the economic reality that these young people have grown up in.
People my age have also been around the block a few times and understand the operational realities of running a company or government organization. If I was an older manager and I had employees that were acting like overgrown children, I’d be concerned too. However, I don’t believe that the problem is that simple. If it was, you just fire these guys a few times - teach them some hard life lessons. They’ll grow up fast.
I think the problem is a lot more complicated than that. I want to explore this problem in the future. If you see a market opportunity as well, feel free to get in touch with me and we can talk about how this opportunity might turn into a commercial opportunity.
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Aaron “Crooky” Cruikshank is the Principal and Founder of Friuch Consulting. He has written professionally about science and technology for over ten years.
Topics: Business of Consulting, social issues | 2 Comments »
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