Showing posts with label Organization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Organization. Show all posts

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Automatically Universal Remotes

There is no good reason why every device in an entertainment center has a different unique remote control. Ultimately it is because each manufacture simply does their own thing and there is no standard.

However, if a standard did exist for RC signals, every remote would suddenly become a universal remote. That is to say, if every TV used the same off signal as every other TV, if every DVD player used the same play signal as every other DVD player, a Sony TV remote would work equally well with a Toshiba DVD player.

Currently universal remote controls need to be programed in with the codes of the devices that you wish to control. This is a tedious process (though some higher end ones streamline the whole thing a bit). If there was a universal standard there would be no need for this. Every remote would, simply by nature of being a remote, serve all of your devices.

Certainly there would be some cases in which a device might have a unique feature that would not be supported by remotes from other devices, however this is frequently the case with universal remotes as well.

All this would require is for some of the major manufactures to agree to a standard. This may not seem feasible to some. However, this does happen all the time in the tech industry. Manufactures are constantly agreeing on security and encryption standards. Electronic communication standards are another big one, and ultimately communication is what we are talking about: communication between a device and remote. Sometimes it can take awhile for companies to agree on standards, but it can and does happen.

The problem is that manufactures need an incentive to do this. Improving customer experience is not enough if it does not mean an increase in profits. Consumers would need to demonstrate that this is a feature that they would want. If consumers voiced a preference for devices conforming to a communication standard to ones that did not, perhaps then manufactures might see profit in agreeing on RC codes.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Linking Forums with Social Networking Accounts

More and more people are needing less user accounts. There are more and more sites that that users can log into with their gmail or Facebook account. Some sites just make your login name be your email address.

This tends to be useful for both the user and the providers of services. Users do not need to remember additional information and it becomes easier for them to access the sites they care about. For the sites themselves, it increases their traffic flow.

However, it seems to me that this unification of systems has not touched forums. Every forum account I have is completely unique and independent from one another.

It would be nice if, Facebook for example, created a system to associate compatible forum accounts with a Facebook account. From one webpage a user could see responses to his or her posts on all of the forums he or she uses. Someone who likes to check on their different forums daily would have no need to login to multiple sites.

This is the type of ease of use that the internet has been developing for years now. As I said above we can already see similar things happening with other types of content. I have no doubt that eventually I will see a system like this in place. However, there is probably more than just spare pocket change for the first major social network to implement this well.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Better Website Censorship

I am going to start off and say I do not entirely agree with the ethics behind this idea. Or rather, in general I disagree with censorship intended to limit free speech, and this idea would make censoring people who disagree with your viewpoint easier. However, in the same vein of free speech and following the intentions of my website, I am making this post.

There are many sites that censor aggressively. They have admins and automated bots scowering forums and comment sections on their site. They remove any comments that do not agree with their stated viewpoints. They remove anything that questions their logic or the validity of their arguments. Some sites will report blatantly false information as accurate and prevent anyone from saying otherwise on their site.

Inevitably, if the site is remotely popular, this will spawn a backlash. Perhaps people will discuss the censorship on another website's forum. In some cases entire sites are devoted to the suppression of free speech on just website.

Ultimately, the reason this happens is because people are aware that their freedom of speech has been impinged upon. The best way to do this is simply not to let them know they have been censored.

On many sites, when an admin removes a comment it can be a teaching moment. A person can learn 'ok, foul language is not accepted on this site,' or some similar lesson. However, if a site is removing comments because they criticize the site, they are not going to change the posters mind by doing so. Instead the poster will see that his comments have been removed and become incensed.

The way to deal with this is rather than removing 'undesired' posts, simply hide them. The only user who can see a hidden post would be the user who made the comment. There would be no indication to this user that the post has been hidden. He or she has no immediate reason to assume that they have been censored.

Likewise rather than banning someone, he is silenced. Only the admins would be aware of this, and to the silenced user his account would seem to work like normal. However, all of his posts would automatically be hidden. Any personal messages he sent to other users would never reach their recipients. A user who has banned but never realizes it may not be so quick to create a new account to 'troll.'

Now a user who has been 'censored' may eventually grow wise. If he or she has multiple accounts they will catch on quickly. However, the reason many people create multiple accounts is to work around bans or previous censorship. If they are blissfully unaware that no one is reading their comments, they may never bother creating a dummy account.

The other way in which they may grow wise is if they notice that people never seem to respond to their comments. However, it is not uncommon to make a comment on a website and have no one respond to it, even if they can read it. People often skim longer posts and threads and miss some comments. Depending on the situation, I could see a large period of time passing before someone finally caught on. They could, for some time, simply think the other users are bad at reading or paying attention.

If the site wanted to be really tricky, they would have bots that would create automated replies to any threads that a 'banned' user would create. He or she would be the only user who could see these replies. Effectively it creates a labyrinth of a subform to trap 'trolls.' They may eventually learn of the deception and escape, but until they do, they have been neutralized.

To throw people of the trail the occasional thread could be deleted traditionally and the occasional user could be straight up banned. For example if someone used fowl language, they may even expect to see their post removed, and doing so could keep them from being suspicious. The deception, hiding their posts from everyone but them, could be reserved for only the posts that dissent from the viewpoint your site promotes.

Now there could be even larger backlash if users discovered that this technique was used. However, sites that are already censoring opposing viewpoints are already facing disparaging remarks on other sites and this could let them avoid that. Yes, it is deceptive, but many sites do not mind deceptive. Would I ever use such a system on this blog? No. Of course it may be hard to figure out.

On a lighter note, the method of 'silencing' users rather than banning them could be effectively used even on sites that do not try to limit people's expression. Yes, it is still deceptive, but all sites have to deal with trolls. And sometimes a troll isn't someone who disagrees with you but is a legitimate jerk who is disrupting a site and needs to go.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Extended Museum Exhibits

As time goes on more and more people have 'smartphones,' or at least phones with abilities traditionally attributed to smart phones.
While some organizations have begun to take advantage of this fact, many more have not. I will be discussing some ways in which the capabilities of modern phones can enhance old entertainments such as a museum.

There are several ways in which this idea could work. On its most simplest level an art museum, for example, could release a phone app for their museum. While wandering through the museum the phone could figure out what exhibits you are looking at. This could be done in any number of ways including RFIDs, WiFi, bar code scanning, or even image recognition of the exhibit itself.

The app would then pull up additional information about the exhibit, or information related to it. I know I have been in situations at museums where I wish I had had more knowledge at my fingertips beyond what was provided by the signs and placards in the museum. In our theoretical art museum the app could allow you to bring up a bio of the artist, find the location of 'related' paintings, or perhaps see pictures of other paintings by the artist not on display.

Depending on how the exhibit identified itself, this information could either be transmitted from the exhibit itself, or more likely from central server that the app would reference.

Other 'museum like' locations could take advantage of this. A zoo for instance is a prime candidate. The app could pull up all sorts of additional information on the animals on display. It could even mention the 'personal' histories of these animals for those who were interested: when they were acquired by the zoo or born for example. If the zoo had cameras in the animal's pen, perhaps people could then watch the video feed on their phone.

Now, much of this could be accomplished with signs. But it seems to me, the more signs and more text at any given exhibit the less of it will be read on average. This would provide additional information to those who desired it. It is very similar to renting a set of headphones to listen to an audio tour at a museum. In fact, I see this idea as a natural evolution of those audio cassette tours. It would not even be unreasonable for a museum to charge for this app. 

In addition to providing additional information the system could be interactive. The app, in its settings, could perhaps allow for an 'age' preference. This could allow for content to be better targeted to demographics. It would make it easier to create an exhibit that would be both 'kid friendly' while interesting to adults. 

I mentioned earlier that there were several ways that this could be implemented. Now, each museum could make their own custom apps, but this would be inefficient. A great opening for a new product would be for a single company to make such an app (and hardware to be installed at exhibits) and market it to museums. The product could be called something like "Museum Plus."

A unified system used by multiple museums would reduce deployment costs. It would also be better for the end user, as they would only ever need to obtain and learn how to use one app rather than a different one for every museum they attend. I feel the potential profit in marketing such a system worldwide could be quite impressive.

While this idea will not revolutionize anyone's life, it is these incremental steps forward that marks mankind's progress towards  fully integrating technology into out daily existence.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Restaurant Wait App

After thinking about my last idea for a bit I came to a conclusion. While it would be useful and some places would be honest, there needs to be accountability or else many places will simply fudge the wait times as they do now.

There is a fairly straightforward solution, an iphone or google droid app.

When a restaurant quotes a wait time, the user boots the app and enters in the quoted time. The user then presses another button when they are finally seated. Based on GPS coordinates the phone will try to identify the restaurant and suggest the location, but if it is wrong the user can enter it in manually.

This information would be uploaded to a website and restaurants would be ranked by not only their actual wait time, but also their honesty.

There is also sorts of ways the information could be displayed for users. It could show break downs based on time and day. It could also rank the restaurant with the times normalized by different metrics.

If a particular restaurant is all ready in the database, the average wait and honesty score of a restaurant would come up when the user starts the app.

While it would still be possible for restaurants to manipulate the data, it would be much more difficult and they could not simply 'lie.'

The app could even support comments and reviews of places along with average price per person in order to be a complete solution.

If people used this app, less than honest restaurants might begin to see customers turning away from their door. This method of accountability could encourage honesty with wait times and allow the method I outlined the other day to work to its full potential.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Online Restaurant Wait Time Report

It's annoying to drive up to a restaurant and see a huge number of people and just know there is going to be a long wait. The restaurant probably loves the business, but there is a down side for them. After this happens a couple time at the same restaurant I become less inclined to going back even in the off-hours. They just lost a customer. However, if I knew for a fact there wouldn't be a wait, I might still be inclined to go early. Or if I knew that the wait usually died down past a certain hour, then I might consider pushing back my dinner.

Many restaurants are already digitalizes table assignments and food orders. They punch in when people are at a table, and enter in when they leave. Its not hard to imagine that this information could be entered into an algorithm and converted into a 'wait time.' This information could then be dynamically updated on the restaurant's website.When trying to decide where to go to dinner, you could just load up the websites of your favorite websites and see who has the shortest wait.

If they wanted to be really helpful they could provide past averages based on hour and day. So perhaps at 4 pm on a Thursday night, you see that they have a 45 minute wait at the moment, but usually by 6 pm its only 10 minutes. So you decide to do a later dinner.

I could even imagine people creating a website that would spider crawl the restaurants in the area and reports all the wait times at places to eat within a 25 mile radius of your address.

Now restaurants could just lie. It seems to me that they already do this when you ask how long the wait is. Its obvious why. They don't want you to leave, and if you hang around for a bit, even if the wait is twice as long as they said, you will probably end up staying until they seat you. But if they were honest on the site they might ward customers off before they even arrive. However, I am of the opinion, that they are sacrificing long term business for short term business when they lie about the wait.

A system like this would reward places that can keep the wait time down and are honest about it. The wait will become a point in their favor. If they honestly report when their busy hours are, some people who might just walk away when seeing the wait may instead show up at a less busy time. Meanwhile if a restaurant is always reporting fake wait times, well people will hopefully catch onto that fairly quickly.

Some restaurants would need to upgrade their computer systems (or install them completely) to be able to get something like this to work easily. A system that could not be automated would likely be too much work for a restaurant to be worth it.

I think this could be a great feature. It could help make the decision of where to eat, and I could imagine choosing a restaurant that reports its wait time over one that does not. Ultimately there is very little preventing many restaurants from setting up a an Online Wait Time Report system right now.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Pick your Fast Food Franchise


An entrepreneur, lets say Mr. Smith, wants to open up a fast food restaurant. He has already picked out a location and decided he wants to go with a franchise. However, our hypothetical investor is not married to any given franchise but has narrowed it down to three selections.

The location is in a high traffic area and near a traffic light that tends to have long reds. So Mr. Smith rents out the location two months early. He won't be opening up early but will be launching a clever campaign. Luckily he has the starting capital to afford the rent. The reason he is renting the building early is because of the sign he is going to post out in front.

The sign would read simply:

"
Text (XXX) XXX-XXXX with your pick of franchise
Franchise A, Franchise B, Franchise C 

The winning franchise will open here in two months
"

If properly promoted it could generate a fair degree of opening day hype. Hopefully the process would choose a franchise that would be more likely to appeal to the local customers. The people who would be texting in would be the people that would be more likely to be regular customers.

Now, if Mr. Smith was feeling adventurous he could even charge people to text. Some people (I would guess more teenagers, who go to school near the location, than other demographics) might be willing to pay to select the franchise.

Now I will admit that Mr. Smith would be taking a major gamble with the entire endeavor. Most people will not care. Mr. Smith doesn't need a lot of people to care, but he does need enough people to be interested. If interest did not pass a critical mass Mr. Smith would be just throwing his rent money away.

However, I have never heard of this being done before, and if Mr. Smith was the gambling type it might be worth the risk.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Life Club

I was at the health club the other day and thinking about how it could be so much more.

Rather than a place you just go to exercise it could be a place you go to better your whole life. It could be made into a place where you would want to spend your spare time and want to hang out.

This post is basically how I would set up my hypothetical life club.

When you check in at the front desk you would be given a pedometer / heart rate monitor. This would help keep track of your physical activity.

The gym portion of it would be pretty similar to most health clubs. The cycle bikes would power little generators (something some gyms already do) to promote greener thinking.

Also like many gyms there would be a little cafe. The cafe's menu would be designed to promote healthier eating. A twist would be that one could receive a discount on his or her purchases there based on his physical activity (as measured by the heart rate monitor and pedometer). This would help provide that little extra motivation to really push yourself in the gym.

But the whole point of the life club is that it doesn't stop at just the gym. It's like if a gym ate a community center. There would be a club garden where club members could sign up to get a little plot of soil to tend to. An activity room with an air hockey and foozball table. A small theater that could sit maybe fifty people. They would show a movie each day (likely something old to keep the licensing down). There would be other rooms  with tables and chairs that you could check out to use for a party or just hang out.

Then there would be classes. Offering classes is nothing new to health clubs, but the range of the class topics would be increased. You could register for a gardening class or a healthy cooking class for example. Almost like an adult education center.

For younger members there could be a tutoring center. In some cases these tutors could be other members. There could even be a supervised play area to allow parents to drop off their kids before going and working out.

Regular social events could be planned. Socials or perhaps competitions depending on the interests of the members. I imagine the atmosphere being a bit similar to that of college.

And things would not necessarily need to end at the club. A persons physical activity (once again monitored by the pedometer / heart rate monitor) could be logged online. That person could then login to his account on the club's website to see this. A parent could track their child's workout and offer various rewards at home.

Now here is the key: marketing. You couldn't see this thing as just a health club with more. To many people pass up on extras their health club offer. It would need to be marketed as a complete package. If the majority of the members are not using these extra services, the effort failed. If the majority of the members are not socializing and learning from one another, the effort failed.

Such a center would be pricier than a regular health club. However, this may make it difficult for people who then want to register for a class or something that may have an additional cost. The way around this is to up the base membership price by a small amount, but then make that include one free class per season. Further incentive would be to offer membership discounts based on physical activity in the gym or perhaps participation in social events.

Now this may not seem like a good business move, but I feel that it would keep people attending and keep them involved. If they are making use of your facilities they are less likely to cancel their memberships. Too many companies focus on recruitment rather than retention.

Something like this may flop. People might not be willing to sign up, they might not make use of their memberships, they might cancel their memberships, they might not care about some of the facilities; there is any number of ways in which this could fall flat on their face. But if someone had a bit of investment capital and is willing to take a risk, it seems like it could at least be worth a try.