Company Branding on Credit Card Statements

In the late 1990s I started going to races like 5Ks and marathons and taking photos of the runners as they crossed the finished line. Immediately after the race I'd set up my laptop with a dye-sublimation printer to sell the photos. When I told a friend what I was doing he described it as "instant gratification." Hence, that became the name of my company: The Instant Gratification Photo Company.  (IGPhotocompany.com and then, later, I shortened it to igphotos.com).

About a dozen years ago I started selling the photos on the web and I learned some valuable business lessons. I've already blogged about one important lesson on pricing.

Another interesting lesson was the experience of how the company name showed up on credit card statements. The full name of my company was simply too long to be displayed. So, a few weeks after a race I'd inevitably get a few phone calls from customers (usually a husband) asking, "What's this charge on my credit card from 'Instant Gratification?'" I'd get an immediate sigh of relief when I told them it was for their race photo.

This experience raised some interesting questions.
Did the name of the company ever cost me a sale? No.
Should I have shortened the company name to avoid these calls? Probably not since it just enhanced my brand at the cost of a few phone calls.

Anytime you can get your name in front of a customer is good for brand recognition, so don't forget about the credit card transaction.

Fascinating Doctors' Appointments

Over the past three years I've dieted for two weeks, annually, by virtually eliminating carbohydrates. It works very well for me as I mentioned last year. However, I've noticed an odd rash on my chest the last three times I've done this. At first I thought it was due to the heart rate monitor chest strap that I wear when running; perhaps my dog had licked it (he loved to lick salty stuff) and transferred some bacteria. But, that wasn't the cause.

A few weeks ago I tried treating one side of the rash with Cortizone to see if it responded without any luck so I made an appointment with my primary care physician. He was fascinated by the rash and said that he hadn't seen anything like that in his 24 years of practicing medicine. He gave me a few suggestions to eliminate variables that could cause it which I had already done. He joked that, perhaps, we had discovered a new disease that would get named after me and he'd get credit for the discovery. He took a photo of it and sent it to the dermatology department for a follow up appointment. 

The dermatologist diagnosed it as transient acantholytic dermatosis and saw me today to biopsy it but it was virtually gone – as soon as I reintroduced carbs into my diet it began to clear up. I suggested that it was somehow related to ketosis when I came across this piece speculating that it was prurigo pigmentosa. The dermatologist said that he had just read a medical journal article about that condition and noted that the rash was different. After we discussed the cause some more he did some research to see how ketones are excreted by the body when eliminating carbs from one's diet. It turns out that keytones come out in sweat and are likely the irritant causing the rash in combination with my chest strap.

Just like my primary care doctor, the dermatologist said he was fascinated since my visit made him have to "think" and that he might write a medical journal article about it. Unless... of course... the doctors in this medical group are encouraged to tell their patients how "special" they are. Nah... couldn't be, could it? 

Local WW II Pilot

Joe Pellerine, pilot and owner of Pacific Canvas.

Today I had to bring in my airplane's canvas cover for restitching. It was given to me by the previous owner so I have no idea how old it is. Luckily, it had the name of the original company stitched on it, Pacific Canvas of Oceanside, CA.

I called the company and spoke to an older gentleman named Joe who owned the business – he told me to bring in the canvas cover and they'd repair it for me. It turned out that it only needed an hour's worth of stitching to redo all of it so it'll be as good as new when I get it back.

As Joe wrote up my order he asked me if the canvas cover was for a boat. When I told him it was for a plane, his eyes lit up. For the better part of the next hour I eagerly listened to his experiences flying a B-25 in the South Pacific during WW II – including three crashes without getting a scratch. He loved flying so much that he'd bought three personal airplanes over the years.

He looked great for 90 years old. The only reason he stopped flying was due to heart surgery last year. He was as sharp as a tack but said that the anesthesia from his surgery had slowed him down a little as he continues to recover from it. I could have easily listened to his stories for another hour except that the Oceanside Fire Department showed up with some canvas work for Joe.

Human Innovation in High Tech

Innovation is something new – typically revolutionary – that reduces the cost of a transaction, in terms of time or money.

But is that necessarily a good thing?

The ideal application of any technology is something that enables you to be more productive while getting out of your way. This is the challenge with technology. Speaking on the phone is a great way to communicate, but subtle cues are missed such as facial expressions. Even with video chat the technology distracts and diminishes communication since users have to be concerned with trivial conditions like lighting and frame composition (i.e. how well can the other person see your face). The very enabling benefits of technology can also get in the way.

In addition to these issues is the prep period – the overhead with setting up and processing the technology. I can't see myself blink when I look in the mirror, but I can see myself blink when looking at a "live" video feed of myself on my computer.

Now we face the challenge with humanizing technology.

We see technology dehumanizing us everyday – and I am guiltier than most as seen in this video making the rounds the past few days. Rather than accepting the interruption of technology, we need to integrate it in better, more subtle ways.

Pilot Procedures and Paperwork

Last year, I mentioned how paperwork has been virtually eliminated from the cockpit due to the iPad. But, when flying through the clouds, pilots still need the old pen and paper.

There are two sets of rules pilots follow when flying an airplane: Visual Flight Rules (VFR) and Instrument Flight Rules (IFR). In order to fly under VFR I need to be able to see a few miles and keep my distance from the clouds (the distances vary depending on the type of airspace I'm flying in).

A key limitation when flying VFR is that I am not allowed to fly into the clouds since I can't see who else might be in there. This problem is easily solved by filing an IFR flight plan since air traffic control will track me on radar and give me a specific route to fly.

Flying IFR is more complicated than the simple "see and avoid" technique used when flying VFR. For example, what do you do if you're flying under IFR in the clouds and you lose communications? (There are specific procedures to follow in this case – needless to say it's not a situation any pilot wants to find themselves in.)

Before departing under IFR I will file my IFR clearance request and then it will be issued to me just prior to taking off. It helps to know what clearance I'll be issued ahead of time since it's a mouthful to write down, as it's being issued, and then read back as you can hear in this simulation.

IFR clearance from San Carlos (SQL) to Carlsbad (CRQ).

To make things flow smoothly I jot down CRAFT (orange oval) in a column to remember all parts of the clearance:
C – Cleared to (usually my destination)
R – Route to fly (blue rectangle in photo)
A – Altitude to climb to
F – Frequency to switch to after departure
T – Transponder code to squawk so ATC can track me on radar

My notes from a three hour flight.

While it's perfectly acceptable to get an IFR clearance issued after taking off it certainly makes things more complex since I'd have to write all this down while flying the plane. It's much easier to do on the ground. Lightening a pilot's workload is the reason commercial airlines have two pilots (the captain and first officer).

Once I'm airborne ATC will usually guide me to fly a specific route until I'm established on my flight plan. It's handy to have ATC act as a second set of eyes looking out for my wellbeing. Occasionally, ATC will give me course adjustments to deviate for bad weather, traffic, or to shorten my route. If I have no course adjustments then the only thing I need to write down are new radio frequencies as controllers hand me off from one radar sector to another.

iPads are great but for quick notes, nothing beats a pen and paper.

Urban Life Conveniences

You can't miss the Amazon Locker by the front door of 7-11.

Today I had two firsts. I commuted on the San Diego public transit bus system and, this evening, I received a package from Amazon using their Locker delivery service.

Everyone's familiar with public buses, even people who never use them. But the Amazon Locker delivery service just started last year. It's perfect for people who live and work in big cities and don't want packages left sitting at their front door.

Instead of having your package shipped by Amazon to an address, they deliver it to a bank of lockers that they own, spread throughout the city. The shipping charges seem to be no different than if the package was shipped to your front door.

7-11 Amazon Locker at bus and trolly stop.

This evening, I received a confirmation e-mail that my package was ready for pick up. So, I hopped on the bus since the nearest bus stop is just a few hundred feet from my place. The last stop on my bus route was right outside – less than 100 feet – from the 7-11 where Amazon has a Locker delivery location. A perfect synergy since they're open 24/7.

Enter your code that pops open your locker.

Picking up my package was so quick I ended up reboarding the same bus that dropped me off because the driver had a five minute break. But, since my bus fare card is unlimited there was a "read error" when I tried to swipe it which the driver dismissed when he realized that I was the same person boarding the same bus.




Both the bus and Amazon Locker services were great customer experiences  – much better than I expected. Door-to-door was well under an hour for this two mile roundtrip  Best part is that the bus ride was effectively free and I didn't have to hunt for parking downtown.

Designing a Better Electronic Book

I love iBooks but nothing beats the durability of a real book. As great as it is to carry around my e-book library on my iPad, it can never compare to the feel of picking up a real book and flipping through it. That's a physical experience sorely lacking on all e-book readers.

So, can the real world feel of a book be duplicated electronically?

Perhaps.. one day... probably. The key is that a digital book would have to feel like a real book. One way to do this is with a digital book made of pages where each is a thin, flexible film, like e-paper, that feel like real pages.

Imagine an e-book full of a couple hundred blank pages made of thin, bendable computer displays. You'd select which book to load and each e-page would display a page of your book. You'd be reading e-ink text on real pages that you could flip through, highlight, take notes, etc.; much like iBooks or Kindle. Just don't dog-ear a page. For books longer than 200 pages, you could just cycle back – page 201 would appear on page one and so on. Now that would be best of both worlds.

The Photo Behind the Photo

Michael taking a photo of a stranger taking a photo.

Last month I was walking to a San Diego Tech Week event with a former Apple coworker, Michael. He has a great eye for design and his work was regularly reviewed by Steve Jobs.

As we walked down the street, a woman stopped to take a photo, through a chain link fence, of some interesting artwork. As she snapped the photo, Michael had the presence of mind to snap a picture of this stranger. He showed her the photo and they exchanged phone numbers so they could text the images to one another.

A coworker taking a photo of me taking a photo.

Less than thirty minutes later, while at the event we were attending, Michael received the photo at the top right and we marveled at the impromptu collaboration that had just occurred. 

We don't know who the woman was, but, like Michael, she too obviously has a good eye.

Joyce Maynard Just Got Married

Joyce Maynard on the far right.

Joyce Maynard just got married.

This past May I attended Joyce's writing workshop at her home in Mill Valley about 20 minutes north of San Francisco. It was a day long affair where Joyce, along with seven of us, reviewed and commented on our manuscripts. While having lunch on her deck, which overlooks Mount Tamalpais, she pointed out the regrettable reality that her fame is too closely tied to the fact that she lived with J. D. Salinger – the recluse author of The Catcher in the Rye – for the better part of a year while writing her first book. Prefacing her bio with this makes it seem she's riding Salinger's coattails which couldn't be further from the truth. Her initial fame, that caught the eye of J. D. Salinger, was a feature article she wrote for The New York Times magazine, An 18-Year-Old Looks Back On Life, while a freshman at Yale.

Joyce Maynard's kitchen.

I've never attended a writing workshop before Joyce's. Although I've published paid and unpaid journalistic articles, interviews, and blog posts, I wanted to work on improving my writing ever since sticking my toe in the waters of fiction writing, last summer. Although Joyce has written fiction, her true talent is the personal narrative.

I don't recall exactly how I discovered Joyce's workshop other than it percolated to the top of my Google search results. I sent off an e-mail to Joyce with great timing. She promptly responded even though she was at her rural place in Guatemala on Lake Atitlán for her ten day writing workshop with limited Internet access. After a few e-mail exchanges I was signed up for her May workshop.

Joyce taught me more about writing in one day than I had learned anywhere else.

Joyce showed me how to quickly detect when there's a story to be told:
"I used to do ________ but now I do ________."
Every time I filled in those two blanks with my real life experiences I had a story to tell.

My manuscript autographed by Joyce Maynard.

A key point she taught me was to write personal narratives that only I could write. She said, "Don't be a reporter. Tell the story that only you can tell." This concept was new to me since much of my paid writing was exactly that: reporting. Very quickly, with each one of us at her workshop, she could figure out the story behind the story. As I listened to each writer's backstory I noticed myself leaning in to hear more. As Joyce asked me a few questions about my manuscript I realized where my deeper, more personal, and interesting story really was. She even gave me a resounding opening line for my manuscript rewrite.

I clearly understood her lessons; especially about how we should use symbols in our writing. Her biggest point that hit home with me was to write less, not more, much like my favorite author, Ernest Hemingway. Leave out small, unimportant details, and let your reader conclude how to get from point-A to point-B. The idea isn't to shut out your readers, but leave out just enough to pull them in like a mystery novel.

At the workshop, Joyce told me about her upcoming wedding plans and I've been following her updates ever since.

Oversimplifying Simplicity

The Way to Eden.

I'm reading Ken Segall's thoughts and experiences while working with Steve Jobs. He's had so much interaction with Steve while at Apple and NeXT that he's a cornucopia of best design and marketing practices.

Segall talks about how "one" is the simplest of concepts. It's an intriguing philosophy – there was even an entire episode of Star Trek dedicate to this concept and its followers.

This belief in "one" is why Apple's mice, track pads, iPhones, etc., from the beginning, have only one button. One is where it all begins.

What's the simplest numeral system? It's not base 10 (decimal) since you have to memorize 10 different digits. Is it base 2 (binary)? After all, computers and human DNA use binary to store information (ones and zeros, or A-T and C-G combinations). Certainly binary is the simplest? Au contraire; how many people can convert 1010 from binary to base 10? Not simple... not simple at all.

The simplest numeral system.

It turns out that unary is the simplest numeral system for representing natural numbers – in other words, unary uses just ones. This is how a cave man would keep track of "How many?" things he owed, even before there was written or spoken language. Take a pile of rocks and for each one of something, you move a rock to another pile. Do the reverse when taking inventory.

This is how a bouncer counts people at the door or how the simplest of card counters tries to beat the house at blackjack. We've all used unary to keep track of things when we tally items with four slashes and then a diagonal.

Something Simpler?
Where I disagree with Segall's thinking is when he points out "zero is the only number that's simpler than one." Ironically, this not the case as I learned from my assembly language professor, Mr. Lee. If you think back to when we learned Roman numerals in grade school (I, II, III, IV...) you'll quickly realize that there was no numeral for zero. This is also true in other ancient civilizations' numeral systems such as Chinese and Arabic. As simple as zero seems, it's a fairly complex concept to have nothing of something – just try to ask any handheld calculator to divide by zero and you'll see that it does not compute.

Trying to be simpler than the simplest makes things more complex.