Kenny and the never-ending "Why?"

Before I had Kenny, I had heard and read about parents getting irritated with constant "why?" questions from their children. I thought to myself that these parents were just not patient enough, and that they failed to consider how beneficial, in terms of language skills, that this type of interaction was for their children.

Well, the shoe is on the other foot now. I, too, find myself getting a little bit impatient when faced with the "why?" that just never ends. Cute, but also kind of irritating. For example, when I tell Kenny that I'm dropping him off at daycare because I have to work:

"Why are you going to work?"
"Because I like to work"
"Why do you like to work"
"Because it's fun"
"Why is it fun?"

At about this point, I pull out some techniques to cut short the questioning. For example, "Look, do you see that bulldozer!", that always work. Or I say, "Why do you think? I almost never get a real answer to that one, but it points the conversation in a different direction.

On the plus side, I'm now getting some real "conversations" with Kenny. For instance, on the way home from daycare he might tell me about a fire drill, where there was a loud siren, and then they all had to hold hands. I love it.

Zero Tolerance for Donuts

The group I work in at Expedia holds a "donut day" every Wednesday. What this means is that every Wednesday, somebody in the group brings in 2 dozen donuts to share. Responsibility for the greasy treats rotates around the group. I decided about a year ago that I would not participate in eating the donuts. Previously, I'd try to restrain myself to eating a half.

The remarkable thing about my new decision (and what makes it blog-worthy) is how much easier it is now. There's no mental stress, no decisions, no angst about should I eat a half or a quarter. Nothing. I just set zero as the tolerance level, and haven't had a problem with that.

Too bad eating as a whole can't be like that.

Keeping websites simple and easy to use

I learned something about the importance of keeping things simple in the last few months. I had been working on a new website for our community association (it's a big one - 1,300 houses). I wasn't developing the website from scratch. Instead I choose between service providers that do this type of pre-built website.

After a lot of evaluation on my part, and on the part of other committee members, we came to a decision, and set up the website on OneCommunity. I had very high hopes that lots of people would register, post content, interact with other community members, and keep on coming back online. There were tons of features - a calendar, classified ads, discussion forum, profiles, notice board, you name it. I did my best to encourage people to use the site.

What's happened so far? Well...nothing. Okay, not absolutely nothing, but not very much. When the site first went live, I went crazy putting up ads and posting in the discussion forum. But I was almost the only one, and the site never really took off.

Why is nobody using the site? It could be so useful (so I thought to myself). People could sell stuff they didn't need anymore to their neighbors. They could ask for and receive recommendations for babysitters, housecleaners, yard care services. They could post items of neighborhood interest.

But the bottom line was, it just wasn't easy to use. That critical fact was hidden to me, because I work with computers. I understand how websites work, and how to work around whatever doesn't work. Most people didn't understand it immediately, and weren't interested in investing the time into learning it. This one fact has been critical in making the new website bomb.

Why is Google so successful? Lots of reasons, of course, but mainly - they're so easy to use! There's one box to imput text, and there's 2 buttons (although frankly, I think they should get rid of the "I'm feeling lucky" button). Anybody can jump right in there and get information almost immediately.

There's a superb book on web usability called Don't Make Me Think. It's my all-time favorite book on web usability, but it also has a lot of lessons on how people process information in general, too.

Preparing for a possible bird flu pandemic

Recently I've been spending WAY too much time on a website devoted to bird flu (http://www.fluwikie.com). I tell ya, you can really get sucked into this. There's a lot of people - thoughtful, intelligent people, but probably leaning more than a little bit to the paranoid side - who are preparing to hunker down and have enough stocked up to be able to live on their supplies for months on end. The idea is that the flu will be raging outside, so the more that you can avoid going to stores, and contact with other people in general, the less likely it will be that you'll catch the flu.

I spent a few hours reading the posts, then starting making lists of what we need to buy in order to be prepared. And I actually did go out to Wal-mart and buy lots of canned goods, and other things that I thought would be useful. No harm done - I tried hard to buy things that keep, and that we use regularly anyway. Plus, this is earthquake country, and it doesn't hurt to be prepared for power outages.

Intereseting to note, though, that a few of things I bought - namely a wind-up, no battery needed LED flashlight from LLBean, and also a simple one-burner propane stove from Campmor - exactly what people would be buying when preparing for emergencies - were backordered, and only expected to be available in a month or so. Also some bulk food storage containers from the Container Store were out of stock. Coincidence? I don't think so. What with all the coverage of the potential flu pandemic, and also the New Orleans hurricane, people are stocking up on these kinds of items.

My strength workout - making it easy and quick!

In my quest to get the best workout in a relatively short period of time, I'm looking at my strength workout. How do I motivate myself to actually do this? What's the minimum I need to do in order to stay strong?

My regular aerobic workout is 30 minutes, 4 times a week. I work out on the treadmill while watching TV (yea for TiVo!) and try to break a good sweat by going uphill or doing some jogging. I also do a 15 or 20 minute brisk walk on the treadmill on those days that I work and have very little time in the morning. I have no problem at all motivating myself to do the aerobic workout - it's my chance to watch some of the home decorating/home organization shows I've taped!

However, motivating myself to do strength exercises is a different story. I tried doing some strength exercises in the evenings, while watching some TV with Eric. It doesn't work well for me. It requires an enormous effort of will to get off the couch, plus I'm tired in the evening anyway. So, I'm going to tack the strength exercises onto my morning workout, though time is very tight then. My goal is to add only 5 minutes to my workout time. This means a limited number of exercises, and only one set. I'm tentatively thinking push ups, leg lifts and sit ups (both on the exercise ball), and maybe a few others. I'd have to rotate them to keep under the 5 minute deadline.

By the way, I've dropped stretching entirely. The latest info is that it doesn't do you any good, and actually causes more injuries than not stretching.

The importance of getting feedback from customers

We took a cruise over the Christmas holidays on Royal Caribbean. It was enjoyable, but could have been more so. Quite a few times during the cruise I wished that there was a suggestion box somewhere, where I could give some feedback on what I liked, and what I didn't like. There was actually a customer survey form given out at the end, that you were supposed to fill out before you left the ship, but by that time (it was a 10 day cruise) I had forgotten what the original issues were, and I wasn't necessarily motivated to fill out another form. So, I left it laying on the bed.

Too bad for Royal Caribbean. Feedback from customers is incredibly important, and they were neglecting that important resource.

I have a lot more thoughts on the whole topic of establishing and maintaining a feedback loop with customers (or employees, too). From what I've seen, it's grossly undervalued. I'll be trying to make my thoughts more cogent and writing them up soon.