Gripes and Grins

Grin: AT&T Uverse

It's been several months since we moved our home from Comcast to AT&T Uverse.  Aside from the phantom charges, pricing and lengthy outages, I really didn't have any issues with Comcast.  I wanted to try Uverse because I'd never really tried another bband digital TV solution.  My initial experience with Uverse is definitely a grin.

Even tonight, after AT&T Uverse needed to reboot before each NFL game, I was still pleased with the recovery and support experience.  The support experience in particular is nice. 

Two days after the unit was installed, the hard-drive was borked when the box failed in the middle of an upgrade.  I suspect the unit lost power in the middle of a major upgrade and literally forgot where it was, what it was doing.  A quick swap fixed everything.  I'm sure that box was wiped and reinstalled somewhere else -- I don't really care.  The point is that my wife explained to support that the box needed to be replaced before a sporting event the next day, and so a Uverse truck showed up at 6:30pm, a nice guy swapped the box, tested the remote box and disappeared quickly.  That's the kind of TLC I like. 

At a feature level, the AT&T Uverse IPTV STB is light years ahead of the crappy comcast Motorola DCT-series.  The content is IPTV, not digital cable, which is better.  But, the user experience is much better.  The Uverse GUI, multiple tuners and local hardware mean that the overall user experience is modern, relatively feature-rich, and hardware is responsive to the remote IR commands.  It makes Comcast feel appropriately last-century. 

So far, I'm a fan.  But, I'm worried about the outages I saw tonight -- they remind me of a common issue in all broadband services.  What happens when everyone in your area are using the Internet AND watching TV at the same time?  If you're using IPTV, where the TV signal and the Internet are connected to the same pipe, something is going to give.   I'm worried about the Olympics, Election night, World Cup, Final Four, Oscar night... I'll be watching, tweeting, and sharing my experiences.

 

Gripe: Home Depot and Thomasville Cabinets

This past weekend was my anniversary.  In the middle of the celebration, we recieved a call from Home Depot's East Palo Alto store location indicating that a replacement cabinet facing had been delivered and we needed to pick it up.  The cabinet is from Thomasville.  We went into the store on our anniversary, and came back without our cabinet facing, for the 4th time. 

Here's the backstory. In June, my wife moved our baby chicks out of the children's bathroom and put them in her office space, attaching one of those heating lamps to the counter above the cabinets in her built-in desk.  The heating lamp clamp failed, the lamp fell down against the cabinets and started a small house-fire.  Not so much a fire as a cherry-wood BBQ that was easy to extinguish. 

Since early June, we've been trying to replace the cabinets.  The cabinets were purchased at a HomeDepot Expo store, and since those are no longer around, we've been working through the folks at HomeDepot in Palo Alto, the only place Thomasville is sold.  The people working the cabinetry section of the HomeDepot in East Palo Alto are a special kind of unhelpful.  The especially rude kind. 

My wife has ordered and returned the cabinets 4 times.  The problem has been that the floor samples were mislabeled, which we were assured they were not.  Every time we ordererd using the floor sample as the guide, the pieces that came in were natural finish cherry not the reddish-stained cherry "light finish" that matched our cabinets.  Each time, my wife insisted that the floor samples didn't match the cabinets, and each time, we were told there was no return policy and that we were wrong.  We simply refused to sign for the merchandise and take it home. 

These things happen -- sales and merchandising reps mislable things, but the sales folks at Home Depot should get a clue and cross-check every once in awhile. 

Here's the kicker, and the center of my gripe: EACH time that we talked with the sales folks, they told us that if we simply took home the merchandise, they cabinets would grow darker over time.  Even funnier, they gave us a "tip", that if we left hte cabinet facing out in the lawn, THE SUN would make our cabinet darker.  That has got to be the most idiotic thing I've ever been told in a sales process. WTF!

FACT: The sun bleaches everything, including wood.  The sun makes our skin darker because melatonin reacts to the sun and scarres, creating a "tan", to help guard against further sun damage.  Other than skin, anything left in the sun gets "whitened".  Everything. 

Just today, a Thomasville employee called my wife to get more info and convince her that she was wrong, and the agent repeated this ridiculous line about the sun.  No doubt, this is a line of BS that gets handed down from manufacturer to the channel marketing/sales managers to the in-store personnel at Home Depot.  Be aware of this nonsense if you're DIY or die. 

BTW, my wife finally performed the cross-check on the cabinet finish, and the folks at Thomasville now know that they have incorrect labels on the floor samples at the East Palo Alto Home Depot.  You can use this as post as a time stamp if you are caught in related cabinet monkey business.

Gripe: GenX is sick of your bullshit

I've been suffering blog fatigue.  Mostly because Grockit has been so damn much fun and so intense for the last 9 months.  But, with our recent funding event and recent momentum, I was ripe for a "Gripe", and today I'm sharing a fellow Griper's Gripe from Tumbr -- Generation X doesn't want to hear it, which also ran under the title "GenX is sick of your bullshit" in Gizmodo.  That's right.  Gizmodo.  You probably won't read this post or Gizmodo if you're 20 anything or 50 something.  

To summarize the entry, Mat Honan has crafted a timeless rant on mainstream media and generational perspectives that stacks up to "F@!k the South" and other blogging milestones of the last decade. He basically reminds the world that the mainstream media is about as tapped into reality as it's readers.  Which is to say, not so much.  And, he subtly notes that the media basically chases demographic bubbles and completely ignores the marginal demos, because, we are by defintion, outside of the mainstream and, to generalize, more difficult to aggregate for ad dollars and (to the point of the blog), long suffering in the personal economics sense. 

 The last paragraphs are pitch perfect -- I can say this here, because no boomer or GenY reader will read this post beyond the 3rd paragraph.  Like Honan's post, this blog is for readers with attention spans.  It makes no appeal to adrenal glands or prurient interests, nor does it doggedly reinforce positive self-image.  It's what my mother-in-law calls cynical because she confuses that word with sarcastic.

I finished Honan's quick read and immediately relived a last year full of ridiculous personal interactions with the idiot-generation immediately north of my age demo.  Honan's post tapped into that odd surrealistic feeling I get after any interactions outside of my generational bubble. 

There are times, mostly around the Holidays, when I feel like I'm living in a parallel universe created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker.  That's not snarky, that's tragic.  For Xers, life can take on absurdist warpings, wherein the outlandishly unaware and narcisistic temporarily inhabit your time and space to remind you of your own humanity through egregious displays of self-unawareness. Like an entire house full of Zaphod Beeblebrox. 

For example, a particularly douchy boomer chastised me last Christmas for not subscribing to physical newspapers, again.  It was like the third time I heard this, and because my wife had denied my very specific request for permission to break his jaw (it's really a very easy thing for me to do because I look like a clean-shaven yetti), I decided to quietly enlighten this snarky little fucker with a few app installs.  And, so, I grabbed his fucking precious new iphone to install InstaPaper, NYTimes and other assorted news sources only to discover the asshole didn't even have an iTunes account set up?! Yeah, I know you need a minute -- either you're an Xer crying or giggling, or you're only casually following and not yet seizing on the ridiculousness of it all. Go back to the top of the paragraph and read it once more.

Why do these specific interactions make me want to laugh and lash out at the same time?  As this instance happened, I poured some wine and said nothing, told no one, stealing knowing glances with my children, quietly shaking my head.  Until just now.  That whole episode just fell out of my suppressed memory bank just now.

Sadly, that kind of stuff makes me miss my Grandparents.  I miss the way that my Grandpa used to just sit and stare at his kids like they were a bunch of dipshits, and steal knowing glances with his grandkids.  All except his oldest Son, whom I'm pretty sure he treated just like his brother.  My wife's grandfather did that too.  He was an admiral in the Navy.  He wasn't an idiot, nor was he an asshole.   He even gave me a knowing wink and a nod one time -- as near as I could tell, he had similar instincts about boomers. 

Now that I think about it, I can remember a lot of older folks grinding their teeth and whincing at their boomer children.  I bet they passed around flasks and had a lot of inside jokes.  I'm sure they'd have blogs if the technology was there 20 years ago. 

Someday the human race will discover that irony and self-awareness are linked to a specific gene that skips generations.  A recessive gene no doubt.  Maybe they'll name it after Alanis Morisette.  Finish that last line for me.

Grin: My new favorite thing is studying leadership

I used to joke about leadership books as I strolled through the Red Carpet club or Borders Books.  I used to joked in a snide, all-knowing twenty-something manner, with just a hint of trademark Gen-X apathy. Obviously, I didn't go to business school.

The ironic thing was that I was actually studying leadership, I just didn't know it yet. I was comparing startup culture leadership to college and professional sports.  I just had no idea what I was processing, certainly I didn't appreciate leadership or processing leadership at the time.

When I was in my twenties, I worked at WebTV for Steve Perlman. I was early too.  A lot of good mid-level managers one pay grade above me struggled while working for Steve.  I loved working for Steve.  I managed to forge a fast mutual respect with Steve that even now persists, despite the fact that I see Steve very infrequently, usually at an event or in SOMA. 

Recently, Ashlee Vance from BusinessWeek reached out to me to comment on Steve as a leader. It started a retrospective that fits within my current leadership study of Roy Gilbert, Grockit's CEO.  The two are very different.  The two are very different from another great founder-leader I worked with, Raymie Stata, now the CTO of Yahoo!.  In fact, there are very few similarities between all three.

The thing I learned most from Steve was how to learn in a founder culture.  Skepticism is a good thing.  But, in a functional top-down organization, the follower has to work at listening, internalizing founder thought processes and have the ability to suspend disbelief at times in order to achieve goals that seem unrealistic.  Steve taught me all of that.  That's why I chuckle when I see or hear someone quote Perlman disbelievingly or disparage Steve's hyper-distilled skeptical comments on "laws" of science and technical limits.  Sure Steve believes in himself.  But, he has earned the right to believe others will follow him too.  It's not ego, it's knowing what works, for him, and everyone that is willing to listen and believe in him.  That's  how top-down management succeeds, IMHO. 

Now, there's a lot of people that get religious about bottom-up startup culture.  But, in my experience, that's a harder culture to create and sustain, very fragile, and exposed to external factors and internal employee dynamics. I believe that if you are to succeed as a key contributor, you have to be able to take direction and collaborate with top-down managers.  I may be wrong, but that's my experience talking.

What I'm living now -- it's different, and fascinating all at once.  Grockit is a truly interesting and an inspiring place to contribute and cooperate.  And, after all of the pre-Grockit hype I heard on Roy Gilbert, I have to say that he is an impressive operator.  In my late 30s, having developed the ability to recognize leadership and acts of leadership, my life and work have become so much more interesting. 

Here's the really interesting thing: My leadership style hasn't changed all that much.  But that doesn't mean I'm not learning.  Studying leadership is engrossing.  I hope everyone takes the time to observe their manager's leadership style. 

Grin: SF EDU Startup Weekend Micro Documentary

Things have been tremendously busy at Grockit.  We have a lot of news to announce in the near future. But, I just want to share a bit of the SF EDU startup weekend experience  with everyone.  See the micro documentary below, and make sure to follow#sfedu.

 

 

Huge Grin: SF EDU Startup Weekend

It’s nearly midday here at Grockit HQ in lovely SOMA.  It’s more than just free street parking making me smile today.  Aside from the Card 9 victory over CSU Fullerton last night, it’s judgment day here at SFEDU Startup Weekend.  We have 14 teams vying for prizes and an spot at the The Founders Showcase in what I know to be the first of multiple SFEDU Weekends.

To say the weekend is a success is an understatement.  Even before anyone gets funded or officially launched, the ideas, the atmosphere, the energy all point at ongoing success.  And, I happen to know that there will be future events as well.  That’s right, edu startup weekends will be serialized thanks to generous funding lined up by Grockit founder Farb Nivi.  More will be announced very soon via the Grockit blog, but for now, I’m really enjoying this event and looking forward to updating this blog with news about the winners. 

And, just in case you feel slighted or angry that you didn’t get an invite to be a participant, judge or mentor (mentor’s are getting a lot of love right now), I can’t really apologize – this thing became sort of a big deal late last month when the media started to take an interest.  As an organizer, I wish we could have sold more tickets or invited more judges, but we'll make it bigger and better next time.  And, we'll make an effort to boost the prize values as well.

Huge thanks to EdSurge team for taking notice, and a huge thanks to Audrey Waters for encouraging us.  Also, huge thanks to my fellow organizers, Shana, Ahmed, Farb and Dan Clemons, and all of the speakers at SFEDU startup weekend.

Here’s a photo from opening night pitches. 

Gripe: MacApp Store Issue Solved by Install Disc

Since my last post, I received two helpful and responsive email solitications from the iTunes Support team.  I generally rate the iTunes support team as good.  I'm still not sure why iTunes Support is interfacing with customers that have MacApp Store fail issues.  The important point is that these folks were helpful and willing to try anything I suggested, such as resetting my logins and logging in to replicate my experiences. 

The end result is that I was assured that creating a new and different appleID (not my current appleID associated with iTunes) would fix this issue.  I'll never know if that "solution" would work because I chose to simply by the iWork install disk a week ago and move on with my life. 

So there you have it: Digital Right Management objective acheived with a less-than-awesome customer experience.  

So, does this moment signal the end of Apple exceptionalism?  For me, yes, for others, I'm sure some would say that this minor friction should be easy for me to overlook.  I had that attitude for many other instances of less-than-good Apple design over the last four years, so I understand it.  Bu, others (and I know them) stopped worshing at the alter of Apple around iTunes 4.0, which was widely adopted, but a much-maligned U-ex. 

For me, the bottom line is that Apple still makes my phone, pcs, and, extensibly, controls the way I consume, buy and share digital media.  But, recently, my switching costs for Apple products stopped including "product affinity".  And, that's a dangerous spot when you're operating a massive business predicated on premium-priced products and existing customer affinity. 

Gripe: MacApp Store (updated)

First, the disclaimers.  I know a few people at Apple, and I actually know some folks that work on the store.  Second, my overall support and usability expectations are higher for Apple products, which I fully acknowledge.  Third, Apple enjoys a brand reputation for a better overall experience, so they deserve this kind of heated gripe. 

Apple, you're slipping. I know you're stock is soaring and your operating capital is nice. I don't even mind that the initial iPod wasn't your idea or design. But, I've always appreciated that your products and services just work. Except when they don't.

I don't get the Mac App store App.  I'm installing an app to buy an app.  That's me inserting a hurdle between me and the store.  It just feels like a dumb DRM move.  Really, Apple? What's worse, it's not working. 

The Mac App store help page has 5 entries in the troubleshooting, my issue is one of them.  Here's what they have to say about my symptoms:

"If nothing happens after clicking Buy when purchasing an app

Select the Purchases view at the top of the Mac App Store window. Look for your purchased app. If it is listed under Purchases and says Installed next to it, check your Dock or Applications folder for the app. If the app's listing under Purchases says Install next to it, click the Install button. The app will then be downloaded and installed into the Applications folder. You will not be charged again for the app.

If the app is not listed under Purchases, your previous attempt to buy was not completed and you were not charged for the app. Navigate to where you tried to purchase the app earlier and click the Buy button for the app. This will charge your account for the app. If you delete the app and wish to to reinstall it later, you can use the Purchases view to reinstall it without being charged again."

So five minutes ago, I submitted this help ticket.  It wasn't really a request for help, more of a taunt with several veigns of criticism, mostly about their physical operations as well. I'll keep everyone up to date on the resolution. 

I have a brand new macbook pro and I downloaded the app store app and signed into the store with my existing apple ID, which I use for iTunes and my other, older Macbook Pro.  I'm trying to buy a lot of sotware for this new mac, without going to a physical store.  But, when I go to buy, I get through the buy flow, confirm the purchase intent and then I don't get anything -- no DL dialogue, and my account status shows that I have zero purchased software.

 Seriously, this is really pissing me off.  Getting to an Apple store is a real pain-in-the-ass because your physical stores are located where there is absolutely no parking (Downtown Palo Alto, Union Square SF?!) or the store is a renovated closet with asinine store hours for people that want to work  (Stanford shopping mall, open at 10am?!).  The options for me right now is order online and wait 24 hours for an empty box or submit this ticket and wait 24 hours.  Awesome.

 

Updated Feb 11 4:17PM PDST

Response and my second efforts below. Now this is going to get interesting.

Hi Tina,
I have no idea what you're talking about in this email.  Per my ticket info, I'm having trouble buying Keynote for my Mac via the Mac App Store.  The only thing that is related to iTunes is my Apple ID.  What do I have to do to buy and download software from the Mac App Store?

Sincerely,
Aaron Burcell

PS -- I'm blogging this experience in an effort to help others, because this experience is pretty darn sucky.

----- Original Message ----
From: "macappstore_english_us_support@apple.com" <macappstore_english_us_support@apple.com>
To: xxxxx@yahoo.com (edited for posting)
Sent: Fri, February 11, 2011 3:21:32 PM
Subject: Re: Mac App Store Account and Billing; Follow-up: 138883781

Dear Aaron,

Tina here from the iTunes Store. I hope you are having a wonderful day so far. I see from your email that you have some of your purchases that you have recently made, not showing up in your download queue for you to download and add to your account. Being an iTunes Store customer myself, I can understand your eagerness to get this resolved. Please be assured I am happy to help you in any way I can.

Aaron, I have added the three orders on your account that you have recently purchased back to your account for you.

Please follow these steps to download the items:

1) Make sure you're using the latest version of iTunes. It can be downloaded free of charge from the iTunes website:
 
http://www.itunes.com/download

Note: Installing the latest version of iTunes will not affect your library or any items in your account that you haven't downloaded.

2) Open iTunes. From the Store menu at the top, choose Check for Available Downloads. You can also click this link to do the same thing:

https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/checkForPurchases

3) Enter your account name and password, then click the Check button.

The items should begin downloading and appear in your Purchased playlist. If you receive an error message while downloading, try again after turning off any firewall or web-accelerator software that you may have installed. If the download process is interrupted for any reason, it should resume once you reopen iTunes.

This article provides information about resuming interrupted downloads:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1725

If you don't see the items in your iTunes Library, please include this information in your response to this email:

- The name of your Internet service provider (ISP)
- The type of Internet connection (such as dial-up, cable modem, or DSL)
- Any troubleshooting steps you may have taken
- Any error messages you may have received

I would like to make sure that your iTunes experience is the best it can be. If you have any further questions regarding this issue Aaron, please reply to this email and I will be delighted to assist you. Have a great day!

Sincerely,

Tina
iTunes Store Customer Support


Please note: In the week of February 6th to February 12th, I work Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday 12:30 PM to 9 PM. I also work Tuesday and Thursday 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM. I have Monday and Saturday off.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to assist you. You may receive an AppleCare survey email; any feedback you provide would be greatly  appreciated.

Customer First Name : Aaron
Customer Last Name : Burcell
email : xxxxx (edited for post)
Web Order # :
Support Subject : Mac App Store Account and Billing
Sub Issue : undefined
Comments : See additional info below
OS version: Mac OS X 10.6.6
Country: US
Apple ID: edited for posting
Specific request: This app didn't function as expected
Item title: Keynote
Details: I have a brand new macbook pro and I downloaded the app store app and signed into the store with my existing apple ID, which I use for iTunes and my other, older Macbook Pro.  I'm trying to buy a lot of sotware for this new mac, without going to a physical store.  But, when I go to buy, I get through the buy flow, confirm the purchase intent and then I don't get anything -- no DL dialogue, and my account status shows that I have zero purchased software.

Seriously, this is really pissing me off.  Getting to an Apple store is a real pain-in-the-ass because your physical stores are located where there is absolutely no parking (Downtown Palo Alto, Union Square SF?!) or the store is a renovated closet with asinine store hours for people that want to work  (Stanford shopping mall, open at 10am?!).  The options for me right now is order online and wait 24 hours for an empty box or submit this ticket and wait 24 hours.  Awesome.

TrackID: 13512158

Grin: I joined Grockit!

I recently joined Grockit as the VP of Marketing.  It all happened really fast, so I thought I'd post a short (relatively short) explanation. 

When I left Gazillion last Spring, I knew I wanted to return to the intersection of games and education.  I just didn't think an opportunity would come to me so quickly after my SmartyCard experience.

SmartyCard was an awesome experience.  The solution was elegant, the people were very talented.  And, even if the company was short-lived, SmartyCard alumni have gone on to do wonderful things at Xbox, Kabam, Google and A Bit Lucky.  All of that noted, I think all SmartyCard alumnus miss going to bed at night knowing that they were working on learning games -- even if we were *only* focused on supplemental education. 

To that last point, when I was approached by Roy Gilbert and Farb Nivi to join the team at Grockit, I pounced.  I'd been following Grockit.  But, I had no idea what kind of ambition, vision and company culture existed at Grockit until I met the team in late January.  The team here is genuinely brilliant.  The company culture is a unique combination of high-velocity, lean-practices and grown-up interpersonal communications. It helps that the executives are so accomplished, and the venture investors are outstanding.  These people are stewards of an awesome service and an awesome company culture.  And, there is so much more here: There's a genuine determination to change and improve how people learn and teach. 

And, it's that revolutionary attitude that gets me up every morning.  That's why I've always worked at startups.  Not for the $ or the drama.  I love big ideas.  Grockit is a big idea.  I'm honored to join this team. 

Now, I have to get back to work:)

 

Grin: BUMPNRUN productions

While I'm taking a little time off to play with the wife and kids, I've been tracking down old friends from Stanford u-grad class of 1995. Here (http://FunnyOrDie.com/m/54k1) are two of the funniests humans alive, on or off of Funny or Die, Branyon Davis (B-Luv) and Kevin Garnett (KG) with their latest, a spoof of Dos Equis ads, featuring the one and only Billy Dee Williams (see FunnyorDie embed below). 

You have probably seen BUMPNRUN work before, as I get a steady stream of updates about humorous ads they've created.  The name BUMPNRUN is a reference to a football defensive coverage technique, where the defenders on wide-outs get in the face of receivers and distrupt their progress up field before they can get into route.  That style of play is tough, it's physical, it's persistent.  That's how these two played, and, fittingly, that's what is required to get your brand of humor some visibility in Hollywood. 

I'm really happy for these guys.  Branyon was the first person I met at Stanford. He started off as a receiver and converted to defense, and because were hobbled with injuries for much of our freshman year, we spent a lot of time wise-crackin, sampling underground rap, and playing tunk. 

KG and I spent a little too much time on a pleather couch one Palo Alto summer, along with Craig Thompson.   We would watch crappy TV with the volume down and do voice-overs to entertain each other.  Trying to make he most out of basic cable, we'd make spoofs, and establish foolish positions, like computer generated images should be outlawed.  That memory is funny when considering all three of us would soon be working in Television -- Craig and I first at WebTV, and now Craig has been at Comcast for over ten years.  KG went right to the content side and never came back.  He is really good at what he does -- follow him at http://bumpnrunproductions.com/

 

 

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