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  • Customer support followup – Bose Headphones

    Last Thursday, my Bose Quiet Comfort 2 headphones broke. I was bummed, but hey, they were almost 10 years old, so I couldn’t complain about the life. I tweeted about it, and somebody (not Bose) said that I should call their support line, as they often offer smoking prices to exchange your broken headset with a new one.

    I figured, why not try.  So I called.

    After a very simple IVR, I got to the headphone area, and the agent was on immediately. No on hold music, no pitches while waiting for an agent. I got someone immediately.

    He was very helpful. I explained what happened, and was inquiring whether they could repair the set. The answer was no, but I could swap it for the 2 generation newer headphones for << 1/2 the price of a new set. I deliberated for a few seconds, and said why not.

    Turns out that I was in the system (the ear cups were crumbling a couple years ago, so I bought a new set from them online). This happened on Friday.

    Saturday, I took the prepaid shipper label, and hiked on over to the local UPS store.

    Tuesday, I got the email that they had established that I shipped the old ones back, and that they had shipped the new set to me. Since their shipping warehouse is in Tolleson AZ, they arrived on Wednesday.

    This AM, Thursday, I have my new headphones, and I am blissfully listening to my music at my desk. Awesome.

    The real pluses:

    • The process of navigating their IVR system was easy- peasy. It took like 2 touches of the dial pad to get to the headphones people. Nothing is more annoying than an IVR tree that is 4 or 5 layers deep.
    • Once I got to the headphone department, my call was answered instantly. No on hold music. No on hold sales pitches. A real live person. If you live and die by customer support, be sure to have enough agents to take calls quickly, and don’t try to sell people more stuff while they are waiting.
    • The agent was pleasant and very helpful. I went into the conversation thinking that if there wasn’t a reasonable ($25) repair option, I would just walk away. But he was quite effective at getting me to part with $130 for a new set of better headphones.

    Consequently, I will probably continue to be a Bose customer, at least for their noise canceling headphones.

    Well done!

  • Growing up Poor

    Perhaps I should clarify this provocative intro. My early childhood was well taken care of. Late 60’s, Sunnyvale California, father worked at a defense contractor (and made a good salary). I was too young to know that this made us solidly middle class. There weren’t many worries about money, and the essentials. Then, when I was in 1st grade, my mother decided that she wanted out. Divorce, sudden drop in income, and a pretty big change in life situations.

    While my mother kept the house, and my father was diligent about paying child support, it was a noticeable shift in stature. Again, I was pretty young, but I didn’t know better. My mother went through a string of men, finally marrying one that was probably the worst of the bunch. A sometimes working auto mechanic, he was an alcoholic, and abusive. The fights they would have. Wow. Anyhow, there were a lot of dodgy things during this time. My mother worked as a stenographer, a typist, and even as a hair stylist. My now stepfather worked maybe 2-3 days a week, and was pretty drunk the rest of the time.

    I remember all this with more than a little bit of the haze of time, but I do recall some things that affected me gravely, and affect me to this day.

    When I say “poor” I am don’t mean “Appalachian” poor. But, regardless of our neighborhood, and our appearances, we had a serious downgrade in our day to day existence.

    Some examples:

    • If you can’t afford the $6 a month to rent a band instrument, so you have to drop out of band.
    • If you qualify for the subsidized lunch program (and we certainly did, but pride and stubbornness prevented my parents from applying for it).
    • If most of your groceries come from the Dented Can warehouse. If you are there on Wednesday afternoon, when they got the new shipment. Nothing like label-less surprise for dinner. Will it be beans? or Chili?
    • If Tuna Casserole was a splurge. And not solid white, but the light chunk tuna.
    • If you used reconstituted powered milk for your cereal
    • If you ate a lot of bologna sandwiches on bread from the day old Hostess outlet.
    • You know what “government cheese” is.
    • If your vacation was illegal camping on private land.

    There were some things that were not skimped on. There was always money for cigarettes (2-3 cartons a week). There was money for whiskey.

    By the time I was in the 3rd grade, I began to realize that this wasn’t how everybody lived. I was what was called “gifted” in school, and pulled into special programs to allow me to grow at a faster pace. But it was here where I realized how different my family situation was than my new “peers”. Instead of thriving on the programs, I was almost resentful, as it laid bare how our opportunities were limited because of my mother’s fateful decision to seek a divorce.

    I had pretty much forgotten about all this, putting it far behind me until a few years ago. I was at a leadership offsite, with the 12 or so leaders of our organization. Part of the exercise was to do a brief biography of our lives. We shared many attributes, almost all of us delivered newspapers for instance, but there was one thing that stood out to me. Of the 12 people there, I was the only one who had parents who divorced. Biography after biography was a story of a charmed life, with a “normal” family. At that point, I realized that something was taken away from me without my knowing it.

    My mother has passed away, my abusive step father died very young, but to this day I am scarred by what happened in my formative years.

    I am not sure why after all this time, I need to share this, but I do. If  you read this far, thanks. Perhaps later posts will be the other joy of broken families, the political battle between the ex’s about custody and visitation, game playing where my siblings and I were the cards.

  • My first Street Bike – 1978 Honda CX500

    Not long after I started riding off road motorcycles, I came of age to get a learner’s permit. At the time, with a simple test, I could ride a motorcycle on the street (with surprisingly less restrictions than driving a car). So I was on the prowl for a good ride. I didn’t need a tame “starter” bike, as I had learned all the basics off road, so I was looking for something a little more mainstream.

    My first street bike, the "ugly duckling" CX500 was a very capable ride
    My first street bike, the “ugly duckling” CX500 was a very capable ride

    In 1978, Honda had launched their CX500, a 500cc v-twin, in an “unusual” configuration. It had the engine rotated 90 degrees, with the cylinders hanging out (like the venerable Motoguzzi). It was water cooled, shaft drive, and in all other aspects a normal bike.

    I think I got it for $1,000 used (in 1981 or so. Again, someone had bought it, and upgraded). It was a lot of fun to ride, and it handled remarkably well. The stock Dunlop tires were quickly shagged (plus they were some ungodly hard compound that was just awful) and I switched to continentals that greatly improved the ride and the feel of the bike.

    I rode the wheels off that thing, all over the south bay, along the coast, Big Basin way in Saratoga, highway 9 to skyline, and up to Alice’s. I probably put 25K miles on that thing in the 2 years I owned it.

    It all came to a horrible end when I wrecked it. I was on my way to work, and some sunday driver (it was sunday) on her way to church pulled out in front of me. Swerving to go behind her, she backed up to get out of my way. BAM. up and over the hood of the car, a perfect roll and I was on the ground. Fortunately the bike decided NOT to follow me over the car. I walked away from that with just a bruised wrist, and a thoroughly wrecked helmet. The bike was totaled.

    With the insurance money, I bought a street hooligan bike, a HOnda XL500, 1979 vintage. But that is for another post.

  • The first motorcycle I owned – 1979 Yamaha YZ125F

    I have had a string of bikes during my riding career, but the first one I actually bought with my own hard earned money is still something I recall fondly.  I had been riding a couple of years, being a roaring hellion on the Xl125, but I was beginning to hit the limits of what that bike could do. The attributes that make for a great starter bike soon become limitations. The soft power, the low seat height (which meant ~ 3.5″ of suspension travel), were things I wanted to get away from.

    The YZ125F. My first bike I bought.
    The YZ125F. My first bike I bought.

    Around this time, I started reading Dirtbike Magazine, and I fell big time for the Yamaha 1/8th liter motocrosser. It seemed to be the best package at the time. (The 79 Honda MXers had the abysmal 23″ front wheel that had NO tire selection). So, I saved my paper route money, and in early 1980, found a good used YZ125F for $600 (new they were $1,200). It would be a huge understatement to say I wasn’t excited.

    Of course, it had been raced all season at the PAL MX track, but hey, what can be wrong with a 1 year old bike? Ha ha ha.

    It ran OK when I bought it, but it seemed to be low in compression. I pulled the top end (something that was a regular occurrence on an air cooled 2-stroke MX bike), and the rings were way out of spec. Turned out that the “little bit of Piston Slap” was a clapped out bore. The top end probably hadn’t been done all season (when raced, you should replace rings every 8 hours of racing). No big deal, the local Yamaha shop bored it to the first over, and got me a set of rings, a piston, and gaskets.

    The first ride was fun. It was completely different than the XL125. It had more power everywhere, it had a short ratio transmission (on a long straight, the XL125 was geared for maybe 75mph top speed, the YZ was probably tapped out at 45mph), and the suspension was magic compared to the XL. Truly lightyears apart.

    I rode the wheels off that thing. Over the 5 years that I had it, we probably went riding 40 weekends a year, and it got ridden hard. But I did do the required maintenance. I think it was on the 3rd over bore, and I switched to the 2 ring Wiseco pistons to improve the life. Probably the best modification was adding a (very expensive to me) Metzler fron tire. Wow, what a difference in handling and control. Best $80 I ever spent.

    The bike ran great until the big end bearing grenaded. Did a lot of damage to the cylinder head, and forced a splitting of the cages.  I diligently got it rebuilt, but by the time I was done, I had my eyes on another bike, the 86 Honda XR250R, so the YZ was sold (for almost what I paid for it, ironically) and I was in line for the new ride.

  • Some of the best urban hooligan riding of all time – Skyfall Intro

    As someone who appreciates the art and practice of urban hooligan riding (riding a dual purpose motorcycle in a dense city, taking advantage of its size to go places never intended for vehicular travel). I used to scare the dickens out of people with some of the shit I used to do with my XL500, and (much later) XR650. Stairs, parks, alleys, and causeways between buildings were all acceptable shortcuts, and fair game.

    SkyfallThe early scenes in Skyfall show a chase that starts in cars, switches to motorcycles, and to a train. Set in Istanbul, Turkey, it is well choreographed, and the riding is top notch. Bond (Daniel Craig, or actually a stunt double) is chasing the bad guy through alleys, on roofs, and in bazars. Masterful.

    (I know, it is a bit late to finally be seeing the movie, but I typically wait for it to hit Netflix)

  • Product Marketing/Management Partition

    I have started this blog posting several times, and have been diverted each time. It is a complex topic, and it almost seems like heresy, but I believe it needs to be said.

    There has been much said on the roles of Product Management, and Product Marketing. There are firms who have well developed frameworks, and extensive training to help you get to a “good” state. In particular, I am familiar with the Pragmatic Marketing work, and the Blackblot BOK*. Both have similarities, and both are profoundly helpful. But…

    The first But…

    Perhaps for me, it goes back to when I started in product management. There really wasn’t a BOK to draw upon. There was literature, but the vast majority in the pre-Google days was centered on packaged consumer goods, and product managers were much more like General Managers of a business, or business unit (today, they would be better described as “Brand Managers”). Enter the tech world. I was a new product manager, climbing a steep curve. I had to know my markets. Cold. I had to know the dynamics of my business. Cold. I had to know my product inside and out. I had to know enough of the technology to talk to the engineers (hint: It was electron microscopy. I.e. lots of physics, quantum mechanics, E&M etc). I had to be the point of sales enablement. There was no segmentation of the role. No partitioning. No delegation of the responsibility. It was just me. Sure, I had peers, but they all had businesses to run. We all learned together, and we all eeked out path forward.

    So, when I see a framework where the role is partitioned, I am immediately skeptical. Not that it is a bad idea. Lord knows that the all in one product manager is a tough place to be. But there is comfort with having all the bits and pieces within grasp. When I see a recommendation to split the role into two, I worry about how each half will work together to make the whole picture.

    The second But…

    Can you be successful at only half of the role? This is a question that really bends my mind. To me, the Technical Product Manager (or product manager), whose role is mostly limited to the bottom-left portion of the Pragmatic Framework (below the descriptive bar, to the left of Programs) is really not a product manager. Sure there are some meaty tasks, knowing the competitive landscape, assessing the technology, managing the roadmap, but it is commonly held that this role delivers and hands off a product to the product marketing manager (or product marketer), who then owns and drives the business aspects (GTM, positioning, pricing, promotion, sales enablement etc.)

    The theory is that the product marketer will hand down to the product manager the input from the market, direct VoC feedback, a semi-prioritized set of features. In return the product manager then cranks out the detailed product development plan and cycle. A pretty thankless job, if you ask me.

    The product marketing manager then is responsible for all the interesting parts of the job. The marketing component, including win/loss, Go to Market strategy, distribution, pricing, business case building, the market problems, and much more.

    Blackblot breaks this down a little differently, essentially calling the product marketer as handling all the inbound data flows, processing and passing them to the product manager, who creates requirements, and drives the development process.

    Either model leaves me thinking that the parties are not whole.

    If the product marketer is completely disconnected from the nuts and bolts of the development process, their understanding of core competencies is incomplete, as well as their understanding of the team’s capacity, capabilities, and past performance. This leads to some pretty wild miscommunications and mis-set expectations of deliverables. I have often seen this manifest itself in promising more than can be achieved, and then being stunned/angry/indignant when plans go awry.

    On the other side of the fence, if the product manager is insulated from the business and marketing aspects of the organization and product, then they are like the boy in the bubble. This leads to a disconnect, disenchantment, and disfranchisement.

    Compounding this, is the fact that the two roles will often report into two different organizations (marketing, and engineering are common), with different comp plans, and most importantly incompatible objectives set. Thus while their success is often so intertwined, they are paid on such orthogonal metrics, that neither will be inclined to help the other be successful

    The way forward:

    It is my belief that there is plenty of work to justify two different people for these roles. But to manage towards success, it is critical that they are not insular. Your product manager needs to have some skin in the game on the inbound marketing-like activities. Likewise, the product marketer needs to have some shared experiences in the trenches. This helps them understand why their preferred prioritization may not make it into the product plan. Also, it helps them understand the dynamics of the development team, the process, and gives them a fuller view.

    Lastly, and this is for a mature organization, I believe that both roles should report to a single leader. Splitting their allegiances to two departments will dilute their mutual goals, and purpose. They both need to have visibility into the other’s objectives, and ideally have some skin in the game. If you have product management and product marketing at odds, you have a truly dysfunctional team.

    Summary

    To steal a page from Hewlett Packard, “Product Marketing is too important to leave to Marketing” rings true. Yes, it is marketing, but it is really a component of product management, and the goal is to build kick-ass products, that delight customers, are easy to sell, and are widely applicable. The Pragmatic framework offers a great guide, and having the three chief roles they talk to, marketing, product marketing, and product management is important, more crucial is to have all parties on the same page, rowing in the same direction.

    To me, that is what defines a great product management organization. Do you have it? What are you doing to get there if not?

    The future will bring a post that describes how to develop each role to peak efficiency

    —

    • BOK = Body of Knowledge

  • Awesome Customer Support – Bose

    A lot of people have complained that Bose is over priced for what you get, and that their quality isn’t that high. But I beg to differ.

    Back in 2004 or so, I got a set of Bose QC-2 headphones for my birthday. I was doing a lot of international traveling, and the headset was a godsend. No, it didn’t eliminate all noise, but it really reduced the jet engine noise, and make listening to music on 12 or 13 hour flights bearable. Of course, I took them everywhere. Probably 500K miles total.

    Lately, I have been using them in the office, to give me some uninterrupted peace and quiet while working. They are great (if a little battery thirsty).

    My well used Bose QC-2's finally bite the dust.
    My well used Bose QC-2’s finally bite the dust.

    Yesterday afternoon, the left ear cup parted ways with the frame. Boo. Geoff very sad. I was majorly depressed, and went back to listening to my earbuds, a much less satisfying experience.

    This afternoon, I figured, what the hell, call Bose support. So I call their support line, get a person almost immediately, and explain the issue. He was super friendly and helpful, and after identifying my model, and the serial number (I was in their system, because a couple years ago, the foam ear cup pads were falling apart, so I ordered a new pair).

    They can’t fix them, but they gave me a 60% discount on a new pair of the QuietComfort 15, two steps up from my current set. I said, let’s go for it. I am expecting a UPS label to ship the current ones back to them on their dime, and once they get confirmation that they are in transit, they will ship my new ones to me.

    So, I wasn’t looking to spend that much money, but I am glad to get a new set.

    Thumbs up to Bose support.

  • What I learned to ride on.

    Probably in 1977 or so, I began my experience with motorcycles. I was too young to have my permit for the street, so naturally, we did the off road thing. Recently I have been reliving my youth, and sharing some experiences, so I thought I would go back even further to the first bikes I rode.

    Hard to imagine a better learning point.
    Hard to imagine a better learning point.

    We had a pair of Honda XL125’s, 1976. Red tank, black plastic, mild steel rims, and the street legal trials tires. The lights were removed, and we did replace the rear tire with a true knobby, but otherwise, the bikes were stock.  Probably had 3″ of suspension travel, and since they were “road/trail” bikes, they had soft-ish suspension for that good in showroom feel.

    They were both bought used. These were pretty common, if you recall the gas crises of the ’70s, that drove a lot of people to riding motorcycles, this class of mild, beginner friendly bike was a good learning platform. But you quickly outgrew the bike, so you bought something bigger, and sold your “starter bike”.

    I do remember my first trip. We went to Metcalf, a riding place south of San Jose, and learned the basics in the big, open parking area. Clutch, shifting, braking, how to steer/turn/stop. Later in the day we tried some of the easier trails in the park, and I was hooked.

    Yes, I fell a lot, got a bunch of scrapes, but there was a thrill factor that was impossible to ignore.

    We rode the hell out of those bikes. I learned all the trails at Metcalf, then we moved on to Hollister Hills (another ORV park), and spent pretty much every weekend riding. During the week I fixed broken levers, did maintenance, lubed chains, checked the valves, etc.

    I wonder whatever happened to those bikes. We rode them hard for probably 7-8 years, most weekends, and with just a modicum of maintenance, they all ran perfectly.

    Next, I will talk about the first bike I actually bought myself.

  • Blast from the Past: Kawasaki Bighorn 350

    On my way home every day, at a trailer park there is facing the road a motorcycle trailer with something that is from the deep past. A Kawasaki Bighorn 350cc “enduro” bike. A friend in high school rode one, and we gave him a ton of shit for it.

    Starting in the early 1970’s Japanese off road motorcycles started redefining the dirt bike experience in the US. Prior to that, you had a lot of heavy, ill tempered, and unreliable European bikes. Jawa’s, Greeves, CZ’s, Maico’s, and Bultaco’s were the bee’s knees. But they were heavy, mostly poorly handling monstrosities.

    350cc's, disc valved, two stroke
    350cc’s, disc valved, two stroke

    Then came the Japanese. Starting with Suzuki, but soon Honda, Yamaha, and Kawasaki all had credible offerings. Motocross was never the same after.

    Then the Japanese tried to increase the market by building a series of “dual purpose” or on/off road bikes. These were really bad, by and large. The Yamaha DT400, the Honda XL350, and the Kawasaki Bighorn 350 were all touted as “commute all week, race on the weekend”, but the reality was that they were lousy on road bikes, and truly abysmal off road. The street legal “trials tires” coupled with too soft suspension, and motors that buzzed like a banshee made them skittish at highway speeds. Off road?  Well, I hope you had good health insurance.

    I got a chance to ride the Kawasaki Bighorn. It was modified (it had better shocks and stiffer fork springs), and had real knobbies, but it was still an evil handling, handful of a motorcycle. Fortunately I lived through that experience.

    I think about stopping and asking if they want to sell the bike, but then my brain starts working again, and I realize if I am going to restore a classic, it isn’t going to be a “Pighorn”

     

  • Geek Warning: Mathematics being spoken

    I work with atomic force microscopes (AFM’s). At their heart is a PID control system that keeps the probe doing the right thing, and giving us ultra high resolution images of a variety of things (topography, elasticity, etc). But I realized that I knew little about actual control systems. I was not an engineering student in university, so I wasn’t exposed to the concepts.

    Now I am diving in. Fortunately, there is a ton of great information on the web about the theory and practice of control systems, so that is cool. However, it is clear that my physics degree, while heavily laden with mathematics, was deficient in discrete mathematics. In physics, in general, you look for closed form solutions. Thus you are integrating and differentiating continuous functions to get to a solution. Mostly, you don’t care about numbers and numerical values. That is something that a calculator can give you with the equation you generate.

    However, engineers deal with concrete things. Forces, lever ratios, stasis, and most importantly actual real world values for their problems. As such, they use a lot of mathematical modeling, and computers to simulate results. Hence, the use of discrete mathematics instead of continuum mathematics.

    Of course, I took numerical analysis, and numerical methods for physics, and have hacked around enough in Matlab to know some of the basics, but I got that information empirically, not from first principals.

    Now I am filling in that gap.