Messed-Up App of the Day

A couple of weeks ago, I returned from the Miracle Oracle Open World 2009 event held in Rødby, Denmark. I go just about every year to this event. This time, I had accepted an invitation from Chris Antognini to speak at his company's TrivadisOPEN event in Zürich. So my travel planning was a little more complicated than it usually is. Instead of finding a simple trip from DFW to Copenhagen and back, this time I had to book a triangle: DFW to Zürich to Copenhagen, and then back to DFW.

I was surprised at how difficult it was to find a good schedule at a good price; it was a lot harder than my normal booking. I ended up finding a suitable enough itinerary at Orbitz. I usually fly American Airlines, but for this trip, the AA flights were much more expensive than I wanted to pay. But I found an itinerary that used British Airways and Air Berlin that I liked. So I booked it.

The trip went just fine. On the morning of the final day of my trip, Dan Norris and I were standing together in Kastrup at the BA ticket counter when the BA agent noticed that I hadn't provided my American Airlines AAdvantage number for the itinerary. (BA and AA are oneworld partners.) So I gave him the number, which he attached to my itinerary, and he informed me that the number would map only to the segments of my flight that I hadn't consumed yet (I had CPH-LHR and then LHR-DFW left to go). I'd need to request credit for my flights prior in the week separately on the web once I got home.

Fine.

So on Monday after I got home, I went to AA.com to register my BA flights for mileage credit. There was a form to fill out. It took a while to type everything into it, because I had to find my ticket numbers, figure out how to isolate the carrier id from the remainder of the ticket number, and then enter date and flight number information for each segment of my trip for which I was requesting credit. It was probably a 10-minute time investment to get the form filled out.

So I reviewed what I had entered, and then I hit the Submit button. Instantly, I got feedback from the page saying that I couldn't request mileage credit right now, that I would have to wait 15 days before requesting mileage credit. So I recoiled a little bit—filling out that form was a bunch of work—and I opened my calendar application to log myself a reminder to go through the process again in 15 days.

There are a couple of problems here:

1. Why did the form force me to enter a bunch of details before telling me that I shouldn't be using this form?
2. Why was it necessary in the first place for me to type in the flight date, flight number, and origin and destination information for each segment of the itinerary? The ticket number should have been enough.

The simple way to fix both these problems is to do what ba.com does: it asks only who I am and what my ticket number is, and it figures out everything else.

Anyway...

The fifteen days passed, and my calendar reminded me to submit my mileage credit form. So I went to work again, gathering my ticket number information, my flight numbers, my dates of travel, and my origin/destination airport codes. I spent another few minutes typing it all in again. Then I clicked Submit. This time: joy. The form said that the submission was complete, and I'd hear back from AA.com via email.

A minute or so later, I got an email in my inbox thanking me for visiting AA.com and confirming that I had issued a mileage credit request. Good: request confirmed.

Then, just a second or two later, I got a second email from AA.com saying this:

Thanks for using AA.com to request mileage credit for your travel on British Airways.

I'm sorry to disappoint you but your transatlantic travel on British Airways (or a BA-ticketed flight) is not eligible for AAdvantage mileage credit. British Airways transatlantic flights to/from the United States are specifically excluded from mileage accrual or redemption in the AAdvantage program.

Grrrr.... I had to work this hard—twice!—just to find out that I wasn't even going to get to do what I wanted to do? Why didn't they tell me this fifteen days ago?!

The first experience was annoying. The second experience took the annoyance to a whole new level.

Here are some application design lessons that this story reinforces:

1. Don't ask for information you can derive.
   
2. Don't separate feedback from its prerequisite input by any more "distance" (measured in either time or user investment) than absolutely necessary. Especially when there's a chance you're going to deny someone his service, don't make him work any harder or wait any longer than absolutely necessary to let him know.

Of these lessons, number one is far and away the most important. If the AA.com site had asked just for the ticket number like ba.com does, the pain of the other problems wouldn't have been that big of a deal.

My Friend Oliver

Oliver Weers has been my friend for several years now. I met him at one of Mogens Nørgaard's fantastic events in Denmark, and it's at these events that I see Oliver once or twice a year.

Oliver is a DBA who works for CSC. Like a lot of people I've met in Denmark, he's a very sharp guy. Like a lot of people I've met who are DBAs, he has hobbies outside of work. I have a lot of fun talking to him, and I enjoy when I get to cross his path.

Oliver is particularly special, because his outside hobby is that he's a rock star.

...Not the "finger quotes" kind of rock star like Don Knuth or Chris Date. I mean Oliver is an actual rock star, like Joe Elliott or David Coverdale. Well, he'd probably be embarrassed by that characterization, but that's where I hope his ship is headed. A lot of people in Europe already know Oliver because of his performance on the TV show "X Factor," which is a Danish show that's similar to "American Idol."

I'm excited for Oliver lately because he has just released his first album called Get Ready. If you like your Whitesnake, I think you'll like Oliver. (He'll be warming up for Whitesnake on December 19th in front of 7,000 people at K. B. Hallen in Copenhagen.)

Here's a fun sample from the X Factor show. Try to hold it together for the first couple of minutes. Remember, it's like American Idol where half the fun is to see how bad it can get. Oliver kicks in at 2:22 to straighten things out.

So if you're interested in the Rock Music, have a look at him. Hit Oliver's MySpace page for a good idea of what he's got. This Calling Out For You video is good, too (including a nice interview på Dansk, with a little operatic demo thrown in there for good measure). Good song, and it's kind of fun to remember that this guy can rock in sqlplus, too.

So, please join me in wishing Oliver the very best of luck. He's worked hard at this for many years—the whole time holding down a pretty tricky job. I hope he'll become a huge overnight success worldwide sometime real soon.

C. J. Date at Symposium 2009

I'm excited to announce that we have just arranged for Chris Date to speak at the upcoming Hotsos Symposium (hosted by our friends at Hotsos, 9–12 March 2009 near DFW Airport). Karen Morton just closed the deal with Chris a few minutes ago: he will deliver a keynote and then two one-hour technical sessions.

Here is a chance to meet one of the men who invented the whole field in which so many of us earn our livings today. This as an incredible opportunity.

I'll hope to see you there.

A Lesson in Writing from 1944

I watched the Presidential debate tonight. One of the candidates mentioned a pair of letters that General Dwight David Eisenhower wrote in 1944. He wrote one letter that he would use in the event of a victorious Normandy invasion, and he wrote another one that he would use in the event of a defeat.

I was curious about those letters, so I googled for them. I found something interesting in a way that I didn't expected. Here's the text of the letter that General Eisenhower wrote in case the invasion force at Normandy had been defeated:

Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone. —July 5

Here is a picture of the handwritten note, which I found at archives.gov:



The handwritten note contains some important information that isn't present in the transcribed text alone. Observe that General Eisenhower edited his message. He actually edited himself three times; I'll refer here only to the top one. Here's the original version:

Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and the troops have been withdrawn.

Here's the modified version:

Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops.

The difference is subtle but important. In grammatical terms, General Eisenhower made the choice to discard passive voice and adopt the direct, subject-verb-object style of active voice. One Wikipedia article that I particularly admire identifies passive voice as a tactic of weasel wording: "Weasel words are usually expressed with deliberate imprecision with the intention to mislead the listeners or readers into believing statements for which sources are not readily available."

In Eisenhower's original version, he had stated that "the troops have been withdrawn." From this statement, we would have learned some information about the troops, but we would not have learned directly about who had withdrawn them. This passive-voice language, "the troops have been withdrawn," would have subtly conveyed the notion that the author wished to conceal the identity of the decision-maker about the withdrawal.

In the modified version, General Eisenhower made it abundantly clear who had made the decision: he did. The revised wording is more informative, it is more efficient, and it is more courageous.

Active-voice writing holds several advantages over passive-voice writing. I've learned this in my work, especially in consulting engagement reports, where I've found it's essential to write with active voice. Advantages of active-voice writing include:

• Active voice transmits more information to the reader.
• Active voice is plainer and simpler; it is easier to read.
• Active voice is often more economical; it conveys as much or more information in fewer words.
• Active voice is often more courageous.

The value of courage is obvious in the Eisenhower case. Even if the Allies had been defeated at Normandy, Eisenhower was courageous enough to accept the responsibility for the plan, its execution, and even its remediation.

Courage is also important in our writing about technology. Writing with active voice can be much more difficult than writing with passive voice. ...Because, you see, active voice gives you noplace to hide. When you know something, you say it. When you don't, active voice writing pretty much forces you to say that. It can be quite unsettling to admit to your audience that you don't know everything you wish you knew. It takes courage.

If you find yourself ashamed that your writing is too vague or that it asks more questions than it answers, then I think you have only four choices. (1) You can decide not to write anymore because it's too hard; (2) You can try to conceal your deficiencies with weasel wording; (3) You can admit the gaps in your work; or (4) You can improve the quality of your own knowledge.

Of course, I don't believe that giving up is the right answer. Option two—concealing your deficiencies with weasel wording—is, I think, by far the worst option of the four. Choice three frightens a lot of people, but actually it's not so bad. I believe that one of the great successes of the modern wiki- and forum-enabled Internet is the ease with which an author can voice unfinished ideas without feeling out of place. The fourth option is a fantastic solution if you have the time, the inclination, and the talent for it.

Back to General Eisenhower's note... I find his edit inspiring. By making it, he reveals something about his thought process. He wrote his original text in the common, politically safe "tasks have been executed" kind of way. But his edit reveals that it was especially important to him to be direct and forthcoming about who was making the decisions here, and who was at fault in case those decisions went wrong.

Knowing that General Eisenhower edited his note in the particular way that he did actually makes me respect him even more than if he had written it in active voice in the first place.

* * *

Here's where I thought I was finished for the evening. But I want to show you what it looks like to execute faithfully upon my own bitter advice. Eisenhower's letter piqued my interest in the D-Day invasion of Normandy. One thing I noticed is that the invasion was initiated on June 6, 1944. Eisenhower's memo is dated "July 5." Uh, that's a month after the invasion, not the night before. It was another hour or so of writing lots more stuff (which I've long since deleted) before I googled "eisenhower message june july" and found this, which states simply that, "The handwritten message by General Eisenhower, the In Case of Failure message, is mistakenly dated 'July' 5 instead of 'June' 5."

Ok. I can accept this as authoritative for my own purposes, for one, because it doesn't matter too much to me tonight if it's not true. It's a plausible mistake to imagine a man making who's under as much pressure as he would have been on June 5, 1944. For comparison, I could barely remember my own phone number on the night of the Loma Priete earthquake, which I rode out in the Foster City Holiday Inn in 1989. But of course, such an anecdote about me is no proof of this particular proposition about Dwight D. Eisenhower.

So, do you see what I mean when I say that writing is HARD!? The act of writing itself—if you try to do it well—forces you to do work that you never intended to do when you set out to write your piece.

That's one of the good things about the software industry. When someone makes a statement about computer software, I can confirm or refute the statement myself using strace, DTrace, 10046, block dumps, or some other research tool that I can actually get my hands on. That doesn't make it easy, but it usually does make it at least possible.

Miracle Open World 2008 presentation

Have a look at the video abstract for my Miracle Open World 2008 presentation, "Millsap's Grand Unified Theory of 'Tuning'."

Business of Software 2008, day 2

Greetings from the second and final day of "Business of Software 2008, the first ever Joel on Software conference."

Yesterday was a hard act to follow, but today met the challenge. Today's roster:

• Steve Johnson, of Pragmatic Marketing
  
• Tom Jennings, of Summit Partners
  
• Richard Stallman, founder of Free Software Foundation
  
• Noam Wasserman, from Harvard Business School
  
• Mike Milinkovich, of Eclipse Foundation
  
• Steve Krug, author of Don't Make Me Think
  
• Joel Spolsky, of Fog Creek Software
  

Some of today's highlight ideas for me (again, with apologies to the speakers for the crude summarization):

• Nothing is difficult to someone who doesn't know what he's talking about. (Johnson)
• Creating more artifacts and meetings is no answer. (Johnson)
• Entrepreneurs are better entrepreneurs when they're not worried about their personal balance sheet. (Jennings)
• "In the software field, we don't have to deal with the perversions of matter." (Stallman)
• VCs say 65% of failed new ventures are the result of people problems with founding or management teams. (Wasserman)
• Websites are successful to the extent they're self-evident as possible. (Krug)
• Sensible usability testing is absolutely necessary and, better yet, possible and even inexpensive. You can even download a script at Steve's site. (Krug)
• The huge chasm between #1 and #2 is all about elements of happiness, aesthetics, and culture. (Spolsky)

Steve Johnson and Steve Krug gave truly superb presentations. Steve Krug I knew about beforehand, from his book. Steve Johnson I did not know, but I do now. These are people I'll take courses from someday. And of course, Joel Spolsky... I had seen him speak before, so I knew what to expect. He's one of the best speakers I've ever watched. I've asked him to keynote at Hotsos Symposium 2009. We'll see what he says.

Business of Software 2008, day 1

Greetings from Boston, where I'm attending "Business of Software 2008, the first ever Joel on Software conference."

It has been fantastic so far. Here's a featured presenters roll call for the day:

• Seth Godin, author of ten bestselling books about marketing
  
• Jason Fried of 37signals
• Eric Sink of SourceGear
• Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot
• Jessica Livingston of Y Combinator, author of Founders at Work
• Paul Kenny of Ocean Learning
  

That's not to mention the eight Pecha Kucha presentations, although I will mention two that I particularly enjoyed by Jason Cohen of SmartBear Software ("Agile marketing") and Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit ("How to start, run, and sell a web 2.0 startup"). Alexis won the contest, which netted him a new MacBook Air. Not bad for 6 minutes 40 seconds of work. ;-)

Here are some of the highlight ideas of the day for me (with apologies to the speakers for, in some cases, crudely over-simplifying their ideas):

• Ideas that spread win. (Godin)
  
• The leader of a tribe begins as a heretic. (Godin, Livingston)
• Premature optimization is bad. In business too. Not just code. (Fried, Shah)
• Interruptions are bad. Meetings are worse. (Fried, Sink, Livingston)
• "Only two things grow forever: businesses and tumors." Unless you take inelligent action. (Fried)
• Pricing is hard. Really, really hard. (Shah)
• Business plans are usually stupid. (Fried, Shah, Livingston)
  
• Software specs are usually stupid. (Fried)
  
• An important opportunity cost of raising VC money is the time you're not spending working on the business of your actual business. (Shah)
• The most common cause of startup failure isn't competition, it's fear. (Livingston)
• Your first idea probably sucks. (Fried, Sink, Shah, Livingston)
• Radical mood swings are part of the territory for founding a company. (Livingston)

An overarching belief that I think bonds almost all of the 300 people here at the event is this: If you're not working on your passion, then you're wasting yourself. It is inspiring to met so many people at one time who are living courageously without compromising this belief. Re-SPECT.

I think a good conference should provide three main intellectual benefits for people:

1. You can expose yourself to new ideas, which can make you wiser.
2. You can fortify some of the beliefs you already had, which can make you more confident.
3. You can learn better ways to explain your beliefs to others, which can make you more effective.

And then of course there's networking, fun, and all that stuff—that's easy. So far, this event is ringing the bell on every dimension that I needed. Absolutely A+.