That’s the question suggested by my bank! You see, I have three things through Suncorp: bank accounts, credit cards, and insurances. I opened an account back in time and have stayed and expanded my business with them over the years as they pay better interest and their insurances seem to have a good price/value position. Though, I haven’t tested what else I would get by paying more to another company.

Now, I have been taught the hard way by Suncorp that when I move houses, I need to tell them my address. Naturally, telling once would be easy. Thus, I call them with my new address. “Thanks, I’ve now updated your address in our system”. Quick and easy! The bank send their advertisement and statements to the right address from day 1.
Until I discover that I need to call again, to tell the exactly same story again to the insurance people, who start pondering what to do with my policies, whether I was covered since my move and when will the cover be OK again. Come another month, and thanks to the Australia Post mail forwarding service, I notice that the credit card bills still lack the current address. So, a third call to the bank. I should record the story and just play it from the tape, as my mouth is getting dry and frustration levels up! Didn’t I already call them twice earlier? When does the change go through? How many addresses do I need with them? How many more times I need to call them?

The underlying question, of course, is what else there is? When can I trust that all my mail come to me? What information has fallen into wrong hands when they have been delivered to any of the old addresses? Bluntly, the bank breaches my trust in them!

This was highlighted again when one of my kids lost the PIN code for the ATM cashcard. After a couple of calls to Suncorp phone banking and a visit to a branch, the PIN code hadn’t arrived in two months. So, a new visit to a branch with a question about the address they have sent the PIN code to. Yes, you guessed, the one we moved out a year ago! Why there, since the new address was notified immediately and all the statements are sent to the current address? Makes one wonder what other banking information has been sent to the old address?

To recap: Suncorp presents itself as one corporate entity in public, with both banking and insurance managed through the branches. But nevertheless, I need to inform them three times of the new address, and yet we find critical mail going to the old one.
Why, just why, Suncorp? In this information age, year 2011, one could think that you would already have implemented a half-decent CRM! With that only one, one single call would have been enough! Grow up from the seventies, will you, please!

Will you notice how they approach various things, how they express the way things are, how things should be in their opinion? My ears catch nowadays often how peple actually talk in negative. They talk what’s out, instead of what’s in. They tell how things should not be, but don’t state how they ought to be.

I’ve learned to listen to this for three reasons:
+ When you read dog bearing guides, they tell you how to educate new dogs in the family. You reward for the good and punish for the bad. You clearly let the dog know what’s in in, by communicating positive when the dog behaves as expected.

+ When you read child bearing guides, they apply the same principle: you always need to let the child know what’s expected and right, and reward then he does that. It’s not enough to forbid, but you also need to point to the correct, acceptable behaviour.

Some actually go even further by stating that you should avoid even mentioning the incorrect so that the words aren’t left lingering in the brain, or inadvertently heard incorrectly. This same theory is presented also in the man-raising books for women…

Saying "Don’t leave them here" has the risk of being heard or memorised as "leave them here", while what you really mean – of course – is "put them over there, please". And that should be conveyed according to these distinguished experts.

+ All those ‘positive thinking’ converts we have around us, who are always ready to tell you how wonderful the life will be when you emphasise the good in your life, and discard the bad.

All these have influenced me and – observant as I am – I’ve started to listen how people express things. This was sparked again this morning, when a friend in the US wrote on her Facebook wall "Never forget!".She was referring to the 9/11 10-year remembrance weekend they were having. A similar expression is used also in Australia about remembering those fallen or wounded in the wars: "Lest we forget".

Now we come to the question: these are expressed in the negative, what not to do. Can we express this also in the positive while still retaining the message? Yes, we can. Both Bob the Builder and Barak Obama know this "Yes, we can" side, and so can we, too.

"Always remember!" and "That we would always remember" would be my direct translations of those above. First one is short and pointy, the second one a bit longer, so you may want to shorten it. There’s a subtle difference between the original versions, but perhaps you can generalise enough and use the "Always remember" for both.

This same applies to so many other statements, too. People use the negative surprisingly lot, also in situations where the expression would actually be much more direct and to-the-point when told in the positive. Instead of mentioning "Don’t do that", say "Do this". It clearly articulates what you’d like to happen. "I don’t think this is a good idea". OK, so what do you do think then, what would be a better way? Perhaps it can be dressed as "I think this would be better if we did…".

The list of examples could go on for eternity, but you already get the idea: you can almost everytime replace the negative with the positive and be more constructive in your talk. You can be more encouraging. More explicit. Influential. Upbeat. I believe you can also be more engaging, getting people better on your side. Besides, you say what you mean, while leaving out what you didn’t mean. In other words, you gain clarity in the expression.

From my experience, being a yes-man is a double-edged sword. I enjoy talking from the better side, from the positive approach. But sometimes it bugs me big time when people talk in the negative in vain, when they could so easily express the matter in a better way. It’s distracting at its worst. But even then I do enjoy the constant yes.

I challenge you: be in the positive, in the affirmative, say what you mean, be in the "Yes, we can" camp for a week! Deliberately watch for your negative expressions and replace them with the positive ones.

This may take some watching and practice, especially if you are used to the negative expressions. But you’ll get the idea quickly and start converting your speech. What comes out of it, how you’ll find it, it completely up to you. But I’m confident you’ll like it.

Give it a go! Nothing to loose, much to gain!

When lacking maturity, things are done with lot of guesswork, individuals do things their way, and activities are not repeatable. Increasing in maturity involves knowing what is done, how it’s done, and who does what. When we go far enough, the question is turned around: are we doing the right things? The worthwhile things are then done well.

You would think that well established, reputable companies would have gone through this, and would manage their activities with fair maturity. My example comes from Nick Scali, the mid-to-upscale seller for quality furniture. They clearly yarn to be amongst the better ones, though not at the true upscale market with e.g. King Furniture. Rather the retailer of choice for quality conscious, well-enough-to-do upper middle-class and lower upper-class. They have been operating for 40+ years, so their operating model should be well honed, many times finetuned and rehearsed.

My example also tells that there’s a lot you can wish but sometimes little you’ll gain.
After touring a number of retailers for a lounge, my better half and me concluded that a model at Nick Scali is by far the best suited to us. A-Mart didn’t meet our expectations, some other lower-end chains didn’t have a chance, King and some other upscales in the Valley didn’t fit our style and requirements for comfort, so Nick it was.

The deal was done in a good-spirited mood with a nice and well presented saleslady. The delivery time would be 10 – 12 weeks and we’d get a call to organise the delivery. SO far all good.
After 13 weeks I called the store to check on the delivery, to hear it’s due to arrive in the warehouse at the end of the week. So I set to wait for the delivery. Two weeks later a new call, this time directly to the warehouse to organise the delivery. Very unfriendly, blunt comment "it’ll be on 1/6" was the response, with scheduling to occur the day before and call coming the same day. Nice, if you are home all day, but having 75 mins from work to home doesn’t really cut (assuming I can leave immediately and the train arrives the same minute).

On Monday it was time for another call, and this brings me to the organisational maturity. Perhaps I’ve been working too much with processes, business analysts, etc, as I hoped they could be able to tell me an approximate time for the delivery (given everything goes well on the day). And what do we have now: a four hour time window: "we can do it between 9 am and 1 pm". "Are you able to estimate it any further, like within one hour bracket?" They can’t do, impossible, was the answer.

I wrote feedback through their website and got a call from their supervisor (?) stating the same in a more friendly manner – it’s impossible to estimate how long the loading takes in the morning when the driver inspects all items, and how long it takes with each customer to assemble the furniture.

The maturity comes into the play like this: for all items sold the company could over time develop understanding what components are included. E.g. in our lounge we’ll have three pieces (recliner, middle section, chaise). This enables them to understand how long it takes to inspect & load them onto the truck. The delivery route has been planned, and the company should over time know how long does it take to assemble each piece of furniture. Give or take some extra to deal with the customers, do the paperwork, and all sundry, you should have an idea on the timings. Modern route-planning tools would also tell how long do the trips take from one address to another.

Let’s put this all together. Say, we have 10 deliveries to make, two of them are for furniture A (for customers 1 and 3), rest for B – I one each. A takes 8 minutes to load, all the others normally 4 minutes each. Assembly is on average 20 minutes for A, 15 minutes for four other items, and 10 minutes for the rest. The paperwork, collection of money, etc takes 10 min, and carrying the pieces in and rubbish out another 10 min. For simplicity, let’s say the drive to the first customer takes 45 minutes, all the rest are within 15 minutes from each other.
We start at 7 am. The load would be 48 minutes but lets round it up to 1 hour. It’s 8 am now.
We drive to the first customer, arriving close to 8:45.
Carry in, unpack, assemble, rubbish, paperwork, all together 40 minutes. It’s 9:25 now.
Drive to the customer 2, arrive at 9:40. Stay there for 35 minutes, until 10:15.
Customer 3 hears the door bell at 10:30, and it’s all done around 11:10.
You’ll get the idea by now…

Based on the above, I would have been happy to get an estimate "You have been included in the 9 am – 1 pm delivery run, and we’ll arrive between 10:30 – 11:30, staying for 30 – 45 minutes." That would give me the opportunity to plan my day around it, instead of booking literally the whole day off as I could guarantee only 2:30 pm arrival in the office..

And what happened in real life? The delivery driver called on 9:50 his advance warning and knocked on the door at 10:55. The assembly and paperwork was all done at 11:25, including 5 minutes to check and record a minor issue. This was very close to the time window estimated above by a complete layman. Funny, that the professionals can’t reach that…

By the way, can I say that if the drivers inspect the items while loading, would it be reasonable for them to spot the issue we had: felt pen (?) markings across a side of one of the elements, clearly visible when you lift the wrapping? Perhaps they rather count the items than actually check them. If that’s the case, there goes lot of complexity and delay off from the warehouse loading area work, and the departure time from the warehouse is much more predictable. Assuming the staff picking the items for them have found everything for them. If not, the supply chain has let them down.

I fully agree that delivering furniture from factory to clients can be a somewhat complex process at times. That’s why supply chain management and logistics are professions nowadays. I’ve seen the planners at work, observed them in a multi-productline factory for long, so I know to appreciate the challenge of coordinating incoming deliveries through the production bottlenecks and to the customers. Just in Time (JIT) operations take time to master but once you get on top of it and can tune your whole supply chain to sync, it’s well predictable. They could tell normally two weeks in advance when the product was ready for pickup on the loading dock, within a 15 min margin.

Overall, the service in the showroom was very good, the delivery guys did their job efficiently and in a friendly manner. When the delivery coordination lightens up and uses what they have for the customers’ advantage, we’re talking of good service, quality experience. One, which is created by maturity in operations.

The photos are of the chinese lanterns illuminated for the Buddha Birthday bash in South Bank at the end of April Each year. It looks pretty – well worth a visit.

The operator in these has been Virgin Mobile, part of the Richard Branson Royal Empire. Moderate flagfall, and call charges billed by the second made the quick calls cost around 30c, half a minute was whopping 60c to any network. Until recently, when they have been lifting the prices. In today’s pricing the quick call would be around 45c, half a minute 80c. If, and only if the fee structure had stayed the same.

There was one fundamental change to the fee structure which made the costs jump. This became apparent when my son managed to spend a recharge in just few weeks, instead of the normal months. WIthout telling too much, Virgin started to bill calls per minute. Now any quick call, no matter how short, costs $1.18. That’s quadruple the old price! No wonder, the recharge didn’t last long.

Last year I churned three plans to another operator which offer much lower costs. You need to pay extra deposit and SIM card fees to them upfront, but I estimated we’ll save those back in less than six months. With Virgin’s current pricing, the ROI would be in a couple of months easily. Did the maths again and it’s time to churn over another plan, even a less used one. The ROI is about four/five months away.

TPG operates in the Optus network, i.e. provides a decent coverage for a city-dweller like me. The caps start from $9.99 per month (if you have broadband through them, $14.99 for others), the casual plan just $1 per month + 10c flagfall and 9.9c calls billed per second.
In other words, the minimum spend with the casual plan is just $1 per month, your quick calls are 11c, the half minute burst 15c to any network. Pretty decent, I’d say. THis should make the dollar last a bit longer, compared to the previous.

This is a good example that in consumer commerce loyalty does not always reward! Even if your service provider is good today, their position in the market place may change drastically in a short period of time. New kids on the block join the game, or they themselves weaken their services or costs. Whichever, you’re much better off by shopping around once in a while. It may take a little while but can make your mileage much better.

For background, SBS also has their older documentary from 2000 and a follow-up from 2001 on their website. In those, they follow a few families while they hide in China.

Both documents are truly worth watching! They make you honestly appreciate that you were born to freedom and do not need to endure anything even close to what they go through on a daily basis.

Sorry to say, but my thoughts when watching the hiding, especially in the follow-up to the older document, returned back to what how we saw the jews being treated under Hitler’s regime. Not pretty at all. There are clear differences but also striking similarities at the individual level.

The original document from 2000 (50 min) and immediately followed by the follow-up part (40 min): Learning Liberty – Video Extra.

The latest one about their live in South Korea (20 min) can be seen here once it’s uploaded back to the site (right now unavailable for some reason).

There used to be a time when a lock indicated that no-one was available. An open lock meant someone was home or stuff available (e.g. from a shed). And people used that as a permission to pop in for a chat or to borrow something. Back in the far north people many times had a broom or something at their entrace (to sweep away the snow, fallen leaves, etc). That was left leaning on the door to show it doesn’t pay knock on the door as no-one’s there to answer the call. There wasn’t that much need to secure and protect things back then. Especially when majority of people had only what they needed, not any excess.

Secure keys, double deadbolts, added locks, security shields, barriers or steel mesh screens, alarm systems. That’s the trend today. The need varies but the tools are the same.

To me it’s kind of funny that the house has been built to be secure against intruders. Access through the windows requires breaking the screens (and I can testify they are). Access through the doors is supposed to be very hard, too. Though here we hit the weak link: the locks. We also find a major fire safety concern there, too.

The entrances (front doors) are normally hinged and have a screen door in front (check any American movie presenting an old house to see examples). The screen is usually thin plastic mesh to keep the insects out (a very handy solution to the problem). Many screen doors also have metal barriers to prevent access through the door. The other doors (patio, backyard) are normally sliding with a separate sliding screen door.

To me it seems that the locks are rather weak. Without specifically testing them I doubt how much brute force they might survive. Possibly not a lot. In this new house one of the locks actually got stuck and was replaced. I watched a builder trying to remove it for replacement. That didn’t take much: a little pull with thongs, some twisting sideways, and voilà he pulled the pieces out. Amazing how easy it was to break the lock! To my comment that it probably isn’t the lock to use in a safe, he couldn’t but laugh. “No, certainly not…”

Some of the internal locks, too, are rather weak. After just a few years they start to be wobbly. Though, at the same time, there are also good durable locks. It’s just the tendency of going for the cheap options which mars the long-term enjoyment.

One feature in the locks has been puzzling us since the start and we’ve found the feature to be present apparently in all houses.In our new house we finally realised the reason for this odd feature. The screen doors normally have a small lever or switch in the lock (indoors) to what we thought would lock it. And yes, it does prevent you from using the handle so effectively the door is locked. But, the odd factor, when you use the key to lock it, you can’t open the lock from the lever / switch. To me this presents a potential risk if you need to escape the house: There’s no way you can open the door nor break out! It is backlocked! In reality, the switch only disables the handle but doesn’t lock the mechanism. The key, on the other hand, locks the whole thing and you can open it only with a key. This occured to us as the screen doors in the new house have additional latches both at the upper and lower edges of the door to secure it. The key opens & closes them, the switch doesn’t affect them at all. To us this means that if someone’s home we don’t lock the doors when going out. Instead, the one staying home, will come to the door to disable the handle. Not precisely very safe or convenient but the nature of the beast.

Somehow I miss the good old Assa Abloy locks which were always locked from the outside (without any additional actions) but could always be opened from inside without any keys or so. The latch was also shaped so that you can simply push the door closed. Rather handy if you have your hands full of bags, kids, or whatever. They were really set-and-forget locks as the only time you needed to pay any attention to them was when coming home: where’s the key…

Just thinking aloud to the end: some car models have “keyless” locks which sense when the electronic key is nearby. That would be cool, too, at home. Say, the house would automatically lock itself when all the keys are taken out and likewise open when a key is approaching. This could also include added security features to hinder unauthorised access. Perhaps an iris scan, fingerprints or voice recognition for extra validation that the key is in the right hands. Only a couple of question to resolve and we’ll be there: how old a child needs to be to be reliably recognised and what happens when people age and change, the system needs to be made fool-proof and flawless (so it can’t operate in Microsoft environment nor developed with traditional application development methods), and how to survive power outages? When these little details are attended to, let’s introduce the Generation One keyless locks.

A basic difference between these and Nordic counterparts is the selection between sliding vs. hinged. Besides single-glazed vs. double/triple/quadruple. Of course, as with electricity, practicality dictates the hinges up north – you couldn’t open sliding windows there for months as they’d probably be frozen.

Typical two-part sliding window with a mesh on one side (sorry, not from our house).

All windows here normally consist of two parts: a fixed window and a sliding one for ventilation. Most sliding windows are usually fitted with some sort of burglar protection. In our new house they are fitted with external Crimsafe screens which makes it possible to leave the windows open even while we’re away. But since the Crimsafes cannot be removed we can’t access the fixed window’s outer side. This means that here are windows we can’t wash. Most interesting arrangement!
Contingency plans for reaching them anyway are “in progress”.

The previous house had an unreachable window, too, but it didn’t really matter as it was in a toilet and you don’t spend much time marvelling the views to the neighbourghs fence there, do you.
All the other windows were very handy to wash and the work could efficiently be done by two people. In a lowset house all windows were easy to reach from the ground. I washed the outsides using a hose: this was very quick way to rinse them. The sliding windows, in their part, could simply be lifted off the frames, so I carried them to the backyard and washed them there (again, with the help of a hose).
Being able to carry a series of window screens out and set up a washing station for them was much more efficient than opening (and many times supporting) multi-layer windows hinged to the frames. I’m very lazy with the windows but I reckon it took as long to wash 5 sets (of 3-layer windows) up North than 11 sets (single layer with removable screens) down here.

Let’s see how can I wash the external screens upstairs. I don’t really fancy ladders (heights are OK, unstability not) and stuff. Perhaps I need to borrow a lift form the fire department to reach them.