My Facebook experience is episodic, intermittent, and intense.  I really don’t hang there much, but occasionally I get a flurry of requests from a new pack of old friends who have just discovered it and I interact with them a bit.  Facebook is not my life.

Recently, my wife asked me to get her started with a Facebook page.  Apparently she has had a couple of friends ask if she’s on, so she wants an account.

My efforts to start her page have hit a snag.  Apparently, she’s not allowed for some reason:

Our automated system will not approve this name.

No specific reason given, and my email to their support staff got an automated response five days ago.  No other contact.

Also, absolutely nothing on the help pages to give clarification as to why they deny accounts.

How much were they worth again?  For what Microsoft paid in, it could have bought an even more-difficult-to-comprehend Seinfeld commercial.

Facebook, you have until Tuesday.  Then I start a countdown clock on you.

[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, Facebook, customer service[/tags]

My wife sent me the following in an email:

Superman’s cape has bit the dust!  Ryan was spotted with a pair of scissors earlier today and when asked what he was doing replied, “Cutting off superman’s cape”  When asked why he was doing this the small human responded, “Because I don’t want him to fly.”

It’s easy to gravitate to the cape as the source of flight, when really it was meant as an artistic convention to demonstrate movement in a two-dimensional, still-frame comic medium.  But at some point, we cut the strings when we realize the cape isn’t necessary anymore.  (Besides, Batman doesn’t fly and he has a cape…)

Which leads me back to a question posed the other day.  When do we finally reach the point where we ditch the old technology?  I know of two accomplished and very intelligent classmates of mine who graduated high school without being able to tell the time on an analog clock.  (I can vouch that one has since learned, and probably the other…)

The fact remains that one could indeed be fully functional in 1986 without needing that particular skill, and moreso today.  So when do we realize that the magic isn’t in the hands and the gears?  When can we cut the ties?

I think there are several factors that play a role in allowing us to assign certain standards to the fate of the buggy whip.  What I haven’t figured out is the relative importance and ranking of those factors:

• Percentage adoption
• Generational immersion of replacement
• Fear of translation

And for that matter – what besides the analog clock and the shoelace is destined for the dustbin of history?  (Considering that for many us, the dustbin is history too.)

[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, technology[/tags]

Mistakes happen, that’s to be expected. Some are more inexcusable than others, because they aren’t errors in execution, but rather a signal of a flawed process.

I had a great birthday, and it was a cap to a great week. The kids were eager to help me with my “party,” and took an active role in building a makeshift piñata for me and picking out their own birthday cards. Being on a long superhero kick, Ryan picked out a nice Justice League card for me.

Upon a closer look, something around Green Lantern’s leg caught my eye.

It doesn’t photograph well, but in the glare on the glass you can read “QA/PASS”. I’m certain that was a sign that an entire batch of these cards passed the printer’s Quality Assurance test. Unfortunately, it also was a sign the manufacturer was careless about letting internal messages spill outside.

Why mar a perfectly good card, when there are better ways to track stacks of objects? More importantly, how often do we really think about the things that we do and how we do them? Is it time to completely rethink a procedure? Is it necessary anymore? Is there a better way to achieve the same goal?

And most important… if you can’t focus on the first thing an end-user will see, then you’ve become your own worst enemy.

[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, quality, manufacturing, printing, greeting cards[/tags]

Charlton Heston at the 1963 Civil Rights March.

Charlton Heston died a few days ago. I never met him, but he did provide for one of the most memorable incidents at my last television station.

Several years ago, Heston was visiting Birmingham, waiting in our lobby for an interview appearance on our noon newscast. Our Managing Editor, Al Volker, was running a last-minute script update from the newsroom to the studio. As he rounded the corner at the reception desk, he spotted Heston — and without breaking stride — blurted out:

“OH JESUS! IT’S MOSES!“

We asked Al if he ever went back and talked with Heston, or got an autograph.

“Nah. It would have ruined my story.”

In hindsight, what would he have gained from knowing Heston’s reaction? Nothing. The story is better left unfinished.

[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, television, Charlton Heston, ABC 33/40[/tags]