Deskless Hotel Rooms? San Francisco's Hotel Nikko Remains Committed to this Unpopular Design Strategy

Having lived in Memphis, Tennessee for some time, one of the business lessons that you hear a lot about is the story of Kemmons Wilson. If you haven't heard the story or aren't familiar with Wilson, he founded Holiday Inn. Here's a little bit of background for you, from the Kemmons Wilson Company site:

The idea of Holiday Inns was born from a frustrated father on a family vacation. In 1951, Dorothy finally persuaded Kemmons to take a break so they packed up the children, all five of them, and head to Washington, D.C. to visit the national landmarks.

By the time they reached their destination, Kemmons had formulated an idea, borne from the discomforts he had encountered as he and his family trekked across the land. Outraged at being charged extra for each child at every roadside lodging where the family stayed, not to mention the cramped, uncomfortable accommodations, Kemmons decided to reinvent the lodging industry. His idea was to build 400 motels across the country, each within a day’s drive of the next. Kemmons measured every nook and cranny of every room where the family stayed.

By the time he returned to Memphis he had the ideal dimensions for efficiency and comfort in a motel room. His formula was so accurate that it remains the standard for many hotel rooms built today.

With the traveling family in mind, he developed other features that would become industry standards:

•     Standardized room size (12ft x 26ft with bathroom)
•     Swimming Pool
•     Free in-room Television
•     Telephones
•     Ice Machines
•     Restaurant
•     No charge for children under age 12 who stayed with their parents

While it's not listed here, I have to imagine that if Kemmons Wilson were traveling today, one more thing that he would expect in a hotel room would be a desk.

The Hotel Nikko San Francisco Goes Deskless
Last year the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco underwent a significant remodel. It was so substantial, that they actually closed the hotel down for three or four months. As someone who regularly stayed at the Hotel Nikko during events in the city, I was somewhat excited to experience the hotel, post-remodel. I finally got my opportunity to stay there during the Semicon West conference in July of last year. Sadly, I wasn't particularly thrilled with the results of the remodel and I first wrote about it in this post, Design, Remodel, Alienate? The Hotel Nikko in San Francisco. Here's part of what I wrote:

For some reason that is still entirely unclear to me, the people designing the Nikko remodel eliminated the desk from the room. I noticed it immediately, as the first thing that I began to do when I arrived was to begin setting up my workspace -- or at least, that's what I intended to do. At that point, I went back down to the front desk to request a different room, one with a desk. The staff at the front desk were very courteous, but informed me that none of the rooms -- except for the smallest ones -- had desks now. Apparently, it was not an unusual complaint; they told me that they'd heard the issue from others, and that they would share it with management. So off I went back to my deskless hotel room, questioning the design decision, what my colleagues would thing of the deskless room, and whether the Hotel Nikko would continue to be my preferred hotel in San Francisco.

As you can see from this quote, I was baffled by the the removal of the desk. As a design decision, it didn't make any sense to me. It was only as I was preparing to write this post, when I began to question my own experience -- that I've never stayed at a hotel that didn't have a desk -- that I searched (and found) other evidence of this deskless design approach. 

When I searched "hotel rooms without desks." I come across a broader chunk of information about the practice. As it turns out, the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco isn't the first hotel to explore this direction, but they may be clinging to a failed design direction.

The first result, Hotel Industry Trends Include Rooms Without Desks, details several interesting aspects of this trend.

1. Strategy: according to the article, "The shift away from dedicated work spaces is part of a bid to win over millennials, which consultants believe prefer to work in more casual, flexible spaces." In some respects, this really seems like a stupid rationalization to me. If you want to work in your bed, the existence of a desk doesn't prevent that. What's more, if you look at the new credenza at the Hotel Nikko, it's not like they traded desk space for some alternatively useful space.

2. The trend may be bigger than you might think: According to the article published in March, 2016, Marriott had announced in December 2015 that it would start a chainwide redesign that would remove the desks. Klimpton Hotels, the group that owns a number of boutique hotels throughout San Francisco had redesigned their rooms with only sofas and coffee tables, And Hilton's Tru brand had laptop trays instead of desks.

3. The Real Driver may be cost: To quote the post, "Eliminating things such as desks and closets can save tens of thousands of dollars in each room’s construction costs." They also note this example, "Hilton’s Tru will cost just $84,000 per room to build, compared to its Hampton Inn brand, which comes in at $110,000 per room." It makes you wonder how much they'd save if they scrapped the whole indoor plumbing thing.

If you're like me, you read this and you start making a mental note of hotels you'll never stay at. As it turns out, there are a lot of other people like me -- and more to this story. Because by the time that this story was written, the whole deskless design approach already had already generated a pretty significant backlash.

The Backlash Against Deskless Hotel Rooms
In this post (from December 2015), Hotels Tried To Eliminate the Traditional In-Room Desk But Created a Backlash, you can learn more about the backlash to Marriott from their deskless initiative. The piece details some rather extensive backlash on the Flyertak site, including this list of Marriott properties without desks (hotels to avoid).

There's also a section in this piece about Holiday Inn Express, their experiments with deskless rooms, and their decision to drop that experiment. What's interesting is comparing the design experiments done by Marriott versus those done by Holiday Inn Express.

Here's what Marriott did...

As part of its transformation, the company conducted a variety of research efforts across generations, Carroll says, noting that its specific target customer is primarily the business traveler. The research included a full mockup room where consumers could walk through the model room to see the look, feel and functionality of it.

Marriott gleaned information suggesting that customer behavior in the room is much more “untethered,” thanks to things like Wi-Fi and mobile devices.

And here's what Holiday Inn did...

Holiday Inn Express’ research consisted of two model rooms — one with a desk, and one without. As guests walked through the rooms the experiment revealed that there was a lot of dissatisfaction with the room that didn’t have the desk.

What I think is noteworthy in that term "untethered" is an applied value, something being ascribed from the outside to the test subjects. What's more, it's implied that that "untethered" aspect is in some way positive. However, suppose we change the subject of this from hotel room to food and use the same terms. Untethered food might be exciting and an interesting bite, but the opposite of that might be "comfort food", something that seems "anchored" and "homey". Now which sounds like the place that you'd want to make your home-away-from-home?

But Wait, There's More
If all of this history surrounding the controversy over deskless hotel rooms is wearing you down, consider this one last bit from September, 2016 in the Chicago Tribune, The desk is back: Marriott is redesigning hotel rooms. That's right, by September 2016, Marriott had reversed course from it's deskless direction.

I suspect that the online "list" of Marriott hotels that don't desks probably drove the change more than the actual guests complaining about the lack of desks.

The Hotel Nikko San Francisco Remains Committed to Deskless Rooms
Which brings me to the call-to-action portion of this post. After complaining to the front desk staff at the Hotel Nikko about the lack of desks during my first stay last July, then publishing blog posts and tweets addressing the issue, I never received any response -- or recognition of my concerns. I stayed there again in January for another conference, and again raised concerns. Finally, after reaching out on TripAdvisor, I was able to connect with a representative of the Hotel Nikko and share my concerns regarding the lack of desks.

Apparently, after they had some internal discussions, I was informed that they were not planning to add desks to the rooms.

With that, I might have been left to search for an appropriate go-to hotel in San Francisco on my own had I not just learned that other hotel chains in San Francisco may not have desks in their rooms -- particularly if you buy into this deluded logic that it's a better way to reach "millenials". So rather than simply looking on my own, I'm reaching out to the various companies that coordinate hotels for the events that we attend and asking them to provide this information. While I may have no clout -- I'm just a customer after all -- perhaps these companies that manage hotel rooms will have a bit more leverage.

So, if you're involved in events, I urge you to ask the company to work with the hotels that they're contracting with, determine whether there is a desk in the room, and to provide that information to you before you book.

Additionally, I'm hoping to build my own list of deskless hotels in San Francisco. If I do, I'll be happy to share that with you. This deskless issue has really annoyed me. I don't see letting go any time soon.

In closing, while Kemmons Wilson may not have identified the desk as a hotel room requirement when he was founding Holiday Inn, it's nice to know that the team at today's Holiday Inn Express recognize it's importance -- even if it did require them to do some A/B testing to get there.

LB Steak: Clever Marketing, Puffery or Misdirection?

So I had dinner last night at LB Steak in Santana Row. It was part of a group/work dinner. Like most typical group dinners, my expectations for the food wasn't particularly high -- work dinners aren't something you go to expecting to enjoy the food. What's more, having been to LB Steak for some truly mediocre brunch in the past (nice outdoor seating in Santana Row), I already had some sense of what to expect. I feel like I had a reasonably low bar going in.

Still, I was thoroughly surprised by the restaurant's marketing of their food and their dining room -- and not surprised in a good way.

Prior to grinding my way through rush-hour traffic to get there for dinner, one of my colleagues had told me that we'd be seated at the "Chef's Table". Now, being someone who enjoys my share of food and restaurant experiences, I must say that the idea of being at the Chef's Table had me hopefully optimistic. Perhaps this would be one of those enjoyably unique experiences that would walk back my previous brunch experiences. Imagine my surprise to see some of my colleagues sitting at a large table by the front window of the restaurant as I walked up.

I wasn't the only one. A couple of others asked the waiter about the "Chef's Table" and he said, "oh, that's just what we call this."

As I posted on Twitter last night, I suspected that they had switched tables on us for some reason (perhaps group size), but when I spoke with my wife about it, she said that she knew about LB Steak's "Chef's Table". So I looked it up this morning. Here's the link to LB Steak's private dining page. Further, on the PDF of their private dining menu (page 3), you'll find a description and picture of their "Chef's Table".

Of course, as I mentioned on Twitter last night, I don't think that the common perception of "Chef's Table" is "Big Table in the dining room by the front window and door". So I went looking for a definition of "Chef's Table". Here's what's on the Wikipedia page for restaurant:

A chef's table is a table located in the kitchen of a restaurant, reserved for VIPs and special guests. Patrons may be served a themed tasting menu prepared and served by the head chef. Restaurants can require a minimum party and charge a higher flat fee. Because of the demand on the kitchen's facilities, chef's tables are generally only available during off-peak times.

 Note: the emphasis added is mine. 

Clearly, LB Steak intends to set an expectation with the "Chef's Table" designation. It's an obvious attempt at priming (psychology) the customer's perception with a perception of exclusivity. For me, that core misrepresentation ate at me more throughout the evening than I ate at the food.

Being Sold on the Prime Rib Eye
In another round of adventures in labels versus products, the waiter sold a significant portion of the table on the 12oz Prime Rib Eye. He made some explanation about it, but mostly emphasized about how tender it was. Perhaps you are wondering what a Prime Rib Eye is?

• Expectation-wise, you might think it was Prime Rib...
• Or maybe you might expect that it's a big thick Rib Eye steak. 

As it turns out, it's a steak that's about the typical thickness of a slice of prime rib (about 3/4"), grilled like a rib eye. It's hard to represent the difference between the plates of steak that were presented to the table and what you probably were expecting if your mind was aligned with either of those bullets I've listed above. Visually, the product looked like something an inexpensive market steak you'd expect to get your average local grocery store. Or perhaps something you might get at one of those low-end chain steak restaurants.

The LB Steak menu lists this "35 Day Dry Aged Prime 12 oz Boneless Ribeye" at $52. I suspect that if I went to Costco right now, I could get a three-pack of prime Ribeye steaks for about the same price, any one of which would have delivered a product closer to what I would expect a business that features "steak" in it's name to be able to produce.

Puffery
So the question that you might ask is, are these misrepresentations by the business puffery? Merriam Webster has the definition of puffery as, "exaggerated commendation especially for promotional purposes : hype". Wikipedia goes further.

In everyday language, puffery refers to exaggerated or false praise. In law, puffery is a promotional statement or claim that expresses subjective rather than objective views, which no "reasonable person" would take literally. Puffery serves to "puff up" an exaggerated image of what is being described and is especially featured in testimonials.

There's also this great link from the puffery page to restaurant menu writing style. In short, it's not unusual to attempt to inflate the description of dishes or make them sound more exotic. In one sense, you could say that that is what LB Steak is doing.

At the same time, while a "tenderloin of pork avec compôte de Pommes" may be "a pork chop with a dollop of applesauce," most people would probably be unhappy to be served some thin slices of lunch-meat-cut ham with some applesauce under the guise of a "tenderloin of pork".

This is the problem with their "Chef's Table" nomenclature. They could name it anything -- the Silicon Valley table, the Grand Table, anything -- without creating the false expectation of a "Chef's Table". Rather than elevating the dining experience, I think it undercuts the restaurant's credibility with the customer. I think that this is a clear-cut case of marketing quackery.

British Airways F'ed Up Online & Customer Support System

For the past 14 hours, I've been wrestling with the British Airways online system, trying to correct a problem that their system created. In the process of attempting to correct the seating assignment, I've learned a few things about their system -- and about why you might want to avoid booking flights with them. Put simply, their system is not designed for customer support or customer satisfaction and I've now been told repeatedly that, "if you have an issue in the 24 hours before your flight", your fucked. Harsh words, I know, but British Airways "customer service" people say that they can't do anything in that 24 hour window. If you had one person tell you that, you might attribute it "a bad apple" customer service rep. But when multiple customer service people tell you the same thing, then you know that this is a business strategy.

When you're checking in for a flight, there are many aspects and errors that can go wrong. It's especially challenging for international flights because you have an added layers of documentation and permissions, concerns about connections. Tensions are higher because the costs are higher -- your $1000+ flight is not equivalent to a $100+ domestic flight. You might expect that in this environment, there would be added pressure on an airline to do things right -- or to make things right when things don't go according to plan. This is what makes British Airways system unusual. Rather than being engineered to make things right, the system seems designed to generate customer frustration.

Here's the story of my experience with British Airways and some insight into the underlying mechanisms in their system that appear to be optimized for frustration.

My wife and I booked trips on British Airways about a month ago. My wife needed to go to Helsinki for a business trip and I decided to accompany her and take the time for tourism. Because of the different purposes of our trip, we had to book our tickets separately. Hers through her work travel system, and me selecting the corresponding flight directly from the airline. She opted for the American codeshare version of the BA flight because AA is one of their preferred corporate airlines and she already has a lot of American miles. I opted for British Airways because I'd already flown on them a couple of months earlier on a trip to Brussels.

Our frustrations started with navigating British Airways ticket pricing, which I already wrote about and you can find more about here.

So, one aspect of British Airways default ticket is that you can't select a seat until 24 hours before your flight. Should you choose to, you can pay something like $30 to select a seat in advance, but the default window is 24 hours before. We opted not to pay this as it would be an upcharge that my wife's work would be unwilling to reimburse -- and having one assigned seat without it's mate is kind of stupid.

In a discussion with customer service (either through her travel agent, AA, or BA), my wife was able to address the issue of us traveling together and get our two seats grouped. When we went to check in, it assigned her one seat and me the seat next to her. Unfortunately, when I went to create my online boarding pass, British Airways system counted it as a second check in and relocated my seat (and hers) to an entirely different location. The first one was better, the second one seemed to be triggered just a few hours before the departure, and those seats weren't very good. After spending some time on the phone with British Airways customer support, they assured as that everything was fine. But when we went to the airport service counter to get boarding passes -- you guessed it, they were messed up and wrong. Eventually the service counter people just manually moved us to the original seats that we had together -- but they acted rather pained to have had to do that. They also gave us the explanation that "they'd changed planes, so that probably messed up the process".

On the return flight, the leg from Helsinki to London is a codeshare operated by Finnair. As we ticked off the time, trying to get into the system right after it opened, we hit a couple of roadblocks as British Airways system seemed to struggle with the record exchange with Finnair. Eventually, we were able to both get checked in -- and change seats since the first leg of the flight was only about half full. I say change seats because, despite many empty rows, British Airways auto-seat assignment software assigned me a middle seat near the middle of the plane. It also assigned me a middle seat for the second leg of the trip, the transcontinental flight back to San Jose.

No matter how I tried, I couldn't change the BA seat assignment. I couldn't access it. And they stuck me in a middle seat. Despite trying to check in right near the start of the 24 hour window, British Airways stuck me in a middle seat.

So I reached out to British Airways and Finnair customer service on Twitter. The Finnair customer service team responded quickly, and when I provided them with my flight details, they told me that the couldn't access the British Airways seat assignment system. They couldn't change it. I would need to work with British Airways to change that seat. So I continued to reach out to British Airways -- that all started at about 11:00 in the morning.

My wife and I speculated that we might be able to access the BA flight once the 24 hour mark for that flight arrived. Meanwhile, I continued to try and reach out to British Airways. When the 24 hour mark before the second leg of the flight came and we still couldn't access our seat assignment, I attempted to call the airline. I'd tried calling earlier, but the local customer support number was only good for Monday through Friday, so the only number "for travel problems within the 24 hour period" was an international number. When I called that number, I waited on hold for 12 minutes before a woman from their customer service team took my info, then told me that she couldn't make any changes during the 24 hours before the flight. I told her about how my wife had tried to purchase an upgraded meal, but the transaction didn't seem like it would go all the way through. She said she couldn't fix that because it was within the 24 hours before the flight. In short, it was a 15 minute international call -- at my expense -- to learn that British Airways could not help me. They were unwilling or unable to make any changes within the 24 hour window.

So I continued on to post complaints on Twitter. Eventually, around 6pm local time, British Airways Twitter support team responded to me. After sending a direct message to them with my flight details, an hour or so later, they finally responded with this:

"as you're due to travel within 24 hours, we're unable to amend your seat. The airport have control of the flight and seating. You'll need to make any amendments to your seats at the airport. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused."

Somewhere in all of this (perhaps on the telephone), it became clear that it would never have been possible for us to edit the second leg seat assignment. Whatever we were assigned, we were assigned and their "24 hour lock" on the system meant that, for your second leg seat, you were essentially hosed. Suddenly it made more sense why, on my return trip from Brussels, I was stuck in a middle seat in the back of the section despite aisle and window seats still open. And how, when I'd tried to change my seat online, their system wouldn't let me.

Keep in mind that my wife and I travel on airlines frequently. We often manage our seats using online the online interface after check-in has opened. In fact, my wife has sometimes made multiple changes. I mention this only to underscore a point -- while many airlines block out a wait time and only allow check-ins 24 hours before a flight, most flights will allow you to manage and change your seat up until the time you're at the airport getting on the plane. As long as there is space available. Unless you're attempting to change class -- where they'll upcharge you. So this limitation in the BA system is both unusual and bizarre. It's also a giant FU to their "customers", the people who are paying for seats on the plane.

This experience comes on a flight that is supposed to transport me into "bronze" status in British Airways frequent flier program. Another special British Airways surprise for me was that I fully expected to have already achieved status on my flight to Helsinki. However, surprisingly, the fare that we purchased for these tickets meant that the "points" value for my transcontinental flight on the carrier was only 20 points, what looks to be the minimum value. My previous one hour flight from London to Brussels was actually worth more "points". Yet another FU to their customers.

This is truly "Customer Lip Service".

While we can never be certain of what the future holds, despite my "frequent flier" status that I will have earned after this flight, I won't be rushing to rebook another flight on British Airways and, as I mentioned in my previous blog post about the business, I would advise anyone considering doing business with British Airways -- Caveat Emptor!

United's "Re-accommodate" and the "Customer" Lie in Airline Doublespeak

The Internet is abuzz with the story of the doctor on the United Airlines flight who was "asked" to give up his seat, then beaten and forcibly removed from the plane. If you haven't seen it, the Jimmy Kimmel show had a pretty good synopsis. As shocking as the video footage of the event is, perhaps what might be even more surprising was when United came out with the statement:

Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked. After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate. We apologize for the overbook situation.

I say shock, but I don't really mean shock, because in many respects while we're surprised that a business might say something like this, we're not surprised to see this kind of language and attitude from an airline. In that way, what I should probably say is that, while the footage and story is distressing, it's not really surprising.

The Grand Airline Lie: "Customer"
Most of us have expectations for "customer service". Inherent in that relationship is the principle that, as a customer, you have options and by choosing to spend your money with a vendor, part of your decision will be based on what you get for the service and how you are treated throughout the transactional experience. Or as you'd find on Wikipedia:

Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees "who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest". Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.

While you'll hear the airlines use the word "customer" a lot, for most travelers, there is little meaning beyond an exchange of money. Rather than being treated like customers, most airline passengers are treated more like cattle or sheep. We probably have more in common with the animals at factory farms than we do with the classic notion of a "customer".

And it's not just United Airlines. On CNN during the news cycle around the United story, the network ran a series of clips of people being thrown off the plane, all from different airlines. American, Delta, Spirit. They even lumped in a woman who was forced to buy pajama pants because JetBlue wouldn't let her on the plane wearing shorts that they didn't like.

Let's face it. They all suck. Some suck worse than others. People joke about it, but nothing gets better. Instead, things just deteriorate further.

So how did we get to this point? Here's a piece from Wired that does a good job of characterizing the problems with United. How United Turned the Friendly Skies into a Flying Hellscape is an interesting look at the recent history of the carrier and the impact of the merger with Continental. But in some sense, as noted, this issue transcends United.

The Inherent Tension of Flying
Traveling can be stressful. Some stresses are common -- we all struggle with time zone changes -- and some stresses are individual -- I may not be afraid of flying, but you might be. Time and schedules also ratchet up stress levels -- from concerns about making a flight or connecting flights to factors outside of the flight itself like business meetings, appointments or even vacation itineraries.

In the midst of this stressful environment for travelers, the airlines have been doing everything they can to ease traveler stresses (haha). Seriously though, rather than that, for the past 10 years or so, the airlines have increasingly pursued strategies of testing the limits of what passengers will tolerate, all with an eye towards increasing profitability. The Wired article talks about "Calculated Misery" and links to this New Yorker article, Why Airlines Want to Make You Suffer. The article talks about JetBlue being a hold-out on charging baggage fees and what drove them to change:

Wall Street analysts, however, accused JetBlue of being “overly brand-conscious and customer-focussed.”

In short, not only do airlines, as a business, not care about you, the "customer", they're business model is increasingly built on taking advantage of you. United Airlines profited to the tune of nearly $10 billion dollars over the past two years with that business strategy.

And the effect on "customers" is to put them on edge, forcing them into a combative, defensive mindset. It's not really difficult to see the equation, build systems that impose misery, tensions rise. Add in a good portion of unequal treatment -- like walking past the first class section and seeing spacious seating that is such a contrast to the cramped seating that you're being put in -- raises tensions higher. That's partly why we have more incidents of "air rage" taking place.

You Must Obey the Uniformed Flight Crew
Since we returned to flying following the 9-11 highjackings, we've all been chartered with paying special deference to the uniformed flight crew. It goes without saying that it's an essential rule for the safety and security of the flight. At the same time, there are flights that it seems like turn into something just short of the Stanford prison experiment. Whether it's a result of the "psychological effects of perceived power", or simply a flight attendant having a bad day, airline passengers have to be aware that something that starts as a simple customer service incident can easily escalate to an event that brings in law enforcement. After all, who could forget the guy in the "Princess Bride" shirt?

These incidents between passengers and airlines staff will keep coming up because that's the business model. To quote from the Wikipedia page on the Stanford prison experiment:

The experiment's results favor situational attribution of behavior over dispositional attribution (a result caused by internal characteristics). It seemed that the situation, rather than their individual personalities, caused the participants' behavior.

The "customer" environment created by the airlines, while endorsed by Wall Street, is toxic. These days, when you engage with an airline as a "customer", you have to devote an inordinate amount of energy to mitigating the stresses inherent in the experience. That's why "the friendly skies" is laughable. There is no joy in the base level experience. There isn't really much that an airline can do to "wow" you. And the hostile environment turns minor events into seeming random acts of cruelty.

Take the United Airlines incident as an example. When United decided to remove those people, was it clear who they chose and why? Were they flying on standby? Did they pick Dr. Dao because he's asian? Did he pay less for his ticket than other passengers? While news stories may relate different answers to this, that we can believe that it was a random act of cruelty speaks volumes to the toxic  customer environment.

But it isn't going to change. Because profits and "shareholders enthusiasm" for more profits. Despite the tremendous first day dip in United Airlines stock value, it's value is returning. And it's unlikely that you'll see any government regulation that makes it better. At least, anytime soon. So, until such time as there is something like governmental regulation that forces the airline industry to end their "calculated misery" approach, you need to recognize that when the airline industry uses the word "customer", they really mean something "transactional actor". Sure, they will do things that seem kind of like customer service -- like having people respond to your frustrated posts on Twitter -- but their ability to do much of anything beyond kind words is quite limited. In the end, their goal is not really to make you happy, it's to get you to stop squeaking.

The Getty Images Extortion Letter

So I'm still annoyed about the whole thing with Getty Images. So I happened to do a quick search on "Getty Images Licensing Compliance" and came up with a number of posts addressing "the Getty Images Extortion Letter".

This article, How to Respond to the Getty Images Extortion Letter, is great. It's from the Art Law Journal. It provides a comprehensive explanation of what's going on as well as a template letter for your response. 

Here's another post from a hacker/security site with a more extensive cataloging of Getty Images extortion racket.

My takeaway?
I'm not going use Getty Images any longer and I recommend you avoid using them as well.

Getty Images' Scammy Image Licensing Shakedown

An interesting thing came across my desk at the start of the year. One of my first pieces of email was from a colleague in Germany emailing me in regard to a marketing-related legal problem. It seems that Getty Images had contacted them and claimed that we were using one of their images and that they didn't have any record of us having acquired the license to use it.

To start with, this was rather surprising because in all of the years that I've been using stock photography, I've never actually used Getty for stock images -- unless, perhaps, their images were subcontracted by some other agency. Or, perhaps, one of my vendors might have contracted with them. But personally, no interaction on my part.

Since the correspondence came from Germany, it took me a bit with Google translate to get to the root of the issue. Rather than walk you through the forensic work, let me summarize. Getty was hounding our German office for licensing on:

• An image in a PDF of a brochure that was created in 2001, (Feb/March of 2001 from the metadata in the PDF file).
• The image is basically a minor 1.75" x 2.75" image on the second page of the brochure
• The content is a street in China, shot from traffic
• The brochure was for a subsidiary company that is no longer an active business entity
• The brochure lived on the web because our German web site was very slow in updating their web site
• When the German web site was updated late last year by our Global operations team, the existing assets were migrated to the new site.

Now, you may not remember back to 2001, but as happens I remember this time well. This was back when George W. Bush was just starting his first term following the Supreme Court's Bush v Gore decision to give Presidency to him. This was before 9/11 and the twin towers of the World Trade Center came down. For me, this was several companies prior to my current job. As it turns out, that also holds true for the staff involved in producing this brochure.

Getty Images Scammy Shakedown Behavior
I should point out that the emphasis in the correspondence from Getty was on paying them. Again,
this is from Google Translate, but here's an excerpt from the email:

Please note that this matter is not done with the removal of the image material alone.
   
Even in the case of unintended use, the use of photographic material without a valid license is deemed to be copyright infringement pursuant to § 97 of the Copyright Act and related rights (UrhG). The purpose of this notification is to determine a previously acquired license or to achieve a fair settlement of the matter if no valid license is available.

Please complete the following steps within 14 days of the date of this message:

- If a valid license was obtained before using the artwork, please provide the Getty Images sales order, invoice number, or other license information. If the artwork is recorded on behalf of a third party, e.g. An advertising agency or a web designer, please notify us of the company name and ask the third party to contact us directly to check the existence of a valid license. As an end-user, it is ultimately your responsibility to clarify the facts.

-If you do not have a valid license for use, you will not be able to use the image material in the future
You need to set the current usage immediately
Remove footage from your site. You will also find an offer in the appendix
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Please note that we only charge the average license fee for the commercial use of licensed images, which is on your website. Getty Images, additional costs of EUR 300.00 per image have been incurred. We do not currently charge for these costs as we are aware that this unlicensed use of our image material may have been unintentional.

We would also be happy to help you find a consistent solution for the use of image material as soon as the amount has been paid.

As the world's leading provider of digital media, Getty Images strives to protect the interests, intellectual property rights and the livelihoods of photographers, filmmakers and other artists who entrust Getty Images with the licensing of their work. Getty Images hopes for a friendly settlement of the matter and is grateful for your cooperation.

Getty Images is aware that you may be hearing from our company for the first time. On our website (www.gettyimages.com) you can find out more about us and how to license and protect our images. We also provide information on copyright on our website. If you have any questions regarding this letter and the attached FAQs, please contact our Copyright Compliance Team at 0800 000 7228. We are very anxious to help you clarify this issue.

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My contacts in the industry tells me that part of the driver behind this Getty essentially outsources this licensing validation process like those debt collection agencies and selling debts.

Is it reasonable to expect you to retain proof of a licensing transaction from over 15 years ago?
I would say no. Frankly, I didn't actually think that that brochure was even available outside of an archive of old electronic files that I inherited when I joined the company. At the same time, most companies have document retention policies that would typically specify the destruction of many of these kinds of materials, so having proof of licensing for something this old would surprise me more than the latter.

Further, who's to say that rights to this image are only available through Getty. Is it possible that this image came from some other collection of images? Is Getty playing the -- this is a small enough issue that you won't devote the time and effort to validate the claim and just pay us? This aspect reminds me a lot of another Silicon Valley nightmare, the patent troll.

Based on all of this, I would highly recommend avoiding Getty Images. While the front end of their business may be legitimate, the tail of the beast shows some pretty scammy behavior. As they say, caveat emptor.

For the record, I should note that I have used (and licensed) stock photos from a variety of sources since the early 1990s. I value the stock photos and the work of the photographers that produced the images that communicate in our work.

REI and Online Customer Experience WTF in 3D

For many years, REI has been a business that held a special relationship for me. There were no Recreational Equipment Inc. stores in the south when I moved back out here from Tennessee way back in 1991. REI was a welcome friend to so many awesome aspects of the California experience -- hiking and camping gear, rain and snow gear, rock climbing shoes, and pretty much anything in between. It quickly became my go-to resource for all of my activities here, enabling me to go where the climate suits my clothes.

Among friends over the years, we've often found ourselves in discussions and debates about whether the REI of today is as good as the REI of yesteryear. From discussions with touring cyclists as to whether the REI rain gear was as good as the older Goretex gear from the previous generation of REI rain gear, to musings about the changing nature of the store as fashion seemed to be an increasing emphasis rather than gear.

Myself, I've been a member of REI since 1992 and over the years, I've bought a fair amount of stuff from them. REI has held such a significant role in my life that, often, if there was something that REI carried, I would buy it from them, even if it was slightly cheaper somewhere else. A lot of things figured into this calculation, such as the annual dividend as a discount, and REI's strong return policy. In the old days, there are stories of people returning gear after months and years. In looking at the specifics of their return policy now, that rock-solid guarantee has been reduced to something like a one year warranty. Problems with your REI gear? Good luck with that... Of course, I've never had to return anything I've bought from REI, but the belief that they have a strong return policy is probably a widespread belief. They even referenced REI returns in that Reese Witherspoon movie, Wild.

REI Delivers a Series of Failures
Recently, we'd been in the market for a jogging stroller. We just missed an opportunity to one of the top-rated ones from Target as they were closing out a previous model year. We actually could have probably gotten one, but we decided to visit our local REI store and check them out before we purchased. Suitably impressed, we ran around to various Target locations, but all of the discounted strollers were gone. After more research and study, we decided we would probably just go ahead and purchase the stroller from REI as soon as one of their periodic 20% off one full priced item sales took place. Sure enough, in the weeks before Thanksgiving, REI offered the 20% discount, so after waiting several weeks, we decided to move forward with our purchase.

The first surprise was that while REI used to carry the BOB Flex, they had stopped carrying that model and now only carried the Pro model, about $70 more expensive than the Flex. The Pro model includes a hand-brake, something many online reviews say is somewhat unnecessary. It also ways about 5 pounds more, something we really felt like we didn't need. After discovering this, we took a step back and reviewed all of the different options for jogging strollers. Ultimately, what we decided was that we would go with REI because of our long relationship with the brand, their strong return policy, and because my unused dividend benefit would provide some additional discount on the purchase.

On November 17th, I finally placed the order. We were anxious to pick up the stroller and would have loved to pick it up at one of REI's retail locations, but despite having four REIs in the area, the stroller was unavailable in all of them. They were gone from the Saratoga store where we'd previously looked at them. Our only choice was to order for in-store pick-up. But forget about Amazone Prime or other fast delivery services that you might expect, REI's initial estimate was that the unit would be available for pick-up on Sunday, November 27th.

My gut told me that this date was suspect. One week later -- typical ground shipping would have been Thanksgiviving Thursday, the 24th. Why they couldn't ship product to one of their locations in less than a week was a bit puzzling, but assuming that the timeline was tight -- REI had already published that they would be closed on Black Friday, so assuming a Saturday delivery, Sunday seemed possible, but unlikely.

So as the week or so of waiting went on, I decided to check with REI customer service, since I hadn't received any specific confirmation about pick-up times. Unfortunately, what I discovered during my chat with customer service was that REI had screwed up the order. They reprocessed it, and now my expected delivery date was scheduled for December 4th. As a courtesy, they sent me a $20 REI gift card.

Of course, while they were busy screwing up my order and being closed, Amazon featured the BOB strollers on a black Friday deal for less than we were paying REI (since they offered the Flex that we actually wanted and the Pro for the same discounted price that we got through REI). Instead, thanks to REI, we got to wait an extra week.

Still feeling frustrated with REI, I decided to contact their online chat Customer Support a second time on Friday, Dec. 2. After chatting with the customer service rep and relaying my frustration, his only response was,

REI Customer Service Rep: Occasionally an order may be delayed in our system, entirely our fault. But we would certainly hope our members and customers can understand that we are doing the best we can. When possible we do try to upgrade shipping or make things right.
REI Customer Service Rep: Occasionally these types of errors cannot be helped. Is there something particular regarding your order that I can help you with now?

In short, "bummer for you".

So Sunday, December 4th came, and we decided to head over to the REI store to pick up the stroller. My expectation was that there would be no stroller there since REI's order confirmation says something about expecting an email when the stroller finally arrives, but I thought it was worth a try since they'd given me that date.

What I learned in the store was that, no, the stroller wasn't there and that there was no way the stroller could have been there on the date promised since the store only received shipments on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In short, REI's own system was making promises and writing checks that it's ass couldn't cash.

This isn't my first frustration with REI this year. Earlier, I went there trying to replace my Teva sandals, something that I'd been resisting doing for a long time. Imagine my surprise when my go-to gear store suddenly didn't have ANY Teva sandals. I wound up replacing my Teva's at Sports Basement.

REI has destroyed their brand loyalty with me
While I'm sure that I will continue to purchase things from REI -- it is one of the only places where some of this gear is available -- the business is no longer my preferred supplier. In a couple of moves, they have eroded all credibility with me. I wish that I could point to a specific reason or mark it as a trend, but I don't have anything like that. This is just one anecdote, but based on my recent experiences, I would advise Caveat Emptor.

LinkedIn Search and the Illusion of Continuity on the Web

For several years now I've had a set of saved job searches on LinkedIn. Recently, I discovered that LinkedIn had made changes to their search system and that, when I looked at the results of my saved search, the results I thought I was seeing did not match the criteria that defined my saved search for several years. Put simply, LinkedIn broke saved search in such a subtle way that I only realized it recently and I'm not even sure how long it has been broken.

So here's what happened...

A saved job search is a pretty straightforward query. The odds are pretty high that you know what you are looking for and that what you are looking for doesn't change much day to day (except for those days when you think, I wonder what the job situation is like in Hawaii -- I could totally work in Hawaii). If you build a saved search, rather than rebuilding that job query each time you need to use it, you can just run the query and scan through your results. Many job sites will even email you the results so that you don't need to visit their site.

When you're running that kind of a search, it's probably most helpful to view the list with the most recent listings first. Instead of giving you repeats, it's the kind of thing that makes it easier to see what's new. Scroll down until you get to what you saw previously and you're done. It's the way blogs work, news feeds, you name it.

But when LinkedIn revamped their search, suddenly all of those saved searches that used to be sorted by most recent became sort by relevance.

Relevance is helpful if you want somebody to think that the search results are closely aligned with what you were looking for, but it's not very useful for determining changes because the same results will keep ranking near the top.

This is how I realized what happened. I ran my saved search a week or so after the previous time and the job listings were the same. Some of them appeared near the top for nearly a month. I began to look more carefully at why the results looked the way that they did and, low and behold, LinkedIn had changed recent to relevance. You killed my Saved Search! You Bastards!

While my instinct is to blame it on the accidental fall out of a software upgrade, part of me can't escape the idea that it is intentional -- that somebody felt like always defaulting to relevance would make their product look better. Or smarter. And while part of me wants to get angry, another part of me feels like this is the kind of thing that companies just do, like Adobe and their code bloat (when you realize that, with all of the modern faster processor speeds, memory, and drive interfaces, Adobe Photoshop still takes longer to launch now than it did when we were at version 3.5, there is a part of you that wants to rage!).

Anyway, bottom line. LinkedIn sucks. If you have saved searches, you may be seeing results by relevance now. Caveat Emptor. 

United's Mileage Plus and the Fuzzy Math of Customer Loyalty

So this morning was yet another United flight, one last one that I had already booked before deciding to avoid United in the future. This morning's flight was a rather full one out of San Jose. As you can imagine, my frustration with United's Premier customer experience has been such an active thread in my thoughts, it almost feels like that's all I want to write about. It's certainly cast an unhappy shade on my life for the past two weeks, with my overall frustration running at a low simmer.

Anyway, I was reflecting on their customer loyalty and comparing it to the customer loyalty experience that you have at the local grocery store, the drug store, or some of those other businesses that like to operate loyalty programs.

When you think about the loyalty experience at the local grocery store, typically a couple of things are going to happen. Stores often offer loyalty program customers sale prices on certain items. As you walk through the store, you can see the sale prices and quickly measure the benefits of participating in the store's loyalty program. Additionally, as you check out, you'll often be presented with information at the register and on your receipt -- you saved this much. There is a very clear reward for your participation in the loyalty program.

Similarly, with coffee shops and the 'free cup after you've bought 10 cups' style of program, you can opt in easily because your typically buying the coffee anyway, and there isn't necessary a requirement to trade identity or suffer in some way.

Contrast that with an airline loyalty program like United's Mileage Plus. Here, you have to log a set level of business with them, enough to be considered a Premier or higher level of customer. Once you hit this threshold, you are essentially entered into a lottery, with chances that increase based on your mileage for the year.

Flying out of San Jose this morning, there were over 50 names on the list of flyers automatically place in line for an upgrade. That means that, even if you're a loyal United customer and have logged many flight miles with the company, there is only a 15% chance that your experience will be upgraded. Otherwise, like me, you will most likely experience their base level of service. This means that approximately 85% of the people on today's flight came to the airport with elevated expectations from the business, but were not treated any differently than if they had not participated in the loyalty program in any way.

Imagine going to the grocery store, taking your items to the register, then only getting the sale prices, randomly, 15% of the time -- how would that affect your loyalty at that grocery store?

Amtrak Customer Service Epic FAIL

So we were on the road last week, out and about in Seattle and Vancouver as it were. As always, travel can be such an interesting window into culture, marketing and customer service best practices. Because we were in Seattle for a couple of days, we thought it would be interesting to pop up to Vancouver and enjoy some of the wonderful food and Canadian culture.

Crossing the border with a rental car can sometimes be problematic, not to mention the four hours of drive time and an unpredictable wait at the border, so we looked for other options. The Amtrak Cascades line running between Seattle and Vancouver seemed like an amusing option in that we'd have free wifi and power the entire way, and there was a dining car so that we could drink and relax on the ride.

Round One: Riding Into Canada
After meetings in Bellevue, we managed to make it to the rental car return in downtown Seattle at about 6 pm. The evening Amtrak train departs at 6:50. The rental car agent said that a taxi across downtown would take too long and suggested walking directly there. We arrived at the station, slightly out of breath, at about 6:40. Since we had pre-booked our tickets, it simplified some of the process. In Seattle, we walked up to the gate, they conductors looked at our E-Ticket on the iPhone, asked to see our passport, then assigned us a seat. In that way, they were super nice. We found our way to our car, boarded the train, and in short order the train rolled out.

Once on the train, we saw that the couple across the aisle from us had brought along a beautiful sandwich. Unfortunately, we had no had time to stop, so I made my way back to train's dining car. Unfortunately, this was not the restaurant-on-rails experience you sometimes see in the movies. Instead, it was prepackaged sandwiches and snacks. I grabbed a bottle of wine and a few snacks and headed back to our car. The other noteworthy aspect about my journey through the train was that the Amtrak wasn't like one of the trains in Japan -- it was ripe with unpleasant smells, tired fixtures, and a general disrepair that made it feel more run down than a really tired BART car.

Unfortunately on the way up, we also faced a new surprise. There'd been an earthquake in Vancouver and they were slowing all trains on the line in order to inspect the track for damage. Hey, this stuff happens. Eventually, after waiting for a while as far north as they would let us go, they called in a couple of buses to take us across the border and into Vancouver. Admittedly, not my first bus bridge, but the Amtrak folks managed to pull it together better than my last bus bridge on Caltrain.

Super Travel Challenge Problem: Leaving Canada
So we were scheduled to take the Saturday evening train out of Vancouver. In my mind I was expecting that the evening train out of Vancouver left around the 6:50 time, so I set an alarm for us to ensure that we were wrapping up our activities and headed for the train station at that time. Checking the schedule later that morning, I saw the posted time that the train leaves of 5:50 pm.

And so, at a little after 5:00pm, having stopped by the grocery store and picked up sandwiches and snacks for dinner on the train, we found ourselves attempting to grab a cab to the train station. Unfortunately, the first cab that the doorman had called for us decided to leave when he went inside to tell us the cab was ready. A minute or two later and he had recruited a second cab. Canadians are a very polite people, and our cab driver was no exception. On the way to the train station, he exhibited a level of patience with traffic that some (myself for example), would probably consider slow. Really slow. Add to this that we planned to pay with a credit card (spent our last bit of Canadian cash on sandwiches), and the time it takes to use the "extra-secure" credit card terminals they use in Canada, and it took four or five minutes to pay the cab driver.

And this had us walking into the Vancouver train station with our luggage, looking up at the large clock that said 5:31. As we walked toward the gate, we could the customs guys clearly, behind glass locked glass doors, unwilling to let anyone in. A second look around noted a sign that said, "security closes 20 minutes before departure." We knocked on the door. The guys there wouldn't answer -- instead waving us off. The only guy willing to help us was a train station security guard who told us to take down the number of Amtrak and call for a refund, noting that this happens all the time. He also directed us to the Greyhound line there at the terminal and suggested that we check to see if there was a bus going to Seattle.

The Canada VIA guy (in a different section of the station) was also no help and wouldn't talk to us. Apparently what I missed, in between my furor and rounds of expletives, was a young Asian woman arriving a couple of minutes after we did, experiencing the same problem, and bursting into tears needing help. Of course, no one from Amtrak came to her aid either. Clearly, it really does happen all the time.

As much as we would have enjoyed another day in Vancouver, we were already booked on an early flight out of SEATAC the next morning that was contingent on getting to Seattle that night. After scrambling around, we learned about the "BoltBus", a Greyhound based line that makes an express run and will take on unbooked passengers if space is available. We boarded, made the trip across the border with wifi and electrical outlets for the entire trip down. While not as relaxed as we imagined the train would have been, it was cleaner and the time was probably a wash. In all though, the entire experience put a bit of a damper on our otherwise enjoyable experience.

Wrapping up
While I try to avoid saying never, it will be a long time before Amtrak gets my money again. While there are some nice people working there -- my overall customer experience was so bad that I would put Amtrak in the 'seriously sucks' category. Normally, I like the rail experience -- I love the trains in Japan and Europe, and I prefer Caltrain over Bart -- but, gah, the experience in Vancouver was so bad.

As we typically do, I spent some time reflecting back, chewing over those last minutes, thinking about things that I should have known or that I could have done differently. Somewhere in my memory of going through all of the information on the Amtrak site, I vaguely remember seeing something about the need to be early on the trip leaving Vancouver. That being said, consider some of the root causes, how they compare to similar travel experiences, and why -- at the end of the day -- we feel like Amtrak sucks.

• The published time for the train departure was 5:50pm. While this published time sets the clock for the gate closing 20 minutes before, it's otherwise meaningless to the traveler. What's more, since everyone has to go through the security line before they get on, for all intents and purposes the train actually departs at 5:30pm. Imagine if instead of publishing 5:50 as the time, they published 5:30, then told you once you passed security, that the train wouldn't actually pull out of the station until 5:50 -- how many fewer people do you think would miss the train?


• Compare the security experience at Amtrak versus that at the airport. First, since your airport experiences are all going to be somewhat similar, you can plan to buffer a significant amount of time for security. At the same time, if you arrive 30 minutes before your flight, the security people and the airline people may tell you there's no way that you will make it to the plane before it departs, but they won't just close the doors and stop you from continuing. This was the most frustrating aspect of the Amtrak experience -- with 19 minutes to go before the train left the station there were 5 or 6 guys just standing around. There was no line, they weren't working through a crowd of people, they were done. Essentially, they just shut off their customer service switch at 5:30. Why not keep processing -- if possible -- until it's no longer possible to make the train, to play until you hear the whistle?

There is a great disparity between the rail experience that we offer in the US and that in Asia or Europe. Any time we travel, we marvel at the train systems and find ourselves wishing for a similar system back home. Sadly, our experience with Amtrak tells us that we have a long way to go and that the future is not bright for trains in the US. A key part of that is the customer experience. In that way, Amtrak gets a large "Would Not Recommend" banner. Caveat Emptor.