Tag Archives: flexibility

Concierge-Style Service

Disclaimer: This is one of those blogposts in which I ramble quite a bit. I do have a core point, but I take winding roads around it. It’s also a post where I’m consciously naïve, this time talking about topics which may make economists react viscerally. My hope is that they can get past their initial reaction and think about “the fool’s truth”.

High-quality customer service is something which has a very positive effect, on me. More than being awed by it, I’m extremely appreciative for it when it’s directed towards me and glad it exists when other people take advantage of it.

And I understand (at least some of) the difficulties of customer service.

Never worked directly in customer service. I do interact with a number of people, when I work (teaching, doing field research, working in restaurants, or even doing surveys over the phone). And I’ve had to deal with my share of “difficult customers”, sometimes for months at a time. But nothing I’ve done was officially considered customer service. In fact, with some of my work, “customer service” is exactly the opposite of “what the job is about”, despite some apparent similarities.

So I can only talk about customer service as a customer.

As job sectors go, customer service is quite compatible with a post-industrial world. At the end of the Industrial Revolution, jobs in the primary and secondary sectors have decreased a lot in numbers, especially in the wealthiest parts of the World. The tertiary sector is rapidly growing, in these same contexts. We may eventually notice a significant move toward the quaternary sector, through the expansion of the “knowledge society” but, as far as I know, that sector employs a very small proportion of the active population in any current context.

Point is, the service sector is quite big.

It’s also quite diverse, in terms of activities as well as in terms of conditions. There are call centres where working conditions and salaries are somewhat comparable to factory work (though the latter is considered “blue collar” and the former “white collar”). And there are parts of the service industry which, from the outside, sound quite pleasant.

But, again, I’m taking the point of view of the customer, here. I really do care about working conditions and would be interested in finding ways to improve them, but this blogpost is about my reactions as someone on the other side of the relationship.

More specifically, I’m talking about cases where my satisfaction reaches a high level. I don’t like to complain about bad service (though I could share some examples). But I do like to underline quality service.

And there are plenty of examples of those. I often share them on Twitter and/or on Facebook. But I might as well talk about some of these, here. Especially since I’m wrapping my head about a more general principal.

A key case happened back in November, during the meetings of the American Anthropological Association, here in Montreal. Was meeting a friend of mine at the conference hotel. Did a Foursquare checkin there, while I was waiting, pointing out that I was a local. Received a Twitter reply from the hotel’s account, welcoming me to Montreal. Had a short exchange about this and was told that “if my friend needs anything…” Went to lunch with my friend.

Among the topics of our conversation was the presentation she was going to give, that afternoon. She was feeling rather nervous about it and asked me what could be done to keep her nervousness under control. Based on both personal experience and rumours, I told her to eat bananas, as they seem to help in relieving stress. But, obviously, bananas aren’t that easy to get, in a downtown area.

After leaving my friend, I thought about where to get bananas for her, as a surprise. Didn’t remember that there was a supermarket, not too far from the hotel, so I was at a loss. Eventually went back to the hotel, thinking I might ask the hotel staff about this. Turns out, it would have been possible to order bananas for my friend but the kitchen had just closed.

On a whim, I thought about contacting the person who had replied to me through the hotel’s Twitter account. Explained the situation, gave my friend’s room number and, within minutes, a fruit basket was delivered to her door. At no extra charge to me or to my friend. As if it were a completely normal thing to do, asking for bananas to be delivered to a room.

I’m actually not one to ask for favours, in general. And I did feel strange asking for these bananas. But I wanted to surprise my friend and was going to pay for the service anyway. And the “if she needs anything” message was almost a dare, to me. My asking for bananas was almost defiant. “Oh, yeah? Anything? How about you bring bananas to her room, then?” Again, I’m usually not like this but exchanges like those make me want to explore the limits of the interaction.

And the result was really positive. My friend was very grateful and I sincerely think it helped her relax before her presentation, beyond the effects of the bananas themselves. And it titillated my curiosity, as an informal observer of customer service.

Often heard about hotel concierges as the model of quality in customer service. This fruit basket gave me a taster.

What’s funny about «concierges» is that, as a Québécois, I mostly associate them with maintenance work. In school, for instance, the «concierge» was the janitor, the person in charge of cleaning up the mess left by students. Sounds like “custodian” (and “custodial services”) may be somewhat equivalent to this meaning of «concierge», among English-speaking Canadians, especially in universities. Cleaning services are the key aspect of this line of work. Of course, it’s important work and it should be respected. But it’s not typically glorified as a form of employment. In fact, it’s precisely the kind of work which is used as a threat to those whose school performance is considered insufficient. Condescending teachers and principals would tell someone that they could end up working as a «concierge» (“janitor”) if they didn’t get their act together. Despite being important, this work is considered low-status. And, typically, it has little to do with customer service, as their work is often done while others are absent.

Concierges in French apartment buildings are a different matter, as they also control access and seem to be involved in collecting rent. But, in the “popular imagination” (i.e., in French movies), they’re not associated with a very high quality of service. Can think of several concierges of this type, in French movies. Some of them may have a congenial personality. But I can’t think of one who was portrayed as a model of high-quality customer service.

(I have friends who were «concierges» in apartment buildings, here in Montreal. Their work, which they did while studying, was mostly about maintenance, including changing lightbulbs and shovelling snow. The equivalent of “building superintendent”, it seems. Again, important but devalued work.)

Hotel concierges are the ones English-speakers think of when they use the term. They are the ones who are associated with high-quality (and high-value) customer service. These are the ones I’m thinking about, here.

Hotel concierges’ “golden keys” («Clefs d’or») are as much of a status symbol as you can get one. No idea how much hotel concierges make and I’m unclear as to their training and hiring. But it’s clear that they occupy quite specific a position in the social ladder, much higher than that of school janitors or apartment concierges.

Again, I can just guess how difficult their work must be. Not only the activities themselves but the interactions with the public. Yet, what interests me now is their reputation for delivering outstanding service. The fruit basket delivered to my friend’s door was a key example, to me.

(I also heard more about staff in luxury hotels, in part from a friend who worked in a call centre for a hotel with an enviable reputation. The hospitality industry is also a central component of Swiss culture, and I heard a few things about Swiss hotel schools, including Lausanne’s well-known EHL. Not to mention contacts with ITHQ graduates. But my experience with this kind of service in a hotel context is very limited.)

And it reminds me of several other examples. One is my admiration for the work done by servers in a Fredericton restaurant. The food was quite good and the restaurant’s administration boasts their winelist. But the service is what gave me the most positive feeling. Those service were able to switch completely from treating other people like royalty to treating me like a friend. These people were so good at their job that I discussed it with some of them. Perhaps they were just being humble but they didn’t even seem to realize that they were doing an especially good job.

A similar case is at some of Siena’s best restaurants, during a stay with several friends. At most places we went, the service was remarkably impeccable. We were treated like we deserved an incredible amount of respect, even though we were wearing sandals, shorts, and t-shirts.

Of course, quality service happens outside of hotels and restaurants. Which is why I wanted to post this.

Yesterday, I went to the “Genius Bar” at the Apple Store near my university campus. Had been having some issues with my iPhone and normal troubleshooting didn’t help. In fact, I had been to the same place, a few months ago, and what they had tried hadn’t really solved the problem.

This time, the problem was fixed in a very simple way: they replaced my iPhone with a new one. The process was very straightforward and efficient. And, thanks to regular backups, setting up my replacement iPhone was relatively easy a process. (There were a few issues with it and it did take some time to do, but nothing compared to what it might have been like without cloud backups.)

Through this and previous experiences with the “Genius Bar“, I keep thinking that this service model should be applied to other spheres of work. Including healthcare. Not the specifics of how a “Genius Bar” works. But something about this quality of service, applied to patient care. I sincerely think it’d have a very positive impact on people’s health.

In a way, this might be what’s implied by “concierge medicine”: personalized healthcare services, centred on patients’ needs. But there’s a key difference between Apple’s “Genius Bar” and “concierge medicine”: access to the “Genius Bar” is open to all (customers of Apple products).

Sure, not everyone can afford Apple products. But, despite a prevailing impression, these products are usually not that much more expensive than those made by competitors. In fact, some products made by Apple are quite competitive in their market. So, while the concierge-style services offered by the “Genius Bar” are paid by Apple’s customers, costing those services as even the totality of the “Apple premium” might reveal quite decent a value proposition.

Besides, it’s not about Apple and it’s not really about costs. While Apple’s “Genius Bar” provided my inspiration for this post, I mostly think about quality of service, in general. And while it’s important for decision-makers to think about the costs involved, it’s also important to think about what we mean by high quality service.

One aspect of concierge-style service is that it’s adapted to specific needs. It’s highly customized and personalized, the exact opposite of a “cookie-cutter” approach. My experience at BrewBakers was like that: I was treated the way I wanted to be treated and other people were treated in a very different way. For instance, a server sat besides me as I was looking at the menu, as if I had been a friend “hanging out” with them, and then treated some other customers as if they were the most dignified people in the world. Can’t say for sure the other people appreciated it (looked like they did), but I know it gave me a very warm feeling.

Similar thing at the “Genius Bar”. I could hear other people being treated very formally, but every time I went I was treated with the exact level of informality that I really enjoy. Perhaps more importantly, people’s technology skills are clearly taken into account and they never, in my experience, represent a basis for condescension or for misguided advice. In other words, lack of knowledge of an issue is treated with an understanding attitude and a customer’s expertise on an issue is treated with the exact level of respect it deserves. As always, YMMV. But I’m consistently struck by how appropriately “Genius Bar” employees treat diverse degrees of technological sophistication. As a teacher, this is something about which I care deeply. And it’s really challenging.

While it’s flexible and adaptable, concierge-style service is also respectful, no matter what. This is where our experiences in Siena were so striking. We were treated with respect, even though we didn’t fit the “dress code” for any of these restaurants. And this is a city where, in our observations, people seemed to put a lot of care in what they wore. It’s quite likely that we were judged like annoying tourists, who failed to understand the importance of wearing a suit and tie when going to a “classy” restaurant. But we were still welcomed in these establishments, and nothing in the service made us perceive negatively judged by these servers.

I’ve also heard about hotel staff having to maintain their dignity while coping with people who broke much more than dress codes. And this applies whether or not these people are clients. Friends told me about how the staff at a luxury hotel may deal with people who are unlikely to be customers (including homeless people). According to these friends, the rule is to treat everyone with respect, regardless of which position in the social ladder people occupy. Having noticed a few occasions where respectful treatment was applied to people who are often marginalized, it gives me some of the same satisfaction as when I’m treated adequately.

In other words, concierge-style service is appropriate, “no matter what”. The payoff may not be immediately obvious to everyone, but it’s clearly there. For one thing, poor-quality service to someone else can be quite painful to watch and those of us who are empathetic are likely to “take our business elsewhere” when we see somebody else being treated with disrespect. Not to mention that a respectful attitude is often the best way to prevent all sorts of negative situations from happening. Plus, some high-status people may look like low-status ones in certain of these situations. (For instance, friend working for a luxury hotel once commented on some celebrities looking like homeless people when they appeared at the hotel’s entrance.)

Concierge-style service is also disconnected from business transactions. While the money used to pay for people providing concierge-style service comes from business transactions, this connection is invisible in the service itself. This is similar to something which seems to puzzle a number of people I know, when I mention it. And I’m having a hard time explaining it in a way that they understand. But it’s quite important in the case of customer service.

At one level, you may call it an illusion. Though people pay for a service, the service is provided as if this payment didn’t matter. Sure, the costs associated with my friend’s fruit basket were incurred in the cost of her room. But neither of us saw that cost. So, at that level, it’s as if people were oblivious to the business side of things. This might help explain it to some people, but it’s not the end of it.

Another part has to do with models in which the costs behind the service are supported by a larger group of people, for instance in the ad-based model behind newspapers and Google or in the shared costs model behind insurance systems (not to mention public sectors programs). The same applies to situation where a third-party is responsible for the costs, like parents paying for services provided to their children. In this case, the separation between services and business transactions is a separation between roles. The same person can be beneficiary or benefactor in the same system, but at different times. Part of the result is that the quality of the service is directed toward the beneficiary, even though this person may not be directly responsible for the costs incurred by this service. So, the quality of a service offered by Google has to do with users of that service, not with Google’s customers (advertisers). The same thing applies to any kind of sponsorship and can work quite well with concierge-level quality of service. The Apple Store model is a bit like this, in that Apple subsidizes its stores out of its “own pocket”, and seems to be making a lot of money thanks to them. It may be counterintuitive, as a model, and the distinction between paying for and getting a service may sound irrelevant. But, from the perspective of human beings getting this kind of service, the difference is quite important.

At another level, it’s a matter of politeness. While some people are fine talking financials about any kind of exchange, many others find open discussion of money quite impolite. The former group of people may find it absurd but some of us would rather not discuss the specifics of the business transactions while a service is given. And I don’t mean anything like the lack of transparency of a menu with no price, in a very expensive restaurant. Quite the contrary. I mean a situation where everybody knows how much things cost in this specific situation, but discussion of those costs happens outside of the service itself. Again, this may sound strange to some, but I’d argue that it’s a characteristic of concierge-style service. You know how much it costs to spend a night at this hotel (or to get a haircut from this salon). But, while a specific service is provided, these costs aren’t mentioned.

Another component of this separation between services and their costs is about “fluidity”. It can be quite inefficient for people to keep calculating how much a service costs, itemized. The well-known joke about an engineer asked to itemize services for accounting purposes relates to this. In an industrial context, every item can have a specific cost. Applying the same logic to the service sector can lead to an overwhelming overhead and can also be quite misleading, especially in the case of knowledge and creative work. (How much does an idea cost?) While concierge-style service may be measured, doing so can have a negative impact on the service itself.

Some of my thinking about services and their costs has to do with learning contexts. In fact, much of my thinking about quality of service has to do with learning, since teaching remains an important part of my life. The equation between the costs of education and the learning process is quite complex. While there may be strong correlations between socioeconomic factors and credentials, the correlation between learning and credential is seems to be weaker and the connection between learning and socioeconomic factors is quite indirect.

In fact, something which is counterintuitive to outsiders and misconstrued to administrators at learning institutions is the relationship between learning and the quality of the work done by a teacher. There are many factors involved, in the work of a teacher, from students’ prior knowledge to their engagement in the learning process, and from “time on task” to the compatibility between learning and teaching methods. It’s also remarkably difficult to measure teaching effectiveness, especially if one is to pay more than lipservice to lifelong learning. Also, the motivations behind a teacher’s work rarely have much to do with such things as differential pay. At the very least, it’s clear that dedicated teachers spend more time than is officially required, and that they do so without any expectation of getting more money. But they do expect (and often get) much more than money, including the satisfaction of a job well done.

The analogy between teaching and concierge services falls down quickly if we think that concierges’ customers are those who use their services. Even in “for-profit” schools, the student-teacher relationship has very little to do with a client-business relationship. Those who “consume” the learning process are learners’ future employers or society as a whole. But students themselves aren’t “consuming teaching”, they’re learning. Sure, students often pay a portion of the costs to run educational institutions (other costs being covered by research activities, sponsorships, government funding, alumni, and even parents). But the result of the learning process is quite different from paying for a service. At worst, students are perceived as the “products” of the process. At best, they help construct knowledge. And even if students are increasingly treated as if they were customers of learning institutions (including publicly-funded ones), their relationship to teachers is quite distinct from patronage.

And this is one place for a connection between teachers and concierges, having to do with the separation between services and their fees: high quality service is given by concierges and teachers beyond direct financial incentives to do so. Even if these same teachers and concierges are trying to get increased wages, the services they provide are free of these considerations. Salary negotiations are a matter between employers and employees. Those who receive services are customers of the employers, not the employees. There’d be no reason for a concierge or teacher to argue with customers and students about their salaries.

In a way, this is almost the opposite of “social alienation”. In social sciences. “alienation” refers to a feeling of estrangement often taking place among workers whose products are consumed by people with whom they have no connection. A worker at a Foxconn factory may feel alienated from the person who will buy the Dell laptop on which she’s working. But service work is quite distinct from this. While there may be a huge status differential between someone getting a service and the person providing it and there can be a feeling of distance, the fact that there’s a direct connection between the two is quite significant. Even someone working at a call centre in India providing technical support to a high-status customer in the US  is significantly different from the alienated factory worker. The direct connection between call centre employee and customer can have a significant impact on both people involved, and on the business behind the technical support request.

And, to a large extent, the further a person working in customer service is from the financial transaction, the higher the quality of the service.

Lots has been said about Zappos and about Nordstrom. Much of that has to do with how these two companies’ approaches to customer service differ from other approaches (for instance, avoiding scripts). But there might be a key lesson, here, in terms of distancing the service from the job. The “customers are always right” ethos doesn’t jive well with beancounting.

So, concierge-style service is “more than a job”.

Providing high-quality service can be highly stimulating, motivating, and satisfying. Haven’t looked at job satisfaction levels among these people, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were quite high. What managers seem to forget, about job satisfaction, is that it has an impact beyond employee retention, productivity, and reputation. Satisfying jobs have a broad impact on society, which then impacts business. Like Ford paying high wages for his workers, much of it has to do with having a broader vision than simply managing the “ins and outs” of a given business. This is where Hanifan’s concept of social capital may come into play. Communities are built through such things as trust and job satisfaction.

Again, these aren’t simple issues. Quality customer service isn’t a simple matter of giving people the right conditions. But its effect are far-reaching.

It’s interesting to hear about “corporate concierge services” offered to employees of certain businesses. In a way, they loop back the relationship between high-quality service and labour. It sounds like corporate concierges can do a lot to enhance a workplace, even  making it more sustainable. I’d be curious to know more about them, as it sounds like they might have an interesting position with regards to the enterprise. I wouldn’t be surprised if their status were separate from that of regular employees within the business.

And, of course, I wish I were working at a place where such services were available. Sounds like those workplaces aren’t that uncommon. But having access to such services would be quite a privilege.

Thing is, I hate privilege, even when I’m the one benefitting from it. I once quipped that I hated library privileges, because they’re unequally distributed. The core of this is that I wish society were more equal. Not by levelling down everything we have, but by providing broader access to resources and services.

A key problem with concierge-style services is that access to them tends to be restricted. But it doesn’t sound like their costs are the only factor for this exclusiveness. In a way, concierge-level service may not be that much more expensive than standard service. It might be about concierge-style services being a differentiating factor, but even that doesn’t imply that it should be so restricted.

I’d argue that the level of quality of service that I’ve been describing (and rambling on about) can be found in just about any context. I’ve observed the work of librarians, gas station attendants, police officers, street vendors, park rangers, and movers who provided this level of service. While it may difficult to sustain high-quality service, it does scale and it does seem to make life easier for everyone.

Moving On

[I’m typically not very good at going back to drafts and I don’t have much time to write this. But I can RERO this. It’s an iterative process in any case….]

Been thinking about different things which all relate to the same theme: changing course, seizing opportunities, shifting focus, adapting to new situations, starting over, getting a clean slate… Moving on.

One reason is that I recently decided to end my ethnography podcast. Not that major a decision and rather easy to make. Basically, I had stopped doing it but I had yet to officially end it. I had to make it clear, in my mind, that it’s not part of the things I’m doing, these days. Not that it was a big thing in my life but I had set reminders every month that I had to record a podcast episode. It worked for ten episode (in ten months) but, once I had missed one episode, the reminder was nagging me more than anything else.

In this sense, “moving on” is realistic/pragmatic. Found something similar in Getting Things Done, by David Allen.

It’s also similar to something Larry Lessig called “email bankruptcy,” as a step toward enhanced productivity.

In fact, even financial bankruptcy can relate to this, in some contexts. In Canada, at least, bankruptcy is most adequately described as a solution to a problem, not the problem itself. I’ve known some people who were able to completely rebuild their finances after declaring bankruptcy, sometimes even getting a better credit rating than someone who hadn’t gone bankrupt. I know how strongly some people may react to this concept of bankruptcy (based on principle, resentment, fears, hopes…). It’s an extreme example of what I mean by “moving on.” It goes well with the notion, quite common in North American cultural contexts, that you always deserve a second chance (but that you should do things yourself).

Of course, similar things happen with divorces which, similarly, can often be considered as solutions to a problem rather than the problem itself. No matter how difficult or how bad divorce might be, it’s a way to start over. In some sense, it’s less extreme an example as the bankruptcy one. But it may still generate negative vibes or stir negative emotions.

Because what I’m thinking about has more to do with “turning over a new leaf.” And taking the “leap of faith” which will make you go where you feel more comfortable. I’m especially thinking about all sorts of cases of people who decided to make radical changes in their professional or personal lives, often leaving a lot behind. Whether they were forced to implement such changes or decided to jump because they simply wanted to, all of the cases I remember have had positive outcomes.

It reminds me of a good friend of mine with whom I went through music school, in college. When he finished college, he decided to follow the music path and registered for the conservatory. But, pretty quickly, he realized that it wasn’t for him. Even though he had been intensely “in music” for several years, with days of entering the conservatory, he saw that music wasn’t to remain the central focus of his career. Through a conversation with a high school friend (who later became his wife and the mother of his children), he found out that it wasn’t too late for him to register for university courses. He had been thinking about phys. ed., and thought it might be a nice opportunity to try that path. He’s been a phys. ed. teacher for a number of years. We had lunch together last year and he seems very happy with his career choice. He also sounds like a very dedicated and effective phys. ed. teacher.

In my last podcast episode, I mentioned a few things about my views of this “change of course.” Including what has become something of an expression, for me: “Done with fish.” Comes from the movie Adaptation. The quote is found here (preceded by a bit of profanity). Basically, John Laroche, who was passionately dedicated to fish, decided to completely avoid anything having to do with fish. I can relate to this at some rather deep level.

I’m also thinking about the negative consequences of “sticking with” something which isn’t working, shifting too late or too quickly, implementing changes in inappropriate ways. Plenty of examples there. Most of the ones which come to my mind have to do with business settings. One which would require quite a bit of “explaining” is my perception of Google’s strategy with Wave. Put briefly (with the hope of revisiting this issue), I think Google made bad decisions with Wave, including killing it both too late and too early (no, I don’t see this as a contradiction; but I don’t have time to explain it). They also, I feel, botched a few transitions, in this. And, more importantly, I’d say that they failed to adapt the product to what was needed.

And the trigger for several of my reflections on this “moving on” idea have to do with this kind of adaptation (fun that the movie of that name should be involved, eh?). Twitter could be an inspiration, in this case. Not only did they, like Flickr, start through a switch away from another project, but Twitter was able to transform users’ habits into the basis for some key features. Hashtags and “@replies” are well-known examples. But you could even say that most of the things they’ve been announcing have been related to the way people use their tools.

So, in a way, it’s about the balance between vision and responsiveness. Vision is often discussed and it sounds to some people as a key thing in any “task-based group (from a team to a corporation). But the way a team can switch from one project to the next based on feedback (from users or other stakeholders) seems underrated. Although, there is some talk about the “startup mentality” in many contexts, including Google and Apple. Words which fit this semantic field include: “agile,” “flexible,” “pivot,” “lean,” and “nimble” (the latter word seemed to increase in currency after being used by Barack Obama in a speech).

Anyhoo… Gotta go.

But, just before I go: I am moving on with some things (including my podfade but also a shift away from homebrewing). But the key things in my life are very stable, especially my sentimental life.

Lydon at His Best: Comeback Edition

Already posted a blog entry about Radio Open Source (ROS) host Christopher Lydon being at his best when he gives guests a lot of room.

I’ve also been overtly critical of Lydon, in the past. Nothing personal. ROS is a show that gets me thinking and I tend to think critically. I still could have voiced my opinions in a softer manner but blogging, like other forms of online communication, often makes it too easy to use inflammatory language.

At one point, I even posted a remarkably arrogant entry about my perception of what ROS should do.

But, what’s funny, what the show has become is pretty much what I had in mind. Not in format. But in spirit. And it works quite well for me.

Lydon posted a detailed entry (apparently co-authored by ROS producer Mary McGrath) on the thought process involved in building the new ROS show:

Open Source » Blog Archive » As We Were Saying…

Despite the “peacock terms” used, the blog entry seems to imply a “leaner/meaner” ROS which gives much room for Lydon to do his best work. Since it started again a few weeks ago, the show has been focusing on topics and issues particularly dear to Lydon including Jazz, American cultural identity, U.S. politics, and Transcendentalism (those four are linked, of course). It’s much less of a radio show and much more of a an actual podcast as we have come to understand them in the four years since Lydon and Dave Winer “have done the first podcast in human history.” In other words Lydon, a (former) NYT journalist, has been able to adapt to podcasting, which he invented.

What is perhaps most counter-intuitive in Lydon’s adaptation is that he went from a typical “live radio talk show” format with guests and callers to a “conversation” show without callers, all the way to very focused shows with extended interviews of varying lengths. Which means that there’s in fact less of the “listener’s voice” in the show than there ever was. In fact, there seems to be a lot less comments about ROS episodes than there were before. Yet the show is more “podcasty.”

How?

Well, for one thing, there doesn’t seem to be as strict a release schedule as there would be on a radio show. While most podcasters say that regularity in episode releases is the key to a successful podcast, it seems to me that the scheduling flexibility afforded podcasts and blogs is a major part of their appeal. You don’t release something just because you have to. You release it because it’s as ready as you want it to be.

Then there’s the flexibility in length. Not that the variability is so great. Most episodes released since the comeback are between 30 and 45 minutes. Statistically significant, but not extreme variability in podcasting terms. The difference is more about what a rigid duration requirement does to a conversation. From simple conversational cues, it’s quite easy to spot which podcasts are live broadcasts, which are edited shows, and which are free-form. Won’t do a rundown right now but it would make for an interesting little paper.

The other dimension of the new ROS which makes it more podcasty is that it’s now clearly a Lydon show. He’s really doing his thing. With support from other people, but with his own passions in mind. He’s having fun. He’s being himself. And despite everything I’ve written about him as a host, I quite enjoy the honesty of a show centered on Lydon’s passions. As counter-intuitive as this might sound given the peacock terms used in the show’s blog, it makes for a less-arrogant show. Sure, it’s still involved in American nationalism/exceptionalism. But it’s now the representation of a specific series of voices, not a show pretending to represent everything and everyone.

So, in brief, I like it.

And, yes, it’s among the podcasts which make me think.

IT and Classrooms

Two sections of the current episode of Télé-Québec’s Méchant Contraste! social issues television show are on information technology in classrooms:

Instead of a debate on whether or not technology literacy is important for young Quebeckers, the show presents articulate comments on the apparent lack of training in computer and information technologies in the Quebec educational system. Perhaps most interesting, the ideas revolve mostly around what should be done to help teachers adapt to new situations. Instead of “throwing money at the problem,” the idea here is to adopt a clear vision of what technology may do to help both students and teachers enhance learning and teaching strategies.

Of course, as a technology enthusiast, I’m specifically biased. But I do notice a disconnect between the “school administration” side of the equation (whether working in a high school or a university) and the learning/teaching community on the other side. IMHO, adopting technologies in the classroom isn’t a matter of dazzling students with technical proficiency. It’s about finding the most appropriate tools for the tasks that we set out to accomplish.

Perhaps a detail but one worth mentioning: schools still seem to give courses on specific software packages, as they did a number of years ago. Such a strategy is, IMHO, ill-advised because (as explained in this show) students are probably more adept than teachers with most of these tools. But, more importantly, what students should get is a way to connect tools with aspects of learning. Yup, the good ol’ “learning how to learn” idea, applied to a domain where the characteristics of the learning tools are less important than the principles of learning. In other words, training high school students to use Microsoft Office Powerpoint 2007 is much less efficient than helping students at any age understand the principles behind information processing and software-mediated presentations. Having fun with the software is a good way to go, with many students, but concepts and methods shouldn’t be tied to a specific piece of software.

Anyhoo…