Small Things In The Road

Driving on 11th Street this morning, I waited at a light (I think near Irving). As the light changed, I got ready to move, put my car into gear, and heard a cry from a child on the side of 11th. I glanced to my right just in time to see a child no more than 2 feet tall stride directly in front of my car.

I could literally only just see his head above the hood of my car. He was no more than a foot in front of me. If I had a bigger car I might never have seen him at all. If I hadn't heard his friend calling for him, I might never have looked to my right before starting off when the light changed. He was marching directly across the road in front of a green light.

I don't know what made him decide to cross just as the light turned. There was no crossing guard. A few other kids were on either side of the road. I formed some theories in my head. Perhaps he had gotten in a fight with his friend, and broken ranks. I watched the child stride across the road with such determination and purpose. His head never moved from it's forward stance. He looked straight across, the traffic lights, cars, and other kids crying out for him to stop, ignored.

This was a solemn reminder of the importance of everyone on the road taking as much care as possible all the time. This child was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was lucky because I had my windows rolled down, heard his friend, saw him. He could have been unlucky. He would not have survived being driven over by something that had no idea he was there. A bicycle, too, could have caused him grave injury, so small was his size. Most people don't look for things that are about 2 feet tall in the road.

Take care out there no matter what the circumstances, no matter what you're riding in or on. Accidents don't just happen when you are speeding or running through red lights, they can happen when you are stopped too. Look out for things that haven't yet learned how to keep themselves safe.

Small Victories

What should my wondering eyes behold this morning, but the sound of a lawnmower at the Asylum! Could it be? It could. And it is. The grass was being cut this morning. Thanks to Jim Graham and DRES for following through. I'm hoping this won't be a one-time event, but it has been added to the schedule so it will continue to be maintained until the building's eventual fate is determined. The lights are still on. That's too bad, but at least it's no longer a blight and an eyesore.

I've been sick for almost a week. It wasn't that bad for the first few days, so I thought I would fight it off. Then I guess my body gave up the fight a couple days ago, because it got bad, but I think the worst is over now. I don't get sick very often, and as a result am typically a very cranky sick person. This spring I've gotten sick twice and that has not made me happy at all. I'm not sure if this is a result of age, lack of exercise (I haven't been running for almost a year because of various foot injuries), or just bad luck, but the novelty has worn off. I'm over it.

Other than that, life's good in the city. Winter seems to have returned, which the houseplants have been none too happy about since I moved them to the front porch. I brought the banana tree back inside since half of its leaves have turned brown... doh.

Grass is growing in the front yard, which is no small miracle since the soil around here is about 90% clay. The azaleas are blooming, and despite what the Washington Post says, they are gorgeous. "Time to dump azaleas?" Huh? Are you just being contrary for the sake of being contrary? What next, "We're over eating out?" "Sick of Monuments?" Jebus. It's a flowering shrub, not a fashion.

Would The Last Person Please Turn Out The Lights?

My mother used to say that a lot. That was long before anyone ever heard of "global warming" and "multi-trillion dollar defecits." It was just basic, sound financial advice: don't waste electricity by leaving the lights on when you're not there.

The District of Columbia could really use a mother right now. This morning, while walking the dog in the dawn hours, I realized the lights were still on at 1125 Spring Road NW. This is the DC-owned facility which I wrote about about two weeks ago, that has been "permanently closed" since November. Though you wouldn't know that from DC's web site, or the DC Court System's web site.

In my previous post, I wondered why DC thought it was OK to shut down a city-owned facility spanning almost two blocks, and at the same time stop mowing the grass, picking up trash, or shoveling the sidewalks. See, when private property owners do the same, several bad things happen:

• They start getting taxed at the "blighted property" rate of 10% annually
  
• They get ticketed and fined for failing to maintain the grounds
  
• If the building is big enough, they get a lot of heat because a lot of people complain about it
  

But it's good to be the king, isn't it? Because you can do all the same bad stuff, without repercussions, that you bust other people for doing.

Anyways, I have a suggestion for DC. This is a win-win for everyone and it won't cost you a nickel.

Shut off the damn lights, and with the money you save, hire someone to mow the lawn every two weeks.

Given that about half the lights in this facility of at least 50,000 square feet are on, I'd say you'll have some money left over.

Social Marketing A Victory For All

On Friday, I went to a "brown bag" lunch in which a marketing firm gave us a presentation about new media marketing, that is, social marketing. Or "social" as the lingo appears to be when referring to outreach via facebook, blogs, twitter, and so on.

This is not a company logo. It is
a photograph of the coolest dog toy ever.

This was interesting and timely, given my last post which complained about a problem I had with PEPCO. A PEPCO rep responded to my post in the comments mere hours after I made the post. While I typically have a cycnical attitude about big-company marketing/public relations efforts, I left this presentation with a good feeling. Not so much about the marking firm (they seemed very knowledgable, though), but about the overall effects of social networking and marketing in terms of how consumers and big organizations interact.

Anyone who's been around more than ten or twenty years has probably witnessed the slow deterioration of this thing called "customer service" in favor of automation, outsourcing, deferring. Big companies seem to make it as hard as possible for an individual to communicate directly with someone, or at least someone knowledgable, when they have a problem. They shunt you through complex automated phone trees, web sites, and support systems, that place a huge burden on the end-user to solve the problem themselves.

Even though most consumers find this frustrating and mind-bogglingly difficult, there is some rationale for companies to do this. Even if it takes an average consumer 10 times as long to get through a support issue, and even if only 1 out of those 5 consumers can actually get their problem solved without speaking to a real person anyway, you've just saved 20% in labor costs. Because automated system cost virtually nothing to operate on a per-user basis, whereas people cost real dollars. You're shifting the cost of support to the end user.

But the advent of social networking, which has put a soapbax in the hands of everyman, and Google, which can turn a speck of dust on the Internet into a first-page search result when the right conditions are met, have changed all this. Companies can no longer afford to ignore their customers, because more and more, they will share their bad experiences. And this information gets attached to their name for a very long time online. Savvy companies are reacting by being more proactive, like PEPCO did to my blog post.

This is still just marketing. They are being driven by the bottom line - by doing a better job of managing their online "reputation" companies will sell more. The PR guy on Friday told us that stuides have shown that people who "like" something on Facebook are statistically more likely to buy that brand in the future. That's real money.

So money may still be at the bottom line, but this is America. There's nothing wrong with making money. It's nice to see a shift in the relationship between consumers and big business that is shifting the balance of power back to something more reasonable. Consumers have a voice online, and the evolving technology has made that voice one that can't be ignored. It's a win for consumers, and I think most companies will find that they benefit as organizatons by nurturing their customers this way, rather than doing their best to spend as little time as possible on them after the sale.