Chris Writes.

Dubs ain't got nuthin' on a set of 808's

If I could actually figure out how to do this to my Scion, I probably would. They’re *my* priorities, after all. Imagine if you could change products to be the way you really wanted to. Imagine the world as more custom; seriously, think about what “really freaking unique” actually means. It’s not just ‘custom’ in the expected ways (colors, optional trim, xenon headlights, stupid spoiler, etc), but custom in ways that nobody’s ever asked for, ever.  Fun, huh?

There are plenty of smart & talented people who have lots of things to say about bicycle design.  There are also plenty of incredible bike designers that spend their time designing, and don’t often spend much time waxing romantic about how great their designs are – they are far too interested in their work to waste time talking about it. But there is one other area in all this, the design of the bicycle business itself, that is rarely talked about explicitly, though often complained about.

Every industry has a bell curve of attrition, in one form or another.  I could go open a pizza joint, or a coffee shop, or an auto repair shop, and my competition becomes a combination of the others around me offering similar stuff, and my own ability to not screw things up too badly.  And in a twist of that adage of “everyone, eventually, is promoted to their own pinnacle of incompetence”, there is some sick economic theorist that will have predicted that the bulk of the competitors will thrash about at or near the level of subsistence, while the least talented will fall away, and the most talented will be the subject of much envy and scorn.  Banks are, if you’ll pardon the pun, a prime example these days.

Bike shops, and the bike industry as a whole, seem to revel in this bell curve of poverty. Sure, there are plenty of bike shops and bike companies that have vanished in the past year.  There are also plenty that have sprung up in their place, and some that have done very, very well for themselves.  Despite what some might have you believe, we do not share any similarities with the Facsimile Machine Manufacturing and Retail Selling Industry from 2002. The bicycle industry churns year over year, in a largely predictably annual cycle, and chances are that while the product designs will continue to innovate and improve in the future, the industry itself will maintain itself within a similar business model. By this, I mean that brands will design their bikes, factories will manufacture on behalf of these brands we know and love, those brands will then sell mostly to independent dealers, those dealers will sell to customers, and the products will mostly be released on an annual model-year cycle.  There are myriad small departures from this, but this is the foundation.

If you’re wondering why I think the business model itself won’t change much, here’s why: a massive shift towards online sales is unlikely, if only because customer product education, fit, and repair services rely heavily on in-store interactions.  A massive downturn in interest in cycling seems similarly unlikely, environmental concerns are just one reason.  I could be wrong in either of these assumptions, but I think they are safe bets in the near term, say the next 5 years.  Exogenous forces that I’m also counting on: no massive global currency crisis, no military conflict between Taiwan & China (since they manufacture all this stuff), and no protectionist shocks, like massive increases in import duties.

No doubt, there will be shining examples of success – both regional and global, some short term and some lasting.  At the product level, the actual product design will play a massive role in the companies that succeed.  This has been true in the past, and it should not come as a surprise to anyone that it will continue to be true. This is the most hotly contested realm of design, and the most visible – especially given the model year cycle we operate in. We want and expect that the 2010 model to be superior to the 2009 model.

But at the business design level, where companies and retailers alike experiment with alterations to the way they interact within the overall business model, there have always been (and will continue to be) massive opportunities that ultimately shape the long term success of the companies or shops that do well.  If we take the overall model as a given, then redesigning our place within it can allow for some massive behavioral changes.

Two examples of what I mean, first at the manufacturer level: SRAM started as scrappy startup in a garage (sound familiar?), and fought a long, hard battle to convince cyclists at every level, from newbie to pro, that twisting their hand to shift was an improvement over thumb and finger-operated levers.  Over time, they made their impact, but this single product innovation was not their raison d’être. Stan Day and his crew of talent at some point shifted from the standard suite of inductive/deductive logic tools – what is, or what will be – and instead they started thinking abductively, about what could be.  At some point, SRAM stopped being a quirky shifter company, and became a bicycle component juggernaut that could rival Shimano on every level.  It wasn’t long ago that Shimano’s stronghold seemed simply untouchable.  Now, it’s been years since Shimano’s last Tour de France victory. Last year, SRAM won their first Tour de France.

This is one of many examples of Business Design hard at work in the hard-working bike industry.  It’s cultural as much as it’s strategic: I know many people at SRAM, and they’re all far more interested in designing what’s next, rather than deciding what’s next.  The difference is subtle, but critical.  It takes one level of acumen to assess a situation, brainstorm options for what to do next, and then decide which option is best.  It takes an entirely different level of acumen to assess a situation, and then look forward in a way that combines past wisdom with a blank slate of limitless future options.  If SRAM had simply focused on decisions, we’d likely have a narrow range of very good twist shifters.  Instead, their design centrism means we have a new & massive range of component options that have won World Cups, Tours de France, Olympic medals, and retail sales floor space.

Second, at the retail level, the bike shop is changing – not at the transaction level, but at the far ends of the spectrum: how they interact with suppliers, and how they interact with customers. Now common, B2B systems for dealers to manage orders and inventory were rare only a few years ago.  But even more critically, a shop’s connection with their local community was historically tied to their conversational skills and their ad in the yellow pages.  Now we have bike shops with rabid fans on facebook and twitter, and the very best of them have altered their transactional relationships into behavioral relationships by organizing rides, skills clinics, seminars, and even trips.  They’ve redesigned the bike shop into a social hub, a clubhouse, or at the absolute top level, a big pile of united friends.  Think for a moment about how different this is from a place like, say, Radio Shack, where you might walk in, buy 4 batteries, and leave, not knowing (or really caring) if you ever go back there again.  Bike shops used to be there.  Now, the very best have redesigned their businesses to be something closer to an extremely hip club.  But here, it’s not product that the shops are designing.  It’s interactions – and these interactions rely on keen understanding of validity, which is another key difference between the shops that fight in the froth of subsistence, versus those who are far ahead of the chum.

These very best bike shops, whether explicitly or implicitly, understand the difference between reliability and validity.  It does not take a savvy shop owner or staffer to look backwards at their past sales data and conclude that a certain percentage of their business caters to an urban city-riding commuter segment, and then make pre-orders and sales floor allocations based on those analytics.  However, this backwards look at the data is merely reliable – it’s been true before, so the assumption is that the trend will continue.  Statisticians call this linear regression, while those who look at actual human behavior call it anything from ‘distracting’ to ‘utter bullshit’.  The savvy shops are those who stay focused on conclusions that are valid, based on a wider array of data, even if it doesn’t easily import into a statistical model.  Consider a shop who just had a 150-unit housing development and 14 miles of bike lanes installed in their community: should they be more or less concerned with their past urban bike sales data?  The world is full of changes that are not reflected in historical analysis, no matter how rigorously it was conducted.

The conclusion to all this is simple: the bike industry (and other healthy industries) will continue to thrive in aggregate, and the complainers will complain in disproportionate volume because those who succeed are likely fewer in number, and also likely to be far too busy to spend time bragging about their good fortune.  And the aggregate success, across all levels of the business model, will probably bring about a wider and newer array of cool new stuff that we’ll all want.  And then we’ll go ride bikes, and the sun will shine, and we’ll trade high fives and knuckle bumps, and share a pint afterwards with a $4 burrito.

Life is good; don’t let anybody tell you different.

Hey all you marketing-types and human factors fans: If you aren’t already familiar with QR codes, you will be eventually, and probably soon.  As one of a zillion glittery new technologies in the eternally-rolling-in fog of things to (re)learn, it’s not really worth mention on it’s own. But there are two points I think do bear mention:

1. There are real applications of this stuff happening here.  now.
2. Despite years of popularity, especially in Japan, they’ve not yet caught on here because the reading technology has not been natively supported by cell phones in North America (conspiracy theorists: this is your cue!).  Curiously, this same excuse has persisted long past the point where the cell companies entirely lost control of this monopoly on the features of any individual device. With free & paid apps for iPhone, Android, and probably dozens of others available, anyone who wants it can have it, for free, now.

Remember when checking email on a phone was revolutionary? The entire landscape has changed, yet again.  We’re about to tip from a point where people said “My handheld can’t do that.”, to a point where people ask “How can my handheld do that?”.  The difference is both subtle, and seismic.

Technologies, like replicants, are either a benefit or a hazard.  Difference between us and Deckard is that if they’re a hazard, they’re not our problem.

I need your magic.

This has nothing to do with bicycles.  It’s just livin’ life.

I am allergic to cats.  That, alone, is typically enough to cement an opinion upon regarding all things feline.  For those of us afflicted by this common allergy, cats fall into one of two categories: house cats that make your eyes water and skin itch for hours, and larger cats that look at you as if to say “do you include dipping sauce?”.  I, through nothing more than angelic luck, seem to have discovered a third.  A category of cat that neither requires antihistamine with your daily coffee, nor wishes to eat you, and as an absolute bonus, contained a delightful personality that could perhaps be described as an extremely co-dependent and highly territorial version of Dot, the impossibly energetic cartoon character from Animaniacs. Curious yet refined, this Siberian breed actually lacks the gene that makes the bit that people are allergic to.  It’s basically magic, which worked in my favor, since she was a 14-year veteran of the girl I’d fallen for, and have since moved in with.

I’d never lived with a cat – Dad would have no part of it (due to allergy, see above, and maybe some other things, but who can be sure?).  He extended his allergy into a humorous animosity, but it wasn’t until I moved to Los Angeles and was introduced to my dear friend Steven’s wonderful cats that I had really started to grasp the concept of a cat as a family member.  I’d seen it with dogs, but somehow that seemed more tangible, more obvious.  Living in LA, I spent many a late night working on websites at Steven’s place, with at least a couple of his cats in close proximity (not to mention antihistamines, and gin martinis).  They were as much a part of the environment as I was, and they had rights that trumped any I might have earned.

MOSFET - 1994-2010

MOSFET was always her mom’s cat – there was no doubting the fact that she played favorites.  With 13-ish years of seniority over me, there ain’t no question that’s the way it was gonna be.  But I got through here and there, we had our moments, and we’d achieved a harmony where I’d earned the right to scritch her behind the ears, but mostly only if Mom was busy or not home from work yet.  Or if I had the kitty hairbrush. Somehow, I’ve got a knack with that thing.  When frustrated (or maybe when just bored, hard to be sure), she did her best to remove the carpet with her claws, especially when she wasn’t getting whatever it was she wanted (whatever that was).  And if I had a nickel for every time the phrase “cat-like typing detected”, I’d be able to purchase the hardcover collectors-edition of her gibberish novel many times over.  She did like to walk on keyboards, if only because Mom so often has one on her lap. She was a lover of sunbeams, and attacker of shadows. She slumbered with us, ate with us, and shed most of her hair on a specific area of the apartment.  She hissed at the vacuum cleaner anytime I pulled it out; clearly evil.  She knew exactly how she wanted the world to be, and it involved much tuna, napping, and attention.

It’s a sad day today – she passed away with her mom at her side this evening.  The apartment feels askew, and there’s a collar that is missing a kitten. We’re running through photos, sharing stories of this kitten that would take regular 3am sprints through the apartment for no apparent reason, and toasting her awesomeness with expensive scotch.  This officially crossed the line into family, and the loss feels real – the typical chirps and mewls she’d offer up when either of us got home are notably absent.  But I’ll be damned if she wasn’t the best cat ever. I mean c’mon – I wasn’t even allergic to her.  Clearly magical.

For a collection of awesome photos of this awesome feline, check here.

Clearly, I’m not the only one who will write a list like this.  Heck, I’m not even close to the most qualified to write a list like this.  I’m offering it up as a short retrospective, if only because this has been an excellent year of riding my bike (amongst other notable feats, like moving in with a girl for the first time).  There have been many rides, thousands of miles, and lots of hills. The death ride was tackled yet again, I rode a full stage of the Tour de France a few days before the big boys came through, and yet I missed the Tour of California on account of being home sick.  I raced cyclocross, and finished fourth not once but twice.  And through it all, I’ve managed to get through another year without seriously injuring myself.  Cheers to that, eh?

Pilarcitos CX #4 - photo credit Gnat Harris

So as a tech-geek gear hound, I thought I’d draft up a list of my own personal top products of 2009 – awards of sorts, for bike-related products that I’ve felt were the best items I’ve added to my quiver of bikes, or to my cycling closet, in the past 12 months.  Feel free to leave comments telling me what I forgot, or what I should try in 2010.  Happy new year to all.  May 2010 bring even more great rides and great memories.

Best wear-always piece of gear: Rapha wool baselayer.  These ultra thin merino wool baselayers are softer than the edge of a rainbow, and contain some sort of new zealand magic that perfectly regulate core temperature.  I treated myself to a three-pack of these, and I’ve worn one on every ride since then.

Best season-extending piece of gear: Rapha softshell gilet vest.  Two points for Rapha; I bought two items from their catalog, and despite the cost, they’re worth every cent. The softshell gilet vest fits perfectly, cut high in the front waist so it stays flat when you’re riding, the pockets are perfect and plentiful, and its an ideal layer for those days that are on the precipitous edge of discomfort.

Best retro-cool gear: Avid Shorty Ultimate cyclocross brakes. Leave it to the guys in Chicago to take what was supposed to be an antique technology (cantilever rim brakes) and redesign it in a way that makes even the most ardent gear hag drool blood. Weightless, beyond powerful, and cleverly adjustable to account for rear heel clearance, these are what every Grafton and Paul brake from 1996 dreamed of being.

Best wore-it-out-so-bought-it-again gear: Specialized All-Conditions Armadillo Elite tires. They’re race-worthy tires, not as elegantly compliant as a cotton-casing perhaps, but entirely capable in, as the name reads, all conditions. The secret joy of these 700c rubber circles is the Armadillo Elite puncture-resistant ply under the tread, which adds something like 20g per tire, but means that you’ll not likely ever puncture.  As winter tires, or simply as insurance year round, the thrill of being glass/thorn/tack/nail-proof is something I can’t recommend enough.

Best Finally-got-around-to-it gear: BG Fit.  Ok, technically not gear, but worth it’s weight in whatever your currency, this year I finally got it together and got myself professionally fit to my bike – the same fit trusted by the pros on Team Saxo Bank, and soon, some of those Astana guys too.  Read more about my fit experience here, then go find a Specialized shop that can do it for you.  Astonishingly better.

Best new nutritional supplement: Optygen EFS Liquid Shot.  Discovered this in the schwag bag of Levi Leipheimer’s gran fondo in NorCal.  A tasty, slightly thinner viscosity gel in a easy 5oz flask, this stuff was aces as I nursed it along the 100-mile course, and finished without cramping or any stomach upset.  Definitely ideal for those long days in the saddle.

Best New Awesome Gear: SRAM XX.  I used to race a 2×9 setup when I was racing mountain bikes, and I’m a big fan of the 2-ring setup for dedicated XC riding and racing.  SRAM has taken that idea, and a dozen other absolutely elegant design tricks, and created a dedicated XC racing group that is without parallel.  Favorite details include the shifters and brakes sharing a bar perch, the massively powerful brakes, and the OMG light 10-spd cassette.  In every way, incredible and worth the acclaim it’s earned.

Best post-ride brew: Lagunitas IPA.  California, while entirely screwed in many ways, does have a fantastic beer advantage over most of the rest of the world, with arguable cases to be made for Oregon, Belgium, Germany, and Czech Republic.  Post ride libation choices abound, and there are plenty I enjoy, but like a favorite old t-shirt, there is something fantastic about it that keeps me going back, again and again, never disappointed.

Best speed-enhancing product: Zipp 404 wheels.  I’ve had these for a full year now, and I can’t imagine living without them.  It’s the hollow sound they make as they roll underneath me, the unflinching rigidity they add to my bike, and the absolute badass-ness they add to my bike’s appearance.  Plus, in a cross wind, they’re like having a sail tacked perfectly in the gust, pulling you along as if some sort of divinity lived in your hubs and was hamsterwheeling you forward, off the front of the group.  Bonus points for my “skullz” wheeltags, which make them even more extra badass looking.  Sometimes, they make children cry, just on appearance alone.

Best extravagance: Campagnolo corkscrew. A birthday present from my sweetheart, this monstrosity of a corkscrew makes short work of the cork from any Brunello or Barolo, no matter the vintage.  The chainring bolt pivots are a subtle but polite nod to the cycling foundations of this marvelous bit of metalwork, and it never fails to elicit oohs and aaahs from visiting dinner guests.

Best battery-powered gear: Garmin Edge 705*.  A single unit that tracks GPS data along with heart rate and cadence, this admittedly bulky computer probably offers more power than the first PC I owned, and it’s an absolutely incredible way to track ride data.  An asterisk is added because I have reservations about the mount design, which breaks all too easily, but they’ve since updated it with a more robust version that I’ve heard is good, but I’ve not yet tried myself. Also, the new Garmin bike computers rely on a totally new mounting system, which looks pretty solid.

I’ve heard it said that there is no greater teacher than failure.  Perhaps true at times, but probably safer to say that there is no more painful a teacher.  The best teachers I’ve had seek to inspire far more than they actually seek to merely teach.  And I’ve not yet found that same palpable inspiration from any failure I’ve endured.  So perhaps it’s not the best teacher, but it’s clearly an effective one (once you get past the part where you feel like you got clobbered in the chest with a jackhammer).

It’s not without irony that I recently stumbled, quite seriously, in an area where I’m looked at to be a resource for others.  I’m supposed to know this stuff cold, well enough to teach it.  It was not my tactical knowledge or my state of mind that failed me.  It was a failure of empathy.

I’ve told many people that there are basically three rules to follow if you want to stay out of 99% of the potential trouble in the world of social media on sites like facebook and twitter.  They are as follows:
1. Don’t lie
2. Don’t fight
3. Don’t reveal secrets

For anyone who’s heard me say this before, I’d like to make some small but critical amendments to these three tenants.

1.1. Don’t lie, or appear to lie
2.1. Don’t fight, or appear to fight
3.1. Don’t reveal things that you or others consider to be secrets

These amendments highlight something important, something that has entirely and rather quickly reframed my perspective of what I will do online from this point forward.  I think if I was asked about this a few weeks ago, I would have agreed with all of this, but I might not have fully grasped the magnitude of the difference between the old rules, and the new ones I’m proposing. This new way simply wasn’t the lens through which I was looking at the world. Thus, it wasn’t how I was filtering everything I shared online regarding stuff I’ve seen, heard, or done.  I was following the original rules, and I was personally defining each time what it meant to lie, fight, or reveal secrets.  The cold shower reality is instead that it doesn’t much matter what I think the definitions are.  The definition of any of these rules is not a function of my opinion, but rather a function of anyone who might read and care about what I choose to share.  And in the online world, we know this means anybody.  Parents.  Girlfriend.  Old girlfriend.  Co-worker.  Friend of friend.  Someone you’ll never meet.  Anybody.

It’s not always easy to consider the views of everybody.  And in some cases, there will always be dissenting opinions – I’m not suggesting that we whitewash the world in the hopes of finding a meaningless harmony.  The point is this: the question isn’t if *I* think it’s a fight, lie, or revealing a secret.  It’s “could anyone think that this is a fight, lie, or revealing a secret?”.  And then having the wisdom and good sense to think critically about that question, and the people involved, instead of thinking about it entirely from my own myopic point of view.

I’m not a fan of making mistakes.  Nobody goes out looking to make a mistake simply because they feel like they haven’t learned anything recently.  It’s likely that I’ll make other mistakes in the future.  But with some diligence, I won’t make this same one again.  My sincere apologies to those involved; if you’re reading this, you know who you are.

It was entirely due to good luck that I happened to be able to be able to get my bike fit at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine. I was in Boulder on other business, and was able to arrange a 2.5 hr fit session with bike fit rockstar Sean Madsen, a guy who undisputedly now knows far more about the workings of cyclist knees, feet, hips, shoulders, backs, and wrists than nearly anybody. I owe him a massive thanks for his time and his help.

Sean Madsen from BCSM looks on as I pedal while covered in tracking dots

This is the part where I say “Well ya know, I did my share of bike fitting way back when I worked in a shop…”  I’ve been riding bikes for the better part of 18 years now, and save for the occasional non-bike vacation or that bit where I was in school, there hasn’t been much “off the bike” time.  And while it’s true, I’ve never actually won a race (though I once got 2^nd), I think I’ve got a decent understanding of bike fit.  Or at least, I thought so.

Side view of the tracking dots - note the red cameras!

In recent years, I’ve learned even more as the science and physiology of biomechanics has blossomed bike fit from a pure art form into a unique science.  It’s a science where the algorithms are well established, yet remain flexible enough to accommodate each individual rider.  Yet despite my familiarity with the concept of fit, and despite my own experience, it was the process of actually going through it that really made me realize how far this has come.  From the physical assessment of flexibility and asymmetry, to being filmed with six cameras and those 3D tracking dots they use to create animated Golem characters, I was in awe at the undeniable precision.  I’ve seen this stuff on paper, plenty of times.  But this time it was me, and those circles being drawn on the screen were the ellipses of my knees, wavering and weaving left to right as I pedaled up and down.  These spiro-graph doodles that the heartless and whirring HAL-9000 machine was displaying were uncaring, ruthless, and perfect.  And they showed me, by exactly how much, that I was not.

I was riding my bike on a trainer under the 6 laser-beam equipped cameras in the lab.  The cameras and their computer tracked the 16 reflectors on my knees, feet, and hips to within a few millimeters in 3 dimensions.  I was pedaling at a fixed 290 watts.  After a healthy sample of about 4800 readings (16 sensors, tracked for about 5 seconds at 60 frames per second), Sean and I reviewed my results: my knees were too bent at the bottom of the pedal stroke, my back wasn’t curving right, and I was pedaling with my heels lifted all the time.  My knees weren’t optimally aligned over the pedals, and because I have a slightly longer left femur (who knew?), I was pedaling slightly crooked, so that my knees weren’t perfectly mirror images of each other.  Basically, I was pretty good from far, but up close, far from good.

We ended up dropping my saddle and my bars (yes, that’s right, my legs were too bent at the bottom of the stroke, but we dropped my saddle).  We adjusted my cleats, and I got back on the bike.  Cameras aglow in their sinister laserbeam red, I spun the bike back up to speed and waited for Sean to bring the wattage back up to 290.  It never happened.  Or rather, it did, but I never felt it.  These few small tweaks let me pedal at the same power, but at a far lower perceived exertion.  It was not subtle.  My center of gravity dropped by more than a centimeter, my bars dropped nearly 2cm, and my cleats now adjusted to accommodate for leg length discrepancies, I was now oddly unchanged, yet stronger.  I didn’t feel like my bike fit differently.  Sean simply unlocked some of my muscles.

6 of these, staring at me.

Apparently there were two big things at work here: one is that I am now able to utilize more of my gluteus muscles, which apparently are the strongest muscles the body has.  Second, because I was always pedaling with my toes pointed down, my calves were never getting a chance to relax, eternally flexed out yet not firing and providing power.  My seat was too high, so I was pointing my toes to reach the pedals. By pointing my toes, I wasn’t getting proper leg extension.  Dropping my saddle let me drop my heels, get better extension, use more muscles, and abuse my calves less.

Had it been up to me, I would have started by raising my saddle.  This would have been exactly wrong.

So what’d we learn?  A few things: first, the science of bike fit has more to say about the interactions of the entire body with the entire bike than it has to say about one specific aspect.  It’s chaos theory and butterflies in the Amazon, but it’s an ecosystem where, at least in a lab, you can clearly see and measure the effects of a change in position on not just that element, but the rest of the rider as well.  And the art form has moved from the knowing glances of a wizened Italian sitting in the corner with an espresso, to a scientist in Colorado who can measure everything, but still has the insight to know what to change to bring the entire system into alignment.

Second, I suspect that this might be uncomfortable for people who’ve been doing this for a long time.  The past generation’s gurus of bike fit, while probably well worthy of the acclaim they have earned themselves, are now at risk of being outmoded by a system that is more ruthlessly reliable, more quickly taught, and more accommodating to specific & individual rider needs (especially when, say, your left leg is 2 or 3 mm longer than your right).  It doesn’t make the Gurus any less talented.  It simply makes them less unique.

Third, this sort of scientific approach feels nothing like the inside of a bike shop.  I walked into the Boulder Center having no idea what to expect, and was rather surprised to find that it felt as clinical as it did.  Apart from a few exceptions I’ve seen (like the fit room at nearby University Bikes), the confidence and assurance of this laboratory was decidedly unlike the archetype of your neighbourhood bike shop.  But the fact that bike shops can learn how to do this, and that this fit technology has become available all over the planet within the past 3 years – well, it’s all rather stunning, and gives me hope about what the future of a great bike shop environment will be.  In some cases, it’s already there.  And that’s just cool.

Three tracking dots per shoe

UPDATE: My computer is now fixed, and the folks at Apple did the right thing, owned up to the situation, and apologized. While my experience was unfortunate, I can’t fault their willingness to deal with the problem head on, and solve it as best as possible.

—–

Below is a verbatim letter I wrote to Apple regarding my current experiences in trying to get my computer repaired.  I’m posting it here because I think the broader heuristic here applies well outside of the world of computers.  Basically: I think it’s often the combination of talented/smart humans, and the appropriate systems that they rely on, that create success stories.  The humans or the systems alone are not independently sufficient, no matter how good the human, or how marvelous the system.

Ask yourself which of the two you might have a hand in improving, then go do it.  K, thx.

____

Dear Apple,

It’s now been 3 weeks since I dropped off my MacBookPro at the Apple Store in Los Gatos, CA to be repaired.  The diagnosis was a failed logic board, and I was told it would take 5 to 7 days to get back.  This would be a good time to cue the ominous, foreboding, DRM-free music.

My complaint is not with anyone at Apple with whom I’ve spoken – so far, I’ve only come across intelligent, reasonable people.  My feedback that I hope somehow makes it through this anonymous web-based radio-button interaction is as follows: your intelligent, reasonable people seem to lack the tools required to answer my single most important question:  “when will I get my computer back?”

To me, this seems like a reasonable question, and one you certainly must anticipate with formidable alacrity.  Yet, it’s impossible to get an answer to it, or at least, so it seems to me.  Here’s an account of what led me to this thinking:

1. The people at the Apple Store (Los Gatos) could not tell me if the parts I needed were in stock.  They could only confirm that they ordered them.  The parts took  10 days to arrive, my daily  calls after day 7 were not able to get a response any more enlightened than “maybe tomorrow or the next day, we never know what we are getting shipped until it gets here”.  I heard this several times, from different people, on different days.  If the computer had arrived on time, I would not have had to go on a business trip to Montreal with a Dell that I borrowed from our IT department, and which lacked any of the programs I rely on.  But I soldiered on.
2. When my parts arrived, it was discovered that other problems existed. My computer would now have to be sent to “depot”, which sounds ominous.  The delivery counter was reset: again, 5 to 7 days.
3. After 7 days went by, my calls to the guys in Los Gatos were met with an equally cryptic confirmation that my computer had made it to the depot as planned, but that it’s status was “awaiting parts”. When I pressed for more info, reasonable questions including “what parts?” and “how long will it take to get these parts?”, they said they could not tell me.  They directed me to the Apple Care 800 number.  I was starting to realize that my next business trip, this time to Europe, was going to involve the same loaner Dell.  The retail store had offered to sell me a new computer, and then waive the restocking fee if I later returned it, but I was not exactly comfortable shelling out over $2k of my money to borrow your computer.
4. I called the 800 number, and had a conversation with a nice woman there who confirmed that she could also tell me nothing about when my computer would be completed and returned to me.  Apparently she had no visibility into the repair any more than the Retail folks did.  “Awaiting parts”, she said.  “But it might be done tomorrow or the next day.”  I told her I wasn’t exactly full of optimism.  I asked her why she couldn’t be more specific, and she said she simply didn’t have access to the information.  I also asked her if we could modify the ship-to address so that the computer could perhaps be shipped to me while I was on my business trip, but this too was impossible.  I asked her if she realized that this policy didn’t make any sense.  She said yes, she realized that.

So you see, it seems as though, in an era of RFID tags, shipping automation, UPS real-time tracking, GPS, and a litany of other advances, we’ve reached an age where we can pretty accurately predict things like product pipeline time, delivery, and other details – if every Apple was hand-made by a team of Swiss engineers who handcrafted not just each computer, but each microprocessor in a bespoke fashion similar to that of High Street wingtips, then I’d have a greater understanding of the situation.  But we’re talking about mass-produced silver boxes that contain other metal bits, all of which come from big factories that likely rival fighter jets in complexity and systems integration.

The fact that you can’t tell me where my computer is suggests only two possible scenarios to me:

1. A concerted effort against me, specifically, for something I did.  I know not what.
2. An utter failure on your part to provide your people with the information and systems they need to do their jobs in a way that makes sense to me, the customer on the other end of the phone.

If it was #1, then please let me know what I did so I can properly apologize.

Thanks,

Chris Matthews

During the two years I spent at the Rotman School of Management, the school’s Dean, Roger Martin, developed a glossy sheen that was applied to many facets of the academic curriculum, and designated to be “Integrative Thinking”. It’s a framework that, while best explained in far more detail than I’ll get into here, basically shone a spotlight on the success that can be found when a problem is not solved by selecting between alternatives, but rather synthesizing the best of all alternatives. Said even more plainly: it’s a systematized way of achieving ‘also/and’ instead of settling for ‘either/or’.

In the not-quite-five years since I graduated, this framework has evolved, earned media praise, birthed books published at Harvard Press, and most importantly, it’s been something I’ve been able to apply in regular doses across the multiplicity of my responsibilities. Now, Roger has expanded his approach into a new realm, termed “Design Thinking”, as something that’s not so much an evolution of Integrative Thinking, but rather as a critical and practical way to bridge the gap between the practicality of integrative thinking, and the possibilities that come out of visionary imaginations. Design Thinking, rather than focusing specifically on decision making and synthesis of options, focuses instead on thinking styles, and synthesis of analytic rigor with the artistry of intuition, thus providing the tools required to actually create something new. Again, please note this definition, and entire blog post, is violently truncated. For the whole story, go read this, and probably this too. And for a single-shot of the whole discussion, created in real-time on a giant flip chart, here’s an overly large picture that you can print out poster size if you want.

On Monday, Roger paid a visit to Jump Associates, a Design Consultancy in nearby San Mateo, just a short few miles from my home in Redwood City. He was there for an evening lecture on Design Thinking in promotion of his new book. I wanted to summarize some of the insights, and where I can, relate some of the key points back to bikes. Maybe, just maybe, this might help to show that while the majority of the cycling world may never talk in the same language of strategy consulting firms, the business model fundamentals, competitive landscape, and strategy dynamics are sufficiently complex to justify application of this level of thought. Bike biz is full of smrt people. Sometimes we don’t give ourselves proper credit. (for extra points, go recruit a Rotman grad or two, k?)

Roger’s talk covered many areas, but two sets of interplayed dynamics seemed key to the topic:

1. reliability vs validity
2. inductive/deductive logic vs abductive logic

PART 1: Business in general tends to prefer reliable results, through broad application of proven templates and template-styled thinking, and data analysis tools like linear regression: give the same set of numbers to a group of statisticians, and ask them to use the data to predict the future trends, and they’ll all come up with *exactly* the same answer, the same confidence interval, and the same measures of statistical significance. Sadly, this does not mean that the data will predict what will really happen. As a bike example: the number of speeds on a new mountain bike has progressed steadily upwards over the years. However, this does not mean that we should expect 56-speed bikes by 2025.

Validity, on the other hand, is being able to look past what might be expected, to apply some insight, outside knowledge, or deep understanding, to adjust strategy to match an accurate future, instead of the one that everyone expects, or that mathematics says it can predict. It’s everything that templates are not. Linear regression-styled thinking, for example, would not have expected the number of speeds on an XC racing bike to go from 27 down to 20, yet SRAM’s new XX component group has done exactly that *and* improved performance for these riders. They did it by understanding what those riders needed, at a very fundamental human level, and it wasn’t more gears.

Good business designers, Roger postulates, achieve validity by applying imagination and creativity to the challenges they face. Designers tend to imagine the future, versus a business analyst who uses linear regressions and data to try to predict it. This is not to say that a good designer simply discards analysis; more accurate would be to say that they still rely heavily on analysis, but in the face of an intuitive notion that conflicts with the data, they simply have the brass balls required to challenge the authority of the graphs.

One good related story here that Roger shared was from his days at Monitor, when he was hired by Rob Harvey, who headed up design at Herman Miller. The project: the Aeron chair. This was a chair that when people first saw it garnered nothing but negative comments, sometimes even hostility. He persevered through the first impressions to create an absolute icon. When Roger asked Rob at the time why he, the head of design, was hiring a strategy consultant, Rob replied “Isn’t strategy a design process?”

PART 2: Typically, the business world relies on inductive and deductive logic, essentially ‘what will be’ based on what we know of causal relationships. As a bike example: gas prices are increasing, so alternative modes of both fuel and transport will be required, leading to the conclusion that bike sales will naturally increase. Seems reasonable enough, right?

Roger made the case that designers rely additionally on abductive logic: thinking ‘what might be’, based on what we know of human behavior, latent needs, and our own intuition. An example here might be to use the same gas price pressures to justify designing villages and neighborhoods that simply require less travel, and to perhaps design them by looking at senior communities (since they’re already low mobility) as models for ways we could better design new family communities that required less transport. That sort of thing.

The refrain here from both sides is that business people claim designers aren’t practical, while design people claim business people aren’t imaginative. To a large extent, these stereotypes are correct. This is probably in part because the business types enjoy their reliability even if it means they’re stuck making relatively safe but boring incremental improvements (ie ‘we made our new carbon race wheels 4 grams lighter’). Similarly, the designers enjoy their claim on validity even if it means being commercially wrong sometimes (ie ‘Trek Lime’).

As people, we all have a personal and immediate reaction to aesthetics, whether it’s a chair or a TT frame – products evoke reactions because they’re immediate and sensory. Business has a similar but less obvious aesthetic, which might be as simple as thinking of as the ‘brand’ as the product, or as Roger put it, to say that managers work in the medium of strategy. The reactions a brand creates, and the relationships that it develops with the people it was designed for: these are what define it as being well designed, or poorly designed. And like the Aeron chair, sometimes first glance isn’t indicative of the future. Just as we’ve seen more recently with fixies & Rotor rings, or years ago with SRAM twist shifters: the initial reaction was a poor gauge of their potential.

It’s worth noting that the business designer, then, doesn’t pick from the business rules or the design rules exclusively. Instead, business design seems to be about using both, and having the wisdom, forsight, and the guts to play both sides of the field. I suppose, then, that Roger has done a particularly good job of combining integrative thinking with design thinking. Integrative thinking and design thinking together create a very robust set of thought principles. It’s likely no accident that they work best in an ‘and/also’ partnership.

I only spent two days at Interbike this year (my shortest time there in the 12+ years I’ve been attending), so my account of Interbike 2009 will not include the same litany of shiny anodized pictures, technical highlights of how light a carbon frame can be, or any of the other “what happens in vegas” stories that you can get elsewhere on the interwebs.  That stuff is all great, but interbike ended more than a few days ago, and there isn’t much there to add.

But.

There are a few things I do think bear mention:

1. There were a few companies notably absent, but a few new (European) faces to fill in the gaps.
2. The efforts at guaranteeing the future of cycling as an enthusiast sport seems to be more and more a specifically North American interest.
3. Many retailers still don’t know much about social media, but nearly as many industry leaders are ready to show them the way (and need to realize that this responsibility rests with each of us).

Roll call: Bueller?  Bueller?….Bueller?….
Trek & Giant didn’t make it to class.  Cannondale was there, but was doing an impression of business autism, showing a few new models that were displayed in a poetic and perhaps savantish style, but together didn’t form a complete sentence.  My employer was there, but with a booth not commensurate with the size of the business (unlike eurobike, where we go big).  And my fellow countrymen at Cervelo didn’t show up at all, though they did throw a party in the same hotel, and in 8th grade birthday party style, they made a point of not inviting some people.  But there were new kids in the class: Gore bike wear, nearly as well known as Nike in the European cycling world, has finally brought their wares to North America, along with a resurgence in their awesome Gore Ride-On cables. Focus bikes, a big Euro brand you maybe haven’t heard of yet, is now here.  Watch out in coming years for the likes of Canyon, Cube, Stevens, and others.  If it weren’t for the sinking US dollar making these bikes more expensive to import, we’d probably see more of these brands sooner.  And if you think there’s no space for them in North American shops, take a look at Rick’s recent post about the opportunity brands like these might be seeing.  If he’s right, there could be more room than they need (at least in the short term while they’re still cute and nichey)

Do good.
In a marked difference between Eurobike and Interbike, I saw a lot of activity surrounding cycling-related advocacy efforts in Vegas that weren’t as present in Friedrichshafen.  From packed rooms of people wanting to learn more about the great work at World Bicycle Relief, to IMBA and Bikes Belong, there was plenty of noise about the state of cycling as a sport and as a cause.  At Eurobike, it all seemed far less…obvious.  And I think there’s a reason for that: our Euro friends don’t live in constant fear of their sport being seen as “in trouble”.  Their mountain bike rides are often fire road adventures through real, honest-to-goodness mountains.  Their roads and bike paths are beyond cycling friendly, and aren’t in need of repair, much less development.  And you can shut down entire cities for the same race, year after year, streets filled with throngs of adoring fans.  North America is in far greater need of defending cycling as a sport because it never really became a way of life like it did in Europe.  As such, we battle for singletrack, for park access, for bike lanes and roadway rights.  To Europe, our battle for bikes must seem at times rather peculiar, leaving them to wonder if we also need to lobby government for the right to maintain left turn lanes, or to cook in cast iron.  For sure, truly global advocacy is relevant everywhere, and I’ve never met anyone against helping people or charities that rely on cycling as a catalyst for change.  But the defensive (and perhaps aggressive) posture of North America’s approach (”Save our trails!”  “Share the road!”) is remarkably different from a proactive, expansionary, and visionary approach that might have more natural global appeal.

@help
I spent some time at Interbike attending a social media how-to talk led by Lynn Switanowski-Barrett of the CBC Group*, discussing Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs to a packed (and large) room full of dealers.  The encouraging bits included a large number of shop-owner attendees that raised their hands to confirm they were using facebook, or twitter, or blogs, or flickr.  Better still, there were lots of questions, and even the occasional audience-led validation that this stuff was actually useful.  The savvy reassured the leery that negative reviews weren’t really the problem they imagined they might be.  But it did highlight a big gap that I suspected already: many brands, pro athletes, and industry-insider types are leading the charge, but in general, our retail channel has largely fallen behind, and are only trying to catch back up.  If they get much further behind, they might (wrongly) conclude that this is national marketing tactic best left to big companies with big budgets, and thus go back to placing yellow pages ads.  We must not let this happen.  If you know a bike shop, call them today.  Tell them to set up a facebook fan page.  Social media, at least within the bike industry (but probably elsewhere too), offers the most value to everyone as a mass-local tool, not a mass-market tool; that is, working in many, many smaller communities to connect people in that region – kinda like yellow pages, but better!

*I actually met Lynn at the interbike tweetup on tuesday night, where a great flock of industry people who knew each other only as tiny icons and code names got together to drink $8 coronas and raffle off a heap of schwag.  It was a last minute decision to sell raffle tickets for the schwag, and we ended up raising about $1600 for charity!  Pics here.