After all, what's a disgruntled customer going to do?  Run their own TV ad?  Hold a press conference?

While staying at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco this spring, Mark Hurst was annoyed when he learned that it charged guests $2 to make a toll-free call and $1.50 for a local call. As an Internet consultant who specializes in improving the "customer experience" of corporate and commercial Web sites, he found the charges akin to getting a dead fish on his pillow. When he vented his annoyance in a weekly e-mail newsletter he publishes that deals with a range of consumer experiences, he struck a chord with readers. That column got more of a response than anything I've ever written about the Internet or Web sites," Mr. Hurst said.

(story via New York Times)

As a result of his bad customer experience Mr. Hurst started a site called This is Broken, where customers with bad experiences can air their gripes.  This is an excellent idea.  Hopefully as more sites like this crop up, businesses will realize that the cost of not listening to their customers is actually detrimental to their quest for profit.

Why haven't computers helped our school kids learn better?

Yes, teacher ineptitude is a logically possible explanation of the situation.  But you'd think these pedagogical experts would occasionally ask themselves whether the widespread teacher resistance might have a more reasonable explanation -- namely, computer ineptitude.  It is, after all, just possible that a great deal about the computer works against its educational use.  It might be, for example, that the computer tends to make more difficult the single greatest educational task today, which is to bring the student into the fullest, richest engagement with reality --the reality of the natural world, the human being, and society. Link

How true.  Technology is not always a necessary ingredient in learning, and often it can be an impediment.  We all want to believe that there are easy shortcuts to learning; perhaps that's why the 'For Dummies' series is so popular.   Perhaps we haven't learned much about education in the past thousand years after all.  If that's true then it would probably be a mistake to blame technology.

By the way, if you want to subscribe to Steve's email newsletter go to the website: Netfuture.org. I highly recommend this publication if you want a clear discussion of technology and its effects on society.

How can a refrigerator with a water filter be a technology problem?

The problem with using that approach on the refrigerator is the red light.  It pierces me straight in the eye everytime I get a glass of water or some ice, an insidious reminder that my filter needs to be replaced.  It's insidious mostly because it allows my fertile imagination to do the heavy lifting, conjuring up various disaster scenarios that will eventually occur if I don't change the filter: water-bourne carcinogens, wriggling pathogens, and increasing toxicity entering my children's metabolism.

But then, inevitably, sanity returns.  I think to myself they're older now and their immune systems are well-developed.  And, besides, what a pain in the ass to try to find a replacement filter every couple of months just to avoid the early onset of cancer.  If they really want to live then let them find a replacement filter.

What's a frazzled parent to do?

Well, for one thing, don't bother trying to find a replacement filter by driving around on a congested highway.  You're better off taking your chances with the cancer.  No, my friends, this is a job for the Internet.  "So loyal members of the studio audience" [said as I move over to another part of the studio, with the camera gently panning along] "what we're going to do here is fire up our trusty browser (which I hope is on a computer with high-speed Internet access) and navigate to Google.com." 

Does everyone remember what we covered in 'Simple Search Strategies?'  No?  Okay, how about 'use a broad search to start and see what happens'?  For example, type in "refrigerator filter".  The first time I did this I found the following site at the top of the list: www.fridgefilters.com.  You are free to try some of the other offerings from the 'simple search strategy,' but before you do let me tell you what I found useful about Frigefilters.com. 

First, it's easy to navigate (and we always award extra points for that).  Thus, I was easily able to find the filters that my Fridgidaire used, specifically the melliflously named 'PureSource NGFC-2000.'  Now, the really cool thing, which you'll notice if you click here, is that not only do they offer good prices, but they also offer to email you when your filter is ready to be changed.  And, get this, they keep track of the life-cycle of each different type of filter.  Some of the other fridge filters offered by Fridgidaire last 6 months, but mine apparently is good for 9 months.  I felt like I'd found some spare change in the coke machine (no filter in there I've noticed).

Okay, time's almost up and the producer is waving at me.  So, let's do a quick recap. How much easier you are making your life if you order your replacement fridge filter online?  Beuller?  Anyone?

First, you don't have to drive around to get it.  Second, once you've ordered it, the FridgeFilters.com will remember what kind of filter you need. And lastly, they will actually email you when it's time for you to replace the filter.

Sure it's possible that the refridgerator's insufferable red light will come on before the email is sent.  But I like to think of FridgeFilter.com as my online second opinion.  If they don't think I'm ready to be bugged for money then why the hell should I worry about that red light?  Come to think of it, why doesn't that thing ever stop working?  Then my life would be simpler for sure.

Why not?

I have to admit that the full implications of this new offering didn’t hit me the first time I saw it advertised.  I thought to myself: well, okay, it’s nice but it’ll just make me order more books and things that I don’t need, so I’ll just hold off on signing up for Amazon Prime.  Then, I started to notice that there were all sorts of little things I actually needed around the house that I was having to drive around to get.  For example: replacement ink cartridges for my ink jet printer, blank CD’s, and, of course, food.

I immediately signed up for Amazon Prime, and now when I need something that's available at Amazon I fire up my browser, search for the item, and hit 1-click. Bada boom, bada bing!  In the space of a minute or two I’ve managed to take care of buying something that I need, but without having to fight weekend traffic gridlock.  And I don't have to pay sales tax (sorry local taxing officials!) so the more I use my ‘all-you-can-eat’ shipping to buy things that I’d otherwise get at a local store the more money I'll save.

Money savings are nice, but the thing I’m really happy to save is time and irritation.  Everyone talks about how the web is amazing because you can make information come to you.  Information?  What about 3-dimensional household objects?  Hey look ma! I'm using the Internet I can make those come to me easily too.  And no shipping charges?  Woohoo!  I’m so there.

Why you would want to buy anything from a physical store that you can get  from Amazon (or some other online merchant) is an incomprehensible mystery.   Actually, there is one thing that I always worried about when I ordered things from online merchants: what happens if I have to return the item?  It’s not that I didn’t think there was a way to do it, but I didn’t know what was involved and I assumed it would be unpleasant--just like in the physical world, where you have to stand in line at a special corner of the store with disgruntled shoppers, and where you have to prove to a disgruntled worker when and where you bought the item.  Let's face it: returning store-bought items is probably God's prototype for purgatory.  You know, painful enough but still in beta-testing.

Last Christmas, however, I had an online shopping epiphany.  I bought a $200 external hard drive for my Apple computer from Amazon.  I planned to use it to do routine backups, which are easy to do with an Apple computer.  When the hard drive showed up I tore open the package and pulled out the small hard drive and stuffed it in my computer bag.

Weeks passed. 

After the hectic holiday season was finally over I pulled the hard drive out and plugged it into the computer to do a backup.  Nothing happened.  Heavy sigh, followed by nervous eye-twitching.  The computer didn’t recognize the hard drive.  I spent the next few days trying to get the computer to talk to the hard drive, convinced that such a serious hardware failure was impossible with an Apple computer.  Eventually, I resigned myself to the notion that the hard drive was defective.  Or at least it was worth returning for a new one to see if the problem went away.

Alas, I had dispensed with the original packaging, and the receipt that came with it.  I was certain that this would make returning the item even more difficult, but I fired up the Amazon site just to see what the protocol would be.

Turned out it was ridiculously easy and painless.  I navigated to the bottom of the main page where I spotted a link that said ‘Your Account’ and clicked on it.  Then I was presented with a list of choices, one of which said ‘Return Items.’  The next page offered me some choices, one of which was to sell the item if I had held it beyond the return date.  Tempting, but not a good choice for an item that  didn’t work.  I clicked on the button for ‘I bought it and want to return it’ and was asked to login with my password (nice security feature) and was taken to a page that listed my ‘recent orders.’

I selected the hard drive order, answered a few quick questions about why I was returning it and then was told to await a magic email from Amazon.  The E-mail arrived in a few minutes and had a link to a printout of a UPS package label.  I was told to take the label and the item to a UPS store (there is one conveniently located on the bottom floor of my office building) and they would take care of the rest.  And so bopped downstairs and handed the non-disgruntled salesperson my stuff.  Once they had entered the package into their system, Amazon shipped me a new hard drive and said it would arrive in two days, which it did.  They told me that if my shipment to them didn’t contain a hard drive they’d bill my credit card for the new one they were shipping me, which made sense.

Anyway, two days later I had my new hard drive and it worked perfectly.  What would have been a major hassle was only a minor inconvenience, but only because I had bought the hard drive at Amazon as opposed to the local Best Buy or whatever.  There are a lot of great things about using my browser to shop at Amazon.  Certainly not having to search for parking places is right up there at the top of list, as is saving money.

Still, there is one thing that bums me out about Amazon.  I wish they'd figure out a way to sell groceries online.  Maybe one day they'll figure that one out too.

Let's consider the origins of the problem.

A simpler way is needed, one in which we can accomplish great things with less technology. We need a set of principles that will help us better control the technology tools that we encounter in our lives. Here is a set of principles to consider:

1. Tools that are easiest to use are best
2. Tools that work reliably are best
3. Tools that do several things at once are best    

Simple principles like these bring to mind the ancient art of Feng Shui, which seeks to introduce harmony into an environment by proper placement of objects in that space. A simple, well-arranged work space enhances the productivity of those who labor there. Likewise, proper management of technology can enhance productivity and lower our stress, while haphazard use of technology quickly brings about mayhem and anxiety. How can we have order in our lives when there is so much technology strewn about, incessantly demanding our feeble attention?

We need principles, but we need more than mere principles. We need specific advice on how to create order out of chaos. We need the equivalent of a Feng Shui guide who will help us arrange and manage the technology in our lives. In that spirit this site was created.

Simplifying anything is not an easy task, and this is especially true of technology. We can’t promise that the effort will be easy, only that it will be worthwhile.