People are complex creatures. We often say one thing, but mean another. We often say we’ll do some thing, but then do another. We’re consistently inconsistent at applying our values, attitudes and ethics to our actions.

Which is why I think we should rethink our elections, or - more specifically - how we choose who we’re going to vote for.

A few days ago, I filled out this Election Quiz at Pundit. The results were really surprising to me; the party it suggested I vote for was NZ First, a party which - according to recent polls - is not going to make it in this year. (I’m not so sure we’ll see the last of Winston, its beleaguered leader). Prior to competing the quiz, NZ First was definitely not on my shortlist. And that’s what’s got me thinking.

See, my colleague got a similarly surprising result. In fact, the look on his face was one of pure horror - much to my amusement. Other friends and family were also surprised by their results - often with minority parties like NZ First, United Future and Progressive coming out on top.

If this incredibly scientific study is anything to go by, it seems we are appallingly bad at choosing the parties whose principles are actually best aligned with our values.

I think there are several reasons for this, including nonchalance or ignorance about politics in general.  But the biggest reason is surely our inability to see clearly past the personalities, the hype, and the bullshit to understand the things candidates really stand for. And - more importantly - the alignment of their policies with our values, and their potential effect on ours and other people’s lives. 

Record numbers of people are enrolled in this year’s election, but I wager there are many who simply cannot decide who to vote for and will manifest that indecision by not voting at all.

Worse still, many more people will end up voting for parties and candidates whose policies aren’t the best match to their values.

Makes you wonder, then, how representative our next Government will really be? 

If it really is accurate in its assessment of one’s values and its subsequent recommendations on which party is the best match, I think that widespread use of a tool like the Pundit Election Quiz would be a much better way to ensure we get the right parties/people inside our Parliament.

I’d even go so far as suggesting that something like it ought to be provided and promoted by the Electoral Commission - online in advance, and in polling stations on the day - to help people make up their minds.

Surely it’s time we used psychology, technology and clever thinking to help us make the right decisions - instead of the not-so-right ones.

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That got me thinking.

Many people view their job as a necessary evil. A means to an end; income to fund their lives outside of of work. Some people even treat their job as a fundamental right; something that can never be taken away, regardless of whether it would be in the best interests of their employer.

Many people believe that pay rises, promotions etc. are a matter of course; benefits they receive simply after enough time has passed.

But how many people wake up every morning with the goal of truly increasing the value they bring to their employer? How many people see their job as an opportunity to make a real difference to their employer’s bottom line?

I believe that it has never been more important - than in these tough economic times - for people to think about their R.O.Me - Return On Me.

This is simply the measure of value you bring to your employee, less what you’re paid and the associated costs of employing you (your desk, office space, computer, share of the Friday drinks etc.). This can easily be half of your salary again.

So, if your salary was $50,000 and associated costs $30,000 then the total cost to your employer is $75,000. If you work at a services company, and your employer manages to charge your services out at a rate such that he earns $100,000, then your R.O.Me is 25%.

In other words, for every $1 your employer spends on you, he gets back $1.25.

If the average total cost of each Nintendo employee was US$150,000, then the average R.O.Me would be 1,267%. In other words, for every US$1 Nintendo spends on its employees, it gets back US$1,267. Not bad, eh?

In these tough economic times - and even in good economic times - it is not hard to understand why your employer would find it tough to give you a payrise if it meant your R.O.Me would decrease. This assumes that your employer could replace you with someone who could do the same job for the same or less of course, but many people have discovered the hard way that they’re not as irreplaceable as they think.

Rather than encourage a debate about the merits of treating people as mere resources, I’d like to encourage to you think about the considerable advantage you’d have at the negotiating table if you could clearly show you cared about your R.O.Me, and either had - or were actively taking steps - to increase it.

In my experience, this is actually easier than most people think. But it requires actually giving a damn about your employer, taking a wider interest in the activities of the business, and thinking outside of the ‘glass walls’ of your current job description.

Strategies I’ve employed to increase my R.O.Me - and subsequently my remuneration and role - in recent years have ranged from personally investing in training and personal development (check out the Personal MBA) to volunteering to work as ‘on trial, at current rates’ in a higher role until I’d proved to my employer I could do it.

If you thought about it for a few minutes, I bet you could think of several ways to increase you R.O.Me. If so, what are you waiting for? Make this week the week you take action. Just remember that it’s usually best to leverage an increase in your R.O.Me after you’ve actually increased it.

Good luck!

Last week, at the Dunedin Pak ‘N Save, my wife and I scanned, paid for and bagged our own groceries using a self-serve kiosk. This was the first kiosk of its kind I’ve ever seen or used in a supermarket, and it worked great. We were quickly on our way, and needed no assistance from any of the staff.

Using the self-service kiosk at Pak 'N Save

Today, I received my Air New Zealand ePass, and a letter explaining how I’ll be able to use it to dramatically change my experience at the airport.

An Air NZ ePass alongside a NZ$2 coin

The ePass is a small RFID tag that can be scanned by new self-service kiosks that are being progressively installed at New Zealand airports, starting with Auckland on 3 November.

The kiosks remove the need for a traditional check-in counter. If I have bags, I’ll be able to print my own tags, stick them on, the place the bags on the conveyor belt myself. If I don’t have bags, the ePass replaces the need for a boarding pass - I’ll simply ’scan in’ before I board.

The ePass is just one of a number of initiatives that Air New Zealand launched today - others included changes to the airpoints scheme, and a new online portal. But it is noteworthy because it has raised the self-service bar again: if check-in counters (and staff!) are now redundant, what else could be?

Technology, and our willingness - even preference - to serve ourselves is providing companies like Air New Zealand with golden opportunities to cut costs, improve capacity etc.

Banking is another industry that is being transformed by self-service initiatives; there is almost no need for many people to visit a branch any more, and even when there is things like “Speedy Deposit Box” reduce the need to see a real person.

As with most trends, the more popular and widespread self-service becomes, the easier it will be for organisations to identify opportunities, develop business cases, and launch their own self-service initiatives.

But I believe the more difficult - and perhaps more important - task will be to identify the situations in which in will it be far more beneficial to provide customer service delivered in person, by real people.

I think there are still - and will be for a long time yet - golden opportunities for the industries mentioned above (and many others) to differentiate themselves by the quality of such ‘real’ customer service, delivered in just the right situations.

Still . . I’m looking forward to using my ePass!

As a young, proud father, I couldn’t help but wonder whether my son might be a small poppy too. He can’t quite string sentences together yet, but I almost swore he said ’stegosaurus’ or something similar the other day

Later on I jumped online to find out more about the preschool, what it means to be gifted, and how you can tell if your child is gifted or not.

That’s when I discovered this table:

Source: Small Poppies, © Janice Szabos

I think the subtle differences between ‘bright’ and ‘gifted’ are are fascinating, and wonder how much of the difference can be put down to innate capability vs. stimulating and encouraging environment - that is, Mum and Dad (and others) interacting with their child in a way that stimulates or encourages the attributes in the right-hand column.

I reckon there’s a lot to be said for the latter.

Update, 24 Sep 2008 - Speaking of children and learning, this post on “How Children Learn” over at BoingBoing is worth a read. I liked this quote: “The only good reason for playing games with babies is because we love them.” I think I might order the two books the post refers to.

Here’s why.

We are all time-poor; we never seem to have enough time to spend doing the things we want - or need - to do. As a result, we constantly strive for bigger returns from smaller investments of time and energy.

When it comes to media, we’ve never had more access to it, and more choice, that any other time in history. For most of us, the unfortunate consequence of this is that more and more of our precious time seems to be required just to stay afloat - let alone be in a position to surf and conquer the knowledge wave.

Fortunately, there’s a solution that doesn’t involve caving in, and becoming the metaphorical caveman.

It’s called the bit-literate media diet. And you can read all about it - and several other life-changing ways to improve productivity in the digital age - in a book called Bit Literacy by Mark Hurst. I can’t recommend it enough - seriously, go and order a copy now. 

Essentially, the approach involves creating and maintaining an active portfolio of publications (digital, print and other media) that keeps you informed about what matters most to you - both professionally and personally. Once critical aspect of the approach - and one I pointed out to the colleague who asked if I could just send out daily tidbits to the team - is that creating your media diet is up to you; it’s based on what is important to you, not any other person, publisher or company.

Another critical aspect is aiming to keep the portfolio as small as possible - relying on only a few sources, and spending as little time as possible, in order to be fully informed.

In the spirit of encouraging bit literacy, and to reveal a little bit of the ‘magic’ behind my librarianship, here are the highlights of my current portfolio:

• Daring Fireball
• Seth’s Blog
• 3 News
• Campbell Live
• Time Magazine
• Monocle (print and online)
• Sunday Star Times
• 60 Minutes
• Sunday
• Konigi
• Adaptive Path Blog

My current feed-reader of choice is Google Reader. I’ve currently got 79 subscriptions, and according to its stats I’ve ‘read’ 2,131 items over the last 30 days. I put ‘read’ in inverted commas because I actually skim through most of the items, stopping only to read the most interesting (or eye-catching?) ones.

I’d also be lost without MySky - which allows me to record all of the TV programmes above so I never miss them, and can watch them at a time that suits.

Care to share what you’re eating?

So far - touch wood - I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve had to defend myself in a ‘real life’ situation (i.e. outside the dojang) using the physical techniques (punching, kicking etc.) I’ve learned.

I hope that remains the case.

But the true practice of Taekwon-Do requires students to embrace its philosophy, and observe its five fundamental tenets*:

• Courtesy - Showing courtesy to all, respecting others, having manners as well as maintaining the appropriate etiquette at all times, both within and outside the dojang (designated training area). 
• Integrity - Although may be similar, this form of integrity takes on a more wider role then defined in the common dictionary. In Taekwon-Do, integrity means not only to determine what is right or wrong but also having the conscience to feel guilt if one has done wrong and to have the integrity stand up for what is right. 
• Perseverance - One will persevere time and time again until they have achieved a result which is adequate towards what one was trying to achieve.
• Self-control - This means to not only have control over one physical acts but also their mental thoughts and actions.
• Indomitable spirit - To have indomitable spirit means to have the courage to stand up for what you believe in, no matter what odds you are up against and to always give 100% effort in whatever you do.

Every day, I try to observe these tenets, be a champion of freedom and justice, and do what I can to build a more peaceful world. In this sense, I practice Taekwon-Do every day.

The next question I’m usually asked after “have you ever used it?” is “why do you do it?”

This week has been particularly testing; there were a couple of work-related events that pushed me to the limits of my discipline. But I’m confident I did the right things, and that all will be resolved in the coming days and weeks.

Outcomes like this - and the resulting sense of satisfaction - is my answer to that second question.

* Descriptions from Wikipedia

Firstly, a fantastic presentation by Alan Cooper called “The Wisdom of Experience“. It clarifies his position on Agile programming, and the (still vital!) role of interaction designers. There are some excellent points about managing software projects, pitfalls etc. as well.

Next, an interesting presentation by Alex Osterwalder on “Business Model Innovation”. In it he provides some good examples of companies who have been particularly successful at redefining their business models, and then goes on to provide a method/tool (the “Business Model Canvas”) that can be used to help companies do this.

If you pay close attention to both presentations, you’ll see that both feature a smartly-dressed guy that Alex refers to as “Eric”. I’m guessing this may not be his real name, but based on today’s experience I’m starting to think he shows up in all the good presentations . .

UPDATE - 2/9/09 - After a few emails back and forth, my supplier asked me to return the unit and subsequently discovered a hardware fault. They sent me a new unit immediately, and it worked perfectly. In fact, it is currently vying with my iPhone for the illustrious title of “Hayden’s Gadget of the Year: 2008″. More on that later. I still think the software bundling idea I mention below is a good one.

- - -

My new scanner arrived yesterday; a Fujitsu ScanSnap that I bought to help me realise the paper-less home office dream.

I eagerly unpacked it, installed the software, plugged it in, put some documents in the feeder, hit the ’scan’ button, then . . received an error message stating that the scan had been unsuccessful, and suggesting my system was unstable and needed to be rebooted. 

To cut a long story short, I spent several hours trying to fix the problem. I tried every troubleshooting idea I can think of: different versions of Adobe Acrobat; installing latest scanner driver and management software; different computer etc.

But none of these worked, so I’ve given up and want to return the scanner. I’m waiting to hear from the supplier about this.

I suspect that the cause of the problem is most likely to be that the scanner management software is not compatible with the operating system version I’m using. Either that, or the version of Adobe Acrobat.

All of which makes me wonder: surely, there’s a better way to manage a product’s shelf life?

Here’s how I think it should be done:

• Products are packaged in such a way that the bundled software can easily be removed/replaced by the supplier/seller
• The manufacturer keeps a close eye on developments/events such as the release of a new operating system version, and alerts the supplier/seller immediately if any of the bundled software will no longer be appropriate*
• The supplier/seller removes the bundled software and stops selling and/or shipping products until the manufacturer supplies a new software bundle

I believe that if my supplier had adopted this system for managing shelf life, my experience with this scanner would have been entirely different - and considerably better.

* This includes ‘compatible’ but is not just that; for example, Adobe Acrobat 7 is ‘compatible’ with my operating system, but is now very out-of-date - Adobe Acrobat 8 was released in November 2006, and Adobe Acrobat 9 was released in July 2008.