I’m also going to provide an insight into some of the thinking that went in to the design enhancement so you can see why it was necessary. While the example is trivial and the solution obvious, you’ll see there are other solutions that could have been used, and why the selected one is better.

The first thing I’m going to cover is a new feature found in iTunes 9.1 called ‘Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps’.

Converting higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps

The first question is why is this available at all?  You can see it in the image below:

I imagine the primary answer is that the Apple Store now sells 256kbps (referring to the file’s ‘bit rate’) songs, but the iPod Touchs, which sell like hotcakes, have limited storage capacities (32GB / 64GB) compared to the hard-drive based iPods (160GB). Also, the smaller iPods, the Nano and Shuffle, have even smaller capacities, limiting the amount of music to a few tens of CDs.
At first glance, it seems reasonable, but let’s look at some other circumstances in which it would be useful, some of the flaws in the implementation and therefore why it needs some enhancement to make it truly useful for a variety of situations.

Ripping CDs for listening and / or for archiving

In my own situation, when I first used iPods and iTunes, I ripped my CDs at 160kbps (instead of the default 128kbps) to give the ripped file a bit more quality.  I’d like to think I’m a bit of an audiophile in that I like high quality music and equipment, but I’ve got enough self control not to blow a small fortune!!  A few years later, I then re-ripped them at 256kbps VBR, again to increase quality as I upgraded my iPod from a 40GB to 160GB version.

However, more recently, I’ve been re-ripping my CDs using ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) to provide both an archive copy of my CDs, as well as play back my music through my AV system in CD quality, which is why, of course, people buy CDs instead of tapes.  I play them back through an AppleTV, which feeds my receiver through an optical digital cable.  This gives me CD-quality sound – the same as the original.

ALAC results in files that are about half the size of the original CD (e.g. 350MB per CD), while recording at apple’s standard rate of 256kbps results in files that are about 1/6th of the CD size (e.g., 100MB per CD).  The corresponding bit rate is a little over 300kbps up to over 1,000 kbps, depending on the complexity of the source.

For a while, I maintained two copies of my CDs; one using ALAC and the other transcoded at 128kbps or 256kbps, depending on the type of music (e.g. general pop / rock music would be at 128kbps, while my renaissance polyphony and other classical music would be at 256kbps.  This meant having special playlists created to separate out all the duplicates.  As a consequence, it would be fair to say that my library became unmanageable.  I then bit the bullet, deleted all the lesser quality copies and began selectively re-ripped my CDs using ALAC, meaning that I could still get most of my really good music on my iPod.

Buying music at 256kpbs and transcoding to 128kbps

The Apple Store sells music at 256kbps.  It’s common knowledge amongst audio fans that transcoding from one lossy format to another exacerbates quality problems and results in a poor quality experience.  This is in contrast to transcoding from one lossless format to another (e.g., ALAC to FLAC).  The lossless compression is similar to the popular ZIP compression method which can be used to compress large documents for emailing, which can then be uncompressed to access the original document. that is, the decompressed version is identical to the original version.  Lossless encoding seems to allow around a 50% reduction in file size, but no better.

When compressing audio files using a lossy method, in order to make the file smaller than the original, an algorithm is used to remove some of the audio information that we can’t perceive.  For example, a loud drum sound masks other quieter sounds.  When these quieter sounds are removed, the file size becomes progressively a little bit smaller.

Imagine if the ZIP compression format removed information from your documents, such as all the 1, 2 and 3 letter words, leaving behind only the bigger (and more meaningful) words?  It simply wouldn’t work since it would take a lot of effort for us to read the document and try and figure out what the missing words are.

While for audio compression, it’s not quite as serious (since we can’t perceive the missing sounds anyway, and it doesn’t generally affect sound quality), however, it does become serious when transcoding the compressed file to another format.  This is similar to taking a photocopy of a photocopy.  The second copy is not as good as the first, and is obviously so, though we can generally tell what the picture in the second copy is.

The transcoding effects become more serious when the file sizes are even smaller due to lower bit rates.  For example, transcoding from a 320kbps file to a 128kbps file is OK, while transcoding a 160kbps to a 128kpbs file can be worse.  This is because the smaller file was created using a lower bit rate, which means more information was removed from the source to make the file smaller.

One of the ways to prevent the transcoding issues is to create the second lower bit rate version from the original source.

Transcoding other music formats, variable bit encoding and managing the threshold

In the last section, I discussed the transcoding issues and how the quality of end file is dependent on the quality of the source.  a low quality source results in a low quality second file.

This is important because many people, like myself, have collected music over time, some of which is in the older formats, like MP3.  In contrast, Apple’s format, called AAC, is generally considered to have better algorithms for compressing the music.  Therefore, an MP3 file at 128kbps does not sound quite as good as an AAC file at the same bitrate.  Therefore, transcoding a lower quality source file to the specified target of a 128kbps will cause a loss in the quality of the file and is likely to become perceptible.

With Apple’s implementation of the transcoding feature, it is not clear where the threshold is, but it can be assumed that any file greater than 128kbps will be transcoded.

In my collection, I have a number of MP3 files that are encoded using the Variable Bit Rate encoding method (VBR).

VBR encoding is one of three methods, with the other important one being constant bit rate (CBR) encoding.  With CBR encoding, each file ends up with a target bit rate of exactly 128kbps.  Without going into the detail, VBR encoding usually results in better quality sound at the same bit rate, but the final bit rate can vary quite a bit.  for example, with CBR each file from a CD will be 128kbps, while for VBR, each file can fluctuate between 100kbps and 130kbps, as the algorithm optimises the final bit rate based on the complexity of the music.

The effect this has is that some files that are just above the threshold of 128kbps will be transcoded, while others will not.  If you’re listing to an album you know well, you’re very likely to hear the difference in quality from one track to the next.

Summary of the issues

Knowing a bit about the domain (what determines audio quality and how the various formats differ from each other), people’s music libraries (different formats, different bit rates) allows you to think about the different problems that could occur with a simple implementation.
These can be distilled into the following three core issues:

• No ability to change the source file bit rate threshold (e.g., all files over 128kbps, 160kbps, or other)
• No ability to specify the source file format (AAC, MP3, both)
• No ability to specify the target file bit rate (e.g. 128kbps or 256kbps, or other)

Now, Apple prides itself on delivering a simple solution that works for most circumstances, but doesn’t necessarily work for all.  This is especially important in a mass-market product where many customers are not overly tech savvy, nor care to be so.  The solutions to the three core issues need to take into consideration the nature of the product and the target market.

So that brings us to thinking about solutions.

Design solutions

In determining solutions to the issues, knowledge of the domain is very important.  If you didn’t know that there were lossy and lossless encoding formats, and that transcoding from one lossy format to another causes a greater loss of quality than encoding to the smaller file size direct from the lossless source, you would design a solution that would be ignorant of these factors, letting people possibly have a low quality experience with their music.

I’m going to approach the solutions by addressing each issue individually, rather than simultaneously.  You’ll recall that the original implementation was like this:

Selecting the source bit rate threshold

In its simplest form, this is solved as follows:

The user can now select the minimum threshold before transcoding takes place.  This satisfies a need to only convert files of a sufficient quality so that the transcoding effects on quality are less perceptible.  This solution has a number of issues.

Going back to the domain of audio encoding, it turns out that the highest bit rate MP3 files (320kbps) overlap with the lowest bit rate ALAC files (just above 300kbps).  This means that users cannot use the bit rate setting as a proxy for only selecting ALAC files for transcoding where the transcoding quality artefacts will not be as obvious.

That is, uses cannot simply select all files over 320kbps, since some ALAC files will not be included. therefore, users either need to know what bit rate to select, or to simply accept the fact that not all the files will be transcoded, possibly affecting how much music is stored on their iPod / iPhone

The second issue is that it uses a drop down menu to select the source bit rate.  the menu would contain the popular bit rates, such as 128, 160, 256 and 320kbps.  This approach can be faster and more usable, but it limits user specificity.

Selecting the source file format

This can be solved as follows:

This allows users to only transcoded files of a specific format.  In this case, only ALAC (lossless) files will be transcoded.  This means that lossy file formats will not be transcoded.

However, this has the issue that anyone using ALAC is likely to be sensitive to file quality and will probably want to select a different target bit rate.

Selecting the target bit rate

This can be solved as follows:

This allows users to select higher bit rates for the target files, especially important for those users who want higher quality music on their iPod.  by implication, all files over 256kbps would be transcoded (since it would not make sense to transcoded a 128kbps MP3 file to a 256kbps AAC file!!)

However, it doesn’t allow users to select the source file format, or a threshold at which they will be transcoded, especially when using 256kbps VBR encoding, where the file sizes fluctuate, but not enough to make it worth transcoding a 270kbps file to a 256kbps file.

Combining the individual solutions

It’s easy to provide individual solutions to the three core issues.  Combining them into something that is usable, understandable and aligned with Apple’s design philosophy is something else.

There are two approaches that can be used:

1. Combine the individual solutions to make a single selection of source and target settings
2. Use a method similar to smart playlists where multiple expressions can be created to select source and target settings.

Combining the individual solutions into a single selection

From the domain knowledge we gathered, it would seem that the most critical determinant of the final quality of the audio would be the source format, rather than the bit rate.  If you didn’t know this you could have simply used a target bit rate instead.

Therefore, one of the solutions is as follows:

This allows users to only select lossless files for transcoding, and to select the bit rate they want.  Therefore, if they have bought music from the Apple store, then all their quality music will be at the same quality.  Further, lower bit rate files remain untouched and therefore there will be no transcoding artefacts affecting quality.

However, this has the following issues:

• It only makes sense to include the lossless formats (WAV, AIFF and ALAC) in the drop down menu, because you can’t (shouldn’t) select all MP3s for conversion, especially lower bit rate ones due to transcoding quality issues)
• 256 / 320kbps files (MP3 or AAC) cannot be selected to be transcoded to 128kbps files

Consider instead this solution:

This allows users to select to convert only ALAC files to AAC, or to convert high bit rate lossy files to a lower bit rate.  However, it has the following issues:

• Users cannot select both high bit rate files (e.g. 320kbps MP3 files) and ALAC files and convert them to a lower bit rate AAC
• It is a somewhat complex expression and not quite as simple as the previous one allowing selecting of just the file format.

Consider instead this solution:

This allows control over the source bit rate, however, it can’t easily be used to select only ALAC files (since the lowest bit rate ALAC files overlap with high bit rate lossy files).
Using multiple expressions to select different formats

A number of the single solution approaches, while richer, don’t offer enough flexibility to include songs of a range of different formats.  They don’t offer enough value to consider implementation at this stage.

In iTunes, the smart playlists editor provides an approach where multiple rules for selection can be included.  This screenshot shows the smart playlist editor:

We can adopt this approach for the selection of file formats:

Note that the ALAC format has no bit rate selection because the format is lossless and the bit rate is a function of the song complexity, not the level of compression.  Therefore, only if the format is lossy, then a selection of the source bit rate is presented.
When the ‘simple’ version is selected, then this display could look like this:

The background processing and the user interface design

One thing we haven’t considered is the behind the scenes aspects to the solution, namely, what is the selection criteria?  At what bit rate will the files be selected?

Given the issues regarding transcoding and audio quality, it makes sense to only transcoded files that are sufficiently greater that the target bit rate.  For example, if the target bit rate is 128 kbps, then only files greater than 256 kbps would be transcoded.

In this case, consider the following design:

In this solution, the solution borrows from the design that selects a target bit rate, but uses supporting text to decrease the ambiguity over which files will be included in the conversion.

The supporting text would be updated based on the target bit rate selection.  For example, if the target is 128 kbps, then the text would read ‘only songs greater than 256 kbps and / or encoded in a lossless format will be converted’.

The final solution

You can see that there are many solutions, each with pros and cons.  In general, attempting to add a little bit of flexibility did not result in a strong design, compared to adding a lot more complexity (i.e., the multiple expression interface).

There are two solutions.  The first is likely to be in alignment with Apple’s design philosophy and offers just enough flexibility and clarity for audio quality sensitive people.  It also ensure that songs with a bit rate that is too close to the target rate are not converted as there is no material gain, but a good chance for a degradation in quality.

Solution 1 – Simple selection of target bitrate with supporting text

If you select 128 kbps as the target bit rate, then, say, only songs 256 kbps or greater would be selected.

Solution 2 – Selection of source formats and bit rates

The second solution builds on the first and allows for multiple selections.  The rationale is that anyone making such selections is likely to be savvy enough to make sensible selections and understand the impact.

When expanded, the following is shown, in page:

The design is simpler than allowing for a target bit rate for each of the song formats.  This extension could be adopted if necessary, but I don’t think it is.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this article and considering the thinking that went in to determining the final solution.  While the final solution may be obvious, quite a bit of thinking went into it to test out the consequences before settling on one that worked the best.  much of this was based on understanding a bit about the audio domain and therefore not making decisions that would result in a detrimental effect on audio quality.

The iPad is both the best and worst kept secret to come from the computing powerhouse / genius of Apple. Like many, prior to its launch, I’ve been reading the various rumour sites imagining what it might be like, what I need from it and trying to discern fact from fiction. Now that it’s here, I’ve done a quick synopsis of what I think are its strengths and weaknesses based on the available Apple information.

Strengths

Given that the iPad can be considered a larger iPod Touch / iPhone, there are many strengths being carried forward in terms of the included applications, and there’s no point in re-iterating what we already know. I’ve selected a few that I think are noteworthy.

Touch enabled iWork Suite

Having used DocumentsToGo on the iPhone, the addition of a full-fledged word processor, spreadsheet and presentation application is very welcome. The only thing missing is a stylus and inking. But more about that later.

Pricing

What else is there to say – incredible (and still profitable) pricing.

Full bezel to grip the device

Although not really, a strength, it’s worth mentioning because there’ve been some comments that the bezel is too large and not in alignment with an ‘Ives’ design. But you do need something to grip without putting your fingers over the top of your content. The iPhone design where the screen goes almost to the edge on the left / right (when holding vertically) is fine because it fits in your palm – you don’t really grip it like a book.

Weaknesses

No front facing camera

This, along with no apparent MS Exchange support is one of the two biggest weaknesses for the iPad. I want to be able to make video calls, especially with such a large screen available, either direct through a built in 2G / 3G phone application, or a Skype or similar application.

Clearly, the camera would need to make use of face tracking and stabilisation (using the accelerometer) to keep a stead image.

No apparent MS Exchange support

The Apple website notes that the email client works with popular email services such as Mobile Me, Gmail and Hotmail. But there’s no mention of MS Exchange. It seems a bit strange to attract business users with the iWork suite but not include exchange connectivity. I really hope this is just an oversight on Apple’s part.

Screen resolution is too low and 4:3 ratio

For a video playback device, not having a 16:9 ratio is very surprising. Also, the screen resolution should be at least 1280×768 (or 800) or even 1366×768 (or 800) to enjoy a full widescreen movie.

Along with this weakness, the single speaker also limits the video playback appeal of the iPad.

Only one speaker

For a device touted as a multimedia playback device, having only one speaker is amazing. The device needs at least three speakers, using the onboard sensors to determine which orientation the iPad is at. This assumes a speaker is located on three corners (rather than partway down the side), with sound only being played from two of the speakers, depending on orientation. Four speakers could be used orienting them part way down the sides as they are now.

No pen / inking support

This is what I think is one of the killer features for both the education and business market. Apple’s had inking in Mac OSX for a while now. People say Steve Jobs dislikes styluses – maybe this is the reason for its absense.

64GB is not enough

For a multimedia device, 64GB just doesn’t cut it. 128GB should be the current largest option. Unless it works like my Apple TV and connects to my iTunes to share files when in range.

Use of a Micro SIM instead of a normal SIM

There is no apparent reason to include a micro SIM unless it’s to support some level of carrier lockin.

Cannot make calls

I’m guessing you think this is a strange one??? And no, I do not mean to hold the iPad up to your ear and look like you’ve got a 1970s mobile phone!!

I imagine working on the iPad, and making calls using the headset or handsfree. After all, if you’ve got to have another SIM card, you might as well make the most of it (notwithstanding the cheaper data only SIM cards that the iPad uses). Not everyone uses Skype / SkypeOut.

No wireless syncing

Also missing from the iPhone is wireless syncing. Why would I have to plug in the iPad (or iPhone for that matter) to perform a sync?

>I appreciate that the iPhone (and presumably the iPad) is performing a back up of the various apps and settings and this may amount to several hundred megabytes (especially with, say, a navigation application installed), but syncing could be reduced (e.g. latest settings) when connecting wirelessly, or an option set to sync all, as a hard connection would do.

It’s up to the user to deal with this, especially when the iPhone is docked elsewhere and within range of their wireless network.

No Finder / network browsing

When you start offering productivity applications of the caliber of iWork, you need to provide proper file management, not just some synchronisation folder, especially when in the presence of your wireless network.

On windows, I use the offline files / folders and this works brilliantly. I don’t have to move files around a temporary store and deal with version issues.

For the iPad, I should be able to access my files remotely and work on them, rather than having to make a special copy of it.

Non weaknesses

Various news sites have reported the following as weaknesses. I’ve included them here because I don’t think they’re show stoppers.

No USB

Although there is an adaptor, if the iPad comes with the few extras, such as a built in camera, there’s no need for it. What would you really attach to it as opposed to merely having the possibility of connecting something?

No Adobe Flash support

Having used the iPhone for quite a while and racking up some 500MB per month of browsing (a little or a lot, depending on your usage), I have not missed Flash, although it would have been nice to have on a few occasions.

I did think it was interesting that the initial promotional videos from Apple included websites with Flash content being shown, which have now been replaced.

No multitasking

For me, applications (on the iPhone 3G) start fast enough as you close out of one and start another. The Apple ones and some others behave correctly and resume where you left off.

Key applications like the phone (i.e., on the iPhone), iPod player, and some others are all the ones I’ve found myself using simultaneously (e.g. checking my calendar while on a call). If preserving battery life has the small price of no multitasking, then it’s a fair price.

Conclusion

I can only imagine that the next version will be significantly stronger in terms of some or all of the above weaknesses. I appreciate that including too much functionality from other devices (such as the iPhone, or MacBooks) causes confusion and makes it difficult to establish a new product category, but I think that some of the omissions, for the device it is, are very surprising.

Assuming it’s a multimedia playback device, the following weaknesses are an issue:

• Mono speaker
• 4:3 ratio screen and low(ish) resolution
• Only 64GB of storage

Assuming it’s a low cost, low power computing / productivity device, then the following weaknesses are an issue:

• No Finder / file management / remote file access
• No apparent MS Exchange support
• No front facing camera

Assuming it’s an education device, then the following weaknesses are an issue:

• No pen input / inking (for notes, drawing, etc.)
• No Finder / file management

You can see that the iPad doesn’t quite tick all the boxes, no matter which category it’s in. I’d link to think that Apple is testing the waters with the iPad and will embark on a process of continual refinement. I hope that many of the above issues are addressed immediately in the next version – some of them are pretty obvious.

Perhaps the price is too cheap? A few more of the core functionality and perhaps there really will be a killer category.

However, having said all that, I’m sure it’ll sell like hotcakes.

The guys at Lina are promising write once – run everywhere, using the native look-and-feel of the host operating system. This was also the promise of Java, which also uses a virtual machine to run the binary code.

It certainly looks interesting, but the FAQ on the site says there will be a 2x performance hit (i.e. applications will run at half the speed of a native version). Other solutions, like using a VMWare, VirtualPC and Parallels for the Macintosh provide alternative approaches to running applications from one platform on another. These tools work best when the host operating system is running on an x86 processor, meaning that virtualisation speed is around 80% of the host processor – which is a very good level of performance. This occurs because the virtualised processor is the same as the processor and there is limited need to translate the instructions.

However, their disadvantage is that you need to buy the host operating system (e.g. running Parallels on the Macintosh requires that you buy MS Windows to run a windows application inside the virtual machine). This can be an unecessary overhead and cost on the end user.

There are also alternative to Lina, such as Wine, which allows a lot of compiled / binary Windows applications (including Office 2000) to run on Linux. If you’re writing your application in .Net, then you can also use Mono, which works essentially in the same way as Wine but is restricted to running .Net applications. Mono is a cross platform simulation of the .Net framework.

What next?

There are many different solutions available to creating an application and running it on multiple platforms – until there is a unified platform for computing where developers can write once and run everywhere – with the same version, no emulation and no virtualisation.

This is as close or as far away as the major players choose to make it, or until some truly disruptive technology platform comes along and reshapes the playing field. I have some ideas about this that are well into development…

I’d been doing some shopping around for a new sub notebook / UMPC. I seriously considered the new Samsung Q1Ultra, but finally settled on the Fujitsu P1610. If you’re in the market for a sub-notebook / TabletPC, I strongly recommend taking one for a test drive. Read on for the strengths and weaknesses.

(Images borrowed from http://www.fujitsu.com/sg/services/computing/pc/products/notebook/p1610/gallery.html)

Here are its strengths for me:

• Weight – 1kg (28% of my old laptop)
• 8.9 inch bright screen with a resolution of 1280×768 pixels
• 80GB hard drive
• Keyboard (it is 3/4 size and the Samsung UMPC has a tiny keyboard)
• CPU is an Intel Core Solo at 1.2GHz (apparently equivalent to an older 1.6GHz Centrino) is great for the size. of Tablet PC. It can play back high bit rate MPEG4 videos without chopping
• Vista and Office 2007 work at acceptable speeds
• Battery life is good at around 2.5 – 3 hours
• The tablet PC and handwriting recognition is excellent in Vista
• I can comfortable hold the Tablet PC in one hand and write on it with the other. It’s like holding a larger paperback book. In contrast, the bigger 2kg / 12inch screen models are just too heavy to do this
• Fingerprint scanner for login
• The bidirectional screen rotation reduces risk of damage
• It has a touch screen (compared to a digitizer on other brands and models), meaning that I can use my finger as a mouse, not just a special pen
• The screen is very clear compared to digitizer based tablets that have a grainy effect.

As with everything, there are weaknesses:

• There is no webcam for video /skype
• No hot swappable battery. I bought an extra 6-cell battery (about 6 hours) so I can use it for a whole day and not bring a power pack, but you need to fully shut down to swap over.
• SD card slot is not Vista readyboost compliant. It apparently uses a slower interface so cannot read and write as fast as the actual card can handle.
• The P1610 does quite a bit of disk thrashing (apparently a known issue for UMPCs)
• There is no trackpad, only a track point. The battery makes up some of the front part of the unit (palm rest), rather than having it sit under an extended palm rest where a trackpad could go
• The pen is fine, but feels a bit cheap
• As I mentioned earlier, the screen resolution is 1280×768. should have been 1280×800 and would therefore meet minimum website standard of 800×600 when in portrait mode (the fewer pixels means some chance of vertical scrolling)
• There should be two slots for for memory, or a standard SO-DIMM instead of the Micro-DIMM (i.e. for a total of 2GB RAM). Vista really needs 2GB to work well. (Edit: This was addressed by installing a 2GB module from the 1620/1630)
• I had to disable part of the trackpoint’s operation because I kept tapping it while typing meaning the I kept typing in the wrong area.

Despite these minor issues, it’s an excellent notebook. You wouldn’t want to use it as an everyday machine. My former Dell was a desktop replacement and I used it at work and home. Now I have a desktop at work and at home and use the P1610 while on the road – and just while on the road.

I can’t wait to see what the next version will be like!

The meeting was with the 2IC, his direct team and peer team members. This was the elite of the Bank and it wasn’t just a little intimidating – it was very intimidating.

And one person in the room took it upon himself to say ‘Good morning, Craig’. Making a point of being friendly and acknowledging that we knew each other. He basically said to me ‘there’s at least one friendy in the room’.

Michael didn’t need to to this. There was nothing in it for him. If you read one of my other recent posts, you’ll see how important it is to do things because they should be done, not because you do it for some material gain.

My responsibility in this interaction is to ensure I thank him for doing it. And not just a quick ‘Thanks, Michael’ email, but one that describes that I knew what he was doing to help.

My email was essentially ‘thanks for making a friendly gesture in an intimidating meeting’. Being precise like that shows him that I put as much thought into my ‘thanks’ as he did in his initial gesture.

People like to be acknowledged for the things they do, especially when they don’t have to do what they did.

The particular situation she was experiencing related to one of her lecturers. The lecturer is new at the game and was clearly struggling to gain the confidence of the students and conduct the lecture in a constructive and meaningful way.

My student described how the class was becoming very dissatisfied with the lecturer and were starting to behave in less then helpful ways. There was general dissent and the students were making it known to the lecturer. unfortunately, the lecturer responded in turn, and around it went.

It’s so easy to fall in behind group behaviour and be like all the others. It’s much easier to criticise than it is to help. And much easier to watch than it is to become actively involved.

Our discussion about this took the direction of what she (my student) can do to actually help the situation, rather than make things worth. The idea is that she can actually engage with the lecturer and provide feedback on how things have transpired and how things can b done better.

I know it sounds a little trite – you’re probably thinking that anyone would do that. However, what I’ve noticed is that most people don’t actually do it. It’s simpler and less threatening if you don’t start a conversation about difficult things – i.e. how to give someone constructive feedback when they’re doing a really poor job at something.

The point of this, is that instead of letting things be like they are, get involved, provide feedback, help out – even when you don’t need to and won’t actually gain anything from it. You do it, because no-one else will.

What’s the worst that can happen? They don’t listen, they get angry, they think you’re nosy. But now it’s actually their problem. You made the effort.

Don’t let it dishearten you. In the long run, you’ll make a difference. Most people like receiving feedback, especially when it’s done well. But that’s a topic for another day.

You’re probably asking your self what did I do to help. Well, I rang the Head of School and talked to him about the feedback I was hearing. I asked about how the lecturer was being supported and even made some suggestions about other things that can be done.

Again, what’s the worst that can happen? The Head says ‘thanks but it’s all in hand’. Nope, that didn’t happen. He understood my motive, took the feedback on board and gave me an undertaking to take an active role in supporting the lecturer. It turns out that he didn’t quite realise how things really were.

I would say that that’s a pretty positive outcome – I wonder what would’ve transpired if I hadn’t made the call. Who knows? But at least I did what I could.

Now, this post is not about being a martyr, or about how I’m a martyr. People who know me would never associate that word with my personality!!! The point is that I got involved when I didn’t have to.

It’s not about throwing your weight around or being a sticky-beak. It’s about genuinely wanting things to be different and if there’s an opportunity to make a difference to someone, despite the fact there is no material gain for me, then I think that’s a good thing.

Not everyone wants feedback, but that’s not your problem because you can’t predict whether someone will want feedback until you try. If you’re not sure, you can always ask them: ‘would you mind if I gave you some feedback on that?’ They’ll either say yes or no and you take it from there. If they say no, then you go about your business and work with people who are interested in getting feedback.

You can’t help everyone – work with the ones you can.

She (my student) commented to me that whenever she comes in she always notices that people email to the group that they are working from home. She asks me about how do I know that they’re really working?

Simply, I trust that people are actually working from home. Do I know they are actually working from home – yes. Why? I trust that they are, therefore they must be.

I know that sounds illogical since I don’t really know what they’re doing because I’m not there with them. But at the end of the day, I trust that they are doing the right thing – and that’s good enough.

Let’s look at what happens if you don’t trust people. Managers who don’t trust their staff are continuously monitoring people, trying to catch them out. What these managers don’t realise is that they are creating the very environment that will cause people to do things that reinforce the managers lack of trust. Or the manager will interpret some seemingly innocuous behaviour as an indicator of doing something untrustworthy. It’s a vicious circle with only one outcome.

In contrast, it’s much easier to start with the view that people are trustworthy and will do the right thing. By doing this, you also set up an environment where people do things that indicate trustworthiness.

Fortunately, you will be right most of the time (whichever view you take!!!). I’ve only experienced 2 or 3 serious breaches of conduct over the last 9 years of running PTG where people outright lied or did something that was in very poor form. Those people no longer work for my company, either because they left or were exited.

It’s dissapointing that this happens, especially when you make a real effort to trust them and ‘this is what you get for it’. But you can’t think that way. It poisons your view of people and causes you to behave in a reactionary way and take away people’s freedom to make their own choices.

Rest assured that the odds are very much in your favour if you start with a positive view of people’s motives. You will get what you look for.

I spent some time with one of them discussing how I run PTG Global. We talked about some of the things I do while running PTG. The first thing was about the nature of the people I employ.

When I started PTG (some 9 years ago), it was always clear to me that I needed to employ people who could compensate for the things I was not strong at. It’s often treated gliby when people say they employ people better than they are, or who can succeed them, but I don’t think people actually do it. It’s very threatening to employ people who are smarter and/or better than you are. And I imagine that managers are concerned that they might lose their job if there are people better than they are in the pool.

But the reality is that as a manager, you need to make yourself ‘dispensable’. That is, if you aren’t there for any reason, and all work stops, then it’s clear that you aren’t doing your job. Although i’m in the position where I own and operate PTG, it’s critical that I have people who can maintain things while I’m not there.

A client recently said to me after the week-long road trip we were on ‘I bet you’ll have a million things to do when you get back on monday’. I said to him ‘If I have a million things on, then I’m not a very good manager’.

It’s one of those things – we’d like to think we get great people around us, but a lot of people don’t do it. I’ve found it critical in my business to ensure people are empowered to make decisions.

How do you do this? It’s really quite simple and I do a couple of key things:

1. I let people make decisions
2. I provide some broad parameters for things in and out of their decision making authority (e.g. You make any performance management decisions and I’ll make salary decisions – truth is, I’ve even let that go now)
3. If people ask me things things that should decide on their own, I say something like ‘I don’t need to know about it – just do whatever you think is right’. If you do this a few times, people soon get the hint – but you must have the boundaries in place.
4. If people make a decision that’s not right, it nearly always can be fixed – so there’s no need to come down hard on people. As they say, ‘Shit happens’ – no-one dies, nothing bad happens in my line of work.

If you don’t offload as much as possible in the way of day-to-day decisions, your staff will wait until you get back to make the decision for them and nothing will get done. You will have become a road block in the business.

Keep focussed on managing and growing your business – you can’t do this if your always making day-to-day decisions for your staff.

I’ve covered it before, but the only real solution is wireless broadband. There is no point to spending $4 – $5 billion on a new wired network when wireless networks like Telstra’s Next-G exist.

The Government, Telstra and G9 should instead invest in a single wireless broadband network. Next-G is based on UMTS and consumers can receive data at up to 3.6Mbps (enough to stream DVD quality video using Mpeg4) with near-future improvements up to 14.4Mbps. 4G UMTS will provide 100Mbps down and 50Mbps up.

With a strong propensity for people to use mobile phones as their primary communication device over fixed land lines, the need to have a wired phone line reduces. Quite a few people have active land lines only for their ADSL connection and not for general phone usage.

Wireless broadband is the only solution for a relatively mobile population – people change address or move around for work. Why should consumers have to pay for fixed line internet and wireless internet, let alone the connect / disconnect fees and related time delays in re-activating services?

Wireless broadband, like Next-G also serves the needs of rural and regional populations – an important issue for Australia.

Why doesn’t the Government insist on saving $4B and instead remove the Next-G inrastructure from Telstra’s direct control and seek investment from the G9 consortium? A single network improves the quality of service and experience for consumers. There is greater choice as manufacturers need to build for only one technology variation, and costs are down because consumers do not need to pay for 2 or more networks in their access fees.

The wireless account and access can be shared across consumers’ desktops, laptops and mobile phones, increasing its appeal and revenue opportunities for service providers and people use more online services in more environments.

I was in Wagga this week and they’ve taken an interesting approach to managing water usage. The policy is essentially something like: no sprinklers between 10am and 5pm. That’s it.

It turns out that when they had restrictions, such as, ‘only water your garden on certain days’, everyone watered their garden on that day, every time they were allowed, regardless of whether their garden needed it or not.

By relaxing the restriction, the water usage actually went down. Now, I don’t have any actual statistics on that, but that is what some of the locals said. I’m going to do a bit more research next week to find out if it’s true.

It certainly got me thinking about how to effectively implement water restrictions. It certainly warrants systematic investigation and comparison of methods to establish the best way of doing it.

Wagga’s approach (if true) probably works well in that location because people are more water-wise any way. I’m not sure it would work the same way in metropolitan areas until there is a general social awareness and responsibility about water usage.

Every so often, I see people doing crazy things with water that suggest there needs to be an awareness campaign using examples of inappropriate usage of water:

• No watering cars (i.e. washing with a hose)
• No watering concrete
• No use of the water stream as a broom to sweep away leaves

I remember seeing one guy hosing down his car during the period when we had summer restrictions. As I walked past him, I stopped and said to him: ‘Did you know we’re in the middle of water restrictions? You should be using a bucket, if at all.’ His reply: ‘Oh, I’ve finished anyway’. As if the fact that he’d finished made it alright.

We need to do a lot more on restricting water usage. I think the simplest thing would be to increase teh price by 50 or 100 times the current price. You’re probably thinking: No way!!!

If we’re all prepared to pay $1.50 a litre for petrol, I’m sure we’ll pay more for water. Did you know that water is currently around $1.00 for 1,000 litres? No wonder no-one really cares about water usage.

Here are some things that I think should be done for water conservation, some big, some small:

• Don’t build desalination plants as the first option – the power cost can be enormous
• Put in a rain water tank in your back yard with a filter to prepare it for human consumption (people on farms do this all the time)
• Recover grey water for garden usage, supplemented by tank water
• All new properties should have two separate plumbing systems – one for sewage and one for grey water
• Put a brick in your old-style toilet cistern to reduce its capacity and wastefulness
• Recover stormwater for return to the drinking water system
• Full recycling of sewage and for return to the drinking water system
• And follow one of my favourite expressions: ‘If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down’.

It’s one thing for me to ‘preach’ on this.  What do I at home?

• I tip our baby’s bath water into the garden for watering(without the baby of course!!)
• I follow the rule ‘if it’s yellow…’
• Only ever use half flushes
• Toilet cleaning with household bleach (much better on the environment)
• I don’t wash the car (somewhat due to laziness, )

We no longer have the luxury of clinging to false perceptions and prejudices about the ‘safety’ of water recycling.I don’t think people realise that the natural cycle of dumping waste water in the ocean, evaporation and subsequent rainfall is exactly the same thing as water recycling.