What am I thinking?

Singapore Taxis - call for action!

Singapore has one of the highest ratio of taxis to area (86 cabs per sq mile!) than most countries in the world, yet it is the most difficult place on Earth to catch a cab.  The system is very, very broken and here are some of the reasons why:

Taxi Booking –

As well as flagging down an available car at the roadside, or waiting at a designated taxi rank, you can also use telephone bookings, or smart phone apps available for iPhone and Android.  However, be warned, this not only costs you extra, it is likely to drive you mad!!!

1) Capacity of the system(s)

The phones are often not answered!  No idea why – but they just ring and ring…

The smart phone apps timeout all the time – often resulting in “no taxis are available, please try again in 10 min” messages, or worse still the app crashes completely so when you go back in, you end up accidentally booking two or three cars when you only wanted one!  (The phone app crashes but the booking was logged but you have no way to tell)

This is all “normal” operating procedures…so now add a weighting/loading factor for peak times like 7am-9am, or 5pm-7pm.  Then pray it isn’t raining too! 

2) Finding you

This is my favourite problem with bookings as it’s absolute madness.  After a while experience tells you there are three outcomes really from a successful booking:

                  i) The taxi comes for you and you pay your extra $ to arrive happily at your destination;

                  ii) The taxi can’t find you – so the driver cancels your booking and you’re left stranded.  This is far more common than you’d like to think, and more worryingly is that you live in a really well known area…they just couldn’t be bothered or have picked up someone else on the road..anyway you just have to guess as you get no feedback or means of complaining.

                  iii) The taxi can’t find you – so the driver calls your mobile to yell at you for not being where they think you should be!?!?  So you have to guide them to your location via the phone.

 The ratio of these results varies but in my experience it’s 25:50:25 percent!  That’s right, only 25% of the time will the taxi locate you even though the computerised system is GPS and your request for pickup is locked to specific address formats and locators.

The reason given is that construction in Singapore is constant, new buildings, new streets and addresses all the time.  Which is kind of true, kind of an excuse and kind of irritating as I’m sure Robertson Quay has been here a long time!   Real reason would seem to be the lack of learning – I’m not sure the level of training needed to be a taxi driver in Singapore but it wouldn’t seem on the face of it to be as exhaustive as “the knowledge”.  

3) Charging you.

This is a new one to me but I’ve experienced it recently – when my taxi arrived to pick me up, the meter was already running.  I asked the driver why and he, rather aggressively, told me that he started the meter when he couldn’t find my address – because “why should he look for me on his own time and money – I should pay for that”!?!  So not only did I pay for the booking, he wanted me to also pay for him aimlessly driving about for 3-5 mins trying to find my condo!  Needless to say I didn’t and got out of the car as he hurled abuse at me…

Shift-change – only place in the world where taxis tell you where it’s going and if, coincidentally, you happen to be wanting to be going the same way, then you can go with them.

The cars curb-crawl like some sleazy red-light area, windows down, driver leaning out touting for business.  Of course they block up the curb, fill the taxi ranks as they roll by slowly, scanning the queues for victims customers, and legitimately “free” taxis can’t stop…so queues get longer and everyone gets more frustrated.  Including the drivers whom seem very annoyed that you don’t want to go home with them!!

Now, the drivers will tell you there is nothing wrong with this practice, they often share cars etc and it’s logical to try and maximise income by getting a fare to pay for your journey home!  But…and it’s a big but…why will they only take a fare that is going entirely & specifically the full journey to their destination??!?  For example, you wanna go to Bedok but they want a fare all the way to Tampines, so you’re screwed, even though it’s on the way, they would rather driver off empty than take you.  I even had a driver tell me that’s because he won’t get a customer travelling the extra way!?!?!  No sense of customer service – the only customer you should care about is the one in front of you!

Why do all the shifts change at the same time!  Surely these can be staggered?  Seems like the whole force is changing between 3 and 4pm!

Airport run – there is a great practice that taxis get an extra $ for a pickup at the airport after 11pm…so at 11pm where are 50% of all the island’s working taxis?  Yes, you guessed it, all queuing up – often double parked queues for the 2 km leading up to airport arrivals bay.  Meantime, all the city areas have queues of people at taxi stands that can’t get a car!  Still the drivers will tell you “it’s worth it” for that extra few dollar – even when I tried a couple of times to point out the economics of using the same elapsed time that they queued at the airport they could have had 3 or 4 short runs around the CBD and made twice as much, this draws blank looks – you see this is what they have been taught and they have always done it, so it can’t possibly be uneconomical!  At some point in the past I can see this being a policy to encourage drivers to go to the airport…what we need now is balance - encouragement for drivers to go to designated ranks all over the island.

So….

So the system is very broken and there doesn’t seem to be any attempt to fix it…and now this week, the Singapore gov announced that drivers can continue working until 75 years of age.   Good for families with elderly drivers that want to keep earning…not so good for customers whom were hoping for a younger set of drivers that would a) know what English signs said; b) could find addresses that were new after 1985; c) can drive in the rain; d) can work the GPS system and e) wouldn’t chase every extra $ sitting empty in a queue in favour of earning 10x that by actually picking people up.  But it’s not just about age of the driver, it’s more about age of the practices and ingrained customs/practices of the trade – it needs review.

All of that said, there are a solid group of taxi drivers of varying ages that are very, very kind, thoughtful and professional.  I just wish there were more of them.  Maybe they should form a union and help improve the industry from within, kick out the cowboys and strive for continuous improvement.  Mind you, if all passengers were equally as nice and considerate, then maybe the service would be better from cabbies.  Overall though people are crap to each other the world over, but to catch a cab, Singapore is worse than anywhere else..time for a review, so come on LTA – force some changes…

Digital Workflow

The following article outlines my usual digital workflow for handling my images and photos. There are many different ways to do this and I’m sure there are people with alternative and better ways to do things – but this is mine and it serves me well.

Foundation

There are some foundational elements to my digital workflow that are a pre-requisite for the way I work. If you want to do things slightly differently then of course you can replace any of the pre-reqs with your chosen methods.

Firstly, I use Macs – so all my hardware and software listed is Apple Mac based – although I’m positive that Windows versions exist for all.

Camera Outputs: I primarily use Canon SLRs, or Canon/Panasonic compact cameras. I always shoot in RAW.

Filestore: I store all my photos in a structured directory format (see below) on the local hard drive within my iMac. This is the main storage of my images and what I deem to be my master. This directory is backed up to a Time Capsule via Time Machine, mirrored to my Drobo (www.drobo.com) daily by ChronoSync (www.econtechnologies.com) and also continuously backed up to the cloud via Carbonite (www.carbonite.com). I always work on the principle that data needs to exist in three places and one of those needs to be offsite.

Directory Structure:  I use a structure that is time based so at the top level I have a year folder, with twelve sub folders for each month, and then under each month I have a job/outing/holiday specific folder based on day and title.

e.g….

2011

2012

→Jan

→Feb

→Mar

→05_ZooTrip

→12_SmithWedding

All images related to that specific job are stored in that directory. Even processed raw files outputted to JPGs are stored within the same folder.

Software & Hardware:  As mentioned, I use Apple computers but I also primarily use:

• Adobe Lightroom – at the moment I have one large catalogue with all my images in it
• Adobe Photoshop
• Nik Software plugins
• Noise Ninja - despite advances in LR capability, this plug-in is still preferred.
• Wacom Intuos tablet
• Datacolor Spyder color management solution – my iMac uses the color profile created.
• USB card reader 

Usual Import Workflow

1. Insert CF/SD card from camera into USB card reader. 
2. Lightroom will auto start as I have my system configured to auto-launch when card is inserted.
3. Import all photos from card into directory using Lightroom import dialogue using the following settings:
1. Copy as DNG – this copies & converts the RAW file into DNG fileformat.
2. Apply metadata – I have default template metadata which contains my name as author/photographer, my copyright notice, the date, keywords list (date, year, camera make, lens used) I usually add to the keyword list on the fly and add in specifics related to the batch (e.g. Smith Wedding)
3. File handling – rename files to custom name – Date&OriginalName.DNG
4. Copies into sub directory – so I select the year and month dir as above but then enter the fresh dir name needed (e.g. 12_SmithWedding) so that Lightroom will create it.
5. Eject card on completion.
4. Once imported Lightroom should default to Library module with the recent import in focus in grid fashion – I then set out to filter the rubbish. Hit Caps Lock on and Pick(press P) for OK shots and Flag for delete (press X) for rubbish. 
5. Once advanced through the entire imported set, then goto Photo menu – Delete Rejected Photos – remove from disk. This will purge all the rubbish from my harddrive and the LR catalogue.
6. At this stage we have a set of stored images in the catalogue that are permanent. So I usually kick off a back up to ensure my changes are backed up and in at least the local disk and the Drobo.
7. Only once this is complete do I remove the card, return it to the camera for formatting and storing.

This concludes my import workflow.

Asset Management Processing Workflow

1. Navigate to the particular folder within LR library module. With CapsLock on, I then go through each photo 1-by-1 and star rate them. Either 3 for keeper, 4 for good and 5 for exceptional. If the photo is duplicate or a non-impressive image (usually the majority!) I just leave it un-rated.
2. Once the whole set is rated, then I filter the view by rating so I am only viewing >3 stars.
3. I then review all the 3 and 4 star images with the 5 stars in mind to see if any are worth up-rating or working upon to combine with the 5 stars to form a portfolio of the event/job. As I go through, I either uprate to 4 or down rate to 2 – so I will end up with all the portfolio of the set being 4 or 5.
4. This “portfolio” can either be set as a collection for ease of access, or just worked on via the filter method mentioned above. My preference is to work on them as a unit of work so that I can complete them in one sitting. If I know I have to leave the desk and return perhaps across many days, then I would create a collection.
5. Selecting all images in the collection/folio I then set the general keywords that apply to all.
6. Then I go through each image 1-by-1 and add specific keywords about the image.

This concludes my asset management processing workflow.

Photo Processing Workflow

This is largely where the creative elements come in and as such there is no set workflow that applies in all cases.

• Sometimes the images are fine from camera with only minimal developing settings in LR before exporting.
• Sometimes the images need only light-touch changes to exposure or tone curves and LR can do that very well.
• However, for fine art images I always use Photoshop. I will only do any basic straightening in LR and then Edit-In-Photoshop from the LR menu.Within Photoshop I always use non-destructive edits via layers and save the PSD back to same folder as the DNG file. 

Within LR, LR will add the edited file into the catalogue and you can view this side-by-side with the original DNG. I always use LR to export the finished images to JPG for publishing or printing.

That’s it - simple but practical and works for me - hope this is a help to some..

In serious need of an upgrade….major user experience fail!

Mobile phone operator voice mail services!  Absolutely a hangover from a previous telephonic era and just doesn’t fit with modern mobile device usage.

So you and your phone are reunited after a brief separation and you see a missed call notice:

Pressing call history – you see it’s from Joe Bloggs at 10:13am;

Just as you are about to call Joe back, an SMS arrives telling you that you missed a call from Joe Bloggs at 10:13 am and there is a voicemail recording for you to pickup. 

Pressing highlighted service number, you dutifully dial your voicemail service to hear an automated message tell you that you have a new message from 123456789 (Joe’s number) at 10:13am – press one to listen to it!

Pressing #1>

“Hi, it’s Joe – call me back?”

Throw phone in disgust or press #5 to delete message!

Then delete the call log, then delete the SMS.

Familiar story eh?  Epic failure in user experience.  Today’s phones always recognize the number, or it is withheld – so why do we need a txt to tell us same information if the phone received the call?  I can understand if the phone was off, or out of signal then sending an SMS would be good service – so why cant the operator software know that?  

Similarly, why is the default voicemail software setup to tell you the same information you already know about the left message?  And why is it so slooooow at reading out 1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…9… etc Apart from a ploy to keep you on the phone longer to generate more revenue, it’s just irritating.  Why we cant disable the settings I do not know!

Finally, and this is probably the worst part – why do people bother to leave messages that say, “hi it’s me, call me back”?   FFS I already have three separate smart phone services telling me it was you and I’ve just burned 10 mins so now I don’t have time to call you!!  Next time just send me an SMS instead!!

Come-on telco’s!!  Please sort this archaic solution out.. It’s really poor and we’re all paying you for it…. 

Buy local?

Ok, so living on an island means that shopping isnt exactly full of
choice and lacks the options that our brethren on the mainland enjoy but
considering our lack of choice for a moment you would think that our
shops would be bustling, busy little goldmines.  However they arent,
there are many closed, closing or just plain empty of stock.  Sure there
is a recession and we’re in dark economic times but I still can not
fathom why our local shops arent doing more to keep themselves afloat.
The internet brings us cheap, easy, accessible shopping and I, just like
a lot of people, do almost all my shopping online.  But I still wander
down our main street on a Saturday to browse and perhaps buy something
that the internet doesnt lend itself to providing - yet I find the whole
experience wholly unfulfilling.

Times are hard, and our MHK responsible for the Department of Trade and
Industry frequently urges us via the local press and media “to buy
local!”.  Seriously? I would love to, I would like nothing more to buy
locally and support the local economy and protect our bricks n mortar
stores - but they arent even willing to meet us halfway.  Sure they cant
compete on price, the web wins every time, but that’s not why we shop in
stores, we do that for tactile shopping and we will pay that extra for
immediacy and customer service benefits.  Do the shop managers not
realise that??  Instead of bemoaning the consumer trending towards
Internet shopping, they should be capitalising on the differentiators -
the human contact - do they not realise that employing sullen, sulky and
down right unhelpful staff that they are pushing people away from the
stores?

Our main street is no different to many High Streets up and down the UK,
we have all the brand stores - albeit smaller outlets - and we have
local shops that are owned, run by local people.  Those are the worse
ones!! We all have our horror stories of poor customer service in those
shops, but what I’m seeing now is downright arrogance.   Well, I for one
say good luck to you all, and if you survive the downturn I’ll be most
surprised but rest assured you seen my last £ until you change.

I would urge our DTI minister and the local commerce groups to stop
moaning and trying to lure people in by message only, take some action,
learn from what’s going on, treat the customer better, and get the
basics right - smile & be polite for goodness sake!

So my challenge to the “buy local” ideal is: improve the service and I
will.