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Conserving Water

April 4, 2018 //
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In this second post of a 3-post series on ‘musings on holiday stuff I come into contact with’, I wanted to talk about water.

When we’re at home we try and get the kids into the habit of having a quick shower, no more than 4 or 5 minutes if possible. It’s not only good practice for when Ireland finally gets its act together in terms of water metering, but it’s good for us and future planetary inhabitants too.

We were on holiday recently, in the warm-all-year-round canaries. It’s always a pleasant surprise to come out of the shower into into a naturally warm environment. The first day or two I was tempted to have a long luxurious shower. After all, there’s loads of water around here. We’re surrounded by an ocean of the stuff, I was thinking.

Of course, this is stupid, selfish thinking. As the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner goes, ‘water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.’ The island still has to treat all that sea water to turn into the water that comes out of our taps and shower heads and flows into our pools. They’re as keen on conserving water as any other country, probably more so.

So I kept my showers down to the minimum time, having had a word with myself. Water is a precious resource, so conserving it – even for a business like a hotel, with lawns, plants and flowers to keep looking good – makes sense whatever your circumstances.

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Categories Customers, General

The Non-Delusional Realist

March 28, 2018 //
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In 1990’s Scotland there was a great series of TV adverts designed to reinforce our recall of the Tennent’s lager brand by judicious use of words ending in their big red capital T. Younger readers may also be familiar with the summer festival T in the Park, which does exactly the same thing.

Anyway, these ads featured the pouring of half of a glass of Tennent’s in front of someone, who either laughed with joy or cried with sadness, depending on whether they were an glass-half-full optimisT or a glass-half-empty pessimisT.

These days we’re under increasing pressure – perhaps it’s our gradual Americanisation – to be incorrigibly upbeat and optimistic about everything. Our positive outlook alone will affect the outcome. It’s the positive spin we put on life and especially in marketing. This is true in parts. I’ve always described myself as a realist, occupying the halfway house, a hope-for-the-best-plan-for-the-worst space in between the two characteristics.

The other day I was chatting to my son who can sometimes be sweepingly downbeat in that glum teenagerish way. I told him he was sounding like a pessimist. ‘I’m not a pessimist Dad,’ he countered, ‘I’m a non-delusional realist.’

Which opens up a whole new can of worms. Is that the same thing as a pessimist, or is it a qualification of a realist, or is it suggesting there are many shades on the pessimist-optimist spectrum, or many grades to the axis?

I know, thinking too much…

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Categories Communication, General

My Eddie Bauer Bag

March 26, 2018 //
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My Eddie Bauer bag

My Eddie Bauer bag

What a pity is was that Eddie Bauer went bust. When was it, maybe 2009 or so?

I was in the US on business about a decade ago and bought a really warm down coat. While I was there I saw a laptop-holding travel bag that I’d been looking for for ages. It had an extra section that turned it from an overnight bag into something you could use for 3 or 4 nights, perfect for those short-ish business trips. For some reason, this kind of bag with the extra section and the extra 15 litres or so of capacity is really hard to find.

I spend a lot of time in the software industry and this bag fits right in. There must be 30 pockets in there, of all shapes, sizes and uses. The laptop section is very snug for devices of all sizes.

This bag accompanies me on almost every journey I make when I need to bring a laptop, and most even when I don’t. It always fits in the airplane overhead bins, and I never get asked to check it in, even when it’s full to bursting.

A treasure of a piece of travel luggage. I don’t know what I’ll do when I have to replace it.

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Categories Customers, General, Marketing

Old Games

March 23, 2018 //
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Wooden Labyrinth

Wooden Labyrinth

Anyone remember this game from yesteryear? We were obsessed with it when we were kids, a hundred years ago in the pre-pre-pre-internet era of proper games and slot fruit machines.

It’s a fine test of hand-eye co-ordination, with 2 levers and an ingenious bit of engineering that allow you to tilt the floor in myriad ways to manoeuvre the ball around the holes, staying close to the black line until the finish.

Somehow, quite recently, a 21st century version of it – well it might as well be a 20th century version –  appeared in the Dilger household, a strange happening since our kids are not really in the demographic for it.

I’m hooked on it again, and have to allow myself only two tries at at time, when I’m making a coffee or otherwise taking a break. The simplicity enthrals me and the excitement levels are worryingly high.

I’ve only finished it once in the few weeks since its renaissance. Must give it a quick go now…

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Categories General

The Fleeting Thought

March 21, 2018 //
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The title of this post should really be ‘tomorrow’s buttocks’, but that would send the wrong message entirely. There is a serious message to it believe me.

I don’t know about you, but I get ideas any time, any place. Ideas for things I need to buy, ideas for blog posts, business ideas, and so on. You have to strike while the iron’s hot. To prevent them from becoming simply a fleeting thought that I can’t possibly recall, I jot the idea down, sometimes with a few words of explanation, in case the title of the idea is too pithy or esoteric for me to get to the kernel of it.

I was telling my wife the other day that I needed to create a blog post. She recalled that I was driving an iea and asked her to put a couple of words into her phone’s notepad for me to use as inspiration later. When she pulled up the not, it simply said ‘tomorrow’s buttocks’. I know, me neither. It could have been autocorrected, but from what I simply have no idea. It’s gone, the fleeting thought has fleeted, for good.

Is this what it’s like to be a detective, trying to piece together from the tiniest of clues what happened in an event, what people were thinking and what caused them to behave the way they did? Tough gig.

If it were important enough, ike an idea for a great melody, it would have come back to me. But how many millions have been lost, or how different might the world be, and the things we take for granted, from fleeting thoughts that people never executed?

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Categories Communication, General

Light Up Shoes

March 9, 2018 //
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I was at a 5th birthday the other day. I haven’t been to one in a long time, and I’d forgotten how frenetic they can be, but I was over in the UK and my nephew was going, so why not I thought.

One of the youngest kids there had a pair of running shoes on, which flashed when his foot landed on the floor. Except, these weren’t your normal flashing shoes. The whole foam base of the shoe was full of lights which changed colour every few seconds. White soles, then blue, then green, yellow, red, purple.

I want a pair.

Trouble is, you can’t get them for adults, I’m sure. They would be fantastic at music festivals and parties.

If you see a pair of adult light up shoes, let me know. I’m a European 42, UK size 8, US size 9…

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Categories General

Early Bird or Night Owl

March 2, 2018 //
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Are you an early bird or a night owl?

Gone are the days where we work ludicrous hours, unless we have our own business, earn stupifyingly large amounts of money or have a misplaced and unrequited sense of loyalty to our employer. It’s all about work-life balance these days and so we tend to work a reasonable amount of hours.

Which brings me back to my original question. I worked recently with an SME which had two principal guys. One started very early and finished at a reasonable time. The other started reasonably late and finished late. Their dovetailing partnership worked well and they were able to provide longer corporate coverage as a result.

I find that if I’m doing intense stuff like writing then an early start brings out the best in me. If I’m doing other kinds of work, then a later start seems to pay off. When I was a student, I was a night owl – on the studying/working front. As I’ve got older I’ve found that the early bird suits my lifestyle balance better. Plus, I’m usually mentally wiped by the end of the day.

As a consequence of this I find it really helps me to plan out my working week, and even into the weekend. Plotting the early bird and the night owl requirements ahead of time means that I get the required rest and family time, as well as the work done.

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Categories General

This Week vs Next Week

February 28, 2018 //
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It’s really hard for native English speakers to agree on the correct definition of this week vs next week. Even family members confuse each other. How much harder must it be for non-native speakers, unless they’ve been taught an easier, simpler way?

Then there’s this weekend vs next weekend. If it’s Wednesday today, does this weekend or next weekend start in 2 days’ time? Tricky one. Sometimes we have to qualify ourselves by saying something like ‘this week coming’. Awkward. It interests me that something so basic and important is subject to such variance.

For me it’s a simple distinction, like the distinction between this and that, which governs how we explain the difference to those speakers of language who have no separate word (‘dieser’ being both this and that in German). I argued in that post that this is close in time and place, and that is less close in time and place. With me so far?

This week is the week we’re in right now, and I count my week from Monday to Sunday.

This weekend is the first weekend after today. If it’s a Saturday or Sunday, this weekend is the one I’m in, right now.

Next week is the week commencing Monday. If it’s a Sunday, next week starts tomorrow. If it’s a Monday, next week starts a week today because I’ve started this week. If it’s any other day than Monday, next week starts on Monday.

Next weekend is not this weekend, it’s the one after.

However, if you count your weeks from Sunday to Saturday, then all bets are off, because if it’s a Sunday then for you next week starts next Sunday, not tomorrow :-). Ha, I’m actually laughing out loud as I write this.

Should I have used a diagram? Do you agree with my definition? Do you care?

 

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Categories Communication, General, Language

Nice One

February 19, 2018 //
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‘Oh, nice one.’

I like receiving a ‘nice one’ from someone. It’s an elegant compliment I think. It’s almost an aside, almost an afterthought, quite understated, and for those three reasons it comes across as both appreciative and genuine. It doesn’t sound perfunctory.

Nice is often thought of as an underwhelming adjectival endorsement, a way of damning someone with faint praise.

‘What do you think of my dress?’

‘It’s nice.’

‘Gee, thanks for that glittering encouragement.’

Nice one, on the other hand, as well as its sister phrase ‘nicely done’, doesn’t carry that undertone of non-commitment. It’s not over the top either. It’s just about right, at least to my English ear which is tuned to appreciate signals of understatement, modesty and humility from others, even if I can’t always give them myself.

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Categories Communication, General

Hotel Energy Bills

February 16, 2018 //
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I wonder what hotel energy bills are like. They must be astronomically high. All those airy, high-ceilinged communal rooms…

I’ve been staying in hotels in Dublin recently. When I check in evening-time the room is always toasty warm. I don’t know if it’s been on all day, since the last person checked out, or maybe the cleaner put it on when they finished preparing the room.

When I leave in the morning, to return later that day, the room is warm. It’s probably warm all day, unless the cleaner turns it off when they come in to clean, since it would be too hot to do all that work, before turning it back on as they leave. Or, perhaps, as you often see as you check out, the cleaner has the hotel room door open of the room they’re cleaning, to allow then to easily go to and from their supplies trolley, with the heat from the room seeping out into the corridor.

Presumably more modern or larger hotels take a more automated approach to central heating. But I wonder if they could automate it further. Perhaps they could ask guests their estimated check-in time when they book, or their estimated return time, and this could be programmed into a system which automatically activated the heating in their room 30 minutes before they were due in?

Either way, there must be huge scope to reduce energy bills without giving the guest the feeling that you’re scrimping on the finer things you expect from a room, like warmth and cosiness.

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Categories Customers, General, Strategy
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