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Cooking in somebody else’s kitchen, Part II

As long as it is on or near a lake or stream, an upstate NY vacation home is called a “camp”. There’s usually some concession to rusticity without really roughing it. In the case of my wife’s camp, it is a stove with only two burners (the others having been destroyed in a flood), a collection of pots inherited from her parents, and country cupboards which not only conceal their contents, but move them around when I am not looking so I can’t find an ingredient at the exact moment I need it.

I am up here with my two boys and I have learned to make weekly specials at the local market my friend; if it is advertised in the flyer they are more likely to actually have it at the lone store in town. Shopping with a preplanned meal in mind: very bad idea.

We tend to make a big pot of something and repurpose it over several days. Chicken Cacciatore (prepared with Mr. Purdue’s bargain leg quarters, not the prissy organic birds we buy “down the line”), carnitas and Texas chili (beans on the side) have figured so far. There is a steady stream of teen and preteen boys through the kitchen requesting hot chocolate, which is a good thing because I found three boxes of Nestle Cocoa in the cabinets, all expiring in 2010. Now looking for ideas to draw down a dozen half used boxes of pasta and 4 bags of lentils; when one wants to be sure something is on hand in camp, one tends to bring it up from the city forgetting one did the same thing last year, and the year before.

I have learned to successfully cook coffee in a stovetop percolator (the secret: don’t use too much coffee, or the water can’t seep through from the top grounds to the bottom) and broil on an ancient gas grill prone to flareups (always have a can of beer in your hand…. that’s to put out any leaping flames).

I look forward to being back in a kitchen where the utensils and equipment will do what I ask them to, and forgotten ingredients are five minutes away, but it is nice to have limitations and learn to stick with them. I am in awe of caterers and “secret kitchen” chefs who work like this every day.

Cooking in somebody else’s kitchen, Part I

The past month I’ve been cooking in two unfamiliar kitchens, the first being the San Francisco bachelor/bachelorette pad shared by several friends of my daughter and the second the “camp” belonging to my wife in the Adirondacks.

In San Francisco, my task was to prepare a Texas brisket meal for 60 people for the wedding party. I knew what I was in for and brought a number of key components with me, including my chef’s knife, a stack of aluminum trays and several necessary spices. But there were some things too big to carry on the plane, like the brisket itself and hickory chunks for the smoker (my old one from Phillip Claypool, which had been kindly stored in the back yard of the same SF flat). Chunks were hard since not only are San Franciscans not known for their smoking but in fact there is a city ordinance against open fires; finally I found a small expensive bag at Action Rentals, which also rents cooking equipment.

Brisket, on the other hand, was a major score. Cash & Carry, a restaurant wholesaler, had USDA Choice for $1.57 a pound… a lower price than I’ve ever seen in Texas. They also had an enormous bag of shredded cabbage at the same per-pound price I’d paid for the 10 pounds I’d just shredded myself to make sour slaw, so I added that to the hand truck. I stood in line with several other happy guys sharing hints (but no trade secrets) for what we were going to do with our brisket.

I was prepared for challenges in the prep, just didn’t know what they would be. The beans (to be used for Jack Daniels style baked beans eventually) were precooked in another alien location, the galley kitchen of the “home away” where I was staying with my boys; I used every pot and pan in the place. Back at the flat, the cookspace turned out to be tiny and without a cutting surface so I went out and bought a cutting board, the only outright cookware purchase I made. And I had too many briskets to fit in the smoker so I had to cook them in two batches, making for a 10 am to midnight cooking day. Fortunately the apartment dwellers were away at the formal pre-wedding ball where I was supposed to be; I put in an appearance then scurried back to tend my brisket and I knew the culinary gods were smiling when I was able to carry four trays of dripping brisket down three flights of stairs to my car parked in the towaway zone without spilling anything on my fancy duds.

The meal turned out just like it was supposed to, served the next night to hungry people at a conference center in the redwoods who kept coming back for seconds, which I was happy to be able to offer them. One half a brisket made it through the night and for the rest of the weekend whenever you went into the kitchen at the center (which hadn’t been available to me for prep) you’d see somebody surreptitiously sneaking a scrap out of the fridge. Among them were the renowned caterers who prepared the next night’s wedding feast, high praise indeed.

Toyota pays for my dead battery

A few months ago, I wrote about the hybrid battery that failed in my 2001 Prius at 71,000 miles, generating a $3700 repair bill because the battery was recently out of warranty. It’s time I explained the reason for my lack of follow-up posts.

Back in mid-February I got a call from the general manager at the dealership which had done the repair. He was calling not because of the rather robust online discussion of my experience, but because I had given the experience an unfavorable rating in a mail survey. (Yes, good to know at least someone at Toyota is paying attention to what their customers think.) After we discussed my issues he agreed that the matter had been handled inappropriately at his dealership and said he’d go to bat and try to get at least a partial reimbursement from Toyota. He also asked me to forward to him the letter I’d sent to American Toyota President James Lentz, summarizing my issue.

Two days later, on 2/18, this manager emailed me that:

Just got done speaking with my Toyota Factory Representative, she agreed with my assessment of the issue as well she agrees with your points you made to Mr. Lentz.

Based on that conversation it’s my guess you will probably receive a 100% reimbursement check in about 8 weeks at your Saratoga Springs address. Please understand I’m making no promises, but I feel it looks real good.

Based on that 8 weeks, I would have received the check in mid-April. When it didn’t arrive, I checked in with him and heard that:

Money is coming soon, should be no problem…..

Well, the money finally did arrive, on 5/25/10, and it was indeed a full reimbursement. I’m happy not to be out of pocket $3700, but I’m also happy that Toyota was willing to pay it which I don’t think they would have done if a huge number of Prius batteries was failing just out of warranty like mine did. (The cover letter made no reference to my history, by the way, just referring to it as a “goodwill check”.) So good news for me and good news for other Prius owners.

The broken arm

Back in the 1980s when I was still wearing a suit as an account supervisor, I had a wrenching experience. The 8 year old daughter of my office manager broke her arm at school and her mother, at the office, could not go to comfort her because she had to catch a plane for a new business meeting in Denver.

It was painful to listen to the conversation between mother and daughter on the phone, the mother telling the daughter that she was going to be just fine but mommy has to go on a business trip. I wondered I would be up to this if it happened to my kid. As it turned out, no.  I shortly buried my suit in the back yard and that manager joined a religious community.

I thought about this today when one of the superstar realtor pair who recently sold our house disappeared because his daughter broke her arm at a school play. No explanations, no excuses, simply gone, tending to her at the hospital. His business partner was ready to fill in for him but no problem. This is the way it is supposed to be.  As crazy as the world is, the values among the people I deal with today are on a more even keel.

Get well fast Audrey, and I hope you get some cool drawings on your cast.

Social breadcrumbs from my first day at SXSWi

Breadcrumbs are those little links you see on a website that help you to retrace your steps; “social breadcrumbs” is a phrase Jeremiah Owyang came up with (new to me anyway) a few minutes ago to describe the cumulative record of your presence you leave in social media that can be followed up by your friends or others interested in your activities or wanting to know what you would recommend. This was from the best panel I attended today, except it was in stealth mode. Supposedly Brian Solis as sole speaker but @jowyang, @comcastcares and some heavy dude from FourSquare were all up there unannounced talking about how to listen to the customer in social media.

This is what is so frustrating and fascinating about South by Southwest: the unpredictability. Before I got to this panel, halfway done, I had walked out on two completely packed rooms presenting astonishingly basic insights on how Google developers work long distance and what web content is all about. You just don’t know.

My other accomplishment so far is to run into and spend time with the folks from The Startup Bus: “25 strangers board a bus in San Francisco – and at 60 miles an hour and over 48 hours – they are to conceive, build and launch 6 tech startups in time for a SxSW party in Austin.” In other words, you got a free ride to the show in return for agreeing to put together and pitch a concept with several other people you’ve never seen before. The teams are presenting their ideas to a panel of venture capitalists tonight.

Also, the registration process is much less stressed this year, even though anecdotally there are more people. Stay tuned and I’ll report if I run into anything else interesting.

First timer tips for SXSWi

So I am going again to South by Southwest Interactive, and glad of it. As I mentioned last year, this is the conference where everybody has something interesting to share and everyone is interested in what YOU are doing. The days (and nights) are packed and it’s frustrating if you happen to miss out on anything because of logistical problems. Here are a few tips from a last year first timer:

  • If you have a car, you can park for free along one of the frontage roads near the freeway below the convention center. It’s a 10 minute walk from there, probably faster than paying for parking and waiting in line to get in/out of the garage. UPDATE: on Saturday and Sunday parking in metered spots near ACC is FREE.
  • The check-in process was horrendous last year and I hear there is 40% more registration this year. It’s a mystery to me why you should register in advance and still have to wait for an hour or more to get your badge. Bring a fully charged iPhone (hopefully the ATT network is not overloaded like LY) and strike up a conversation with your line mates. UPDATE: vastly improved for 2010.
  • Don’t get too wedded to the program list online. Many of these descriptions are off the wall and written months in advance. Plus, you may not get in some popular sessions. If you do see something you really like, get there early and grab a seat… near the aisle in case you are disappointed.
  • The conference center is shaped like a U with no direct access from one end of the U to the other. You may end up walking 10 minutes or more between sessions so look at the map and factor that into your planning. Sessions in double rooms (eg 18AB) are organizer picks for those likely to be popular, as are those held in ballrooms. “Core conversations” are generally moderated audience participation and if the topic isn’t of passionate interest you may not be happy there. The sessions in the Hilton are very developer focused even if the title may sound somewhat general. CORRECTION: this year the Hilton sessions are on BUSINESS and the first I attended was very interesting indeed, see next post.
  • UPDATE: the A, B, C ballroom sessions are developers and designers talking about their personal perspectives… essentially, why I am up here at the podium and you are in the audience. These have great attendance but the few I’ve seen are very basic.
  • The parties really do have free food, booze and music but GET THERE EARLY… as soon as the doors open is not a bad idea. Late comers will stand in long lines and find many of the freebies gone.

Any more tips? Comment here or to @otisregrets, or just look me up when you get to the show. Let’s ride!

Hmm… possible problem with social media peer reviews

Go look at the reviews for a popular item on Amazon.com. Compare the volume of people voting on the “most helpful favorable review” and the “most helpful critical review”. In most cases, the number of “helpful” votes on the “favorable” reviews will swamp the “critical” numbers. My hypothesis:  people reading these reviews mostly want to support their own positive impression because they’ve already decided to buy the item.

Some time ago, I accepted an invitation to be a “Vine” reviewer on Amazon. This honor came to me because I had written a couple of reviews on the site that got a high number of “helpful” ratings. Now I get a monthly email offering me some products for free as long as I agree to review them. This is not a boondoggle: if you regard your time as worth anywhere close to minimum wage, the hours you spend in reviewing the items are going to be far more than the value of the goods received.

But here’s the thing. Most of my Vine reviews have been negative and POSSIBLY as a result I’m getting less attractive Vine offers now. I have no ideas how this algorithm works. Maybe Amazon merchants are subsidizing this effort in some way? I’m certainly not suggesting that there has been any pressure to give a positive review but maybe Amazon is able to say “we’ll offer your product to a certain number of our top reviewers, they’ll likely review it favorably because they’re getting it for free etc.” In any case the net result is that fewer people are giving me a “helpful” nod now and I’m less well-rated as a reviewer since I started to write more negative reviews.

I love peer reviews and am a frequent contributor to Yelp, as well as Amazon. I read and use these reviews in my own buying decisions. If I want to know how to do some trick with a kitchen gadget that came with a poor instruction manual, I can bet that an Amazon reviewer will have filled in the gaps. But Amazon and other social media outlets need to make sure they provide a venue for intelligent negative opinions to express themselves, even if those reviews are not beloved by the readership. Maybe a helpful negative review gets extra weight, if it’s of a certain length and not a rant?

Toyota’s epic PR fail

In spite of my own recent issues, I had thought Toyota was doing the best it could with its massive recall. James Lentz, president of Toyota USA sales, was all over the press shows last weekend with the two key statements considered essential in the post-Tylenol era: “we screwed up and are sorry” and, “we care about our customers and are very concerned.” (Tylenol took a similar open, earnest tack when someone poisoned some of its bottles in the late 1980s and, coupled with an intensive “get to the bottom of this” campaign [they never did, but they were obviously trying]  it saved a brand everyone was writing off. For how NOT to handle a PR disaster see “Woods, Tiger”.)

But today I read this Reuters article that points out Akio Toyoda, the REAL president of Toyota, has said not one single word on the recall problem. And that another Toyota executive blamed the problem on (presumably inferior) U.S. made parts, chosen out of a charitable desire to help struggling American economy! Meanwhile the recall expands to the Prius (different problem, but nobody’s tracking the details any more) and Twitter #Prius traffic, which I’d been following because of my own recent posts, goes from sleepy to through the roof.

Concidentally, my original post about my dead Prius battery has become one of the most-read articles ever on this blog. Lots of new readers are discovering it linked to articles on the Toyota recall as they lick their chops for other Toyota schadenfreude. Speaking of which, my request for some financial relief led to timely response and some nice talks with friendly people in the Toyota Customer Experience Center, but a firm turn-down. I was frankly surprised at that.

[UPDATE for new readers: Toyota has now paid for the replacement battery. Details here.]

My casual research suggested a hybrid battery failure at 70K miles was extremely unusual if not unprecedented. It would seem like a good investment to fix an anomalous problem and placate a good customer who’s been evangelizing your product. Instead, here I am writing another post about problems at Toyota. How is that good for their brand?

Early Prius owners get screwed on battery warranty

I wasn’t too incensed about the dead battery on my Prius, just surprised, but after a bit of research I’m getting my dander up. Turns out, according to this article in the Toyota Pressroom blog, that the Prius battery has a 10 year warranty… EXCEPT for the first three model years that have only an 8 year warranty. (Mine died at 8 years and 8 months.) In other words, the earlier adopters who put their faith in Toyota and spread the word and built the Prius brand potentially get a $3700 repair invoice while later adopters would get a free replacement for the same problem.

I predict there is a bit of trouble ahead for Toyota if more owners see their batteries go south* and discover the company isn’t going to replace them. This is a classic example (getting back to marketing which is what this blog is supposed to be about) of taking your best customers for granted and treating them worse than your marginal customers.

Speaking of marketing, there are some other not-to-do’s worth learning from the Toyota Pressroom post. They acknowledge that “battery replacement in a Prius is neither as simple nor as inexpensive as replacing the battery in a conventional car.” That’s disingenuous because the massive and complex hybrid battery has no basis for comparison to the battery in a conventional car; in fact the Prius ALSO has a “conventional” battery. And they quote a bargain $2,299 for that replacement battery without mentioning that installation and tax at your Toyota dealer are going to add another, oh, $1400.

In a day when anyone can and does have access to your press releases, glossing over the pesky details is not a good idea. What exactly is this article trying to accomplish?  How could anybody who actually has a battery problem not feel pissed? And how could any news source that picks it up, then later discovers the truth, avoid feeling duped?

* Fortunately for other early Prius owners, mine may be a fairly rare occurrence. According to the Driving Sports blog only 306 Prius batteries had failed as of 6/09, out of 750,000 installed. “The life of the battery pack is generally about the same as the life of the vehicle,” said Toyota’s Jeremiah Shown. Well, that’s good to know.

Ok, now I’ll stop. No more about Toyota. I promise. Maybe.

[UPDATE for new readers: Toyota has now paid for the replacement battery. Details here.]

Is this realtor guilty of cybersquatting?

As I mentioned, I am in the process of prepping our SF house for sale. Lots of realtors advertise with a website that is the street address of the home. Out of pure curiosity, I went my home’s URL… and discovered the domain had already been claimed and parked by one of the realtors I interviewed. NOT the one that got the business, by the way.

A colleague who referred this realtor says they do it as a matter of practice, in order to set up a great presentation. Apparently they were going to set up a website for me and surprise me with it, but I made my decision before they could do this. She says as a marketer she admires their moxie and intent.

I disagree. First of all, there is no need to have a live URL to develop a website. Millions of websites are under development right now using local files on the developer’s desktop which will eventually be ported online. At any rate, the URL was parked, not active. The only thing this accomplishes is to keep another realtor, or me, from getting rights to the domain. (This realtor later said they’d relinquish the domain name at no charge.)

We know that in the early days of the internet there were entrepreneurial cybersquatters who grabbed domain names of recognizable brands such as Panasonic, Hertz and Avon, in hopes of reselling them for a fortune. The Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999 put an end to this practice. But how is grabbing somebody’s meatspace address any different?

I think by rights the domain name that corresponds to a street address belongs to the entity that owns the physical location. Am I all wet here?