Mike Maney

Category: Stories

  • Separated at Birth: US Airways and Dominican Republic Tourism

    Jenn and I left last Saturday for the Dominican Republic to celebrate her 40th birthday with close friends. Friday marked the end of our vacation and, unfortunately, the beginning of a 36-hour ordeal at the hands of two organizations which, despite their chosen industries, have yet to grasp even the most rudimentary aspects of customer relations.

    I was going to blog more on the incomprehensible public relations incompetence of both US Airways and those responsible for managing the Dominican Republic’s tourism image, but think the story (and comment thread) running on Consumerist and the accompanying video from CBS’s Philadelphia affiliate KYW-TV (which lead Friday’s 11 o’clock newscast and re-ran on Saturday) speak volumes:

    U.S. Airways Boots 274 Stranded Passengers From Caribbean Airport, Refuses To Pay For Hotels

    US Airways continues to set a shining example of why the airline industry is in complete shambles. Its quickening demise isn’t the result of economics, it’s the result of complete disregard for its customers. If US Airways was a yellow labrador retriever, Pa would’ve had us put it out of its misery behind the shed a long time ago.

    And despite the best efforts by travel agents, incidents like this — along with a very public and apparently very real theft problem — will make the Dominican Republic a less-than-desirable vacation destination for many travelers.

    Both US Airways and the Dominican Republic lost customers this weekend. Customers they will not get back.

  • Philippe Kahn Successful in Transpac Sailing Record Attempt

    Congratulations to Philippe on his and Richard Clarke’s successful Transpac Sailing Record. I’m by no means a close friend of Philippe’s, but I have been lucky enough to have had an e-mail conversation with him (we have a mutual professional acquaintance). I’m not a sailor, but it’s fun following one I know.

  • Anatomy of a Bee Sting

    About 40 minutes into a quick hour long ride this afternoon (you may need to click on the image to see it bigger):

  • A Boy Scout is Always Prepared

    My cousin Larry and my uncle Bill are both Eagle Scouts. I made it to the level of Life Scout (one level shy of the Eagle honor). My cousin’s son, Micah, is also in the Boy Scouts. He was picnicking in Utah’s Big Cottonwood Canyon yesterday when he was called up on to put the Boy Scout motto (Be Prepared) into action to help an injured hiker (on a trail where another hiker was killed earlier in the week).

    Despite the very public problems the Boy Scouts face, Micah is an example of the kind of quality young men the organization produces.

  • Support Saranac

    I’ve been a fan of Saranac beer for a long time. It’s good brew and the company is topnotch (they once shipped a case of free beer to a friend of mine who had written them a letter asking where to find a certain style for his wedding…and personalized it by wishing him well at the wedding.

    Unfortunately, the brewery took a hit somewhat recently. A fire destroyed its canning building. So, it’s good to see them back up and running:

    New York: Black Diamond Bock, Saranac, Utica: “

    The news from Utica is good. F.X. Matt, makers of the Saranac brand, will live on after the fire that took out the canning building two weeks ago and in fact beer is still being brewed now.

    The news is also good about this beer. I picked up a six at the Alex Bay Mart the other week for a pittance – made more pittanced by the wave through by the lad at the border. This beer pours a orange-chestnut with a white rim. Medium bodied with dark cherry and vanilla malt cut by tobacco hops. I had the occasion last weekend to consider this brew with a wee dram of decent bourbon, Woodford Reserve and the combo was a natural. Plenty of BAer respect.”

    (Via A Good Beer Blog.)

    Support a great beer maker and purchase some Saranac Black Diamond Bock this weekend.

  • The Passion of the Community

    UPDATE: Added direct link to Roberto’s post.

    I wouldn’t be surprised to see a firestorm erupt over Roberto Galoppini’s open source multilevel marketing suggestions in this post by CNET blogger Matt Asay:

    Users promoting the software that they’re already adopting, but getting paid something for it.

    One of the underlying tenets of open source is the passion of the communities that form around specific (and popular) projects. Adoption is, in large part, driven by The Breck Principle: You tell your friends, they’ll tell theirs, and so on. Of course, in order for that to happen, the software needs to be well-written and useful.

    Roberto floats the idea that project leaders and companies can spur greater adoption of their products by employing the basic ideals of pyramid marketing schemes. Pay your best users to promote your software within their communities, who recruit new users to do likewise, with each newer user getting a smaller promotional payout and the original evangelist making more dinero as the foundation of his or her pyramid gets bigger.

    In a normal proprietary software setting, I’m not sure anyone would blink an eye at this approach. In fact, the way affiliate marketing dollars are allocated, it’s basically already being done. The problem with this approach is that the money corrupts, forcing software on users at the expense of choice. The reason Dell and HP sell Windows-based systems is not because it’s a better operating system (this is not to debate the merits of Windows versus Linux), but because Microsoft spends bucketloads of marketing dollars to make it fiscally irresponsible to explore other avenues. And those dollars don’t stop at the computer makers. They funnel down through channels and across applications. Take Microsoft’s “pyramid” marketing dollars away and I suspect the Dell and HP marketing budgets would be drastically smaller. This is not an indictment of Microsoft (nor Dell or HP). It’s how they market. And there’s no denying it works.

    Is it a model that could work in open source? Would it create a caste system within open source between those projects that have marketing dollars and those that don’t? Does it usher in a new phase in the lifecycle of open source software that puts a premium on marketing at the expense of great software?

  • El Toro

    El Toro is a roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure. It is fast. Really, really fast. It is the second-fastest wooden roller coaster in the U.S. (from whispers I heard while standing in line). And, while scary, it is nowhere near as scary as riding a seesaw in the middle of a Mexican bullring with a real el toro.

  • The House That Ruth Built


    My mother is a diehard, lifelong New York Yankees fan. For Mother’s Day this year, we reserved tickets for an inside-the-park tour of Yankee Stadium. Good thing, too, as this is the last year the Bronx Bombers will play in the current stadium (a new stadium is being built alongside it). I captured some images of the day that you can view here.

  • Earthquake Story Cracks Me Up

    CNN is reporting that a 6+ magnitude quake hit northern Nevada this morning. Reading the story, however, I have to laugh at this quote:

    “We have cracks in our walls,” Jane Kelso, who answered the phone at the Motel 6 in Wells, Nevada, told AP. Wells is 10 miles from the epicenter in sparsely populated eastern Nevada.

    I’m thinking the reporter didn’t even mention the earthquake.

  • Cmdr Taco on Digg Revolt

    Interesting story by New York Times reporter Brad Stone (the reporter who broke the identity of Fake Steve Jobs) on the recent uprising at Digg. Slashdot founder Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda does a standup job in the interview explaining why Digg ran into the troubles it did and why the two sites don’t necessarily compete for the same audience.

    Disclaimer: Slashdot is part of SourceForge, Inc., which is represented by my agency, Page One PR.