Time and motion survey number 1:

Objective: To find out how many mouse-clicks it takes to send an email with an attachment. I’m comparing Slowtus Notes and Apple Mail.

Assumptions:

a) The file to be attached is easily available, eg. on your desktop.

b) The email application is not currently running.

Lotus Notes.

2 clicks: Double click to launch Notes.

1 click: on the daftly named bookmark for “Mail” to enter the mail application which strangely, sends memos!

1 click: New memo

2 clicks: File menu – Attach

1 click: within the dialog box to navigate you to the desktop

2 clicks: to select the file to be attached and dismiss the dialog.

1 click: in the “To” field and enter addressee

1 click: Send.

11 clicks total.

Mail on the Mac

1 click: Click and drag file to be attached to Mail icon in dock (Mail launches and automatically creates an email with the file attached)

1 click: in the “To” field and enter addressee

1 click: Send.

3 clicks total.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Are we supposed to save time or waste it using this software?

The powers that be decided to migrate our office email system to Lotus Notes. 

Holy fucking crap!!! This has got to be the most counter-intuititve application ever written. Just a few issues I have picked up after using it for a couple of weeks.

1. Human User interface sucks. Note to IBM: next time around, please read Apple’s guidelines on how applications are supposed to behave, as opposed to just porting the way you’ve been doing it for PC’s. Do yourself a favour, call Microsoft, ask them why MS Word 95 tanked on Mac.

a) there is no way to “correctly” select multiple emails to be deleted:

Shift-click, the traditional way of selecting contiguous items results in the current selection being ignored and the subsequent clicks selected.

Command-click, the traditional “Mac” way of selecting discontiguous items does nothing at all.

b) click-and-drag does nothing. You cannot use it to create a new “memo” (which idiot came up with that name?) or even copy and paste selected text or even save attachments.

c) speaking of attachments, they cannot be viewed within the so called “preview” window. Er… duh, then what are you previewing? Having to open up each and every jpg file in an email is just a total waste of mouse-clicks and my time.

d) Multiple undo has been with us for more that 10 years. Get with the program.

e) Multiple-choice question: When I delete an email do you think I want to be automatically taken to:

i) the next unread email?

ii) a previously read email which may be weeks old depending on the emails in-between that I had previously deleted?

f) What is it with the myriad of tabbed windows and proliferation of the same buttons in each tabbed-view? Don’t you understand context? When I hit Reply to All, what’s the purpose of giving me a “Reply to All” button in the new tab that you have just opened?

g) When I hit Reply All and compose a message, it is a reasonable assumption that I know what the content of the message is. So why does Notes send my reply to me?

2. CPU. Why is this program consuming  8% of my CPU capacity when it is idle? What is it doing?

3. Integration. I spent a considerable amount of money on a phone that I could sync my contact and addresses with my computer. That investment is now rubbish as:

a) I can’t import my existing address book into Notes without Notes causing a system panic (if you use a Mac you know that this never, ever happens – congratulations, IBM, on bringing my formerly reliable computer to its knees);

b) I can’t do the same with my calendars or to-do notes or memos (see the stupidity above), either.

c) UPDATE: Assuming I could actually get my existing contacts and calendars into Notes, the only way to sync them to my phone is by using an aptly named product called “PC Suite”, which – no prizes for guessing – ONLY RUNS ON A PC!

4. If the network goes down Notes shuts-down my computer! WTF??

Apparently this only happens when you are working with the on-line database (i.e. the one on the server). However, you may chose to “replicate” that database on your own hard drive and the problem goes away. Now, what does “replicate” mean? Oh, yeah, it means make an exact copy of. Ok, makes sense to have a backup, but why does this program have to duplicate the entire damn thing each time? Hello, dudes, just copy the stuff that’s changed and leave the rest alone. It will save everybody a lot of time and the network a lot of grief.

5. What kind of email client does NOT have a keyboard shortcut to create a new “memo” (sic), but has one to create a new URL?

No shortcuts to add attachments either. Do you have any idea how long it takes me to get my cursor from the bottom right-hand corner of my 20 inch screen to the top left? Here comes RSI.

a) There are three (yes, three) ways to create a new “memo” (sic) and still no keyboard shortcut. 

i) The stupid button with the stupid name on the stupid icon bar, to wit, “New Memo”

ii) From the “File” Menu: the item “New” pops up a submenu with “New Memo” somewhere in it.

iii) From the “Create” Menu there is… wait for it… a menu item called “Mail”!!! And this pops out a submenu with that stupid name right at the top! And here’s something I just can’t bend my head around: why are there items to create “To Do”, “Calendar Entry” and whatever the hell “Specials” are within a submenu labelled “MAIL”?????

And, ladies and gentlemen this is a VERSION 7 piece of software! What the hell were the earlier ones like?

b) Why is there a “Send” menu item (plus others) in the menu called “Actions”? No seriously, there’s a button that says “send” at the top left corner of each and every “memo” (sic) you will ever create. Ever! Did they just run out of things to put in menus?

c) Ok, sorry, I’m a Mac guy, so explain to me really s-l-o-w-l-y why I need a menu item called “Refresh”. What does it do, email me a warm bath and a massage?

Story of my life this week. Garbage in, garbage out. I’m stuck in a rut of doing everything but what I would like to be doing. Bummer. Couldn’t even come up with a half decent post.

On the plus side, my sister’s getting married soon so I have one of those traditional functions to attend tomorrow. That should be some fun. So, no Safari Sevens for this dude until Sunday.

Go Kenya! Kick some international ass this weekend!

If you didn’t read Gavin Bennet’s excellent article in the Sunday Nation (28th May, 2007), go and do it now.

How many times has a client service wimp told you that the client will never buy an ad because it is too expensive?

How many times have you caved in (against your better judgement) and done a “cheaper” ad?

How many times has the cheaper ad looked cheap?

How many times has the client been displeased with the cheaper ad?

How many times has the cheaper ad damaged your client’s image?

How many times has the client taken their business elsewhere as a consequence of their disappointment with the agency?

Still think it was cheaper?

Disclaimer: I was having a really bad day when I wrote this last year. My apologies.

Fucking hell! This trash can really stinks! What the hell do those creatives do here at night? Pheeeeeew!

Oh. Hi there. Welcome to my sad little world. I’m sure you’re wondering what all the fuss is about. Well, let me tell you. I’m a brief… er… no that’s not quite right. I was a brief. Ok. That’s not quite right either, but it will do for now.

To begin. I sorted of started down this dismal spiral into oblivion as a thought, nay, a Problem. A marketing problem in the mind of a Brand Manager in charge of A BIG BRAND at A BIG CORPORATION.

So there I am, bouncing around in this brand manager’s head (lot’s of room in there, by the way). And brand manager decides “let’s make this somebody else’s problem, eh? Call the agency.”

And faster than you can say “let’s have a meeting”, there I am being told to representative from The Agency, otherwise known as the Account Manager. At this point I became A Verbal Brief. I guess that’s when I was really born. While I was ricocheting off the insides of the brand manager’s skull you could say I was just a foetus of a brief. And let’s face it, foetuses turning up in unexpected places can be a bit of a Problem.

Wafting through the air in waves of sound I left the brand manager with one less Problem and snuck into the unsuspecting head of the account manager (less room in here, but not by much) as a new-born Brief From The Client.
____
Three days later I was growing up fast. The account manager had called meetings, held brainstorms, googled every word the brand manager had uttered and spent a nervous few hours dreaming up a strategy that worked. And finally…

I was a Brief! No. I was A Great Brief! I had a well-thought out Background. A fantastic Insight into the target market. A splendid Creative Proposition. I was the Mother-Of-All-Briefs! So I was taken to the creatives.

They loved me! Truly they did. They hung on my every word. They licked their lips at my Insight. They were like dogs in heat when they saw my Creative Proposition. The god-of-all-briefs they called me. It was my moment in the sun. I was at the prime of my all too short existence.

They took me to their desks. They decided that a brief like me could only be suitably addressed away from the office. So they took me to a bar to discuss me, although I still have no idea what the sex-lives of their colleagues had anything to do with me anyway. I almost got forgotten there, though. It was only through pure fortune that I ended up in the sports pages of a magazine that they hadn’t read.

They found me two days later.
____
The work was finally ready to be presented to the client. Everybody was excited. There was a buzz. You could feel the adrenalin and smell the Red Bull as they trooped off to the brand managers BIG CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS.

The work was presented.

And debated.

And re-presented to a committee.

And further debated.

And re-presented to the board.

And debated some more.

And finally.

Rejected.
____
I was re-written.

Badly.

Out went short, punchy words like hip to be replaced with polysyllabic, meaningless gibberish like metropolitan.

Out went my former, great creative proposition to be replaced with a vague, indeterminate, nebulous, amorphous sentence of dubious grammatical construction and even more dubious, vacillating, uncertain market-speak and techno-babble-bullshit.

I was a pale shadow of my previous shining example to all briefs.

I became the doddering old fool muttering grimly to himself in dark corners about how much better the good old days were from whom all the kids run away.

I wasn’t even worth the 80 gsm recycled white rag paper I was being re-printed on.

Then I was taken back to the creatives.

Which

is

how
____
I ended up next to half a burger that smells like it’s been in this bin for a week. And… hey, that looks like another brief back there next to the Steers box. If I could just reach… oh fuck it. I couldn’t be bothered.

Anyway, I’ll soon be off to the great waste-of-time-and-effort in the sky. I do hope my successors have a better life than mine.

Ta.

I’m new to blogging so the odd goof will inevitably occur. Get mad. Write a comment and spank my wrist. Then get over it and get back to work.

Why am I doing a blog? I need to let off a considerable amount of steam and, quite frankly, all the time I spend in bars trying to drown the sorrows of the job is having a rather undesireable effect on my waist (jeez, am I vain or what!).

Plus, I thought it would be fun to do, and a colleague thought I should give it a shot, so here goes…

Peace, long life and stay off the mind-altering substances.