Classical Music Brought to Life

Composer Benjamin Zander gives a fantastic talk about classical music. He acknowledges the elephant in the room - that very few people actually listen and enjoy classical music - and then he shows us through an experience how we can enjoy classical music too.

I think that this made for a remarkably effective talk, and acknowledges one of the biggest challenges for art. Zander made Chopin come alive because he talked us through the piece. He was able to communicate what it was about and why we should care. In so many exhibits I visit, I look at the art, say "That's nice," and then leave without impact. I don't know what I'm looking for - I think most of us don't. And I think that this lack of education diminishes the value of many pieces of art.

If I were to design a museum or if I were to direct a symphony, I would explain each piece to my audience. Why. Why should it be important? What is the story behind it? Why should we care? The problem many times is that the artist isn't necessarily the best communicator of this information, but I think that the art loses a dimension without it.

"Why" matters whether you're teaching a class, leading an organization, or composing a symphony. To get others to appreciate your work, you have to explain the why.

Waiting at Verizon

Verizon Wireless's biggest customer service problem is their wait time. When I go in a store, I expect a good 30 - 60 minute wait until I am seen. Anything less than that is a moral victory.

Fixing Verizon's waiting problem wouldn't be too difficult either. There are two parts to the problem:

1) Perceived Wait Time - how long I feel like I waited
2) Actual Wait Time - how long I actually waited

Both of these parts matter.

Perceived Wait Time
With perceived wait time, ten minutes can feel like five minutes if I am entertained or ten minutes can feel like an hour if I am bored. This perception affects how frustrated I am with Verizon when I leave.

To decrease perceived wait time, all Verizon needs to do is be entertaining. Take a page of the doctor's office and give me some magazines to read. Bank of America took the doctor's office one step further and even installed a TV. These entertaining methods were proved by Bank of America to actually decreased perceived wait time.

Verizon Wireless may want to use it as an opportunity to show off their phones' data package. Put a phone next to me loaded with all the music I could I ever want to listen to. Show me how well the Internet works on your phone and let me surf the web while I am waiting. These phones need to be within reach of the sitting area because I don't want to stand for a half hour while I am waiting. Maybe while I wait, there is a guide to choosing a cell phone. That way, when I start talking to the salesman, I already have some understanding of what the latest technology is and means.

Actual Wait Time
Perception can only vary so much from reality. Long actual wait time means that I am going to put off going to the Verizon store as long as possible until I know I have the time to deal with it.

The best way for Verizon to deal with actual wait time would be to do as the restaurant industry does - let people call ahead. If I can call ahead of coming to the store and put myself on the waitlist, that means I spend less time waiting at the store. That's a good thing.

Also, once I get there and I am waiting, give me a pager. Maybe I want to be able to walk around to other shopping areas while I wait, and the store can page me when my phone is ready.

Neither of these ideas are particularly original - they just need to be applied to Verizon.

Change the Thinking
I think that Verizon needs to stop thinking of its customer service as a cost center and start thinking of it as a way to create a relationship with the customer. The one time that Verizon gets to put a human face on their company is when someone comes into the store with a problem. That is the most important time to show the value of the Verizon brand's customer service. Right now, they hire the minimum number of workers possible to cut costs, but that no doubt leads to a decrease in loyalty in their customers.

Yes, the Verizon network is always on and the coverage is great - but so is AT&T (AND AT&T has the iPhone!). The customer service will make the difference.

The Windfall Gas Tax: Our Only Option?

The concept of the windfall gas tax is laughable. Out there, somewhere, is an evil oil company with evil executives reaping untold amounts of cash at the common man's expense. Yes, gas profits go to pay the oil executives and the oil workforce, but the vast majority of that money goes to shareholders. And who are those shareholders? They are the average man's mutual fund or pension who owns a few shares of ExxonMobil stock. S&P classifies ExxonMobil as a growth stock, so growth funds have ExxonMobil. But then again, a number of value funds consider ExxonMobil a value stock, so they buy it too. So in reality, just about everyone probably owns a little piece of those windfall profits, and if they don't, then they can easily purchase some ExxonMobil stock and get in on the profits.

Additionally, just because the price of oil has increased doesn't mean that the oil companies are price gouging. If it were up to the oil executives, I'm sure they would much rather keep prices low and volume high because it would only make it more difficult for alternative energies to overtake gasoline. The price gouging and "windfall profits" are a myth. The oil industry is simply more concentrated because of the huge costs of finding, extracting, and distributing the oil.

Finally, I think it's important to acknowledge that oil companies are selling oil, and we should no more expect them to advocate alternative energy than we expect Phillip Morris to create effective anti-smoking advertisements. In fact, we may need to acknowledge that oil may even work to counter renewable energy by buying new technologies. That is reality, and by acknowledging it rather than ignoring it, we can be more proactive about buying those new technologies first. The oil companies will continue to lobby for government subsidization of oil prices, and government will continue to give it to the oil companies - not because of the lobbying, but because Joe American likes his gas prices low.

So all-in-all, the concept of the windfall gas tax - the punishing of evil oil - is laughable.

What I'm hoping (in my idealistic bubble), is that the big idea behind it was the first real attempt to get the United States off of its oil dependence. I realize that the more effective way to do that would be to tax gas directly, but I don't think that the U.S. government has the will of the American people to do that. The 2008 Elections roll around, and the Republicans start advertising that the Democrats were responsible for the raise in oil prices and suddenly the Republicans sweep Congress again. Taxing gas directly has been a non-starter.

I am hoping that the real Democratic party thought process was: we can't tax gas directly because it would be unpopular, but if we make the oil companies seem like villains, we just may be able to tax them, forcing them to raise prices and further lower U.S. dependence on oil.

Those hopes, though, are obviously misplaced. In reality, the Democrats were focusing on lowering gas prices. The Democrats believed that oil prices were entering the speculation bubble where people start buying because they believe the price will continue to go up rather than because the value of gas is increasing.

From Bloomberg:

``The American people are furious about what's going on and they understand that nothing is happening here that justifies the price,'' said Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat.

Dorgan and other lawmakers have blamed investment banks, speculators, and hedge funds for buying commodities and driving up the prices. More scrutiny of their trades and stiffer margin limits could bring the price of oil down by 30 percent, Dorgan said at a press conference today.

My dreams for European-sized gas taxes will have to wait for another day. In the meantime, let's grow up and stop pretending like the oil companies are the bad guys for their profits (which go to shareholders/the common man) and good guys for supplying us oil at low prices (which further drive global warming). It's all backwards.