Business as usual in a new way

My family and I am really starting to settle into a routine way of life in San Francisco. I have developed all of the appropriate work habits, time to catch the train, number one choice of coffee place (with a backup option if I am running short of time), my news services to keep in touch with Australia (including watching with horror the collapse of global financial systems and the subsequent slide of the Australian dollar), where I get lunch, etc. My family have their own routine with school (home school with Mrs Hirte...) in the morning, and various activities in the afternoon from art classes at Fort Mason on Mondays, exploratorium on Tuesdays, Library on Thursday etc. On the weekend we are trying to get out and see as much of this wonderful city (and surrounding areas) as we can. 

Unlike Australia, I don't drive to work, I catch the San Francisco Municiple Railway (MUNI), on the outbound N line, which takes about 20 minutes. This has been great, as it is normally not too crowded and I get a seat, which in turn is giving me 40 minutes a day to catch up on reading. I have almost read two "work" books in the last couple of weeks (and one "hobbit" type fantasy book this week). 

The two work books were about understanding the psychology of customer service and customer engagement. The first "The Paradox of Choice" by Barry Schwartz was recommended to me by the CEO of British Columbia Automobile Association who incorporated some of the thinking in their latest roadside pricing strategy. It argues that American society has too much choice and that choice is potentially a contributing factor to an inability to make decisions leading to depression, as many people try to maximise decisions to make the best possible choice (and yet that is increasingly difficult due to the variety of options). It argues that solution lies in becoming more disciplined about making acceptable decisions, not perfect ones (or satisficing - a satisfactory sacrifice, ie not the best choice, but still an ok decision). I would not say I adopt all of the ideas, but I certainly enjoyed the read and I have also gained some new perspectives. The second book which I am only two chapters from finishing is called the Human Sigma, which is written by John Flemming of the Gallop research organisation - it has been used by AAA Arizona as a foundation for some work on a Member and Staff Engagement index. This book is all about the importance of customer service in the engagement of the customer to the brand, and endeavours to suggest approaches to how to objectively and proactively measure it. It has been a facinating, fact based read demonstrating the role that emotion plays in engagement. The only disappointment is there is clearly a commercial objective hanging from this book - buy the measure from gallop. I have already started talking to AAA Arizona on how they are using the thinking.

Most of my days involve meeting with new people and discussing similarities and differences of the RAC and AAA NCNU. Over the last week I have started to hone in on a deep dive review of retention. My first impressions are that there is really good coverage at AAA, but there is still some opportunities for greater collaboration - in that some of the initiatives appear (on the surface at least) to acting independent of each other. Next week I go out on some branch visits and also get a day in the trucks, I am pretty excited about this!

At night I have been watching presidential debates, financial crisis commentary and fantastic skits on Saturday Night Live of all of the key events and characters. Make sure you check out Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin.

On Saturday I was lucky enough to go to a College Football game between the Cal Bears and Arizona State Sun Devils at Berkeley University with my Dad (who was in the US for a mining conference), Paul Airoldi (from AAA) and Randy Lamont (an ex-AAA employee). The day and game was a stimulation overload. From start to finish something was always happening. There was 60,000 people at the game in a stadium that was built in 1920 and largely remains unchanged to today (including the bench seats). Cal Bears won 24 to 14, starting strong early but nearly fading to a loss towards the end. We saw the whole marching band thing, cheer leaders and an awesomely engaged crowd. It is a really fun show, with the crowd getting right into the tactics of the game, including screaming at the top of your lungs to make it hard for the opposition to hear the play - this is called the 12th man. The 12 man comes from the on field team only being 11, but amazingly there are typically 55 players in each team for the game!!! It is still amazing that a game that technically only goes for 1 hour takes over three hours to play - but I really didn't notice that three hours had passed until the end (kind of like a great movie - time doesn't matter).

On that note - time for me to go to bed ready for a new day. Please don't be afraid to leave your comments or ask any questions! On my final note - it is about 12:15am here and I am too tired to proof this, so please feel free to find my mistakes for me (there will be many!) - just leave comments so I know what to fix tomorrow!!!!