Jonathan Brun » business

Via Rail ticket purchase user interface

Jonathan Brun — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:13:00 +0000

I just purchased a one-way ticket to Toronto on the Via Rail website. The experience was decent enough, though one thing did baffle me. Take a look at the screen-shot below of the last screen before the purchase. It states that the ticket is “Non-exchangeable and non-refundable” and below it says it is “Fully refundable prior to paper ticket issuance…”. If this is not contradictory, I do not know what is – very confusing.

Vélo Villeneuve in Montréal is overpriced

Jonathan Brun — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:12:17 +0000

Earlier this year, I had to service my bike. Tire was crooked and I had not done a tune up in two years of intensive use. Not knowing better, I went to Vélo Villeneuve on Villeneuve and St. Urbain. The team there is very nice and quite knowledgeable, but very expensive.

They overcharge for both parts and labour. An inner tube change = 20 $, 7 $ at McWinnie’s; brake cable = 10$, 4$ at Yeti; 65 $ Tune-Up, 30 $ at Yeti; the list goes on.

I do not recommend these guys, unless, of course, you have money to burn.

Alleviating Poverty through Markets

Jonathan Brun — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:47:55 +0000

A June article in Harper’s magazine was fairly negative on the prospects of alleviating world hunger through the development of commodities market. Basically, the article outlines why markets do not work to alleviate poverty, citing examples such as the Irish Famine, Ethiopian famine and last summer’s spike in grain and other prices. The author is clearly coming from a socialist, markets can be ugly school. That does not mean he is incorrect, but I do think it contradicts the empirical evidence. There is very little starvation in economies with lubricated, but regulated, markets. If you are curious, the full article can be found here: Poverty Article

Since I have too much time on my hands, I wrote to the magazine and they published my letter along with a response from the author. Pick up this month’s Harper’s to see it (edited) on old fashion pulp and paper. Either way, Harper’s has some great articles and the subscription is a paltry 20$, I do recommend you check it out.

My response:
Last summer, I travelled to Ethiopia to speak with the people setting up the Ethiopian Commodities Exchange (ECX) and I can assure you that the goal of the program is not to encourage speculation. No one imagines an uneducated rural farmer becoming a sophisticated commodities trader. Currently, produce is mostly sold locally (within 10 kms of production) and is subject to huge fluctuations in supply and demand, as farmers in a region tend to produce the same produce, flooding a local market at harvest. In fact, a marketplace for agricultural commodities will in all likelihood help stabilize food prices compared to the huge variations currently seen in villages across Africa.
I encourage readers to consult Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin’s (the CEO of the ECX) TED talk where she explains the logic and purpose of the ECX. Also, the ECX will set-up numerous warehouses throughout the country to stock food – not a unique one in the capital as Mr. Frederick Kaufman claims. Currently, farmers are unable to reliably store food for future sale; they lack the knowledge and infrastructure to do so, unsold food rots and goes to waste. By delivering the produce to climate controlled warehouses, stocks will be built up – ensuring a consistent flow of food.
The Chicago Board of Exchange helped build the united states and the midwest into a world power – delivering cheaper and cheaper food to drive innovation in the cities that in turn helped the country prosper. Cheap, reliable sources of food is essential to the growth of a nation – and regulated markets are the best mechanism to deliver that food.
Markets are not the only solution to world hunger, but Mr. Kaufman is incorrect in his conclusion that they will not help alleviate it. Money can feed people and with farmers comprising 80% of Ethiopian population, it is high time they gain access to a stable and transparent market for their produce.

Globe and Mail Website Redesign

Jonathan Brun — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:08:57 +0000

I work in environmental law, but I am also a web designer. Designing for the internet and it’s wide variety of users is very challenging, no one does it perfectly. That being said, it is becoming indispensable to design websites well. Users have many places to go for information, if you do not design well, they will just click on out of there. The Globe and Mail, Canada’s premier newspaper just redesigned their website and my verdict is: Disaster.

The previous version was not amazing, but this is truly a mess.

Below is a screenshot and here are a few notes. My main complaints, as a web designer and usability professional are:

1. Four!, different ways to navigate the site (see blue lines). More is not better, it is confusing.
2. Hideous banner as the first thing you see. I understand the need for advertising revenue, but this comprimises the entire reader experience – thus reducing readership and advertising. (see red lines)
3. Red headlines and Black headlines – consistency?
4. Red lines to seperate articles – drawing your attention to the lines instead of the articles
5. Confusing search options
6. Over 10 unique colours on the various design elements – 3 or 4 is the maximum.
7. Drop down menues where the top link acts as a link! It should only trigger the drop down or don’t do a drop-down.

I could go on. But, largely, this redesign looks like it was done on a small budget with no high quality designers. The Newspaper industry is dying because of bad design, see our post on saving newspapers through great design.

The best use of the internet to deliver newspapers is the recently released New York Times Reader (not the website). It is a truly well designed software that makes reading online as pleasurable as the print format.

The Globe and Mail is destroying it’s credibility with this low quality production.

Globe and Mail Highlighted

Immigrants Welcome – Free Domain Names

Jonathan Brun — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 21:00:43 +0000

Two interesting articles came my way today, one from the New York Times explaining the challenges with bringing talented foreigners to the United States to work. The other was an essay advocating for a new type of visa for people who want to found a business.

It seems obvious to me that Canada should open up our borders to talented people from around the world who are prepared to invest their lives in our society. Confusingly, some people think immigration is a zero-sum game. If you bring someone into the country, they will take the job an unemployed Canadian. Really, immigration is anything but a zero-sum game, new businesses mean new jobs, new wealth and new suppliers.

In fact, many of the greatest Canadian businesses were started by immigrants who came for free land; Seagram’s, Magna International, and many others. South of the border, over 50% of Silicon Valley businesses have been started by non-americans, I would imagine the same ratio holds for Canadian businesses.

As such, opening up our borders and offering our technological, legal and physical infrastructure to willing people will undoubtedly bring job and wealth growth. Let us not fool ourselves, at a paltry 35 million people in the second largest country in the world, we still have A Lot of Space. Just as we once offered free land to eastern Europeans willing to farm, we should offer easy visas to people willing to plant their intellectual seed in our nation.

If the world is flat, we should make canada the valley where the water collects – that is where the animals gather to feed.

Jay Peak has Lost its Way

Jonathan Brun — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:27:00 +0000

I have been an avid Jay Peaker for years. Deep snow and a 250$ college ski pass was an easy sell, but they have lost their way. A couple years back, Jay Peak owner and my neighbour Jacques Hébert passed away, I think his management style went with him. In many ways, Jay seems to have come down with a case of “Vailitis”, a disease named after the famous Colorado resort. The disease afflicts resort owners who continually upgrade their sites with luxury hotels, golf courses, and other perks to attract the rich elite. The problem is that that elite is very small and very fickle.

Jay has installed new chairs, a new gondola, more condos, a golf course and is building a new hotel – all of which was needed. However, the new chair, named the “Flyer”, but nicknamed “The Freezer” is horibly designed and each lift up freezes you to the bones. Can’t they throw up some bubbles or wind barriers? In conjunction with these changes, they have hiked the ticket price to 65$ per day and cut down on the food quality; my poutine is now half the size and half as good – making it 4 times worse.

A good deal of research supports the idea that the two most important factors for contentment are climate and food. Jay is failing both and in the process, driving away non-hardcore skiers. There has to be a better way for ski resorts than emulating IntraWest and Vail.

For example, over the past couple years I have asked Jay to offer some form of Young Professionals ski pass, they have not even replied to my emails. After you finish college, passes go from 250$ to 650$, a little dramatic. Can’t they offer a more affordable pass for the 24-30 year old market who does not have that much disposable income?

They also seem to have no regard for recycling or composting, everything in the cafeteria is thrown out (with the exception of bottles and cans that are worth $$). Last gripe, their marketing budget must be gigantic. Every year they rebuild their website, air radio advertisment and plaster the highways with ads. Ridiculous. Spend that money on a nice chair, better food and you will build more brand loyalty.

I will not be going back to Jay in the near future.

Online Only Marketing Company

Jonathan Brun — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 13:24:00 +0000

I think there is a real business opportunity for building a new type or marketing company. One with much lower costs and a different corporate structure/culture. It would be a marketing company tailored to SME’s who cannot afford the big agencies and who do not fully understand the power of the internet. Essentially, “participative marketing” for old school companies, but not just guerrilla marketing. The marketing company would manage items such as:

Newsletters
Facebook/MySpace
Youtube/Make many small videos
Blogs and blog maintenance

Costs would have to stay under control and the agency would work through offering many different items in rapid iterations. Think 50 Youtube videos instead of 1 television spot, or 50 blog posts instead of 1 newspaper feature. Maybe this sort of venture already exists; if so, please point me in their direction.

Related: A recent book, DigiMarketing by Kent Wetime and Ian Fenwick, outlines what it takes to be successful online. I have not read the book, just the review, which I think is enough.

My Business Venture – Enterprise Web 2.0

Jonathan Brun — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 03:02:00 +0000

Many people have recently asked me what I am doing, by which they really mean are you employed, getting dressed in the morning, and abiding by the rules of upper-middle class society. So here is my rough explanation of what is occupying my time these days.

Until recently, I worked for EEM, an environmental consulting group. As a small portion of their business, they sold an online database of Canadian environmental regulations and simplified explanations. The product, NIMONIK, was originally designed as an enterprise (web-based) software for large multi-jurisdiction corporations. It was a break-even operation.

Some of the shortcomings were the high price structure, the old web 1.0 technology and the static 800 x 600 design - ultimately boiling down to the product itself. Since May, we have purchased the product from the consulting group and started renewing it as a more dynamic, simpler, and richer website that will (we hope) become a community hub for Canadian environmental managers. We want to build an affordable web 2.0 application for companies - not currently a common sight.

On this project, I am working with Yves Faguy, a lawyer who was at the consulting group, and Paul Maclean, the president of the consulting group. We also have two fantastic people working on the content and the software with us.

Part of our strategy is to reduce membership fees, allow users to import/export ISO 14001 information, and upload corporate documents. Furthermore, users will be able to add comments, rate articles, and generally speaking – participate in the content to create institutional memory for their companies. The great thing about the project is that it comes with cash-flow (not much), a reputation and a lot of rich content – more than what 90% of web start-ups can claim.

Soon, NIMONIK will become a web 2.0 enterprise community driven website for Canadian Fortune 5 000 000 businesses.

The Seeds of the Housing Market Bubble

Jonathan Brun — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:59:00 +0000

The graphic above provides a quick overview of the magnitude of the tech bubble in the late nineties. And the following – a very similar graphic for the housing market.

The housing crisis is obviously dominating the news right now and is likely to continue to do so for the forseeable future. To get a quick background on how (and why) this happened, I suggest the following resources.

The begining of the end of Fannie Mae – A Consultant at Fannie Mae

How we go from one bubble to another – Harpers

Mass Media

Jonathan Brun — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 01:42:00 +0000

Mass media has degenerated beyond the point of recognition. However, let us not romanticize the days of Ed Murrow, Bob Woodward, Vietnam protests and true investigative journalism. The trend of reduction and popularism started long ago – our situation today was probably inevitable. With more competition for people’s time, television has been forced to emulsify their broadcasts to sound bites and rhetorical questions. Arriving at a point where, “The no. 1 issue for voters this year, again, is bullshit”. Of course, what is mentioned above is not news to anyone reading this, nor is it a recent phenomenon.

In 1962, Newton Minnow, then chair of the FCC, gave an amazing speach entitled “Television is a vast wasteland.” Even 55 years ago, the trend of putting the bottom line before the truth was apparent. At what point do a sufficient number of people stand up and demand real news, real analysis and real dialogue?

As outlined in Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent”, media driven by advertisement will always be a self-censored entity. Newspapers will not print too many stories that run against the grain, simply because they need to retain their advertisement revenues. A fringe population knows what bullshit looks like, tastes like and smells like; but the general voting population are too busy with kids, work and life to care about things that are 3 degrees of separation from them. They want Britney.

The inflection point where the masses see the emperor naked will always arrive when the situation has worsened so considerably that it can no longer be ignored. The general apathy towards abuses of power by corporations and politicians is ignored by most people because We Have it Good, Real Good.

Anti-slavery crusader Frederick Douglass succinctly stated, “Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.”

Though modern propaganda was born with Napoleon’s conquests and scientifically improved by the Nazis; our modern society of scientists and marketers that have put the nail in the proverbial coffin. Corporations know their interest lies with the satisfied client and so bookstores carry more liberal books than ever before with more negative analysis of Bush than ever thought possible, yet so little change.

With the availability of information, the illusion of discussion has been created. Yet, people “debate” between democrat and republican when they should argue between right and wrong. During the infamous appearance of John Stewart on the CNN show Crossfire, he ripped apart both hosts of Crossfire for their practice of duping the public into thinking that a real debate is occurring. In reality, the media argues over how to cook the steak and not whether the steak should be cooked at all.

The ultimate risk, as described by Aldous Huxley in “A Brave New World” is a semi-totalitarian system, where we suckle on the teat of the beast we have bred. As stated by Edward R Murrow: “A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.” We must not permit our opulence to cloud our judgment of what is good and worthwhile information.