get started (again)

Like many children, I was able to tell things apart from a young age. In particular, I could tell you a car's make and model from fairly small details (like light clusters, panel shapes, window shapes).

While my focus is now much less on the world of production car design, somethings never change. The other day I saw a car with a 2005 registration plate, but the car shape/detailing was from the 2000-2003 version. Or thereabouts. So that made me thing that the car was likely to have been re-plated, re-built or at worst a cut and shunt.

What does that have to do with starting again?

Well, looking back at over twenty years of car-knowing, I started to see the big picture; the cycle some manufacturers have for a model is to release, refresh and then replace. Usually this happens over an six-to-eight-year period. The mid-period refresh being the one you probably want to buy second-hand as many of the initial bugs of the first version will have been dealt with.

It was really interesting to see this post in Inc from Jason Fried at 37signals (a company I have a lot of respect for given the way they work and the products they produce).

Too often, we don't know when to stop re-touching and *finessing* the existing product and just start again.

There's nothing to say that what we create second time 'round won't be similar in spirit, core value or purpose as the first version, but that we give something a fresh perspective can only be a good thing.

I remember a few years ago a few colleagues and I helped our managers re-examine our approach to telling our story to potential clients, the work was challenging and a lot of fun. The end result was something fresh that still remained true to where we had come from.

Have you ever done that? How did it go?

I wonder if there are things we should start again? Things that are worth the attention. Things that have served us well but need to be given a new perspective.

It's going to be fascinating to see how this plays out for 37signals.

What? No and Thank You.

A few weeks ago, I made reference to some car-related challenges we were facing.

The weekend just passed, we collected our repaired car.

It felt like a real struggle to get resolution to this situation, and I won't go into the minutiae of the full story, but there were three significant events:

1. the car broke down with an almost identical fault that was repaired while under warranty in December. Jenny was headed home with the weeWeir at the time of this happening.
2. the garage were claiming no responsibility as the car was now out of warranty - resulting in a quite heated phone conversation between Jenny and a service person at the garage.
3. the 2195 word email I sent to the Managing Director of the company - in which I gave the full story from when we bought the car in June 2009 until the moment the email was sent.

In the end, a few things happened. The car was repaired. We split the cost with the garage, which was a fair result (from our point of view, and hopefully from theirs!). We also learned that there's a lot of things that matter a LOT at the time, but in 100 years will have any impact?

I really don't like complaining. I don't think the world owes me anything and I'm certainly not convinced that everything should be perfect. In fact, I'd much rather take action by not using - or not recommending - a provider, product or service than by shouting and bawling about it. However, this time there was a clear sense of imbalance, and that's no good for anyone. My email wasn't abusive, vindictive or nasty (even if I do say so myself) but it stated what happened and why we felt let down. Our Mini Adventure was made possible by this company. They were *brilliant* at that time. Why not now?

Giving credit where it's due is important. The Managing Director of Eastern Holdings was absolutely first-class in the way he responded to my letter. I'll say it publicly, I would do business with their group again. I might not go back to the original garage, but I have confidence that their business is being run in the right way. Thank you, Mr Brown & your colleagues who helped get this sorted.

Funnily enough, I read this by Seth Godin today. He makes the valid point about the use (or not) of *but* when prefacing a complaint.

Read his post and see what you think.