Hung Truong: The Blog!

Ann Arbor Duck Graffiti

It’s been a while since I noticed this but I hadn’t written a blog post about it yet. All around Ann Arbor, you can find a distinctly unique signature of “Duck” written on stuff. From mailboxes to walls to whatever. I think I first noticed it on a paper towel dispenser at BTB Cantina. I thought it was some kind of trap where once I read it, I had a second to actually “duck” or be hit on the head by a log or something… That obviously wasn’t the case (I didn’t duck).

Does anyone know what the deal is? Is Duck a gang? Can I join? Do I want to join? Is Duck involved in illegal activities? Does Duck fight crime? I wanna know.

On Customer Service and Giant Companies

For a long time, I’ve been a pretty cost-centered consumer. By that, I mean that I mostly cared about how much things cost. This makes sense if you’re poor or really care about getting a good deal. Recently at SXSW, I considered the concept of customer service as explained by Tony Hsieh, the Zappos guy. Random thought: crap, I still need to finish my epic SXSW post!

Tony argued that by focusing on customer service and, a step above that, customer happiness, you could grow your business based on word of mouth and repeat business. This makes sense for a retailer. It’s pretty wonderful how successful Zappos has become just by treating the customer like a king.

Microsoft Cutting Back on Live Labs!

I just read some bad news that Microsoft is cutting back on its Live Labs group due to the “economy.”

Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake McCredy said the economy had forced the company to rethink the group’s mission. The death of Live Labs as it has existed, combined with Google’s decision to cut some of its more experimental products, raises the question of whether these kind of futuristic initiatives are falling out of fashion among leading internet companies, or are just a victim of this recession.

This saddens me because I got really excited after reading an article in Fast Company about Gary Flake’s Live Labs and how innovative it was going to be. It seemed like a step in the right direction for a company that has a reputation for being boring (see John Hodgman in the Apple commercials).

Microsoft has a ton of money. They should be spending it on research and development. The article mentions that Google is also cutting back on spending on 20% projects and killing off many of its labs projects. This is a situation where Microsoft shouldn’t be following Google’s lead. Instead of having a knee jerk reaction to try and save more money, they should be willing to take at least a few risks with some opportunity for a high return on investment. I’m really sick of seeing companies rationalize stupid behavior by invoking the “economy” as the reason.

Perhaps, as the actual Live Labs Blog indicates, this is a move to focus the projects rather than spread themselves too thin. I’m not quite sure I buy this explanation, even as I notice that many Microsoft Live products seem under-promoted and downright bad. Live Mesh stinks compared to Dropbox, a competing startup. Inexplicably, Live Mesh does not share its storage capacity with another Live product, Sky Drive. Why one of these services hasn’t made the other obsolete is completely beyond me. Bad management? Bad communication? Something else? All of the above?

It’s possible to focus on products and retain people to work on them. I was really excited about the potential for Live Labs. Now, it looks like they’ve been neutered and will be working on search. Yes, search needs work, but why sacrifice Live Labs for it? Hopefully there will still be a place in Microsoft where people can freely innovate and not worry about just the bottom line…

Andrew Bird at The Michigan Theater, 04/08/09

Last night I went to see Andrew Bird along with like 100 of my friends, lots from the School of Information. Is there something inherently Informational about Andrew Bird’s music?

The opening act was a slightly avant garde group called “A Hawk and a Hacksaw.” They had a guy on accordion (who played bass drum and cymbals with his legs), a girl on violin (?) and later a weird string instrument with what looked like a trumpet bell, a trumpeter and a tuba player.

I noticed that they kept playing in weird time signatures (7, then 5, then 3, which is not totally weird but less common). The songs they played seemed a little too insane, like they were basically showing off. The lines were all really fast and it was hard to get a sense of any actual melody. They were pretty entertaining, nonetheless.

Andrew Bird then came on by himself. He kept manipulating foot pedals so he could put things he was playing on infinite repeat. It was pretty cool. I wonder how he times it perfectly like that. I didn’t really know this before (I listened to his albums a few times previously) but he’s pretty much an expert whistler. He’s really good at whistling. He’s also really good at playing violin and guitar and singing. Which makes him a quadruple threat (quintuple threat if you count the foot pedal hijinks).

He played a bunch of songs, many of which garnered lots of applause. I liked the “Nervous Tic Motion of the Head” song. I also like “Heretics” but he didn’t play that one. Those are like the two Andy Bird songs I really like. “Fiery Crash” is also good, and I think he also didn’t play that one. The other songs were all good too, but I just wasn’t as familiar with them as I would have liked.

The mise-en-scene of the stage was pretty interesting. He had these giant horns in the back that looked like the old-school phonographs, but bigger. There was also a double horn thing that spun randomly, perhaps to indicate the climax of a song. I’m not even sure there was sound coming out of them, but they looked cool!

Overall, Andrew Bird was a great performer (seeing him switch between instruments and hitting pedals on the ground and singing is entertaining by itself). His songs are also delightfully pretentious, with interesting lyrics (he rhymes “philharmonics” with “hooked on phonics”). Oh, and also, he seems to really like pentatonic scales (shoutout to Mr. Blakey, my high school band director for making us learn about scales!). If this concert were an eBay transaction, I’d have to leave a positive, “GREAT PERFORMER FAST CONCERT AWESOME SINGING A+++++++++ WOULD SEE AGAIN!!!11!11”

Thoughts on the Microsoft “Cheap PC” Ad

So there was this Microsoft ad that came out during an NCAA game. It featured a cute girl, Lauren, trying to decide which computer to buy. The voice of the ad (some omniscient being?) told her if she could find the kind she wanted under $1000 he’d buy it for her. The computer she wanted at the Apple Store was too expensive. She chose a Windows PC instead for $700.

A lot of people have claimed the ad is a huge success. It hits Apple in its weak point: price. That may be true, but there’s also this thing called “value.” Apple computers have always been about quality. Software quality, build quality, design. While it’s true that the upfront costs of a Mac are higher than a PC, you get what you pay for. There are tradeoffs associated with buying an HP versus a Macbook. The specs are not the computer.

I would argue that the amortized price of a Mac is probably about the same as a PC (or better). They’re built to last (even if Apple forces you to buy a new one every year or face inferiority). I’ve gone through too many Dell, HP and Toshiba laptops whose hinges explode. You can’t use a laptop after the hinge explodes. I haven’t had a Macbook explode yet (though the plastic did start coming off; it won’t happen on my aluminum Macbook Pro). Dell is trying to get into the premium PC market, which is great. But that sorta negates the price argument. In this economy it’s smart to play the price card, and people pay more attention to upfront costs than maintenance costs.

Also, it’s not the best idea to try and sell your product by having a “real” person shop for PCs when the person turns out to be a professional (SAG) actress. It makes it seem more staged; this definitely is not a Pepsi Challenge. But hey, whatever. I think MS got their point across. Plus I forgive Lauren because she’s way cute! I just hope her back can handle lugging around a 17″ computer.

Personally, I would advertise netbooks since they’re super cheap and Apple doesn’t have an equivalent, yet.