How can we improve social media reviews of hotels?

I came to New York to help my daughter get set up in Brooklyn, where she’ll be going to college for her last year. I decided to stay at a Hotel Indigo, which is not “officially open” but got pretty good Yelp reviews. I have been taking notes so that I can post my own Yelp review, and at the same time I’ve been pondering what would I like to see in a Yelp review?

Many reviewers simply provide a narrative of their bad or good experiences, without any attempt at a coherent overview. Since I’ve been thinking about it in a deeper-than-usual way, here are some things I think belong in a hotel review:

• What is the signal strength of your cell carrier like? For example, I get great LTE coverage at my hotel when I’m in my 14 floor room, but no LTE coverage in the 2nd floor lounge. My carrier is Verizon; others would want to know what AT&T’s signal is like (ditto T-Mobile etc.)
• What’s the exercise room like (what equipment etc)? I have taken a couple of pictures of the exercise room on my iPhone and will post those with my review. I took pictures not just of the equipment, but also the bookcase that has yoga mats, hand weights and towels, so that people can get an idea of those small amenities.
• What are the other common areas like? Is the Wi-Fi good? Is the lounge area enjoyable to hang out in, or are there TVs blaring noise and kids running amok?
• What was room rate did you pay? I am paying $109/night because I’m staying at the Indigo for 4 nights. Perhaps the fact that it’s not “officially open” is a factor. It’s January and not a busy time, so that’s definitely a factor. So it’d be nice if people said (1) what rate they paid; (2) how they got that rate, and if it was a busy time for the property.
• Do the rooms have convenient electrical outlets for charging phones, computers, tablets etc? What features show that the hotel operators have upgraded to make the place “tech-friendly”? The Indigo, for example, has an alarm clock that lets you charge your iPhone or iPod and play music through the speaker. They also have really crisp HD channels on their ultra-sleek flat screen TVs.

Things I don’t really want to hear much about are problems that aren’t likely to come up often, like your room wasn’t ready on time and you had to wait 30 minutes. It’s fine if people mention those things in passing because it is a flag that can be compared with other reviewers who mention the same thing. But making small annoyances the centerpiece of a hotel review are low value to others.

Bottom line: we can all probably do a better job of reviewing places if we think about things more from the perspective of what future visitors might appreciate knowing. What kinds of things might those be? I don’t have a definitive answer. Perhaps your comments below would be helpful in figuring that out.

Lawyers don't want to hear about the future of law involving automation

Last week Jordan Furlong gave a great speech about the effects of automation and computers on the legal profession. Every legal organization that cares about the future of the profession (and that’s all of them, right?) should hire Jordan to give this talk to them. Clearly, he has paid attention to a lot of key trends, and is thoughtful in explaining what it all means.

After his fairly detailed overview of new technologies that are cropping up it was clear that many things that lawyers do are routine, and capable of being automated or outsourced. Lawyers don’t like to hear this, of course.

After Jordan talked about a couple of automated contract drafting tools (Koncision and Kiiac), an audience member made a predictable objection about how lawyers are needed to provided tailored drafting. The subconscious syllogism was as follows: If lawyers can provide tailored drafting of contracts, then the whole contract must be drafted by a lawyer and the automation process is completely useless.

What Jordan was actually saying (as I understood it) was: a lot of the initial drafting can be automated, and then a lawyer can step in to provide bespoke analysis. To me, this makes perfect sense. Let an intelligent system do the boring, grunt work, and then pass the results on to a human brain trained in the law. But lawyers don’t like to admit that anything they do can be done by a non-lawyer or a machine. And yet they can’t even use this higher brain power (that they claim to exclusively possess) to provide tailored analysis of routine things like the contents of regular emails.

I now offer into evidence Exhibit A, which is a typical block of text that appears at the end of every email sent out by many lawyers who (1) do not practice tax law, and (2) rarely send confidential communications:

IRS Circular 230 Disclosure:

To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the IRS, we inform you that any U.S. federal tax advice contained in this communication (including any attachments) is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any transaction or matter addressed herein.

Confidentiality Notice:

The information contained in this electronic mail is personal and confidential and is intended only for the person or persons named above. This message and the information contained in this electronic mail may be an attorney-client communication and therefore may be subject to the attorney-client privilege. If the reader of this message is not the recipient named above or an authorized agent of such recipient responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this electronic mail in error, and that any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us by telephone at xxx-xxx-xxxx or electronic mail and delete the original message or any copy thereof, whether electronic or hard copy.

This verbiage could be used selectively, as needed. For example, lawyers could create an “email signature” with this text and then insert it only as needed. But they won’t do that; they’d rather just slop it into every email they send out from their business account.

So remind me again about how (unlike machines) lawyers are able to analyze each situation individually.

Reflections upon visiting Alaska

“Everyone here has a story to tell,” Ross says. “And it’s not one that they necessarily want anyone else to hear.” Ross has been to Alaska several times. It’s my first visit so I file his comment away. Maybe it’ll make more sense later.

Flash back to the day before.

Becky and I arrive at the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage and it’s already late: 1 pm local time, 4 pm biological time. But we stop at Fletchers, the hotel bar, for a nightcap. There we meet a German cargo pilot who flies all over the world. He loves Alaska and comes here frequently, as do many cargo pilots, because a lot of cargo flies through Alaska.

Who knew?

Jurg tells us that he had to go to the local mall to pick up some winter clothes. He only had T-shirts and shorts.

“You didn’t know it would be cold here?” I ask.

“Yes, I knew. But I didn’t know I’d be here today. My flight was supposed to go to Vietnam, but we were re-routed to Alaska.”

Hmmmmm, so you could wake up one day and think you were going to Vietnam, but wind up in Anchorage instead? The most interesting stories tend to be about how people wind up in Alaska.

Two nights later we’re sitting at the the bar of the Glacier Brewhouse chatting with the young bartendress who tells us she’s originally from Dallas.

“How’d you wind up here?” Becky asks.

“Oh…an Internet romance,” she says with a sheepish smile.

“That’s cool!” I say quickly to disperse the awkwardness.

“Oh, not me,” she says. “My mother.”

Unlike most of the Alaskan residents we meet she’s not completely in love with the place.

Alaska is huge and overflowing with freedom. But size is always relative. For instance, Anchorage is the ‘big city,’ but it has less than 300,000 people. Even in the biggest city it’s hard to get a bead on “normal.” People have come from everywhere, and there is every kind of language and accent being used.

Friendly people abound, but they’re not cheerful like folks in other places. They have a purpose that’s hard to pin down, and if you interrupt them they calmly respond to your questions. No one seems to mind explaining where they’re from or how they wound up here.

So what about these people that Ross mentioned? The ones who don’t want to explain their stories.

One clue comes from our car rental agent as we are renting an SUV to drive down to Girdwood for the weekend. She explains the reason for their extra security check (they won’t accept a bank debit/credit card).

“People who come here from outside will frequently not return their car,” she explains. “We find the cars by the side of the road in a remote place, if we find them at all.”

“Why would they leave them in a remote place?” I ask.

She pauses while she considers the proper rental agent response to this question. Then she decides to just blurt it out. “A lot of people come to Alaska to get away from some kind of trouble, and they don’t want anyone to find them.” She shrugs, and then adds “you don’t need a passport to come here since it’s part of the US, but it’s easy to disappear once you get here.”

If you want to disappear you’d better be good at living in the woods. That means knowing what to do if a Moose approaches. Frankly, even if you live in a town like Anchorage you need to know what to do when encountering a Moose.

Becky rode on a coastal trail and wound up next to a large bull moose. She didn’t know what to do, and froze in place (which it turns out is a good thing to do). Some bikers came along and helped her out. They told her that you can usually avoid Moose before you see them; Moose give off a weird unpleasant odor that travels a long distance.

Living in Alaska might rekindle some unused primitive instincts. Since I’m not going to be living here anytime soon I feel compelled to learn as much as I can about Alaska. I’ll have to re-read John McPhee’s Coming Into The Country. Amazon book reviewer James DeWitt argues McPhee’s book is the best one on Alaska:

“I’ve lived in Alaska most of my life. McPhee…give[s] you a much more accurate glimpse than the writers and hacks who try to ‘describe’ Alaska.”

I’ve only spent a few days in Alaska, but it seems hard to grasp the essence of this place. I’m glad I got to see it first hand, even if I can’t possibly describe it. And it’s nice to know that if bad trouble comes I won’t need a passport to ‘disappear.’