Schmap is one of those elegant Web 2.0 applications that if you have anything to do with web development, you kick yourself for not thinking about it. Schmap provides travel guides through an integration of maps, travel data, photos, book recommendations and of course, the ubiquitous Google AdSense. In Web 2.0 parlance, Schmap is a mashup but it is so well done and with such a high level of sophistication that all the independent pieces that make-up this great WebApp integrate into a smooth and pleasant experience. For example, the Yahoo Maps are nicely implemented as a long vertical left-hand panel. I happen to think that of the big three Web Mapping API's (Google and MS Virtual Earth are the other two) Yahoo Maps is the most aesthetically pleasing. Yahoo Maps is also the latest to enter the fray which explains why is not as popular as the other two. Where Schmap shines is in the integration of its Yahoo Maps with a center-panel full of summarized content which is easy to navigate via links, tags and an intuitive “big” menu which further explodes into a right-hand panel with detailed information and additional references.
Most of the content for Schmap seems to be provided by wcities, a company specializing in "...compiling, and aggregating location-based information..." Now I am really kicking myself; My company, PROCON, has been providing this type of Location Based Services for our B2B Partners but it has always been tailored to emergency, roadside assistance and concierge services. How wonderful to see LBS implemented in an application available to the general public for the travel guide niche that Schmap has chosen.
What is striking about Schmap is how many photos are included on their website and how well those photos are integrated into the content. They are all beautiful pictures of every conceivable point of interest arranged in neat travel guides. When one starts analyzing the sheer number of quality photos available on Schmap, the obvious question is: Who is providing these photos? Well, I'll tell you who is providing that content: You and me and every other flickr and creative commons shutterbugs. Using one of the main tenets of Web 2.0, Schmap has recruited every Joe Schmoe with a digital camera to provide free quality content for their website. And why would anyone happily do that? Because, once all the social-networking is done, it is flattering to have a serious outfit ask for one of your photos, which they apparently thought was good and want to include in their travel guide website. Your photo may even help some other Joe Schmoe decide to visit one of Schmap's Top Attractions and snap a better shot than yours.
Schmap also provides a downloadable Player which is a desktop application that presents essentially the same content provided on the website. The Schmap Player provides a slightly better interactive experience than the website. However, the website is so exquisitely designed that the only reason I think anyone would use the desktop application is to have the travel guide content available off-line on a laptop. I did not get to test Schmap for the iPhone™ and iPod® touch but it looks apfel cool. I still have to test how well Schmap runs on a Windows Mobile device (On the skyfire™ browser, of course!) I hope, Schmap is making money from their superb effort; They obviously generate some income from the Google AdSense and Amazon Books recommendations but is difficult to tell if that would be enough to make this compelling Web 2.0 application a viable enterprise in the long run.
Schmap is so Web 2.0 cool that it also provide easy-to-build widgets that can be customized into fun and interesting content for other websites. The three Schmap widgets included in this blog are for the Toledo, Spain city guide which is where my selected flickr picture is included. The picture is grouped under the Churches and Temples points of interest. It is of the door to the Synagogue of Santa María la Blanca and part of a puertas series I shot on a wonderful holiday trip during Christmas of 2006. I think it is the worst picture I shot during that trip but probably the only publicly available one of that particular door. And it is included in the very cool Schmap website!
Visipix.com
I received a most interesting email from a salesman of one of the cellular carriers my company uses to provide Location Based Services to our customers. We had been experiencing some technical difficulties that resulted in several of our customers not being able to communicate to our LBS devices. All LBS devices operate using the cellular networks, usually GSM although CDMA has a strong presence in the US because it is used by Verizon and Sprint. Our carrier has always been helpful and technically capable, good traits when dealing with problems that result from complex cellular issues such as SIM activation, roaming or HLR/VLR problems. Only after forming a task force with one of our most important distributors, the device manufacturer, the carrier and technical expertise within our organization, were we able to isolate the problem as an easy-to-resolve hardware issue and nothing to do with the carrier.
What caught my attention about the salesman's email was that he had attached a research paper from the Journal of Information Science and Engineering titled The Evaluation of Distributed and Replicated HLR for Location Management in PCS Network by Guan-Chi Chen and Suh-Yin Lee. I am certain that I was the only cc on that email who gave any consideration to this document. Although this salesman is technically savvy and always willing to get involved in the technical aspects of his job, sending that document was a clear indication that he had literally thrown in the towel. He was now reaching for any possible explanation, the more technically convoluted the better.
It reminded me of years past when I used to sell Alpha Micro mini-computers as part of "turn-key solutions" bundled with software I developed for the Field Service Management industry. I remember a specific incident when I made the same mistake that all technical salespersons make sooner or later: Over-reaching for far-fetched technical explanations that just do not make any sense, leaving the customer disconcerted and jeopardizing the trust the customer has placed on you: I had sold a new system with about fifty terminals that were attached to the computer system via RS-232 connections. My customer had a large building and we had pushed the limits of the RS-232 specification causing their brand new, and very expensive system, to crash almost on an hourly basis. I contracted wiring and electrical specialists to check for any electrical interferences which have always been a source of problems for RS-232 connections. I rewired my customers systems with special insulated cabling. I convinced them to upgrade their electrical systems; Nothing worked! Their new system still kept crashing with hourly regularity. In frustration, I explained to my customer that their system's problems could be caused by "cosmic rays" I had not pulled that explanation out of a hat. This was something that Alpha Micro had actually suggested as a possible problem. But the minute, I presented this possibility to the customer, it was obvious that I had run out of ideas and possible solutions, risking the hard-earned relationship of trust I had with my customer Luckily, Alpha Micro engineers got involved because this happened to be one of the first machines of their new product line. A little tweaking with the I/O interface provided the ability of using more robust RS-422 connections and that along with serial repeaters finally resolved the problem.
Owning a small software development company for many years taught me to wear many hats. Wearing the hat of a technical salesman was easy because I developed the software I sold, I picked the hardware and O/S that it ran on and I even picked the accounting system that my software integrated with. When you believe in what you sell and you understand the technical aspects of the product you are selling, you easily gain a level of trust from prospects. If one can hit the prospect's "hot buttons" and provide solutions to the prospect's problems, those prospects soon become trusting, long-term customers.
As an Alpha Micro Value Added Reseller, I had to take part in several sales training courses. Some of the most interesting courses had to do with selling leasing services. In my opinion, most sales courses make use of gimmicky techniques that eventually backfire. And most salespeople think that their success can be attributed to a special personal trait or a specific technique they have developed to "close the deal." This may be true for some types of sales but the most interesting and straight-forward facts I learned about salesmanship came from a small gem of a book titled The Lacy Techniques of Salesmanship by Paul J. Micali. Among the many salesmanship nuggets this little book contains, there are the following:
THREE THINGS [THAT] DETERMINE YOUR VALUE AS A SALESPERSON
- Technical knowledge.
- How much work you are willing to do (this along with technical knowledge controls the quality of your salesmanship).
- Personality (this element controls quality).
When technical problems arise, Micali's three things also apply, except in the reverse order: (1) A salesperson must have a strong personality to resist offering esoteric explanations to technical problems. (2) He must work hard to trouble-shoot the problems or to assemble and assist a technical team that can troubleshoot the technical problems and (3) He must have enough technical knowledge to be able to understand the possible causes of the problems and how to go about resolving them.
