Aron and I will be at BarCamp Boston 2 this weekend over at MIT. We’re looking forward to meeting and talking with people from the surrounding area about things like Ruby on Rails, user interface design, information architecture, or whatever. I’m sure we’ll end up giving a few impromptu demos as well.

Don’t let the snow scare you away and we’ll see you there!

vanshnookenraggen (is that a single name?) has got a great photographed and mapped walking tour of the Grand Junction Railroad right of way. I’ve been to his (?) site on a couple of occasions to check out his Future MBTA maps, but only discovered the walking tours recently.

The Grand Junction basically connects North Station to South Station by cutting through Somerville and Cambridge, MA. I actually lived down the street from where it crosses Cambridge Street just outside of Lechmere Square.

The tracks are rickety though used pretty much every night. Travelling slowly, the creeping locomotive would unleash its horn at regular intervals. Listening from my third storey apartment, it was easy to mark the progress as the soundings grew louder and clearer then softer and muffled. On a winter night, transmitting through the crisp air and the thin walls of my flat, the clarion lost only a little of its potency.

I’ve perused most of the site at this point. If you’re into old rail right of ways, urban exploration, or the MBTA I’m sure you’ll spend some quality time there too.

It’s been announced that WebInno 11 will take place at The Royal Sonesta on Wednesday March 28, 2007 starting at 6:30 PM. Further details and signup at the WebInno wiki.

It’s a free event and probably the premier gathering of this sort in the Boston area.

We demo’d spotstory at WebInno 10 and had a very fruitful evening. If you’re a startup looking to present to an audience, you should definitely get in touch with Dave Beisel.

We’ll see you there.

The other night I spent about an hour looking at a couple of web sites for folks interested in old railroads and local history. If you’ve ever lived near a railroad track in Massachusetts, you’ll want to go check out Mystery Depots in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and Railroad Stations in Massachusetts.

Mystery Depots’ mission is to determine the identity and stories of stations that appear in photos. Railroad Station in Massachusetts provides a comprehensive listing of all of the depots which were in the state. They both have photos, history, and something of a community built around them. Unfortunately, no maps!

I came upon these sites while looking for information about Clematis Brook Station, a stop which used to exist between Waverly Square in Belmont, MA and Waltham Center in Waltham, MA. I first became aware of this station’s existence while browsing Yahoo! Maps a few years ago. It’s very close to where I grew up, but I’d never heard of it. It turns out that it is one of two stops that used to exist between Waverly and Waltham Center. Every few months I think I should try and find it, but haven’t yet.

I’ve had a life long fascination with trains. It peaked when I was 8 or 9: my burning desire was to have a permanent HO train setup. I drew plans, researched railroads and all things train related for about a year. Alas, there was no room in a single floor rental for such a rig, and by the time my folks bought a house, I was on to spaceships.

Still, any time I come near a track I’m disappointed if I don’t catch a glimpse of a train. I often wonder what it would have been like to have taken the trip from home to college–Boston, MA to Troy, NY–on the Boston & Maine instead of the Mass Pike. I’m always on the lookout of old rail right of ways.

For example, when Google Maps first came out, the first thing I did was to see if I could trace the abandoned rail right-of-ways of the Central Mass Railroad. You can.

Anyway, once the the Boston area is no longer encased in ice, I’ll take a walk down the tracks and see if I can find some remnants of Clematis Brook Station. This time I’m more highly motivated.

Customers and providing good service; is there anything more important to a company?

I learned at an early age the value of a good relationship and constant, honest communication with your customers. My father was involved in the family fruit business for almost all of his working years. Over three generations, the farm grew to a few hundred acres of farmland (mainly apples) near Amherst, Massachusetts. My father was responsible for the processing aspect of the business; apples were prepared, sorted, and packaged for retail sale. This included quite a large apple cider business.

The packaging plant and cider mill were built to handle far more capacity than our own orchards produced at the time. In order to keep everything humming, we brought in fruit from other growers (purchased and consigned). My father was responsible for bringing in this business.

Every spring into the summer, he would visit growers throughout the northeastern United States. I would tag along on weekend trips and during school vacations. We would visit farms in northern New Hampshire and central Connecticut. Once or twice a year, we would snake our way through the Hudson River Valley in New York, along Lake Ontario as far as Buffalo and back.

The farmers we met along the way were a varied group: a celebrated author ran his farm more as a hobby than enterprise; a second-generation farmer was having difficulty handing the reins to his son; a young farming family with youngest to oldest pitching in at their farm stand. My father visited these people to initiate a business transaction, yet they all welcomed us into their homes and lives.

The conversations these farmers had with my father were open and honest, exposing weather, irrigation, disease, and other crop troubles. Likewise, my father would give a frank perspective on the commercial market. Supermarkets had just started making purchasing decisions in a regional or chain-wide fashion; any change could have a ripple effect. They would discuss contracts and prices openly and in front of me. No need for long legal documents here; a handshake on the side of a field would suffice.

The early and honest exchange of information allowed both my father and the farmer to make adjustments during the growing season. There was a great deal of trust from both sides; each party knew the expectations of the other.

My father’s relationships with these farmers came to mind this week while handling customer service problems of my own.

First, the plumber. I called a plumber early this week to schedule the addition of a water line to our refridgerator. We moved into the house over a year ago; procrastination had run its course. Surprisingly, I was able to get an appointment for the following afternoon! Come the next afternoon, the plumber was a no-show; a no-call, even. I left a message on their service just before the end of the business day. The plumber called a half hour later and claimed they had been, “tied up” and wanted to reschedule. This is not the time to tell me of your scheduling problem!

My expectations for the plumber were very simple: show up or call to reschedule. They were not met. As soon as he believed that he would be late to my appointment, he should have called. When he knew he would completely miss my appointment, he should have called. Over-communicate, and I’ll be understanding! Really!

Second, the car dealership. My car was having two distinct problems last week. First, the emergency brake was sticking. Second, the car would occasionally not recognize my key, leading to ten minutes of cursing-filled ignition attempts. They keep the car for two days because they couldn’t get the keys to work long enough to start and then reprogram the car. Technology is so fascinating!

The day after I got my car back, I enjoyed another ten minutes of cursing and key-turning — guess that wasn’t fixed. I had parked on the hill and engaged the parking brake. After finally getting the car started, I couldn’t back up! Strike two!

It is now the weekend. I called the service department and left a message, expecting that I would get a return call on Monday morning. Nothing. I called Tuesday and left another message. Nothing. I called again and refused to go to voicemail, finally talking to a service rep!

They took my car back into the shop and programmed my keys again (a battery, they said!) and fixed the e-brake using a much more expensive technique. I drive down the street, stop for lunch, and … cursing.

As I walked back into the dealership, heads shake and eyes roll. They remember me! They replace another part (an antenna, they say) for no charge and send me on my way.

For most of this experience, my expectations were again not met. First, more than one problem with my car was not resolved during the initial visit. Second, I was quite disappointed by the level of communication from the dealership. As I brought my car back for the third time, the dealership redeemed itself to some degree; free parts and talking about the problem can do wonders to repair relationships. Looking back, I think the communication problems were caused by the fact that my assigned service rep was out for several of these days. I’m not sure why the repairs didn’t stick.

Back to the story of my father and the farmers. If my father didn’t respect his relationships with these small farmers, their businesses could have crumbled. Likewise, if they had not communicated problems back to my father, he would have been unable to fulfill contracts with retail markets.

My problems this week do not have the same level of consequence, but they reinforce the same message: respect your customer, provide the service they expect, and over-communicate deviation from those expectations.