cityofsound

Journal: Flood

(1. Very sketchy initial notes from the last day or so, sent from a suburb of Brisbane as the Queensland floods hit. As I write, in the broader Queensland floods, there are 13 confirmed dead, and dozens more missing. With that in mind, we are incredibly fortunate here, and our experiences pale by comparison to those horrors. We're safe, and quite comfortable. But power is out, networks are fragile, and it's already quite an experience, shall we say, with tonight's 'king tide' still to come. It's late, so please excuse the scratchy nature of these notes, and the lack of links, images and an edit. You can follow the news via the ABC or equivalent. My Twitter feed will serve as notes for the last 2 days, and may cover updates, power permitting.)

(2. I wrote this last night, until about 0130, and then the power gave out as I was transferring from laptop to iPad, a tricky process at the best of times. So I posted this the following morning.)

I'm writing this by candlelight as the power at home went some 12 hours ago now. The irony of using an iPad by candlelight is not lost on me. The iPad is in 'flight mode' to conserve power. Though 'fight mode' might be better description, as we're staying put rather than heading out of town. 'Fight or flight mode' perhaps.

This house sits fairly high above Moggill Road in Chapel Hill, one of Brisbane's western suburbs, and should be high and dry. The floods hit in the last 24 hours essentially, and the big high tide - the 'king tide' - will hit around 4am tonight. There'll be another at 4pm, or thereabouts, and the flood water won't really subside until Saturday or Sunday. So this is the middle of it.

It's all happened remarkably quickly. Not quite with the severity of the 'inland tsunami' that hit poor Toowoomba a couple of days ago—here the Brisbane river is seeping slowly across the city, as opposed to the raging torrent that tossed four wheel drives around so effortlessly in several Queensland towns yesterday. And yet only yesterday morning we were blissfully unaware of what was about to happen. It had been raining for days, weeks, but I think it's fair to say that there was broadly no thought of a flood on this scale about to hit Australia's third largest city. There was absolutely no talk of all this.

We were going about our days as usual—we're on holiday up here, somewhat hilariously—until about midday yesterday.

cityofsound Am up here in Queensland for a few days. Brisbane, specifically. Quite extraordinary weather. River swollen and brown like milk chocolate.
1 day ago

Sketchbook: 'Next generation check-in' experience from Qantas

Occasionally, I'll make a some quick notes about a new product or service designed elsewhere, unpacking what thoughts I have at the time, primarily as a reference and marker. The thing could be anticipated rather than experienced, as per the iPad, or quickly explored in order to make broader points, as with the redesign of The Guardian. What follows is probably about a few current interests: service design, identity and touch/wireless-enabled transactional spaces.

I fly a lot. A few thousand kilometers every week on average. I'm not proud of this, and as much as I remain fascinated by airports and aviation I'd really rather not fly so regularly. The reasons for regret are multiple, from family life to carbon footprint to the dismal lack of a high-speed rail alternative, but also because Qantas has an effective monopoly in domestic aviation in Australia. (As with many sectors here, privately-owned effective monopolies rule, from Qantas to Telstra to Coles supermarkets, which leaves punters with few of the benefits of either publicly-owned enterprises or of diverse, competitive markets. It's part of the reason why innovation in products and services is generally so thin on the ground in Australia.) As such, Qantas can deliver a patchy service and largely get away with it.

But, particular credit where it is due for their new frequent flyer check-in experience, which—at this admittedly early stage—is one of the most promising mainstream examples of touch technology and service design I've seen recently.