A TRIVIAL PURSUIT

More stuff an Uber RideShare Driver learns from Passengers

This week’s edition is a bit off the beaten path as far as topics are concerned.  I am including it for two reasons: 

1. It provides a fascinating insight into how the human brain functions.
2. Knowing this obscure piece of information might give you an advantage when playing trivia or trying to impress strangers at cocktail parties.

I had a passenger earlier this week who worked as a physical therapist and had a great deal of experience treating people with sports-related strains and pains.  

Eventually, the topic of over-the-counter sports medicine products came up and I was particularly interested in hearing her opinion of popular pain relief balms like Icy Hot or Ben Gay.  I am not particularly athletic.  OK, I am not at all athletic.  But I have used both of these products.  They do make your skin feel quite hot then very cool—an interesting sensation. 

 

Out of curiosity, I asked how these medications work.  The main ingredient, she explained, is menthol.  Menthol is a natural oil that dilates the capillaries in the skin, allowing more blood to flow and creating a sense of warmth. 

“So”, I guessed, “the heat created by the menthol helps the muscle to relax and reduces the pain, right?”  Wrong. 

 

Before reading ahead, please pause and take your best guess.  I’ll wait

patiently and hum the “Final Jeopardy” theme music until you are ready.

[musical interlude]

 

The way that these hot/cold heat rubs work is by making the problem worse, not better.  As my passenger explained, menthol is known as a “counter-irritant”. The sensation of warmth & cold overwhelms the sensation of pain.  The hot/cold feeling on our skin is simply a distraction. The pain is still there.  We do not notice it because our mind is too busy feeling the changing skin temperature.  So in reality, those rubs work the same way a magic trick works:  the thing we think is happening really isn't happening.  The magician simply creates the illusion that it is.  Now that is medical magic... kind of.

 

Every time I activate the Uber app and head out to drive, I meet fascinating people and often learn amazing things from them.  “Counter-Irritant”--  Now I know and so do you.

www.uber.com / discount code:  15OFFMILLER

How to "UN-Promote" a Successful Nightclub

Today’s Lesson from Riders:
How to differentiate and “UN-promote” a successful nightclub.

 

This lesson was taught to me in two parts.  First, I drove a couple to the club district and heard them discuss the new venue, (we’ll call it “Pi”) and the fate of the previous occupants of the space.

There is a new club in the heart of a popular valley entertainment district.  The space had been operated under a number of names in recent years but had failed to make a foothold, despite being surrounded by a number of very popular night spots.  It was smaller than its neighbors and had limited, street side patio space.  Visitors were also required to climb steps and enter through a door.  Unable to see what was happening inside, customers often opted for the more open, street-level competitors.

A bit later, I gave a ride to a young woman who happened to work at Pi.  Curious, I asked about how the young club was doing and if she was aware that the location had a bit of a jinx.  It is too early to tell—Pi opened only weeks ago—but I predict that it will be the first venture to find great success in that space.

Yes, she was aware that the club had changed hands a number of times.  But, she explained, the owner was employing a new strategy that was turning the clubs liabilities to his advantage. 

• Because the space was indoors and relatively small, the owner used that sense of privacy to create an experience that was very exclusive and intimate.
• Tables could only be obtained by reservation to qualified guests.
• The ratio of male to female guests was closely controlled, based on the desires of women who had been surveyed regarding what they liked most and most wanted to change about their club experiences.
• Similarly, the music mix was tailored to female tastes in order to attract them as well as to further set Pi apart from every other club in the district.
• Hi-top bar tables were replaced with booths and small rounds so as to differentiate the Pi experience and allow guests greater comfort and ease of conversation.
• Pricing was skewed deliberately high, in order to help maintain the exclusivity of the venue, attract affluent male guests and to further build that Pi brand.

Even after only a few weeks in business, Pi was attracting the valley’s most eligible affluent bachelors, professional athletes and other well-known figures.  As a business and marketing strategy guy, I have great admiration the new owner and the direction he is taking.  Very insightful.  Brilliant.  Sheer genius. 

 

Rideforhire University

Learn about the world while driving for UberX

Uber is an app-based peer-to-peer personal driving service that customers

love even more than they hate traditional taxi services.  Riding with Uber is safe, simple,

prompt, pleasant and creates an ideal, if brief, environment for great conversation. 

As an Uber driver, I get paid in both money and knowledge. 

Give people a friendly, quiet private place to chat for twenty minutes and

you can learn amazing things from a multitude of perspectives. 

 

EPISODE 1:  “The Interconnectedness of All Things”
 

“The Butterfly Effect” is concept from theoretical physics that describes how a small change in a complex system can lead to massive changes over time-- A butterfly flaps its wings, creating tiny vortices that cause other changes that eventually lead to the birth of a hurricane. 

April 11, 2011 a magnitude 7 earthquake struck the Fukushima region of Japan that caused severe damage to a nuclear power facility.  It would take a very large butterfly to create that amount of chaos but even so, Fukushima is waaaaayyyy the heck over there in Japan.  What possible effect could their disaster have on us? 

January 2014, early on a Thursday evening:  I am driving a couple from Arcadia to the Hard Rock Cafe across the street from the US Airways Center in downtown Phoenix—dinner and drinks before the Sun’s game.  They are a very pleasant pair of young professionals.  She works in the healthcare sector.  He is an engineer who designs components for nuclear power plants.  I asked if the nuclear industry was experiencing hard times after the disaster at Fukushima, (as I assumed it was.)  I was right… and wrong.  As the couple explained, the earthquake that struck over 4000 miles west of Phoenix and almost three years in the past had indeed had significant impact on their lives.

• Orders for nuclear components fell in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake while power companies, consumers and government entities remained uncertain about what to do to prevent reactor damage in the future.
• Within a year, nuclear power companies had worked with regulators to establish new, more stringent safety requirements.
• In order to adhere to the higher standards, many plants required equipment upgrades.
• For the past year, the engineer had been so busy keeping up with demand for new products that his overtime and bonuses were able to give the couple’s retirement account a kick start that they estimated would allow them to retire almost a decade earlier than they had been projecting.

Then it was my turn. 

At the time of the Fukushima quake, I was a partner in a young marketing firm in Pittsburgh.  Our firm had grown rapidly in three years, despite the economy.  Then, for a variety of reasons, the sales funnel simply collapsed, despite the best efforts of our talented business development team.  One of our most promising prospects had been a large machining firm that, like my rider, made parts for nuclear reactors.  The uncertainty caused by the earthquakes effect in the nuclear industry forced them to put off our contract indefinitely.  The nail in our coffin was the loss of one of our largest clients—a multi-line family of automobile dealerships.  They too cancelled their existing contract over uncertainty caused by the Japanese disaster.  Not only were their inventory of Toyota and Nissan vehicles threatened but their domestic lines were as well—because most of their electronic components were made in Japan. 

The end result:  My riders are blessed with a decade of extra retirement.  I move to Phoenix, drive for Uber to pay the bills while incubating what I am sure will be a successful Marketing Research and Strategy firm—in part at least, because tectonic plates shifted on the other side of the world.