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New Smartphone Parking Applications Get Interactive from Page 55


CRWDPOWER.COMand inventor of ParkPatrol, insists that is not the purpose. He says in his home town of Sydney,Australia, for example,


ticketing is very aggressive and parkers can get a ticket in 15 sec- onds, while they are walking down the block to the pay and dis- play kiosk, stepping into a store to get change, or running back to retrieve their car when themeter runs out. Darling points out that parking authorities do not give in any grace, and this application is designed to give the public an advantage, and allow them to make informed decisions on how to handle parking issues. “It is not a good idea to use ParkPatrol to break the law,”Dar-


ling warns. “Even though you can see the progression of the patrol officer’s movements, you still have no idea what is going to happen.” “It is too early to make a definitive comment one way or


the other on the legality of the app,” said Edwards. “There is certainly potential for that to happen, for example if people have overstayed in a parking bay and then move their vehi- cles before a parking and infor- mation officer arrives. It will be interesting to see what the take-up rate is for this new technolo- gy which relies to such a large extent on input from people on the street.” “I would like to think that ParkPatrol could serve a positive


officially report patrol officer movements via ParkPatrol, but so far he has not received a response. He is also talking with private parking vendors to possibly add information about space avail- ability into ParkPatrol as well.


Grass roots movement One point that both applications have in common is that


they rely on a dedicated user community that will continuous- ly provide input into the system. The challenge is in growing that community. “Currentlywe foster dedicationwith just good karma points,


“It is not a good idea to use ParkPatrol to break the law.”


or the warmfuzzy feeling someone gets when theymark a spot,” says Woodard. “We hope people share Open Spot with their friends and especially their neighbors.” “We see parking as an important issue for people,” he adds. “Recent studies show that find- ing a parking spot costs time and money, and is also bad for the environment. By helping people find a parking spot faster, or showing them there is no chance of finding a spot, we hope to help reduce thiswaste.”


ParkPatrol is also using a grass rootsmovement to gain sup-


role such as that, Edwards continued, “However, the media cov- erage to date seems to have focused on ‘beating’ the parking officers when all they are trying to do is maintain a steady turnover of bays. I think people in general have enough common sense to observe parking restrictions without having to employ such technology. Darling says reaction from authorities has been positive. In


fact, Darling says parking patrol officers have told him that they are using the application currently, reporting their own move- ments.With this inmind,Darling has contacted several city coun- cils in Australia to develop a partnership in which they would


port.Although ParkPatrol theoretically works anywhere in the world, the application has become very popular inAustralia and New Zealand, with more than 80,000 users so far, due to signifi- cant publicity on radio and TV. Darling says there is almost no usage inNorthAmerica and Europe,with only 1,000 users across the two continents, but he expects U.S. adoption to pick up soon. Both applications seem to be catching on. Darling says it is


because parking can be frustrating and these interactive applica- tions are a great way to help each other ease that frustration.


Pete Goldin, Technology Editor for Parking Today, can be reached at pete@parkingtoday.com.


PT How to CommunicateWith Bosses Brad Smart, author of the best-selling book “‘Topgrading’:


HowLeadingCompaniesWin byHiring,Coaching, andKeeping the Best People,” has interviewed and coached more than 6,000 top executives, so he has a pretty good idea of how the highest- performing managers in the world expect to be communicated with, and what irritates them. Smart says that when bosses ask questions, most hate it


when people (1) say “it depends”; (2) give long-winded explana- tions before answering the question; or (3) try to fix problems before alerting their bosses (i.e., hiding problems). “People do these things out of fear,” Smart says. “People fear they need time to figure out a reply and saying


‘it depends’ helps them stall for time. The long-winded explana- tion before getting to the answer comes out of fear that the boss will say no and they won’t get a chance to build their case.And hiding problems comes from fearing the wrath of the boss and


56 SEPTEMBER 2010 • PARKING TODAY • www.parkingtoday.com


fromthe hope they can fix it before the boss finds out.” Smart says that when the boss asks a question, it’s almost


always best to answer directly and succinctly. And let bosses know that you’ll immediately alert them to a problem, but ask that you get a day to analyze it and report back on (1) how it should have been prevented; (2) what is being done to fix it; and (3) how a recurrence will be prevented. “Some bosses inspire too much fear in their people,” Smart


says, “and they can get the type of communications from their team by giving them the chance to explain after the direct response, and giving them a chance to fix problems after they quickly admit them.” (Get a free 50-page e-book, “Avoid Costly Mis-Hires,”


which summarizes Smart’s key “Topgrading” methods, by going to his website: www.SmartTopgrading.com.)


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