Costco Montclair (California) has new gas pumps. For Bredemarket readers east of Fontana I’ll explain the significance.
The beginning
They ttore down the KMart and the Discount Uptown Casuals to build the Costco.
Discount Uptown Casuals, Montclair, California. R.I.P. Google Gemini re-creation.
The video version. From Facebook. Music “Vehicle” by Ides of March. Images Google Gemini.
When built, the new Costco had plenty of parking. Seemingly.
But between the popularity of the Discount Uptown GAS and the Costco itself, I often ended up parking in the far northwest corner of the lot. Often I’d get my gas at the northeast corner, drive to the northwest corner to park, then walk to the Costco.
Until…
The middle
…the entire northwest corner of the lot was completely closed due to construction.
This was a good thing, because the construction was for a new set of gas pumps.
But it was also a bad thing, because the crowded parking conditions became impossible, weekends or weekdays. And the line of backed-up cars on Central Avenue trying to get into Costco got longer and longer.
In fact it was so bad that one afternoon I drove to Costco, couldn’t find a parking place at all…and left.
So this morning I drove there for gas and shelled pistachios, uncertain whether I’d stay or have to drive out to Rancho Cucamonga. (I really wanted gas and pistachios.)
When I arrived, I saw that the gas pumps on the northeast corner were closed. Because…
The late middle (not the end)
…the new gas pumps on the northwest corner are now open.
And the line was surprisingly short. And I soon discovered why.
New gas pumps, 4 per row.
There are now twice as many gas pumps. Where the old area had 2 pumps per lane, this has 4. With sensors to show when a gas pump is available.
So I got my gas very quickly and moved on to other stuff.
Pistachios and other essentials.
So why did I label this the “late middle” rather than the end? Because parking remains limited until they pave paradise—I mean the old gas pumps—and put up a parking lot.
Until then, hang tight. But at least the gas line will move more quickly.
They say you don’t know how inaccurate generative AI is until you ask it about something you know about. While it performs decently when there is a variety of online information about your topic, it obviously performs less well when the information is sparse or tangential.
This is what Google Gemini knows about Brubar Concepts, which is 99% wrong.
A Brubar Concepts employee—me—was taking MBA classes at Cal State Fullerton, but the company itself was never there, but in Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana (at the abandoned Kaiser Steel Mill plant). I didn’t work for Motorola until a decade later. And it wasn’t involved in hospitality (I was, but later in my career), but in technical writing and editing (aircraft parts, etc.).
One amusing aside that will confuse Gemini even more. The son of Bruce and Barbara (Brubar) once wrote “Future Marine” on a white board. I thought that meant he was going to enlist. Turns out he was referencing a boat company.
(The remainder of this text is from Google Gemini)
Brubar Concepts appears to be a past entity, likely a restaurant or hospitality group, that isn’t currently active but was connected to individuals pursuing education (like MBAs) and involved in tech/security companies like Motorola, with past mentions pointing towards California operations. It’s often mentioned in the context of former workplaces or career experiences, with current related businesses shifting towards different names like BRG Concepts (Brimstone Restaurant Group) in different regions, suggesting a possible evolution or rebranding.
Key Takeaways:
Historical Company: Brubar Concepts was a company where people worked, but it seems to have dissolved or changed forms, with former employees mentioning it alongside now-defunct companies.
Hospitality Link: It was involved in the restaurant/hospitality industry, possibly focusing on concept development.
Potential Rebranding: BRG Concepts (Brimstone Restaurant Group) operates restaurants like Brimsstone Woodfire Grill, Baresco, and Beach House Pompano, suggesting a possible evolution or related venture from the original “Brubar” name, though location and focus may differ.
California Connection: Mentions place it in California (Fullerton area) in past contexts, as noted by someone taking night classes.
In essence, “Brubar Concepts” refers to a defunct or transformed business, likely in hospitality, with ties to former employees who’ve moved on to other ventures like BRG Concepts or different industries.
Another SoCal Tech Forum presentation on Saturday, this one on banking technology from Carey Ransom of BankTech Ventures.
FoundrSpace.
Only a small reference to financial identity, but excellent nonetheless. While I live-posted the event here on my personal LinkedIn account, I wanted to summarize my three main takeaways from Bredemarket’s perspective.
One: Differentiate
Yes, community banks need to differentiate. Perhaps back in the 1980s before the advent of national banks, community banks could offer a standard suite of services for their communities. But now they’re competing against national banks that do business in their prospects’ communities, and in their prospects’ phones. (We will get to phones in a minute.)
One example Ransom gave: why do community banks offer credit cards? Are their credit cards better than the credit cards from the Really Big (Banking) Bunch? Probably not.
But unlike the Capital Ones and Chimes of the world, community banks know their communities. And they know what local businesses need, and are ideally suited to deliver this. (We will get to services in two minutes.)
Yes, I know that Bank of America may have someone attending and sponsoring your local events, but that person is not Brian Moynihan. And if you don’t know who Moynihan is, your prospects don’t know him either.
But John, you may be saying to yourself, you can’t bank on a phone. How do you deposit checks? And how do you get cash?
Well, let’s look at this:
Bredemarket hasn’t received a check in over three years, but when one of my clients was paying me by check, I would use my phone to take a picture of it and deposit it.
And as for cash, this is needed less and less, especially since many merchants take Apple Pay and Google Pay.
In fact, bank branches are so irrelevant to today’s—and tomorrow’s—bank prospects and customers that Ransom referred to a $3 million dollar bank branch as a really expensive billboard. Probably none of the people who are reading this post WANT to go into a bank branch.
And those that do? Here’s a little secret: if the average age of the people who bank at your bank is in their 70s, they will…um…not be long-term bank customers. The 18 year olds that will bank for decades? They’re opening accounts on their phones. Can they use a phone to open an account at your bank? And why would they do so? (See the differentiation discussion above.)
Three: Supplement
One way a bank can differentiate is via the services they offer.
At the most basic level, a bank can make money by loaning the funds they receive from deposits.
But they can offer many more services to 21st century clients, thanks to legislation such as the Gramm-Leach-Billey Act that allow financial holding companies to own financial or complementary firms.
And not just investments and wealth management.
Ransom provided an illustrative example: cybersecurity.
Banks need to have expertise in cybersecurity to stay alive, and to comply with Know Your Customer and other financial regulations.
So why not offer cybersecurity services to their customers?
This not only gives the banks another revenue stream, but also reduces the risk that their own customers will experience fraud from hacks.
Four: Market
I know I said there were three takeaways. I lied.
Ransom also noted that CapitalOne spends 20% on marketing, including everything from TV ads to cafes. Your typical community bank spends much less, maybe 1%.
How are your prospects going to know what differentiates your bank if they don’t have awareness of those differentiators?
Or perhaps you need proposal or analysis services.
Bredemarket, a provider of content, proposal, and analysis services to technology (and identity) firms, can work with you to create the words you need. Learn about my offerings and book a free meeting here.
I have not lived in the Inland Empire as long as my in laws have, but I recognize the gravity of this announcement all the same. From KTLA:
“A Frito-Lay manufacturing plant in Rancho Cucamonga has stopped production after more than 50 years in operation, and potentially hundreds of workers are now looking for new jobs.
“On Monday, a spokesperson for PepsiCo Foods U.S., the parent company of Frito-Lay, confirmed that manufacturing operations at the Rancho Cucamonga facility have ended.”
The facility will not close entirely. Warehouse and distribution/fleet/transportation operations will continue.
Now this is not the most robust proof of identity. As I recently noted in my JEBredCal blog (one of my other Google identities), it’s extremely easy for multiple people to use this day pass at different times during the day. Even the 7-day and 31-day passes, which must be signed and may be compared against an identity document, are not necessarily free from fraud.
However, this is not critical to Omnitrans, who would rather put up with a small amount of fraud than inconvenience its riders with multiple identity checks.
Identity proofing is more critical in some situations than it is in others.
Of course, if Omnitrans really wanted to, it could achieve the need for fraud prevention by using relatively frictionless forms of identity proofing. Rather than demaning to see a rider’s papers, Omnitrans could use passive methods to authenticate its riders. I won’t go into all the possible methods and their pros and cons here.
However, I would like to explore one possible identity proofing method to see if it would solve the Omnitrans pass use issue.
You’ll recall that many identity experts recognize five factors of authentication:
Something you know.
Something you are.
Something you have.
Something you do.
Somewhere you are.
Well, because I felt like it, I proclaimed a sixth factor of authentication.
Why?
I said, because I felt like it!
Whoops, “why?” is the sixth authentication factor. I still haven’t rendered it into the “somexxx you xxx” format yet.
Can Omnitrans use the “why?” factor to test the reasonableness that any particular trip is performed by the person who originally bought the pass?
Possibly.
Applying the “why?” question to bus boarding data
Assume the most challenging scenario, in which Omnitrans knows nothing about the person who purchases a 31-day pass. The person pays in cash and is wearing a face mask and sunglasses throughout the entire transaction. Therefore, the only identity information associated with the pass is the location where the pass was purchased, the date/time it was purchased, and some type of pass identification number. For this example, we’ll assume the pass number is 12345.
So Omnitrans really doesn’t know anything of importance about the holder of pass 12345…
…other than how it is used.
I’m making the assumption that Omnitrans logs information about every use of a pass. Since you don’t need to use your pass when you leave the bus, the only information available is when you board the bus.
So let’s look at some fake data.
Date and Time
Bus
Location
Monday, July 25, 2022, 6:39 am
87
Euclid & Holt, Ontario
Monday, July 25, 2022, 6:35 pm
87
Amazon LGB3, Eastvale
Tuesday, July 26, 2022, 6:39 am
87
Euclid & Holt, Ontario
Tuesday, July 26, 2022, 6:35 pm
87
Amazon LGB3, Eastvale
Wednesday, July 27, 2022, 8:42 am
87
Euclid & Holt, Ontario
Wednesday, July 27, 2022, 6:35 pm
87
Amazon LGB3, Eastvale
Thursday, July 28, 2022, 6:39 am
87
Euclid & Holt, Ontario
Thursday, July 28, 2022, 6:35 pm
87
Amazon LGB3, Eastvale
Thursday, July 28, 2022, 7:20 pm
61
Plum & Holt, Ontario
Thursday July 28, 2022, 9:52 pm
61
Ontario Mills, Ontario
Friday, July 29, 2022, 6:39 am
87
Euclid & Holt, Ontario
Friday, July 29, 2022, 8:35 am
87
Amazon LGB3, Eastvale
Friday, July 29, 2022, 10:00 am
66
Vineyard & Foothill, Rancho Cucamonga
Friday, July 29, 2022, 11:26 am
14
Fontana Metrolink
Friday, July 29, 2022, 11:53 am
82
Fontana Metrolink
Friday, July 29, 2022, 12:08 pm
66
Fontana Metrolink
Hypothetical logging of trips on Omnitrans Pass 12345.
Even if you are not familiar with California’s Inland Empire, you can probably classify these trips into the following categories:
Trips that are probably legitimate.
Trips that may or may not be legitimate.
Trips that are probably fraudulent.
Trips that are definitely fraudulent.
For the most part, you can’t know with certainty about the legitimacy of most of these trips. Here’s a story that fits the facts.
Jack Jones starts his new job at Amazon on Monday, and works Monday and Tuesday with no incident. Jack overslept on Wednesday and was written up. He made sure to arrive at work on time Thursday, and at the end of the day he celebrated with a dinner at a restaurant in the Ontario Mills shopping center. After arriving at work on Friday, Sara Smith picked his pocket and took his pass, fleeing the scene an hour later and making her way to Fontana. She creates several clones of the bus pass and sells them at a discount before fleeing herself. Therefore, all trips beginning on Friday at 8:35 am are fraudulent.
But that might not be the true story. This one also fits the facts.
Jack Jones starts his new job at Amazon on Monday, and works Monday and Tuesday with no incident. On Wednesday Jack calls in sick, but lets his housemate Bob Brown (who also works at Amazon) use his pass on Wednesday and Thursday. By Thursday evening, Jack is feeling better, retrieves his pass from his housemate, and goes to Ontario Mills for the evening. On Friday Jack goes to work and is fired. He boards the 87, misses his stop in Ontario, and stays on the bus until he reaches Rancho Cucamonga. Despondent, he decides to visit his friend in Fontana. However, his Fontana friend, Sara Smile, secretly created several clones of Jack’s bus pass and sells them at a discount. Therefore, the Wednesday trips, the Thursday day trips, and all Friday trips beginning at 11:26 am are fraudulent.
Or perhaps some other set of facts fit the data.
It’s possible that the pass was stolen before it was ever used and all of the trips are fraudulent.
Or perhaps every trip before arriving in Fontana is legitimate, but how can we tell which one (if any) of the three trips from Fontana was undertaken by the true passholder?
But the data that Omnitrans captured provides a way to challenge the pass holder for possibly fraudulent trips.
If Omnitrans is really suspicious for some reason, it may choose to challenge every trip that didn’t take place at the “regular” times of 6:39 am or 6:35 pm. “Why are you boarding the 87 bus at this hour of the morning?” “Why are you boarding the 61 bus?”
Or Omnitrans may assume that all of the trips are reasonable and don’t necessitate a challenge. Yes, someone can go to work late. Yes, someone can go to Ontario Mills for the evening. Well, all of them are reasonable until Friday at 11:53 am, when a passholder boards a bus at the same location where the same passholder supposedly departed at 11:26 am.
Now even if strict identity checks are used with the “why?” statement, the data alone can’t detect all fraud. If Jack Jones and Bob Brown both work the day shift at Amazon, but on alternate days, how can Omnitrans detect the days when Jack Jones leaves Ontario at 6:39 am, vs. the days when Bob Brown leaves Ontario at 6:39 am?
Again, no identity proofing method is 100% foolproof.
But the “why?” question may detect some forms of fraud.
Or are there really only five factors of authentication after all?
Now I’ll grant that “why?” might not be a sixth factor of authentication at all, but may fall under the existing “something you do” category. This factor is normally reserved for gestures or touches. For example, some facial liveness detection methods require you to move your head up, down, right, or left on command to prove that you are a real person. But you could probably classify boarding a bus as “something you do.”
Anyway, thank you for engaging my tangent. If I can think of a “why?” example that doesn’t involve something you do, I’ll post it here. That will help me in my hopeful (?) quest to become the inventor of the sixth factor of authentication.
What about the businesses in cities where my bus trips took place?
But back to the businesses in Ontario, Eastvale, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, and other cities: need some content help? I can create esoteric long-winded content like this, or (what you probably want) more concise, customer-focused content that conveys your important message. My regular work includes case studies, white papers, proposal services, and other types of content. If you need someone to help you create this content:
The U.S. Census provides “quick facts” about U.S. jurisdictions, including business facts. While the business facts are ten years old, they still provide an indication of business health.
For Rancho Cucamonga, the U.S. Census Bureau has documented over 15,000 firms, over $3 billion in manufacturers shipments, and over $2 billion in retail sales. These figures have presumably increased in the last ten years.
If you own or manage one of these thousands of businesses, and you need to let other businesses know about your offerings, perhaps you should turn to the Rancho Cucamonga, California content marketing expert. Bredemarket can assist your firm with the following:
