Design Challenges

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

2 Miles: Health Club

This morning we were able to get up bright and early. It seems that if we are able to get out of bed when the alarm clock goes off, we are able to quickly get moving and stay motivated to achieve our two miles. As well, it helps that now that Florida has achieve full hotness, it's easier to perform outside activities while is still cooler.

As we were completing our two miles and had slowed our pace, we started to discuss the pros and cons of maintaining a gym membership. We are currently members of World Gym and have enjoyed the membership for a little over a year. When we first signed up we receive a few extra months free as part of a special promotion. We paid the entire year upfront, but now that is time to re-up we are wondering whether we really have used it to justify the price.

It seems that lately we have been performing a lot of our exercise activities outdoors, and haven't really been to the gym in the past two months. Since we live in Florida, we enjoy warm weather for about 10 months with January and February temperatures typically dropping to high 40s and sometimes waking up to some white roofs in the 20s.

The bottom line is that it just doesn't seemed like a great idea to pay for something we can get for free. At first, it was a great motivation to exercise as we were paying for something, that feeling quickly dried up and the reality is that motivation comes from within not by external factors.

Labels: 2-mile, Customer Service, exercise, Florida, Jacksonville

Thursday, December 11, 2008

More Social Media

So I just ~~wasted~~ sat through a one hour webinar on tweetering and how to maximize it for business. Mostly I learn that people have a lot of time in their hands. I don't have enough time to worry about breathing let alone let people know what I'm doing, how I'm doing, or why I'm doing it.

I just learned that companies have invested an awful lot in to twitter specialist to monitor the feeds and ensure that customers are feeling the love. To me twitter is an avenue for folks to complaint. The one marketing benefit I see to the whole social media site is updating potential customers of specials, sales, and other offers which have potential for mass distribution.

The bottom line is that social networking is about two years old, I often wonder where will it be next. First came geocities, followed years later by myspace, then came digg and facebook, twitter has gained 4 million members in the last year. Those sites came about because everyone wanted their own space on the net. Twitter was developed as a mass text messenger for those who wanted to read or pretend they care. Where is the social media phenomenon heading to next? Will we see the Sims or other games involve networking next?

Labels: content management, Customer Service, Digg, initiative, Social Bookmarking

Monday, July 14, 2008

You are ready for an update

I recently read an entry on Eric Shanfelt's blog entitled "Publish Web First, Print Second" which further reinforced my accounts from a previous entry Instant Information entry. I have discussed this topic to death, which by the way is endless, in the past couple of month. I have discussed it with colleagues, friends, and just about anyone I know who is interested or willing to hear it.

Yet, little change has taken place. We all continue, day in day out, to use the Web site as a landfill. A place to dump all information, whether relevant or otherwise, and continue to save the best for print. I have also noticed that this is the case for most sites for which I visit and receive a magazine.

It dawned on my this evening that perhaps is not our sites or our processes that need an upgrade, but ourselves. We are at cross roads, a place where digital media is changing the way we obtained our information. We are at the point where most jobs are going digital, yet change hasn't taken place. People still walk into their desks and the only digital they see is their email. I'm referring to the mail clerk all the way up the food chain to the CEO.

I can assure you that less snail mail is receive every day than digital mail. We have completely revamped our immediate communication avenues, but have yet to see that we no longer wake up and go outside to pick up the paper. We instead turn to Google news, MSNBC.com, CNN.com, ESPN.com or some other .com avenue to be feed our daily dose of information.

Then why is it that most publishers insist in saving the best content for print? Because the senior level editors fear for their jobs, they fear that the pimpled face twenty something is going to come in and replace them.

My mother always told me and re-enforce two important things that I carry with me to this day:

1. Go into any career you want, just make sure you work to be the best in your field.
2. Always associate with smarter people, they will teach you new things and take you to the next level.

I used to think my mother was crazy, but what 12 year old wants to listen to their parents, let alone pay attention to any advice they might have to give.

The bottom line is that if you give the new generation a chance for expressing their ideas, and you surround yourself with the best and the brightest, you will rise in your career as you will have the best team working for you. If you insist in keeping them in the dark basement and cultivate them as mushrooms, they will grow to resent you and you will miss out in sharing ideas and growing your company to the next level. Ever noticed the Windows Update icon that pops up near the bottom right corner of your PC? A little box typically pops up notifying you of yet another update/upgrade to your current flavor of Windows. Don't you wish you came equipped with such an enhancement. Time to update!

Labels: advertising, cms, content management, CSS, Customer Service, Freedom of Speech, marketing

Sunday, February 17, 2008

"Winning" Super Bowl shirts end up in Nicaragua

The superbowl this year was a little different for me. Besides being the most boring one I ever watched, I was accompanied by a few friends and colleagues. I never had a superbowl party before, but the turnout was good and everyone claimed to had fun.

Why I am writing about this today, when it happened such a while ago, mainly because I just read story about shirts ending up in Nicaragua. Shirts that were premade with thoughts that the Patriots were designed to be te dream team, with an undefeated season, they were expected to be superbowl champs. Instead, the Giants came out of nowhere with Manning making an exciting fourth quarter manuvering and claiming victory!

Back to the story, "shirts and caps proclaiming the victory of the New England Patriots -- when the American football team actually lost the latest Super Bowl -- have ended up in the hands of poor Nicaraguan children." This is a great act of charity and donation for an empoverish country, but what of the erronous information on them? Should the shirts really be given out even though many are to benefit?

What a dilemma? Erronous information being circulated around a third world country or a nice act of kindness.

The bottom line is that we must put our own selfishness aside for the greater good. I think Voltaire and Locke had it right. These men influence the US founding fathers into creating liberty for all and for all to be free to do what is best for the common good! Locke always aregued that property is a natural right and it is derived from labor, but what labor is there involve in charitable things, but the labor of good. However, in his essay, the social contract, he postulates that an exchange of goods wold not take place if the parties involved whee not satisfied, in the aforementined sory and exchanged took place, therefore it must had been good. Children obtain useless shirts which would not have derived a profit while the manufacturer obtained a charitable tax write off and the gratitude of many.

Labels: advertising, Customer Service, demonstrations, Freedom of Speech, health

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Tech Sales Person

Every once in a while I know I shouldn't answer my phone, but I'm a senior member within my organization and I pride myself on addressing everyone's needs even if it mean being on the phone for an hour discussing the latest blogging strategies or working out a marketing and design plan with someone.

Since I only deal on the phone with VIP I seldom purposely send them to voicemail. This morning my phone rang, I quickly looked around the office and notice it wasn;t one of my colleagues calling. I thought about letting the voicemail pick up the phone, but my thoughts quickly died and I answered the phone. What do you know, it was this account manager who has been calling me once a month for the past 6 month. Even though I keep reminding him that I buy and deal straight with Dell he insits on calling. I decided to throw him a bone and make his day by telling him that I'm looking for a couple of desktops and four laptops. At first, he thought I was going to go with my usual, I'm all set, we're in a recession, etc, but he did a flip back when I told him what I needed. He even remember that I only buy Dell and told me that they recently partnered with Dell and he could get me better deals that the Gold level account I have with Dell. I though he was the real deal, a sales guy that actually listen and remember my needs.

I just received an email and all he quoted me was IBM and HP. Don't get me wrong I think those are fine brands, but I only buy Dell, not because I like them. As a side note, I should mention that I'm very dissapointed with Dell recently and have receive nothing, but grieve with the new Desktop and Laptop I purchase two month ago. The only reason why I buy Dell is because of our corporate account with them. I digress, my point is that out of the five quotes I received, none are for Dell computers.

The bottom line is that as a salesperson you need to be sharp. Not only should you be able to get through on the cold call, but you have to pay attention and remember what your customers tell you.

Labels: Customer Service, Design, Jacksonville, techniques

Monday, July 23, 2007

Coming to you live from JAX

You may have noticed that I haven't blog for a while now. The reason is that I was in the process of relocation. That's right I now call the sunshine state home.

I drove down from Connecticut to Jacksonville, FL this past weekend. I remember doing the drive about 15 years ago when I drove to Orlando. Orlando is approximately 2 and a half hours from Jacksonville. The drive then seemed longer, but it might have been because I was with my immediate family at the time and you know how family trips could seem endless.

This time I was by myself although it didn't seem like it as relatives were calling my cell phone what seemed to be every 10 minutes. Geez, I have a lot of relatives and it is nice to know that they cared enough to keep me company during my travels.

I did have some breaks from the cell at which time I enjoyed taking in the scenery. It is funny how it seems like every where I turn now a days, everyone is speaking green this and green that. Obviously these folks haven't done the same drive I just did as once you get past Virginia and DC, it seems like there is nothing but green all around.

I enjoyed the time and had plenty of it to think about my new job and responsibilities that are soon to come. You see, I am now the Director of Web Operations for a Magazine Publisher in the Jacksonville Area.

Though I haven't had a lot of time to explore, I really like the area thus far and the places I have visited.

Granted, I have only visited some local restaurants and shopping areas, but the people are much friendlier than up in the Northeast; and they truly seem to enjoy what they do and ensure to emphasize that customer satisfaction is number one.

For example, today I visited Publix, one of the local supermarket chains, the forecast called for rain, but I hadn't seen any. On my way out the sky opened up and it pour cats and dogs, almost literally. The grocery bagger offered to carry my groceries to the car as well as provide umbrella service. I declined, but it was quite a different experience from what I ever had. While I waited for the rain to subdue, I noticed many other baggers offer the same to other customers. After all, I am quite handsome, but I knew this wasn't just the younger girl trying to pick me up.

The bottom line is that so far I am quite happy with my Florida experience and although I have started work, I still feel like I'm on vacation and living in paradise.

Labels: Customer Service, Florida, Jacksonville

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

SunRocket is Out

Last year I hooked my mother up with Vonage. She is outside the USA and wanted to have a US Phone Number. Thanks to VoIP (Voice Over IP), folks in other countries can have a US number and vice versa, provided you can find a service provider that will allow this flexibility.

Originally we started out with Packet8, but at the time they had speed requirements and unfortunatelly her internet access was too slow to work with the Packet8 service. Packet8 has since changed this, but we had already signed up with Vonage and she is very happy with it.

Vonage is the largest consumer VoIP Service Provider in the US and is ever growing. Everyone I know who is on Vonage has only but great things to say about them, though Vonage Forums report otherwise.

Sun Rocket is the second largest provider, but they reported bankruptcy this past Monday and have since discontinue service to all their customers. Amazingly enough they did this without notifying their customers, who are now without service. I hope Sun Rocket has lawyered up as I see a massive Civil Action Lawsuit coming. To leave people without phone service is rotten enough, but what if someone needs 911 service, they can easily have cause harm to their customers.

The bottom line is that if you are going to go out, go out in style. Give folks enough time to switch to another provider, after all they trusted Sun Rocket with their phone service, the least they could have done is notify their customers of their financial situation. Oddly enough, the Sun Rocket Web site is still up and running and even allowing new folks to sign up. However, if you call the customer service line, there is a recording stating that the company is now shutdown.

Labels: Customer Service, Sun Rocket, VoIP