Smooth Harold reader Scott Daniel asks via email: Does social networking really work as a marketing tool?  My CIO is standing firm that it does not. Yes, it does, provided you have something interesting to say. For example, my blogging efforts on Smooth Harold alone have directly resulted in checks amounting to around $17,000 over the last [...]

Facebook Groups, Facebook Pages & Other Facebook Tips

I’ve taught Facebook marketing. I’ve blogged about it. I’ve helped businesses with their Facebook presence. I’ve bought ebooks, I’ve spent hours in the HELP! section and reading many blog posts but you know what? I should’ve just bought Joan Stewart’s Facebook product instead.

I’m printing it off and keeping it as a reference. Even the best teachers forget how to do things on Facebook. This will be my reference from now on. It’s up-to-date and helpful. Other people might know just as much but Joan has a way of making the information accessible.

I’ve bought other guides and read many blogs and this has more helpful, clear instructions than ANYWHERE ELSE I’ve looked.

Why?

Because it’s written in an easy conversational tone.

Because it’s easy to skim if you’re impatient like me and just want to get to the information you DON’T already know.

You learn how to do these things on Facebook:

• Announce on your profile that you created a Page and how to find and link to that Page.
• Keep up with what’s happening on Facebook - I should’ve thought of that!
• Facebook group or fan Page? and why
• How to find your pages once they’re set up (it’s confusing!)
• Delete “friends” without them knowing it (we’ve all wanted to do this!)
• Get good content for your Facebook Page
• Use the tagging feature
• Quickly learn how to do something you don’t remember or know how to do on Facebook
• Use events as a promotion tool for more than just events
• Avoid getting overwhelmed by Facebook

And…

What are “highlights” and how do they work?
Adding, deleting and customizing tabs.
How to get your URLs to promote off of Facebook (this can be tricky)
Facebook badges step by step
Examples of effective pages and how to set one up
How to use the “share” button
Promote other people’s fan pages (what goes around comes around - I’m sure you’d do this for me, wouldn’t you?)
Making your event invites look nice
Import your other social network sites onto Facebook

At the end she gives a lot of links to other internet marketing resources.

You get notes at the end with screenshots so you can see what is what.

Missed Opportunities - even if you know a lot this reinforces and reminds you of key parts of Facebook marketing.

My missed opportunity on Facebook?? Video! Did you know that when you update your wall, click the video link and you can record directly from your laptop webcam or upload a YouTube video.

So my post sounds like a sales page and yet I’m sincere when I say I recommend that you buy this right now, print it out and read it.

Oh, and if you’re a Utah blogger, please join my Utah blogger’s fan page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Utah-Bloggers/96701207442 or if you’re interested in my new book become a fan here http://www.facebook.com/pages/Online-PR-Book/113709178083

Get the Facebook Tips transcript or audio file here. Make sure to order the transcript for $10 more or just get the transcript. I’m having mine printed and spiral bound.

I’ve talked in the past about how I read your blogs. I rarely subscribe through Google Reader any more - I read all of your blogs through FriendFeed. Therefore if you want me to read your blog, I strongly suggest taking the first step of importing it into FriendFeed. Well, if that weren’t reason enough, FriendFeed just gave you even one more reason to import your blog and other social data into their site: real-time search.

If you’ll look down in the lower-right sidebar of this blog, you’ll see an example of it in action - every mention of “realtime”, “real time”, “social”, “friendfeed”, “twitter”, “facebook”, or “Jesse Stay” anywhere on the web, at any time that has been imported into FriendFeed now appears real-time, as it’s happening.  Go ahead - change the search parameters to something like “earthquake”, or “iran”, or “michael jackson”.  You’ll quickly see the value of having such real-time, on-demand search at your fingertips.

FriendFeed is said to be getting ready to also release notifications, probably in the same way they do your other friend lists and feeds via e-mail and IM for the various search terms you’re trying to find.  As the terms come in real-time, you’ll receive them.  This is powerful stuff!

Over a year ago Twitter had a similar feature - they called it “track”, which they’ve recently re-introduced to developers via their API.  It was the main reason I joined and stuck with Twitter.  As soon as their competition was dead they removed it.  It looks as though FriendFeed has one-upped Twitter once again with this feature.

So if you haven’t already, go to FriendFeed, get an account, import all your Twitter and Facebook friends already on the service (you’ll find most of your active friends probably already are!), and start adding your blogs, Twitter feeds, facebook feeds, photos, videos, and more into your stream so they too can be indexed by this powerful search.  The web just got a whole lot more real-time, and FriendFeed just got a whole lot more powerful.

I don’t have any research to back this up (too lazy to find it), just experience watching others and with my own experiments. I can’t think of a single time that an ad in traditional media led to sales that covered or exceeded the cost of the ad campaign. Taking out an ad in a newsletter doesn’t seem as effective as writing an article for them or a blog post. Or, better yet building up your own community through your blog.

I’d rather have affiliates selling my product for a commission than paying for an ad. I’d rather work with someone who has a strong following online.

I hear the success of working with bloggers and it’s usually where I start when I trying to think of ways to market a business. I started a Facebook Page for Utah bloggers precisely so local businesses could pitch us, like this local chiropractor (but I hope they’ll get people who want to try the service and write about it with a keyword rather than an ad):

Hello! We are looking for Utah bloggers to advertise with. If you are looking for advertising please send us a message and we would love to check out your blog.

Best Wishes,
Alisyn Shepro
Marketing Director
Hansen Chiropractic
www.thebackdoctors.com

Smart!

Seth Godin said:

“Visa…spent a million or more dollars on a very expensive, complex and largely ineffective online promotion last month–not because it was likely to work, but because it was well sold by persistent and effective salespeople. They should have sponsored your blog and 400 others instead.“

As promised, today Rich shares his secret of ‘walk and talk’ meetings and why they can be so helpful for your small business momentum.

In business, surprises are never good—even when they are a good surprise. Good or bad, you’ve done something wrong if you didn’t see it coming.

When I was the general manager of About.com’s Web Services division, I found myself working with a group of brilliant engineers. Despite their brilliance, one of the challenges the group faced was a continuous breakdown in communication. Management would give direction to the engineers on a project, and the engineers would then disappear into their cubicles for several weeks to work out the details.

It was like waiting for a baby to be born—boy or girl? Ten toes and fingers? Pretty or ugly? They would surface several weeks later and present their interpretation of what they had been asked to create. Sometimes, it would hit the mark; oftentimes, it would not.

After several of these “little surprises,” I established weekly “Walk and Talk Meetings.” Some organizations share a common problem: they talk, talk, talk the day away and never get down to work. This is not good. My division had the opposite problem; the engineers would go off on a long “walk, walk, walk,” reaching a destination (the surprise product or feature) that no one wanted in the first place. When I realized this, I created a new approach for our team: “Walk and talk, walk and talk, walk and talk.” Walking and talking involves frequent, brief check-ins to keep everything on course. We would touch base in a way designed to keep everyone moving in the right direction together, avoiding the need for major course corrections.

It sounds simple, but it became a weekly ritual that was not only productive but fun. I ended up tying rewards to it, setting benchmarks and then springing for group lunches or handing out incentives upon completion. This dramatically increased productivity and stopped our brilliant engineering group from wasting energy.

Porter’s Points – Walk and Talk

• To avoid surprises in your business, keep tabs on all assignments that you hand out. People quickly lose interest and momentum, though, so keep this contact brief and to the point.
• Come to meetings with goals made and plans in place. If something doesn’t help you toward a goal, don’t use it. Talk things over with your team, then make decisions quickly but wisely and make sure everybody understands the plans and goals.
• Some teams come with a little bit of inertia. Use reward systems to kick-start your own walking and talking. This will encourage the appropriate behavior and keep the inertia from settling in as you roll forward.

As an entrepreneur, do you typically act or react?  We’ll talk about the difference and why it’s important to distinguish between the two next time!

A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to chat with Mark Hovind, of Job Bait, about this recession.  Mark is a numbers nut… he is very analytical and loves trends and crunching numbers and stuff like that.

We talked about a particular graph he developed showing the trends of the recession… I had seen this graph before but listening to him talk about various points, like times in history, what the trends mean, his predictions, etc. was fascinating.  It was one of those times I wished I had my JibberJobber family/users on the call.

Fortunately, Mark agreed to talk about it on a webinar - there is limited seats available so hurry and register here.  We will do this webinar on Tuesday, July 21at 11am MST (that is 10am PST, noon CST, 1pm EST, and I have no idea what time it is in Arizona - you’ll have to do your own math on that).

If you have any questions for Mark, please leave them in the comments on this blog post.  Otherwise, GoToWebinar will allow you to ask questions during the webinar, but I guarantee we won’t get through all of the questions.

Here’s the graph we’ll talk about (we might go to other graphs):

Finally, I didn’t know what to call this webinar… some of these came to mind:

• Where is the recession headed?
• When will the recession end?
• What should I do in my job search, career, or business, at this stage of the recession?

I guess it could all be summed up with “where are we at, where are we headed, and what does this mean for me?”

If you want to learn more about Mark you can check him out here:

• Mark Hovind (JobBait.com) on Brands, Tag Lines, and “Getting It” (JibberJobber blog post)
• Networking Doesn’t Work (JibberJobber blog post)
• Are you a “Fierce” Job Hunter? (Total Picture Radio interview)

Sign up for this webinar here, and tell all of your friends about it!

I am married to the single greatest woman on this planet. There is no way I could do what I do without her understanding, support and unconditional love. I always knew that I would choose entrepreneurship as my “career”.  Most of the girls I dated somewhat seriously were a little bit frightened by the fact [...]

There is a type of caterpillar called a processionary caterpillar, so named because one will establish a direction and all the others will fall in very closely behind and move in the same path. As a matter of fact, the followers’ behaviors becomes so automatic that their eyes become half-closed as they shut out the world around them and let the leader do all the thinking and decision making about which direction to pursue. Their behavior is rote and automatic.

An experiment by the French naturalist Jean-Henri Fabre demonstrated the rigidity of the processionary caterpillars’ behavior when he enticed the leader to start circling the edge of the large flower pot. The other caterpillars followed suit in a tight process, forming a closed circle in which the distinctions between leader and follower became totally blurred, and the path had no beginning and no ending. Instead of soon getting bored with the nonproductive activity, the caterpillars kept up their mindless search for several days and nights until they dropped off the edge of the flowerpot from exhaustion and starvation. Relying totally on instinct, past experience, custom, and tradition, the caterpillars achieve nothing because they mistook activity for achievement.

I believe that employees can fall into the trap of blindly following their leader easily. Innovation and creativity, risk taking, and strategy is lost when they act like a drone rather than an individual leader of themselves and an example to others. While the business may not suffer if an individual contributor’s behaviors are automatic and without direction, the business may see drastic performance improvement if they have their “eyes wide open.”

If you find your employees are “circling the pot,” here are a few helpful tips for leaders to increase their motivation and hold them accountable for higher performance.

• Delegate assignments that are especially interesting to an employee and empower them to take the lead and own the assignment.

• Recognize and reward good displays of individual leadership (innovation and creativity, risk taking, strategy).

• Teach team members about being accountable.  Help them understand what it means to be accountable and the power and freedom that comes from doing your best.

• When a team member fails to act as an individual leader, debrief the experience and discuss better behaviors, attitudes, and actions for future situations.

• Talk openly about the importance of fulfilling responsibilities, as well as exceeding expectations.

For the last couple of decades I have wanted to get a HAM radio license. I never got really serious about it, but it was always there in the back of my head waiting for “someday.”

Someday finally arrived. The stars aligned a couple of weeks ago and I decided to just go out and do it soon. I discovered that there was a test scheduled monthly in Salt Lake and I decided to study and take the exam during one of the tests this summer. I started studying from a library book – Now Your Talking – on Monday. I already knew that much of the knowledge was common sense rules about being considerate and so yesterday when I looked to see what dates the test was to be administered I discovered that the first one was that evening. Haven taken some practice exams and seeing that I almost always got passing scores with the little study I had done, I decided to take the leap and take my test yesterday rather than agonizing over the material for another month. I took the test at 7:00 last night and passed on the first try (you can have three tries in one sitting). They encouraged me to take the test for the General class and I got closer to passing that than I would have expected.

Today my callsign got assigned and published in the FCC database so I am now KF7DQE – a HAM without a radio. (Of course I’ll be on the lookout for an appropriate rig.)

One of my favorite HR blogs is Punk Rock HR, written by Laurie Ruettimann.  Laurie just … tells it like it is.  Lots of surprises, and tons of honesty.

A few weeks ago she wrote a blog post about career options for HR professionals, based on a question she got from one of her blog readers.  The reader asks would she “suggest HR as a career?”

Laurie leaves the question to be answered by her readers… and this is where it gets really interesting.  Wonder why they say a job seeker should avoid HR?  Perhaps there is insight in some of these responses (you need to go to the original post to see all the comments, I’m only putting snippets here):

Ben Eubanks writes:

If you are wanting to be in HR because you’re a touchy-feely person, then I wouldn’t advise it.

Jen writes:

I would advise her to think of it as a career in babysiting. I hold hands when people get boo-boos, give them time outs and sometimes have to send them home. You also must have a high tolerence for crying, fighting and cleaning up messes.

HR Chick writes:

There are many days that you feel like someone’s admin assistant, nurse, counselor, mother, and babysitter. The reality is it can be frustrating and can make you jaded (if you let it).

Kerry says:

… HR is a people-watcher’s job, not a people-lover’s job.

There’s a ton more - go here to read the post.  The comments get pretty nasty… not towards an individual but towards the profession… to the point where Kerry says:  “Wow. We’re a really disgruntled group. Perhaps we ALL need ice cream.”

They really say to avoid HR in a job search because HR isn’t in a decision-making role, rather, they are in a screening role… but this post gives insight into another reason why you might want to avoid HR in your job search.

I like golf, but I don’t like paying expensive green fees. So unless I get a freebie, it’s all public courses for me. And the “best value” I’ve ever played is Hobble Creek in Springville, Utah, which is $12 for nine holes or $24 for 18 (weekday walking). As you can see, it’s crazy green, [...]

The Utah iPhone Developer Group has announced their next meeting. Here are the details. For those of you who are already working on iPhone apps, this is a great way to connect with the local iPhone developer community. If you are just getting started, or looking for resources to get your idea off the drawing board, come and interact with many of the leading app developers featured in iTunes. All are welcome.

Join us for the 2nd Utah iPhone developers meetup.

The first meeting was very well attended with over 60 people and standing room only.

For this meeting we have gotten a much larger room so we can all fit more comfortably.

DETAILS: Thursday July 9th at 6:30pm at the Technology Center at Novell, Building ‘A’

We have two terrific presenters scheduled for this meeting. Each has outstanding experience with leading apps in iTunes. We’ll hear about marketing iPhone apps as well as a summary from the recent Apple Developer Conference. We’ll be discussing the new iPhone 3.0, 3Gs, and the latest APIs.

• Evhret Milam - Creator of Green Wars for iPhone and one of the top teams in the Omniture/BYU iPhone application contests.
• Michael Alvarez - Creator of Showtimes and Yellow Pages Directory and a few others. As you can see from his wall post they now have over 2 million downloads.

Big thanks to Zagg for providing food for this event and UVEF for the facilities.

RSVP on Facebook. We look forward to seeing you all there.

Photo Copyright Stay N’ Alive Productions, LLC

“Stay”cations in my family aren’t just for vacationing near home!  This Tuesday, July 7, I’ll be packing up my stuff and heading on a road-trip with my family to Boston Massachusetts where my parents live to stay with them about a month.  The goal is to visit with family, see my new nephew soon to be born any day now, my twin nieces in New Jersey, and just to get out of Utah for a short bit.  Having lived overseas and out of state most of my life, I crave traveling so it will be a good trip.

While I’m out there I want to see you!  Thus far my schedule’s wide open.  On July 15 I’m told there will be a FriendFeed meetup (would that be called a Friend “Feed”?) at 5pm at the Cambridgeside Galleria Food Court.  I’ll be there, and you can RSVP by commenting on this thread on Friendfeed.  I’m also scheduled to meet a few SocialToo customers in New York, so I’ll probably take a trip out there while I’m visiting my Sister in New Jersey.  If you’d like to meet up in Boston, New York, New Jersey, or wherever I can go in driving distance, please let me know and we’ll see if we can get together!  I plan to be there until early August so we’ve got plenty of time to see one another (although I’m sure the time will fly!).  Also, please let me know if I’m missing your conference or you need a good speaker while I’m out there!

In the meantime you can track me starting July 7 via the Twitter hashtag, #staycation - maybe I’ll make a FriendFeed room out of it or something.  Plan on some great photos of Mount Rushmore, Niagra Falls, Chicago, and all the Boston and New York sites.  I’m excited for what should be a very fun trip!

@ChrisKnudsen tweeted this must read article from Entrepreneur magazine that has great advice like this. “Never assume all of the risk in exchange for half of the reward.” Or, another way of saying this: don’t do all the work for nothing…because if you work with types identified in this article you’re likely to have nothing to split.

Favorite quotes:
“Brilliant academics are not necessarily brilliant businessmen.”
“In lieu of a partnership, first consider licensing deals or strategic partnerships.” (I’m not sure what the difference is between strategic partnerships and partnerships.)

My advice… The quicker they are to offer ownership in exchange for payment, the more doubts I have. If you’re really going to make money you don’t want to bring on more partners to share the profits with. I’ve never seen this work.

The types mentioned in the article ring so true that it’s funny!

We also discussed business to business sales and how when working with potential clients avoid those who don’t return calls or emails. They aren’t ready or aren’t interested. That sounds obvious but it’s my first weeding out.

Example (for some reason I hear more examples of PR firms this year so I’m using them in this example but it applies to all kinds of partnerships):

PR firm: Let’s work together! Send us everything (many requests follow).

Me: Send something, get no response. Or get response months later at the last minute.
Message: We’re too busy to talk to you.
Me: Stop all work.

I’m often jealous of people who have good business partnerships because it’s something I haven’t been able to pull off. I always attract the same sort of person. Maybe it’s a reflection of my own weaknesses! But starting next week I’m going to work for my husband part time and it’s our first anniversary. The marriage partnership is going great - hopefully this new one will too!

Any advice to share from your partnerships?

There was a time, once long ago in our history, that being a United States Senator was a dignified position of respect.  Now with witless morons like Barbara Boxer stating that she has to “work so hard” to get a title of Senator running as a socialist in California.  (seriously, does she have ANY idea what it takes to become a General!?!?!) Then we have our local idiot Senator’s Bennett and Hatch.  Not to mention Senator Harry the traitor Reid from Nevada.  Being a Senator is becoming more and more about …. I don’t even know what, but it’s NOT about being a Statesman!

And now, to cap it all off - the town fool, the idiot of idiots, the biggest moron in showbiz - Al Franken gets elected as a Senator!?!  Seriously???  Where the hec am I!  THIS is the best you’ve got Minnesota???  How could you vote for a man like this??? Who in the world voted for this LOON?  Oh wait.  Maybe I get it.

Minnesota’s State Bird is the Loon.   Apparently the voters of Minnesota, who also can’t figure out how to fill in the little circle properly on their electoral ballots, MUST have thought they were voting for their State Bird!  It’s really the only logical explanation I can come up with.  Unless the citizens of Loon-ville decidedto play a big practical joke on the country.  Or, maybe it was all Franken’s platitudes of “I’m smart enough, I’m good enough, and doggonit people like me!”.

Whatever it is, nice move Minnesota.  This jacked up idiot is gonna get in the Senate just in time to vote YES on the Cap and Trade bill - the biggest tax hike in our country’s history.

A great way to make sure that you’re exerting momentum, and not just motion, is to have and use a giant whiteboard for tracking your employees’ tasks.  Rich tells us just how to do that today:

I know a manager who insisted on having only stand-up meetings. If he couldn’t accomplish what needed to be done within five minutes, he wouldn’t meet at all.

My favorite way to handle meetings is to gather my team around a whiteboard and give each person a chance to answer the question, “What are your tasks today?” We all take turns writing a brain dump of each and every single item on our to-do list for the day. At this point, we don’t try to prioritize.

As soon as it’s all up on the whiteboard, we ask ourselves, “Which are the most critical items on the list? Which ones are vital to move us forward and make us successful?” Typically, 10 percent of the list ends up in this category, marked with a big, red A. The rest get marked as Bs, Cs, and on down to Ds, helping us organize precisely what we need to focus on.

We all have our favorite tasks, but we won’t get anywhere by just working in our comfort zones all day long. Using the whiteboard this way is like putting a steering wheel on your day—you steer the ship and sail each hour exactly where you need to go.

A nice side benefit to this exercise is that everyone has a good handle on what everyone else is doing. This enhances collaboration and community, and helps keep the energy up. It also provides a clear division of responsibility, prevents you from doubling up on the same tasks, and keeps your group from accidentally leaving some assignments untouched. Finally, it gets you back to work more quickly.

Porter’s Points – The Five-Minute Whiteboard

• How long do you spend in meetings each week? Cut that in half.
• Buy a whiteboard if you don’t already have one (and make it a big one). This way, everybody can see how their tasks tie into yours and yours into theirs.
• You will be tempted to coordinate and troubleshoot simply by using email. Save email for mundane needs; when it comes to saving time, focus on ensuring understanding. A five-minute, face-to-face session of whiteboarding can save a five-hour, frustrating flurry of emailing.
• When you whiteboard, you control your team’s momentum. Everybody has their to-do list, but you need to be sure that the A priorities drive your team to accomplish your company goals.
• Review that day’s or week’s goals before and after, allowing everyone to brainstorm so you can all get back to work with speed and precision.

So go get a whiteboard! And get ready for next time when we talk about walking and talking…

The June 22, 2009 edition of Time magazine was a fabulous edition with excellent coverage and editorials filling its pages. The best article was the Postcard page highlighting a volunteer at Japan’s Tojinbo Cliffs, a story I later found out was previously covered by the BBC in October 2008.

Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, with one out of 5 men and women seriously considering taking his/her life.  In the past, economic recessions have increased this count, a result being seen again in today’s economic environment.

Yukio Shige, a retired policeman, has spent the last 5 years patrolling the Tojinbo cliffs, a place where many desperate folks come to commit suicide by jumping the 82 feet into the Sea of Japan.  Since 2004 he has roamed the cliffs 2 or 3 times a day in hopes of finding these people in need, trying to dissuade them from the act.  When successful, he takes them back to his counseling office, offers them tea, listens to their troubles, and then proceeds to help them resolve the issues including personally going with them to confront people.  He has been funding his work through donations and his retirement funds, saving over 180 lives to date.

Inspirational!

What can we do to help others in these rough economic waters?  Many of us obviously do not have the time or money to make an impact like Shige, but we definitely can do smaller acts. How about freely opening up the rolodex to make an introduction for a job seeking friend?  Perhaps take time to visit with someone over lunch?  Volunteer to help those in greater need? Try to better understand the depression others could be feeling and the best ways to respond? Inquire how you can be of assistance?

What are your thoughts?

There are lots of ways of finding target companies… here’s one that might make sense for you.

Google your town/state and “Venture Capital” or “Venture Fund.”  You are looking for local venture capital websites.  Venture capitalists are the people who help fund companies, whether they are startups, or larger companies who need some money.  You can think of them as an alternative to the bank.

Dealing with VCs isnt’ fun.  I have yet to find a VC who doesn’t think he is god.  I say he because I personally don’t know any women who are VCs.  If you don’t like dealing with people who think they are god (I don’t), then this post is quite important (because you aren’t going to deal with them, unless you are at a very senior level).

Collect a list of VC firms in your area (OF COURSE you’ll put them into JibberJobber).  Then, look on their website for their Portfolio (that is, the list of companies they have funded).  Here’s a screen capture from a company that is local to me:

Drill down on any of the categories and you’ll have a list you can filter through… these can become your target companies in your job search.

Why?

Because they have some level of funding (this is good, so you can get paid), and because a VC firm is behind them they usually have other perks (insurance, vacation, etc.).  They are also on some kind of fast-track to success, hopefully (doesn’t mean they will be successful), and are probably looking at some kind of big win for the investors (VCs) - this could mean they are acquired, go IPO, etc.  It would be a fun ride, and you might be able to cash in on stock when that time happens.

This isn’t for everyone, especially the people who are looking for job security in big companies like GE, Ford, Enron….

But it’s a great way to look for local companies you may not have heard of but should be on your list.  Once you find these companies you can try and network in through the VC (good luck), or you can go around the VC firm and network directly into the company through the company employees.

Sound like a good idea?

The business community united to show their support of entrepreneurism last week in anticipation of the announcement of the first annual Utah Angel Investor of the Year. After narrowing the field to the 3 finalists of Scott Frazier, Nobu Mutaguchi, and Alan Hall; the capacity crowd applauded as Scott Frazier was named the 2009 Angel Investor of the Year.

As Frazier accepted his award, it was easy to see why he has been so successful in his business career. He quickly shifted the attention from himself and pointed out several colleagues who have also made significant contributions to the entrepreneurial community here in Utah. Frazier said, “If they were giving this award out for being good at specific aspects of investing, there are many others who are more qualified than me.”

Along with the Investor of the Year Award, we thought it was fitting to recognize an individual who may not be making significant monetary contributions to entrepreneurs, but provides significant guidance and education to help them fulfill their dreams. Though many were qualified to win this award, Greg Warnock stood out for his years of mentorship through Junto, Mercato Partners and other worthwhile endeavors.

It was incredible to see the business community come together to recognize these individuals and support the entrepreneurial spirit here in Utah. While we were expecting anywhere from 150-200, we were pleased to see almost 300 in attendance and packing the room to the limit. Next year we will definitely have to find a bigger venue to host the luncheon.

Recently, one of the participants in our Applied Strategic Thinking Workshop asked if the material being presented was available in an E-Learning format or if we had considered making it available on-line.  Though, I had my answer before he even finished his question, I asked the rest of the group how they would answer his question.  Overwhelmingly the group said what they were learning in the classroom could not be duplicated by e-learning.  In fact, the person who asked the question actually felt the same way.  He just wanted to probe a group of 20 of his peers on this topic because the leaders in his organization seem to believe that everything can be done electronically.

All things done electronically

What an interesting concept—all things done electronically.  It has some truth to it.  Many things can be done electronically or will be in the future.  I mean, whoever thought text messaging would be a common norm for just about everyone.  However, it doesn’t mean messages can be received equally.  When getting a text from someone, you cannot distinguish the tone in which it was sent.  Facial expressions, tone of voice, and physical stance gives the intended receiver a clearer message.  The same can be said about teaching sessions.

The Best Leadership Training

While teaching concepts and content can be done on the Internet, it doesn’t mean we can guarantee the same results as we would get with traditional classroom training.  For example, I saw an advertisement for a self-study leadership program.  It “GUARANTEES” that the person will become a “PHENOMENALLY SUCCESSFUL” leader after viewing four 60 minute programs and reading a participant guide which was all on 1 DVD.  I am very curious as to how many successful leaders would agree that a 4-hour self-study program would translate into a successful leader?  Leadership is about what you help others achieve, not about where you take yourself.  It is about interaction.

Electronic Teaching has a place

This group agreed that e-learning, web based learning, and computer based training does have a place.  CMOE’s Applied Strategic Thinking does not give the same return on investment in an electronic format.  The same is true for our Coaching Skills workshop and several of our leadership development programs.  The human element that exists in developing these types of skills simply can’t be fully replicated on-line.  On the flip side, you could see great results using an online training program for product information or employee orientation.  It certainly would save time.  What we have found is that a blended learning approach can work well.  Combining traditional classroom training with e-learning tools to prepare and then sustain what is done in the classroom can be a powerful combination for long term success.

In the end, it’s isn’t a matter of one training method being better than the other. What it really boils down to is selecting the best training method that will get the results you want.  While you can attempt to teach human interaction skills through a computer, it won’t be truly effective without human interaction.  Regardless of your choice, remember that in general, you get what you pay for.

I just had a question about newsletters and thought I’d post my thoughts. I spoke to Joan Stewart of Publicity Hound last week. She asked me why I don’t collect email addresses. I didn’t have a good answer except that I haven’t. So I’m not an expert on email newsletters. I’ve read about them but haven’t done one consistently, but here are my thoughts.

Email Newsletter Tips

• Spend time looking at newsletters you like and borrow elements that you like.

• Consider running a design contest to come up with an effective design. This usually involves having a design made then someone to mark it up (coding). I like Digital Point Forums or 99 Designs. I’m horrible at design and picky (a terrible client) and this helps me get a broad range of designs to choose from. It’s also more fun. It’s also great when you’re on a budget.

• Reuse content as much as possible (from your blog, what people have said to you on twitter, customer comments and questions, etc). This blog post came from a question I answered by email and I just expanded it into a full post.
• Do you currently capture email addresses for newsletters on your blog and web site? Remember that your own list is more effective than one you buy. Also consider asking another company who has a complimentary but not competitive position in the market  if you can write something for their audience. In return put a link to sign up for your newsletter.
• Promote your social networking sites where people can interact with you (places to find products, featured product testimonials, video and photos). Link to your Facebook Page, your YouTube channel, your Twitter account, your blog, etc.

I like the idea of a giveaway for those who sign up for your newsletter and/or post to you on a social network with a story, a photo, video, etc relating to your company. I need to do this (give away copies of my book).

I also found this advice about newsletters:

Give readers actionable content - information they can use right away to solve a problem. You just need to know what your readers’ problems are.

How do you find out what’s on your readers’ minds? Survey them. You can ask, “What is the one problem that’s nagging you that you really want to solve?” If you ask that kind of question, then you’re going to get a variety of answers, and you’ll know what you should be writing about.

I’d probably go with Aweber for its solid reputation but I’m also an affiliate of Constant Contact makes it easy and affordable to build strong relationships with your customers. Try our FREE 60-Day Trial. ">Constant Contact (free 60 day trial) which is probably the easiest to figure out. Aweber though is known for being whitelisted (less email providers marking your newsletter as spam that goes straight to trash). Since you share the same server with groups then a spammer can get the entire group banned.

Since email newsletters are not my expertise I’d like to hear what you think. Comments?

Every other week we do a one hour tutorial on JibberJobber - you can see the schedule and register here (the next webinar is this Wednesday).

I finally got around to recording a new version of this webinar, so you don’t have to wait to jump on the live webinar (where you can ask questions and sometimes we go off on more advanced tangents)… here are the first two parts of the one hour webinar.

You can see all of these, and more, on the JibberJobber Vimeo channel.

Part 1

Part 2

Updated 7/1 with Part 3!

Part 3

If you click where the red arrow is pointing on either of the videos you’ll pop the video out so it’s full screen.

“The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, and they can’t believe you if they don’t know what you’re saying, and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you, and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting, and you won’t be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, [...]

Starting tonight, any Facebook Public Profile Page (that’s Page with a capital “P”) with over 100 subscribers has the opportunity to select its own vanity URL.  While it hasn’t had the hype from the blogosphere that we saw from the previous private Profile vanity URLs, it does seem to be having a large effect, as Facebook has slowed down tonight, even more than when the private Profile vanities were released.  Get yours now while you can - you can reserve yours for both your Public Pages and private Profiles via the http://facebook.com/username link.  Please comment below if you want some help reaching the 100 fan limit!

As with any and all of my social network profiles, please don’t hesitate to friend me!  My most active profiles are listed over on the upper-right of this blog, but if you Google “Jesse Stay” you can find just about everywhere I belong.  Tonight I was able to reserve short URLs for my most active Pages - please become a fan or friend me!:

My personal Facebook Profile: http://jessestay.socialtoo.com

My public Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/socialdeveloper

SocialToo’s public Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/socialtoo

I’m on Facebook–Now What??? (my first book)’s public Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/fbbook

FBML Essential (my second book)’s public Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/fbmlessentials

We’re Baptist’s public Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/baptists

We’re Catholic’s public Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/catholicsocial

Don’t forget to join SocialToo (my service) to get your own personalized vanity URL.  yourusername.socialtoo.com will redirect to your Facebook profile, and we’ll track statistics for everyone that clicks on your URL.  It’s the only URL you’ll ever need to hand out to others.  Oh, and see the above URLs? Expect a solution for those soon as well.  Sign up for yours at http://socialtoo.com.

The time since my election as Salt Lake ColdFusion User Group manager has gone incredibly fast. Elected in April, 2005, I’ve since helped host some incredible, in-person, talks (Sean Corfield, Charlie Arehart, Gert Franz), put on a killer local conference (2008’s RIA Dev Shed), and continued the proud service to local developers since the group’s founding in 1999. Helping evangelize ColdFusion as leader for nearly half of its lifetime could only be described a labor of love.

However, the time has come for me to step down as manager. Internally, the Adobe User Group program is going through some challenges. Simultaneously, I find the success of my own company, Vox Pop Design, requiring an increasingly larger amount of my time. Further, after more than four years it is time for someone with a fresh perspective to take things to a new, reinvigorated, level.

Certainly, this does not signal a disillusionment with CFML. I remain convinced that CFML is the best choice for Rapid Application Development. The emergence of OpenBD and Railo gives ColdFusion developers incredible new options. Finally, ColdFusion’s continued vital role in Flex and the newly announced ColdFusion services mean that the next leader is guaranteed to have lots of exciting topics to cover.

There is no scheduled meeting for the month of July. On August 12th I’ll hold nominations for both assistant manager and manager (manager will be first as to allow those interested in being manager but not receiving enough votes to re-apply for assistant manager). I’ll ask for those interested to speak up, give a paragraph or two as to why they want the position and what they hope to accomplish, and then we’ll do paper ballots to determine a winner.

Again, it has been a privilege being your ColdFusion User Group Leader. You have taught me so much and I can’t wait to see where the next manager is able to take things!

Since today seems to be a slow news day and some sites seem to be anxious for traffic I thought I’d put my hand into the ring for a piece of that traffic (hey, at least I’m being transparent). Let’s start by saying I really like Mike Arrington, founder of TechCrunch.  Quite honestly, I gained a new respect for the way he handled and explained the misunderstanding which happened between him and Leo Laporte on a recent (and possibly the last) episode of the Gillmor Gang. I do think he is a genuinely nice guy with good intentions and an amazing brain for business - I highly respect him for that.  I think we could be good friends in person.  He quite often gets a lot of flack  which I think is undeserved - I think that gets to him at times.

That said, I think his recent article comparing FriendFeed to “Syphilis”, a rapidly spreading disease that will kill those in its path until it evolves is quite unfounded. First of all, I’m only aware of 3 people that has happened to (quit FriendFeed, not contract Syphilis), which happened only recently, and only after Mike Arrington started this idea that “Mobs” were killing FriendFeed.  Each one of those cases (besides Arrington’s) were people that only post to the service and rarely interact.  One of them even admitted he just didn’t have time for an extra service - a somewhat legitimate answer.

I also admit that about a year ago there was one additional “mob-driven” departure from FriendFeed during the political campaigns - a Conservative (most of those leaving seem to have been conservatives claiming to have been driven out by their Liberal counterparts on FriendFeed - note that I am also a Conservative) left briefly from the service due to disagreements and attacks on his own Political views.  He is back in full force on FriendFeed today.  I admit, it’s hard to be a Conservative on FriendFeed and express your political opinions (I usually choose not to).  Heck, it’s hard to be Conservative on the internet in general!  The organized nature of FriendFeed, while it has this con (which does not stand for Conservative), is still a very strong platform for organizing well-thought-out conversations.

However, there are 2 sides to this “Mob War”.  Remember last July when I decided to leave Twitter?  Check out the comments of that post - they look very similar to that of my friend who recently decided to do the same with FriendFeed.  That was just my blog (I especially like the one that called me a “self-centered douche” - that made me want to stay on Twitter even longer) - the problem is I have no way to organize all the comments that occured on Twitter which were  offensive or hurtful. You should have seen how bad it got after that post made it on TechMeme (which wasn’t my intent for that post - I had only been on Techmeme about once before that post I think).  TechCrunch’s rage towards FriendFeed is easy to understand - FriendFeed is much easier to point the finger at because the discussion, both the good and the bad and even the ugly, is all in one place.

Is it a Mob or a Groundswell?

Now let’s look at another side of the coin.  Remember that term, “Groundswell”?  If you haven’t, go check out the book by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li tomorrow from the Library, or purchase it from Amazon.  All this “Mob” stuff sounds very familiar - in fact, it was originally termed by Forrester as a “Groundswell” - in Bernoff and Li’s book they define it as “A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations”.  That sounds awfully similar to a mob, with the exception of the Technology part.  So would this more accurately be called a “Groundswell” instead of a mob?

One example they cited was that of Digg’s users rioting against Digg due to its original stance on the HD-DVD encryption key.  Those users wanted to see Digg pay for their actions.  I’m sure it hurt a lot reading some of the things which were said at that time.  Digg rectified the situation and listened to those complaining, and turned around the entire movement to a “Mob” or “Groundswell” promoting Digg and fighting the AACS instead.  Mobs can be controlled, but a mob’s still a mob, no matter which side they’re on.  Was that a Mob or a Groundswell?  What about when Digg turned it around to their benefit?

The problem with today’s “Groundswell” is it now targets the personal brand as well as the corporation.  We see that in Arrington’s situation, as well as several others that have recently been targeted.  It could have happened on Twitter.  It could have happened on Youtube, or Digg, or anywhere else.  The fact is when someone the majority likes is targeted, or the service the majority likes is targeted, or has the appearance of being attacked, the mob goes in defense mode, attacking back.  When this is someone’s personal brand we’re talking about and not just a corporation or entity, it hurts a lot more.  It’s impossible to not take at least some of the comments seriously - we’re all human after all.

At the same time, Groundswells can be used for good as well.  Look at what Drew Olanaff is doing with his #blamedrewscancer on Twitter.  He’s gotten me to donate $25 a month to the American Cancer Society because of it, along with many others.  Or look at what is happening in Iran - I’m sure it looks like a “Mob” to the Iranian government.  It’s still a Groundswell no matter which way you put it.

I still think the recent article on TechCrunch is wrong in targeting only FriendFeed in this matter.  The words he used were quite harsh, and unfair to the service’s hard-working founders whose service has been working far better than that of the hard-working founders of Twitter.  Arrington seems to be offended (or looking for traffic for his upcoming conference - it’s hard to tell), and riling up his own Groundswell against the service - perhaps this is just his response to the Groundswell.  Just check out the comments on his post, then read the comments on Scoble’s FriendFeed response and those comments that are being deleted from TechCrunch.  If that’s not the case I really don’t understand the strong words against the service, and why TechCrunch is seemingly only targeting one service in all this.

Mike Arrington calls this a “Mob” - I call it a “Groundswell”.  Is there really a difference?

Here’s a great video portraying in real-life how quickly a “Mob” or “Groundswell” can be formed:

According to new research co-authored by a Brigham Young University business professor, better decisions come from teams that include a "socially distinct newcomer."

That's psychology-speak for someone who is different enough to bump other team members out of their comfort zones.

Researchers noticed this effect after conducting a traditional group problem-solving experiment. The twist was that a newcomer was added to each group about five minutes into their deliberations. And when the newcomer was a social outsider, teams were more likely to solve the problem successfully.

The research is published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

"One of the most-cited benefits of diversity is the infusion of new ideas and perspectives," said study co-author Katie Liljenquist, assistant professor of organizational leadership at BYU's Marriott School of Management. "And while that very often is true, we found the mere presence of a newcomer who is socially distinct can really shake up the group dynamic. That leads to discomfort, but also to a better process that ultimately yields superior outcomes."

The key factor is simply whether newcomers are distinct in some way from the other group members.

What explains the results?

According to Liljenquist, newcomers in the experiment didn't necessarily ask tougher questions, possess novel information, or doggedly maintain a conflicting point of view. Just being there was enough to change the dynamic among old-timers who shared a common identity.

When a member of the group discovered that he agreed with the new outsider, he felt alienated from his fellow old-timers - consequently, he was very motivated to explain his point of view on its merits so that his peers wouldn't lump him in with the outsider.

The person who found himself disagreeing with the in-group - and instead agreeing with an outsider - felt very uncomfortable. An opinion alliance with an outsider put his social ties with other team members at risk.

"Socially, that can be very threatening," Liljenquist says. "These folks are driven to say, 'Wait, the fact that I disagree with this outsider doesn't make me weird. Something more is going on here; let's figure out what's at the root of our disagreement.' The group then tends to analyze differing opinions and critical information much more thoroughly, and that facilitates much better decision-making results."

Another revelation

The experiment also revealed a fallacy in the assumptions we make about our own effectiveness in groups. The subjects in the experiment were members of different fraternities and sororities. In general, when the newcomer was from the same sorority or fraternity as the other team members, the group reported that it worked well together, but was less likely to correctly solve the problem.

In contrast, when the newcomer was a member of a rival sorority or fraternity, the opposite was true - these groups felt they worked together less effectively, yet they significantly outperformed socially homogenous groups.

"What's really distinct about this research is that, from a self-reporting perspective, what people perceive to be beneficial turns out to be dead wrong," Liljenquist says. "The teams that felt they worked least effectively together were ironically the top performers!"

Link to original article

Recently someone on StackOverflow.com asked me to explain how to compute the defect removal rate for release candidate software.  There are two methods for producing this number and I teach both in several of my seminars, but I’ll explain the simpler method in this post…

Lawrence Putnam presented this model in his 1992 Book titled Measures for Excellence.  His book reads more like a math text than a software development guide, and suffers from an unfortunate formula typo which has lead to widespread confusion about his models in the industry, but I will  explain his defect removal rate calculation process.  (I hired a math wizard to examine his data and correct the formula!)

1. For a typical project, code is produced at a rate which resembles a Rayleigh curve.  A Rayleigh curve looks like a bell curve with a long-tail.  See my ASCII graphics below:

        ||||
    |||||||||||
 |||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||||||||||||||

2. Error ‘creation’ typically happens in parallel and proportional to code creation.  So, you can think of errors created (or injected) into code as a smaller Rayleigh curve:

        ||||
    |||+++|||||
 ||||+++++|||||
||||+++++++||||||||

where ‘|’ represents code, and ‘+’ represents errors

3. Therefore, as defects are found, their ‘detection rate’ will also follow a Rayleigh curve.  At some point your defect discovery rate will peak and then start to lesson.  This peak, or apex, is about 40% of the volume of a Rayleigh curve.

4. So, when your defect rate peaks and starts to diminish, factor the peak as 40% of all defects found, then use regression analysis to calculate how many defects are still in the code and not found yet. 

By regression analysis I mean if you found 37 defects at the apex after three weeks of testing, you know two things:  37 = 40% of defects in code, so code contains ~ (37 * 100/40) = ~ 93 errors total, and your finding about 10.2 defects per week, so total testing time will be about 9 weeks.

Of course, this assumes complete code coverage and a constant rate of testing.

Hope this is clear.

Mike J. Berry
www.RedRockResearch.com

My friend, Phil Burns, recently wrote a very rare blog post citing a discussion this morning at the monthly Utah CTO breakfast, hosted by another friend of mine, Phil Windley (former CTO of Utah).  Burns stated his concerns with the “anti-Microsoft people” (which I am not, nor am I anti-Apple or anti-Linux) and the fact that they were complaining about how hard it was to automatically sync all your contacts, calendar, and mail on their phones from services such as Gmail and other 3rd-party services.  Burns’ (I’ll call him by his last name here so as not to confuse him with Phil Windley) point was that he already gets this service on his Windows-based phone and laptop through Exchange.  Valid point.  However, I think those at the breakfast were uneducated on the matter that Gmail now supports Exchange sync and push services to the iPhone.  Push sync of all contacts and calendar events are completely possible using Google services on the iPhone.  I don’t blame those complaining though, since the documents explaining how to do it are extremely hard to find via Google’s own search.  I thought I’d explain how to set that up here:

What you’ll need

First of all, the only things you’ll need are a Gmail account, a Google Calendar account, and an iPhone.  That’s it.  You’ll also need to have the 2.2.1 or above iPhone firmware since that is when they started supporting Exchange (at least I believe that’s the reason).  For push e-mail, a Mobile Me account will be needed, but Google is set to enable that in the future as well.

Calendar and Contacts Set up

1. To set up push sync of your Google contacts and calendar events to your phone, simply go to your iPhone settings, select “Mail, Contacts and Calendars”, and then select “Add Account”.  Here’s the trick though - instead of selecting “Gmail”, you’ll need to select “Exchange”.
2. On the following screen you’ll be asked for several fields - enter your gmail e-mail address in the “e-mail” field.  Leave “domain” blank.  Your “username” is your gmail e-mail address - the full address with @gmail.com or @googlemail.com, prefixed by your username.  Then enter your Google account password in the “password” field.
   
3. On the following screen you’ll be asked to verify the certificate - choose “Accept”.
   
4. Then, on the next screen you’ll see the same screen again, but there will be a “Server” field.  Enter “m.google.com” for the domain and select “Next.
   
5. On the following screen you’ll have the option to turn on mail, contacts, and/or calendars.  Turn contacts and calendars on, leave mail off.  As you select each option you’ll have the opportunity to delete your current iPhone contacts and just start fresh with your Google contacts and calendars or leave them there and add your Google contacts/calendar on top of it all.  Hit “Done” when you’re ready.
   
6. You’re done!  Now when you go to your Calendar app you can update the calendar, it auto-updates Google calendars, and you get updates immediately as they come from Google calendar itself.  Your Gmail contacts work the same way.  Now you can sync all your contacts’ phone numbers, addresses, and other data from your computer to your iPhone, and have those immediately update Google with the new data, giving you a complete Google address book (and no need for Plaxo!).  Add to that Google Voice, which just started handing out invites to new users today, you’ve got a pretty powerful, real-time contact and calendaring system right on your phone!

What about e-mail?

E-mail currently does not work via push yet for Gmail and the iPhone.  However, I’ve found the IMAP-based setup that the Gmail options in the phone give are quite fast and pretty close to real-time.  Be sure to set that up, and turn off the contacts and calendar for Gmail on that particular setting when you do, since you’re already retrieving those through the Exchange connector.

One other option you could always do is to get a Mobile Me account just for the e-mail and iPhone location services (Apple will notify you where your iPhone is at all times, let you send a message to the phone, or even completely erase it if you tell them to).  Then you could forward all your Gmail mail to Mobile Me through your Gmail forward settings, and retrieve it that way.  With the proper set up and filters, your mail will continue to archive in Gmail while letting you get mail real-time via push through Mobile Me.  I think for mail IMAP is generally sufficient though.

So there you have it - push contacts and calendaring for your iPhone, through Gmail.  It’s completely possible, and 100% supported by Google and Microsoft (I’m told they purchased Exchange licenses just for this).  Soon I’ll have to share how I’m doing the same thing natively on my Mac.

For those that know(eth) me, I am an avid iPhone user.  I wasn’t always a fan, and in fact publicly wrote a post on why I wasn’t going to get an iPhone.  It lured me in though, and I’ve even moved from an unlocked, contract-free T-Mobile plan to the horrid service AT&T provides in order to get full 3G speeds.  I even renewed that plan just last week as I got a new iPhone 3G S.  However, today, as they were charging Adam Savage (of Mythbusters fame) $11,000 for his cell phone bill (I had no idea about that whole “movement” until later after I got home), they crossed the line for me as well.  Here’s the story:

3 days ago, after successfully selling my phone on Ebay and purchasing a new one under the standard upgrade plan for the same price, we decided to do the same for my wife’s iPhone 3G.  The idea was supposed to be we sell it on Ebay, get the money, and use the money from the sale to purchase a new one at the same price as we sold the old one for - that’s just how much they’re selling for (I didn’t make the rules)!  We purchased the phone in September of 2008, still in the limits AT&T set to qualify for iPhone standard upgrade pricing (the lower pricing option).  At the same time, I’m paying over $200 to AT&T each month with a family plan between myself and her, and an additional USB data plan on top of it all.  It would seem plenty of my money is going towards AT&T, and I thought we would qualify - after all my own phone qualified just fine.

So I went to the http://apple.com/iphone/buy site to authorize my wife’s phone and verify it did qualify for the standard upgrade pricing, and to my surprise, it said she didn’t, and she wouldn’t until May 6, 2010!  I was blown away, considering AT&T might want to keep her around and right around the time she can finally leave is the time she has to wait to get her new iPhone.  This is especially considering the amount of money I am paying AT&T each month to get her plan.

So I called AT&T to find out what was going on.  The lady on the phone was really nice (I even sent out a Tweet about how great AT&T service actually was), and while she tried to explain why my wife wouldn’t qualify, she quickly realized my wife actually did qualify.  She put me on hold several times, I’m assuming asking others what was going on, and finally she got permission to call the store and let them know I qualified for the new phone.  I had her call the Gateway Apple Store in Salt Lake City, Utah (my state of residence), and she put me on hold to call them.  When she came back, she said they had let her know all would be fine if I came in, and to just leave detailed notes on my behalf to explain the situation.  She left very detailed notes, and said I would be just fine getting my wife’s new phone under the new plan.  I took this as AT&T’s approval to get the phone under the lower, standard upgrade price plan.

So excited, we put my wife’s 3G phone up for bid on Ebay on a 3-day auction.  The phone easily sold in 3 days for $300 (which is low compared to other phones selling right now), and we were finally ready to get her new phone.  I quickly transferred money around and headed off to the Apple store, excited to get my wife what I’ve been experiencing over the past week.

After a 30 minute drive to the Apple Store, and even feeling a little sick, I was ready and excited to get my phone.  I get into the store, it is packed as usual, and I look around, and not surprisingly I noticed there was a line for the iPhone.  I stood in line for about 20 minutes (a breeze compared to the opening day when I got mine), and finally get to talk to an Apple rep to get my new phone.  I tell him my story, and to my surprise, he responds with “We can’t do anything - we’re stuck with what AT&T tells us on the apple.com/iphone/buy site.”  I explained what the AT&T rep had told me and he said his hands were tied.  He suggested I go to the AT&T store, just about a block away in the same Mall.

So, still feeling sick, and rather disappointed, I headed over to the AT&T store.  I got there, and waited for about another 30 minutes while AT&T reps helped other customers, some that came in after me.  Finally one of them noticed me waiting, and asked if he could help.  I told him my story and he looked up my account.  I still have no clue if he even cared to look at the notes for my account, but he was definitely persistent that there was nothing he could do for me.  He even went to the extent of stating that the AT&T customer service reps on the phone are “often wrong” and they “get that all the time”.  I neglected to mention to him that this particular rep even contacted the Apple Store about it, and seemed to infer that she “does that all the time” as well - I should have.  This guy in the AT&T store even said he had complained to his boss about the same issues with some friends of his and couldn’t do anything about it.

Needless to say I went home very disappointed, wasting a few hours of my day for something I was told over the phone was completely possible.  Not to mention the fact that I had now sold my wife’s old iPhone, contract still in hand, and nothing to replace it with.  I’m furious!

So what’s going on?  Who do I believe?  It would seem that some at AT&T feel they have the authority to say what is and isn’t authorized.  However, when you get to the people that can actually sell the phones, that flexibility is all of the sudden gone, and the customer service has disappeared.  Often I would think it should be the other way around but this is AT&T after all - just search for their issues on Twitter.  (not to mention I just noticed they charged me a Poison Control surcharge - FOR MY USB DATA PLAN)  It would appear that AT&T has become so big that the customer has been caught in a tug-o-war with their own employees, a very sad situation.

As for what to do?  Well, I’m going to have to risk my years-long reputation on Ebay and take back the auction someone was anxiously hoping they had won, not because I changed my mind, but because AT&T won’t let me.  I will forever blame AT&T if my reputation is adversely affected from this.  At the same time when my wife can finally upgrade her phone, you better believe we’re switching to a new service - AT&T has shut the door on themselves on this one.

AT&T has the opportunity to make this right, and they should for not just those with a voice - they need to fix their customer service process.  Get people on Twitter and Facebook and FriendFeed and start learning the issues people are having.  Search the blogosphere.  Then, fix those problems internally.  Give everyone the customer interfaces flexibility to bend the rules occasionally.  Make the customer right again - the customer should be AT&T’s most valuable asset.  I don’t feel like that right now.  Heck, I feel like a piece of dirty laundry they just hung out to dry.

#ATTFAIL

This is an older post that I wanted to revive to see what has changed, where I have changed and what my Twitter friends might add to the conversation. I was thinking tonight about the things I use and do regularly that have had a positive impact on my career as a self-made entrepreneur. Some of [...]

A few months ago I twittered about wanting to hire someone to travel for the next 365 days throughout North America for a special project (which is still in the works.) I even suggested the person may have to legally change their name, in the publicity-stunt spirit of Half.com, Oregon or DotCom Guy from Texas.

Within an hour or so I had 9 candidates who direct messaged me on Twitter or replied on Facebook wanting to learn more! This amazed me, and a few of them have reminded me over the past few months of their strong interest in such an adventure — an all-expense paid year of travel to every state, learning, blogging, meeting people, getting local publicity, doing deals.

As I said, this project is still in the planning stages, but we are now considering another project for a different division of our company that may also attract the interest of some adventurous retired couples or young couples who want to travel for a year and help us form partnerships all across the country.

I call this the GenSeeker Project.

GenSeek.com is a forthcoming website being built in partnership between FamilyLink.com and FamilySearch.org. It features a new version of the FamilySearch Catalog, and a myriad of social and Web 2.0 features that will enhance the usefulness of what is already the largest catalog of genealogy sources in the world.

There are millions of sources of genealogical and local history contest that have not yet been catalogued by the team in Salt Lake City. The new web site will enable libraries, archives and societies to add their unique content to the catalog, which will bring it to life in a new way and make more people aware of it for the first time.

But how shall we make libraries, archives, and societies all over the world aware of how GenSeek can help them bring awareness to their unique holdings?

While driving through Idaho and Montana last week, I stopped at a couple of small towns, checked out some historical sites and even tried to visit a pioneer museum. (It was closed.)

I love travelling to places I’ve never been before. And I realized, as I travelled, that in every town, city, and county across this country (and the world) there are interesting local historians and genealogists, librarians and archives in every location. Someone in every community feels a need to preserve and organize historical records.

In Sweden, there are nearly 2,000 local historical societies that preserve records. And from a population of 9MM people, there are 450,000 paying members of these local historical societies. That is 5% of the population. Astonishing really. But many families in these towns and villages have lived on the same land for centuries. Same is true of much of Europe.

With the western migration and the mobility of modernity, we don’t seem to develop such deep roots here in the U.S.  But in the smaller communities we still do have roots. And individuals that are knowledgeabout about local history and genealogical records and are devoted to preserving them and providing access. Mostly these local history savants are probably old-timers with family ties to the area.

A lot of people live not too far from where they were born. (Source: FamilyLink survey, March 26, 2009)

How far do you live now from where you were born? (5071 responses)

	Less than 50 miles	18%
	Less than a mile	9%
	Less than 10 miles	15%
	Less than 100 miles	8%
	Between 100 and 1,000 miles	26%
	More than 1,000 miles	24%

I love driving to new places and meeting new people and discovering local history. I look up Wikipedia articles for virtually every place I visit (on my blackberry or iPhone) and am always excited to discover famous people or events, or in particular, entrepreneurs or inventors from these places. I love the stories that make local communities interesting.

If I had fewer responsibilities holding me back, I’d get a big kick out of getting in a car and driving for the next 365 days to visit interesting places. Someday, I think my wife and I will probably do something just like that. And if there’s a business model to support it, this kind of a road trip could last even longer.

So back to the GenSeeker Project.

What if we found some retired couples or other small teams who were willing to get in a car and travel for the next 365 days to thousands of communities across North America to meet with the genealogists, historians, archivists, and librarians in each community? What if they were armed with smart phones and smart applications that helped them find the right people to meet with in every community, and set up meetings as they went? And what if they had a group of people at company headquarters who helped them plan, communicate, document and publish things they learned along the way?

What if all the expenses were paid for by FamilyLink, including food, fuel and accomodations, and the autos were furnished as well?

Would we want one team, or two, or more?

Should we start by experimenting with a single couple/team for a month or two and see how it works out? Or should we jump in whole hog and recruit 3-4 teams and set them loose on this year-long historical and genealogical information-gathering expedition?

This project is also in the idea stage, but it is likely that if I start finding some interested participants, that we could start an experiment like this, for a month or two, as early as August or September.

So send me an email (PAUL AT FAMILYLINK.COM) if this sounds interesting. Please put GENSEEKER in the subject line, and make sure you explain the skills that you and your companion or team would have that would convince us to choose you to represent us (FamilyLink/GenSeek/WorldHistory.com) in hundreds of meetings with local groups across the U.S. as you immerse yourself in an historical travel adventure.