Warren Whitlock

Archive for the ‘technology’ Category

When you change your frame of reference, and take a 10,000 foot overview, you see thing that you may have missed

Gary Flake shows how we can get out of the pile of trees that we have seen as the Internet and view the forest of knowledge assembled for us.

More on PIVOT:

• Video: Discovering Insights with Pivot
• Article: Making Sense of Mountains of Data

Froe Mashable: Google Energy: Google Can Now Buy and Sell Electricity

Google’s ever-expanding empire has added another branch: subsidiary Google Energy has been granted an order by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to buy and sell energy at market rates.

Does this mean Google is set to become your power company? Not yet — instead, Google wants more control over the high energy costs of its many data centers, and also aims to become carbon neutral. A Google spokesperson told CNET: “Right now, we can’t buy affordable, utility-scale, renewable energy in our markets. We want to buy the highest quality, most affordable renewable energy wherever we can and use the green credits.”

Google has been working toward energy autonomy for years. Green power, nuclear discussions, geo thermal and more.

Google has become a major user of power, and a powerful force in the world.

Will they now buy and sell electric power too?

Way back in the world before computers and cell phones, one of my favorite funny lines from TV was WKRP salesman Herb Tarlek assuring a client that everything work out OK

Del, goshdarnit I’ve got to go, but if you need anything, anything at all, I’ll be in my car somewhere.

Back then, if you didn’t stick around to see what happened, you really didn’t know.

Are you still using 1980’s Technology for Phone Calls?

Now that we have voice mail, cell phones and instant messaging, we don’t have to be tied down to a location. Herb Tarlek can leave the remote broadcast in the hands of Dr. Johnny Fever and the crew, keep the phone on and get more done.

There’s a lot of places where we need to be. Many relationships that can grow stronger when you show up with more connections and more business, we end up with more of these opportunities.

Yet, many end up sitting at a meeting with their phone or computer tuned into someplace else. After all, it still takes time to check in to voice mail, email, Twitter and wherever else people are trying to reach you.

Rethinking the Multiple Points of Contact Theory

I’ve talked to many a busy person who comes up with one way or another to manage all these contact points. If you have an assistant screening, you can get down to one point of contact, but that isolates you.. sometimes good, sometimes bad.

Others drop one medium for another. This week, I’ve seeing announcements that a new service is great and a user suggesting that no on try to reach them on the old one “cause I won’t be checking in”

That may work for some, but I’m convinced that the future of marketing, business and living is to Listen and Love.. I want to know when people are reaching out to me, filter out the noise and respond to real human to let them know I care, and what I can do to help.

I think the answer is a universal in box. Google has several initiative in place for this, Google Buzz in our Gmail accounts, search for just about everything, and Google Voice to replace voice mail.

Here’s how it works:

Most of my calls end up going to voice mail, with Google Voice, they are instantly transcribed and available to view and respond to… right in my Gmail account.

While I’m getting a lot less calls as people learn to reach me via email, buzz, Twitter or blog post comments, there are still a few that pick up the phone every time they think of it. With a universal in box, I can respond quickly.. often sending back an email before I get off the conference call I’m on or while waiting in line at one of those 3 minute intersections here in Vegas.

You can import contacts and forward numbers, so Voice can be integrated with just about any other system you’ve been using. It’s free. Some suggest Google is using the massive data points gained from transcribing messages to improve voice recognition and search algorithms. So I suppose you don’t want you billion dollar secrets left on a Voice Mail message (even if it’s a old fashion answering machine)

Last I checked, Google Voice was still BETA, but it pretty easy to get an invite and may well be open for all now.

I’ve been hearing a lot from one of my favorite companies.

I purchased their product a couple of years back, used it, and been very happy with the outcome.

However, in the past few weeks, my email IN box has been flooded with special offers and announcements. Multiple items in each email with links to buy or give the product as a holiday gift. Special offers for new purchases but nothing that would enhance my use of the product or relationship with the company. Nothing to help me use the product better.

When I see nothing but “special sale” emails.. I begin to wonder “Is this company in trouble? Why are they so desperate?”

Today being Cyber Monday, I decided it was a good time to remove myself from a few of these mailing lists. I scrolled down to the bottom of today’s 23 offer email and found some fine print disclaimers and a few links.  I squinted to find the link that would unsubscribe me and noticed a button just above the fine print that invited me to become a fan on Facebook

Nothing for the fans who already bought?

Despite being there to drop my connection with this company, I must say I found it interesting that they were willing to pay $15 if I were to click on a button on Facebook.

I had to look.

I clicked through to the “fan page” and found 5 unanswered comments from customers using the product. All were politely asking for help with some small problem… no sign that anyone at the company saw them, let alone responded.

My first impression was that the company didn’t get social media (the professional way of saying “this sucks”).. so now I wanted to know: Is there any communication going on here?

Scrolling down, I found an ad for the $15 bribe and videos and photos posted by users, including an graphic with the word “PORN” .. but no comments on any of the wall posts.

Back to the email…

Preparing the post, I went back over a few emails to make sure I wasn’t missing anything that spoke to me as a user instead of just a person to help them get more sales… I had skipped to the bottom of today’s email and had missed this juicy headline:

we want to hear from you
review a product and help your fellow fans make the perfect choice

..followed by photos of their product line

(I’ve removed the product name before the word “fans”)

We have the tools today to segment our databases and provide a unique experience for our fans or customers.. speaking to each of them in a voice that makes sense and initiating a real conversation.

Just a couple of years back, a sales flyer from a company was expected.. and I believe still useful as one form of communication. However, when you decide to get into social media, and use terminology like you want to have a conversation.. you best be ready to have that conversation.

When you do engage your customers you will be adding real value and reap the benefits.

I’ve been biting my fingers for the past couple of weeks.  I’ve had a memorably bad experience with my ISP.. they have yet to clear things up.

My notes will help with a chapter on the future of customer service that I plan to include in my next book, so I’m holding off writing one of “those posts” .. not quite ready to take on these guys with publicity I’m looking for right now. (you can figure out who I’m talking about by following my Twitter thread if you really must know).

Instead, let’s talk about what customer service should be:

1. It IS your department. There’s one phrase that always means trouble from any sizes company “I’m sorry, that’s not my department.” My prediction is that this will be ground for dismissal in companies of the future.  If you pick up the phone, catch the tweet, or handle and email from a customer, they expect that you won’t give up on them.
2. I’d rather talk to a friend. By now, every company of any size has at least one person on Twitter, someone using Facebook or a attending some venue where they want to meet up with customers. We want to be treated like we are friends. Every employee is a customer service agent and the reputation of the company is on the line (see item #1).
3. If I matter, keep track of me. I smile when the automated voice system reminds me that I can find some answers on the web.. I wouldnt be calling if the web had what I needed. And while I’m waiting, I don’t mind putting in my account number or making a few selections until they get their technology working well enough to recognize my caller ID. I do draw the line at providing my number a 3rd or 4th time to the people answering the call. Don’t ask me for my account number until I have someone on the phone that can help me.

Three easy steps to help people feel like they are dealing with a company that likes customers. (boy it’s hard to write about this without going into complete rant mode).

Here’s some hope for us all. Google Wave intagrated with Salesforce.com show us that a customer service issue can be taken care of in a way a customer might actually enjoy.

Do you have examples of companies using social media and technology to give their customers a better experience. Share on a comment below and my co-authors and I will follow up for more details that we can include in our book.

I’ve been talking with David Greschler and his team at Microsoft about their mission to bring virtualization and cloud computing to us all. Some of my friends on Twitter have asked what all the fuss is about, so I”ll explain here.

Computing “in the cloud” is using computer power that is outside your own machine. Essentially, you are doing this everytime you access a web site, view your email online or join a social network.

Virtualization is a breakthrough that allows companies to use just the computing power they need. This will lower costs, save energy and bring a lot more service to you where and when you need them.

If you have questions about cloud computing, virtualization or how to create a vision for your enterprise, just TWEET to my friend David Greschler (@DGreschler on Twitter) or post a comment here.
A new study shows that adoption of this technology is the next big thing in computing and will affect us all. You may not need to know HOW it work.. but do take a moment and watch this video for an overview.