Small but mighty

Another CEO mentioned a friend out of service because a T1 wasn't connected. Come on vendors the small may not be important to you but you impact their business, their revenue bad enough and long enough and your little customer base will go play in another sandbox. The big boys may own all the infrastructure but poor customer service will bite back. This world is about social responsibility not the opposite.

Small business, technology and bandwidth will change the needs so much in the next 10years infrastructure may never be totally without demand but this wireless age and the brains behind inventions will threaten the very core of existing telecom companies. Small business with the on-slot of entrepreneurs will impact especially if ill treatment by vendors continues.

Blogging takes bunches of time.

CEO Speaks, Sage Advice During Turbulent Times is going to be worth the read. This is not about technology necessarily. This book is about ethics with some far sighted people on the technology side in all aspects of business. How do we use technology to help our clients and customers? CEO's ask themselves questions like that and then they impliment the answers. That is in part the vision of the job. Ask God and you will receive. Ask CEO's and they accept. These men lead lonely lives apart from family and truly personal friends. I have yet to have one refusal from a CEO and so far I'm at about twenty five interviews, committed, on the calendar, etc.

When I get my first refusal, I let you know. Who and why...I promise.

Toll Free Service

Please don't pay unnecessary charges on the telephone bill. What am I talking about? Have your webmaster put your company's local number on the website. No one wants to pay for local calls and without the number on the website they may not be able to reach you. Companies move, the internet is not always correct.
Yes, I've blogged about this before and yes, sometimes the local number is on the website but not on the home page. The general public nor your local customer's do not mind read. As amazing as this information, it just doesn't happen...I'm off to write more in my book...

Preparing for CEO Speaks and interviewing a financial planner

The financial planner asked about the real profession and we chat about telecommunication, the next thing I know I'm solving a problem, yep, equipment and line issue again for a friend of his. Now, when we finally talk he's had the same problem for 7 years since they built the building. The moral to the story is don't put yourself through the misery of allowing vendors to miss represent, make up the wrong reasons for using their ideas, equipment, line to station configuration, etc.
Get professional help. We're knowledgeable the consultants are usually ethical people with lots and lots of experience. Work takes up the majority of our life it is too important to not have a tool work correctly. It's your business at stake.

Blackberry heaven yet still needs help.

This new blackberry is sweet but the instructions a bit arcatic, instead of a nice video to walk one through the instructions, the more complex ones, or maybe I should say hidden applications, instead we receive a DVD in print. I've been reading since 1st grade! My question to manufacturers is this why do you assume your users are not paying for ease. No, I'm not lazy, in fact, I work very hard. From starting the day exercising, working all day and weekends include physical work, yard work, deep cleaning, etc. so it would be nice to have technology the serves me not me serve the geeks design, marketing departments package, etc. This statement includes any corporation, organization that's dependent on electronic gadgetry and we all are dependent. The marketing has designed that too.

With all the niceties it would be great to move deeper in the customer and consumer needs.

CEO speaks...from a typical Type A personality

I'll edit Alaska tomorrow, I promise, it's on the To Do List, a daily concern.

The type A means; I mean well and screw up with technology or at least computers. I know stuff about fiber, communications and installation. I help clients resolve problems, their problems, and get stuff done for them when it comes to telecommunication. The bigger the better for this scenario. If I can help BIG government and BIG companies, I can help any business in installation issues, application issues, equipment matching needs, etc.

Alaska will be another day.

Oh well another time...it has been a crazy week...more on the book later. Hoping to interview a CEO from Alaska for the book. The response to this has been overwhelming. So far no one has turned me down and the days are flying. These people are concerned for this country and for future generations. We all need to pray for our leaders, for the ethics to move back into a strenth position and citizens to have strong morals, we have continued to decline in moral fiber as a nation. Not sure what this has to do with technology other then some technology vendors need accountability too!

Audits, Issues and Ignorance

Interviewing a CEO today, for a book I'm compiling, the CEO's are writing the book via the interviews, he shares the value of learning. I agree whole heartedly. There is a world of knowledge that continues to expand almost at a geometric speed. As technology, as people, as populations explode, knowledge comes forth, a gift, a curse is happening. We are becoming slaves to technology yet we buy more gadgets.

The other side of the coin is the technology that is hidden from us. That master wizard of programming that writes an complex code so deep in the stack we can not or do not comprehend the mythology or methodology to understand. What to use, how to use, want to use, just can not figure out WHAT are you wanting Mr. Wizard? This is when everything becomes a mystery. This is what occurs when programming, tariffs, FCC regulation, SEC regulation and legislation go awry.

The CEO was not being trite, he was serious when repeating another CEO's verbiage about a telecommunication problem, as preceived. Preception, reality, technology is a master in the making. It needs to be clearer as does most issues or maybe just the way we confuse everything in innocent ignorance, which is not a bad thing just un-informed, especially with billing errors, oh yes, they exists galore, they are everywhere. Part of the answer is in-put. Who is giving the information to the order entry department?...this could go on for hours...call me if you need help...I know stuff.

Internet gremlins

I've decided the internet is a good and bad thing...computers are in the same arena. Technology is an interesting aspect of our lives today. I thought to add the word...modern...sounded a bit trite in this day and at this time with technology everywhere and in all aspects of life...video, cameras, daily life, business must, on-line, email, united communication, ACD's, VRU's, you name it, it is there! No it is everywhere. It is so convenient to have recipes on line, conversations with family in all areas of the country, business interviews, meetings, all those wonderful people in my life...the internet is a curse and a blessing. Trust me!

The Trust Deficit

While reading this book today I thought about a statement in the book and some recent conversations. Talking with a professor at a local university, he teaches business ethics, he said he didn't think any CEO's were ethical. I disagree, in fact John mentions statistics in his book about opinions on trust for executive in large corporation and traverses seven disciplines that are shocking. Only 3% of executives have public's confidence. Today more then ever we need to incorporate discipline, trust, honesty and all good merit of character for ourselves, our clients and all those we deal with in every avenue of our lives. The other component is how can business ethics be taught except in very young children?

Technology and Intelliect

Geeks are smart people but some of the programming they do is an insult to anyone with solid intelligence. The example today is on-line prescriptions: I attempted to log in electronically and could not get passed the required...no hints given...needed information and I'm fairly computer literate! Then I called in to renew the prescription and the voice response unit repeated the same information two, three and four times. The entire process took about 20 minutes. As a business person I work 12 to 14 hours a day and a health care /provider corporation just wasted 20 minutes of my time. The other question I'm posing is why do companies assume we're idiots by treating us like we are? My hearing is not impaired, I listen, I have a degree in communication and I take offense to being treated like a child, idiot, whatever.

When it comes to programming the web site or the order processing voice response unit have a CEO or Vice President or Marketing guru, as a minimum requirement, go through the prompts when testing the effectiveness of time wasted. The one that really gets me is when the vendors do the programming and go through the entire menu of employee when a company receives an incoming call from a potential customer, client, vendor, etc. No one cares how many employees you have nor does anyone want to listen to the menu. Again, it's a waste of time. A suggestion would be to use your brain instead of leaving it up to a vendor's geek. Better yet is verify the equipments capability on the front end and dictate your desires on any programming before buying equipment! It matters what marketing image is for any one calling a company, big or small.

Ethics and Marketing Games

A blackbox manufacturer in the electronic/computer/server/router game has an aggressive marketing strategy. The problem is American are gullible, yes gullible.
We know someone, they believe in their product also known as brain washing, or maybe they just want to make lots of money, your money. So, they continue the aggressive marketing and win business. Their product in some arenas is poor, over priced, while leaving clients with interior applications and features. Just because a name is well known in through a good marketing department and sold by thousands of vendors this criteria is not smart, worthy of your corporate dollar while doing an injustice to the company where you work, specially if you talked the head honchos into buying the equipment. Think about a little research and going to a trusted ethical source prior to e-purchased and no I am not talking about on-line. I'm talking about electronics.

I'm on an ethics mission

Understanding the damage of improper disposal of technology products is scary business. I have blogged about it before but some readers only read the days blog.
Disposing of electronics in a safe way will help recycle, eliminate pollution and be good for the environment. Caution is necessary because there are company's claiming best practices without the follow through. Seven deadly chemical exist in electronics, all electronics. Ground water needs protection and allowing un-responsible disposal is a sure way to damage the soil and the water.

Still out of service

What does it take to get a line fixed in this country. Still is not rocket science.
Since the 16th of July we have not had a land line that works, this is day 18.
When people start hearing these stories they quickly come up with their own horror story about being out of service for days or weeks and it's always a mystery as to what, how, when, where it all began. Not sure the technicians know how to solve those mysteries either. Rainy weather always brings interesting issues to telephones. Water in the manhole, water in the line, cables and wire break. Last year the same pattern occurred. 18 days was the magic number then too. Well, maybe one more call to the provider. After all it's just a customer, why should we care.

Let the computer think for you.

First of all, computers do not think. Computers are programmed. People are programed by their own shortcomings to think the computer is smart. Computers are dumb machines, people are smart, well sometimes. Programmers are commonly called Nerds, Geeks, etc. even Best Buy has the Geek Squad, why? It's a popular play on words. Geeks and Nerds are smart people fascinated with the workings of a machine, development process of machines, networks and how to make them work, etc. Geeks are usually not the best communicators so why do we use trust them to develop this stuff called networking, processing, data, voice, technology, etc. They develop things the way THEY think, not necessarily the way non-geeks think. Computers need power/electricity to run so as telephones evolved into computers, which is the current state, they need power to run. Be sure to questions vendors about power options prior to signing the contract for new systems. Install dates are too late for changing plans. Know options on the front end to save your company from vulnerable experiences.

Audits, Telephone Bills, New Technology and Energy

There's a fine line between the title subjects. Audits of bills are critical, who is watching before and after. Electronics and energy have close correlation and a great example is VOIP or voice over internet protocol and having no electricity for powering the phone units. It's really all a computer and they do not run without power. So the backup unit helps power when the supply is gone but how much does it all costs to be connected to your customers and revenue. Monitoring the costs of energy as well as the quoted price is important. Look at the power bill for the past two or three years, is there a correlation? It's a scam by some vendors. Check the quote, the bills, the accounts payable, etc. Hold vendors responsible.