A great TED Talk by Clay Shirky on the controversial SOPA/PIPA legislation popped up on the intertubes today. He outlines how people interact with and share media and how the legislation that will be up for a vote soon could turn all consumers into assumed copyright violators and thieves. Very interesting watch.
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Long overdue for a phone upgrade, I used Wirefly to save an extra $20 on the new Droid X2 when I extended my contract with Verizon.
After placing my order on Saturday afternoon, I was extremely impressed that my order was not only processed but shipped the same day.
The only down side to ordering through Wirefly is that Fedex is their shipping provider. In the 2 years I’ve been in my current apartment, I can’t recall receiving a Fedex package without drama. UPS and USPS have no problems finding me, but Fedex always insists I don’t have a valid address.
And without fail, Fedex failed on Tuesday. Online tracking indicated my address was incorrect. I called Fedex — which confirmed my address — and I explained where my apartment is and had a chuckle with customer service about my invisibility to their drivers. Rep assured me that he would forward extra delivery information along to dispatch.
And my phone is still being held hostage by the Fedex facility on Wednesday night. I call Fedex again — customer service is now telling me that there is NO address in the system for this package. The package was shipped from Wirefly with no street address — sorry, an incomplete street address of “South Apt 100″. My street address does not include the word south, nor do I live in Apt 100.
I provide my correct address to customer service who assures delivery on Thursday, but it is not to be. The person processing the address change calls me back to let me know she cannot approve shipment to the correct address, regardless of the fact that it was in the system on Tuesday when I called, until Wirefly.com calls to approve the address change. Doesn’t matter that I’m the paying customer, they are contractually obligated to get the permission from the sender before making that change.
All Wirefly needs to do is call the 800-number, provide the tracking number and OK my address.
That’s all they need to do. That’s all. That. Is. All.
It is actually difficult to get to a human being at Wirefly. I forgot about GetHuman until I was 40 minutes into my call with Wirefly. Their automated system is chock full of directions and helpful information that was neither relevant or helpful. After trying a few different numbers listed on their site, I found my way to the customer service queue.
I explained the situation to Rav.
Unfortunately it is not Wirefly’s approved process to call Fedex to straighten out shipping snafus. Instead, they recall the original package and ship a new one. And they’d expedite shipping for free so that I’d get my package the next business day, but because it was so late in the day that really meant 2 days later.
It seems like a lot of paperwork when a 3 minute phone call to Fedex would get me my phone on Thursday. Rav agrees but it’s not the approved process. Rav speaks to his manager, but no go. It’s not the approved process. I spend much time on hold and in verbal round robins that go no where.
Fine, ship me a new phone ASAP. Rav now has to explain the situation to Marcus, the guy who approves orders. Marcus has concerns that the same problem could recur if he approves the shipping of a second phone, so he can’t approve the order. He has to get permission from his corporate overlord before he can do so. And it could take 24 hours to get that approval. Rav informs me that the worst case scenario is 24-hours, but the escalation is being flagged as the highest priority for UPPER MANAGEMENT.
There are now at least 4 people involved at Wirefly. I have been on the phone for an hour. Think about how much paperwork this problem is generating. All because there’s a specific process that must be abided by in lieu of a 3-minute phone call. Yes, a 3-MINUTE phone call.
(The one bright spot in this hour is that Rav realizes the situation is absurd and notes that he will raise this situation with the appropriate channels in an effort to generate process improvement. Front guy line realizes there is a need to improve the process by which these situations are handled. It doesn’t make up for the fact that I don’t have my phone or that I spent an hour on the line when a 3-minute call would resolve things, but it gives me hope that someone at the company has a clue.)
As of this morning, it appears that upper management agreed with me and thought the 3-minute phone call was the most prudent option because the tracking number shows that my phone is out for delivery. Again. But now my hope of new smartphone ownership hinges on FEDEX finding my apartment.
Best part, I received a customer satisfaction survey email from Wirefly starting off with, “We hope you are enjoying your recent wireless purchase.” The form email goes on to note its awesome benefits to online customers including “100% customer satisfaction” and “Fast, reliable FEDEX SHIPPING”. No. Just No.
To say I’ve been underwhelmed by Wirefly is an understatement. And all to save an extra $20 off Verizon’s pricing online. Some discounts aren’t worth the hassle.
The media loves to stir up controversy. Sensationalism and outrageous ideas help with the ratings and ad revenues, but that doesn’t do much to educate the public.
Jay Smooth asks whether it’s too much to ask of the media to not feed the trolls?
On a recent G5 Leadership webinar, Connie Dieken, author of Talk Less, Say More, shared her tips on how to “fight presentation bloat” and take your audience from their various starting points to the conclusion you want and need it to reach. Whether you’re seeking a commitment of time, money or social capital, you need to put your focus on generating the desired impact through the following 3 steps: connect, convey and convince.
Connect
You’ll lose an audience quickly if you can’t demonstrate why listeners should care. Start strong and “frontload your message” so that “what’s relevant to the audience comes first”. Don’t work through the details to get to your point; drive it home first and then dig in.
Speak to them in their language and cover their concerns.
Convey
The presentation shouldn’t include everything and the kitchen sink; use “portion control” Only include the must-know information; you can follow up and distribute other information as the need presents itself.
Interestingly, Dieken pointed out that the brain processes visual stimuli ten times quicker than text, so a great graphic can be more effective than a slide full of text. I’m particularly fond of the cartoons developed to support Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff. The stick figures and other doodles illustrate a lot of information in a very engaging way.
Convince
Body language is more than half the battle. You need to look and sound as if you know what you’re talking about and believe in the efficacy of whatever action you’re pushing. Because if you don’t believe what you’re selling, why should anyone else?
There’s always a doubting Thomas in the room, so your best bet is to take preventative action beforehand and turn potential naysayers into allies. Schedule time with such parties to get their feedback and work the resolutions into your presentation; a colleague that might otherwise torpedo your efforts becomes an ally with a stake in making the project succeed.
What steps do you take to ensure you take your audience from A to B?
For information on upcoming G5 webinars, check out their event calendar. They offer several 90-minute, online classes each month taught by best-selling business authors who’ve set their sights on enhancing your soft skills. For $129 per year, you can have access to their complete roster of trainings plus workbooks, slide decks and recordings for review at a later date.
That subconscious response is why nutritionists often recommend dieters serve their meals on smaller plates. Even if you clear a salad-sized plate of food, you’re still coming in under the calorie count of a full dinner place – a mind game that helps keep you on track with weight loss goals.
And that same psychology appears to apply with overall consumption too. This weekend the WSJ reported on Commerce Department data indicating that 11.2 percent of American spending in 2011 is for non-essential purchases (exclusive of requisite items like food, housing and medicine). Despite a recession and mass unemployment, people are still shopping for wants beyond their needs; in 1959 such goods only accounted for four percent of spending.
This growth in non essential spending seems to parallel with the ever expanding square footage requirements of American home owners. The average home in 1950 was just 983 square feet compared with 2349 square feet for new homes in 2004.
Purchasing a home typically means moving into a large space. Thus, owners grow into a new space buying items to furnish extra rooms and to cover empty walls and to fill the nooks and crannies that give a home character. The advertising industry — having created the Pavlovian need to keep up with the Joneses — and a consumer technology sector — with routine product enhancements every 18 months or so a la Moore’s Law, combined with environmentally tone-deaf planned obsolescence — ensure a steady drum beat of purchasing whenever dollars can be spared.
Buying habits encourage an eventual move into a larger home when the perfectly sunny abode at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac no longer seems quite as spacious. With packing comes the tossing of dated furniture and appliances that can be upgraded to shiny, new replacements. Disposing of forgotten tchotchkes or ill-fitting clothing creates even more opportunity to spend.
And it creates a kind of geographic inertia that tugs on an economy in crisis. Ever so slowly, the cost of relocating for more lucrative — or any — opportunities creeps toward burdensome and cost prohibitive. People get tied to more than the roots in their community; they get bogged down by an obesity of stuff.
I recently stumbled across the website of business coach Marie Forleo, and I’ve been hooked on her vlog and enewsletter ever since. Each week she answers a reader question in the form of a video post, providing coaching tips that can be applied to other complimentary situations.
Two weeks ago she addressed a consultant who was experiencing serious burnout working with clients that doubled as energy vampires.
Forleo advised the reader to develop a prospective client checklist of traits and conditions that must be present for a client to have the good fortune to work with that consultant. These items will ensure the consultant only works with clients that serve as energizers rather than drainers.
Surely that same approach can be used to focus a job hunt. Regardless of the job description, the values and culture of an employer impact, for better or worse, the types of people drawn to a company.
That video got me thinking about the cultural preferences I need to focus on as my own job hunt continues. In no particular order, musts in my next work place.
- People get creative to find the best workable solution. There are plenty of opportunities to think in the abstract and generate unusual solutions to problems.
- No resting on your laurels. The company is always ready to try new tools and processes to ensure the status quo is the best approach, not just an engrained habit.
- Workers are empowered to get the job done. The company trusts that its HR methodology brings in the best people to meet the strategic objectives. Thus, micromanaging and onerous levels of approval aren’t necessary.
- You’re only as good as your word, so integrity is a must. Misrepresentations or fabrications to cover the company’s vulnerabilities or to protect an individual’s opportunity to hog the glory aren’t acceptable.
- Cookie cutters need not apply. Personality should be celebrated, not merely tolerated. Employees are viewed as vibrant individuals, not cogs in a wheel.
- Employees have lives outside the office, so flexible schedules and telecommuting aren’t luxuries only afforded parents.
- Management invests in professional development because they want to grow leaders and keep employees challenged. From conferences to mentorship programs to tuition contributions, employees are exposed to new ideas and different perspectives.
- Healthy debate is encouraged. “Because I said so” isn’t a valid reason for doing something. Employees understand the whys and how their work fits into the overall strategic plan.
- Failure means you’re takings risks and doing something new. And staff can learn just as much from a plan gone off the rails as from trying to replicate successes.
What makes or breaks a work environment for you?
Striving to maximize the potential of your peers and reports also helps you put the golden rule — do unto others as you’ have done unto you — in play. People are programmed to help those around them when culture permits. Per a survey on sharing, the primary reason to do so is “to help that person because he or she would benefit from it”.
With those sentiments in mind, Farber offered 3 basic steps to cultivate your own and staff leadership potential.
1) Expand yourself.
Complete annual or semi-annual personal inventories to ensure you are developing and strengthening the value and skills you bring to a company, client or reports. That self-review should include everything from innate and learned skills to the belief and value systems that shape you, as well as life altering experiences that have altered your perspective.
From conferences to books to mentoring, there are countless ways to build up your talents, even if you’re a seasoned pro. That inventory should lengthen over time.
2) Give of yourself fully with no strings attached.
Share the resources at your disposal with no expectation of tit for tat. It increases the odds people will take the opportunity to apply what’s available or build on it to do something amazing. You can be the leader that made it possible or a valuable team player in this scenario.
Incidentally, a friend often reminds me to avoid any expectation of reciprocity because you never know how the energy you put out into the world will return to you. Helping a co-worker today could shift energy that allows you to connect with the person who will sponsor your job jump to better and bigger things tomorrow.
3) Replicate yourself.
The only way this process can continue is if all participants choose to pay it forward. While you can seed growth and optimal performance in a handful of people on your own, the ripple effect as the people you impact repeat the process on others around you can transform a workplace culture or change the world.
I’m of the opinion that this type of mentoring isn’t limited to the upper echelons of management. At every tier of the corporate ladder you can spark the magic in someone.
For information on upcoming G5 webinars, check out their event calendar. They offer several 90-minute, online classes each month taught by best-selling business authors who’ve set their sights on enhancing your soft skills. For $129 per year, you can have access to their complete roster of trainings plus workbooks, slide decks and recordings for review at a later date.
Roughly 1-in-5 American workers is actively disengaged at the office. Gallup has concluded that these employees
tend to be significantly less productive, report being less loyal to their companies, are less satisfied with their personal lives, and are more stressed and insecure about their work than their colleagues.
And newer data is showing that the unemployed are finding more pleasure in their lives than those disenchanted with their current employer. They are more likely to say they are thriving (48% to 42%). Despite the financial hardships and present insecurity, the unemployed are less likely to say they’re struggling with their lives than those actively disengaged members of the workforce (49% to 54%).
While we keep hearing how lucky people are to have jobs in this economy, it appears a pay check may not be enough. At the end of 2010, Manpower reported that 84% of Americans would be looking for a new job this year.
Given that the 12-question Gallup survey was designed to determine how challenged and valued employees are at a given company, it seems that the intrinsic benefits of employment may be missing for the least engaged. Not only do employees want to be paid fairly (if not well) for what they do, they want to see their efforts successfully contributing to objectives that matter internally. They want work that matches their skill levels and knowledge base so that they’re adequately challenged. And they want the autonomy to decide how best to get the job done; afterall, if not trusted to do the job, an offer of employment probably shouldn’t have been extended.
So it takes a toll when one is micromanaged or finds oneself working in a dysfunctional setting that limits the little successes that add up over time. And then, voila! Work and life seem much less enjoyable.
Hopefully, you’re part of the engaged segment of the workforce. What is your employer doing to help keep the spring in your step? If you’re not happy in your current position, how do you keep your spirits up?
Am I interesting enough?
Isn’t that really the main concern tucked away at the back of our minds? Can I launch a conversation on emerging technology that will keep folks’ attention, or will the people nearest me beg off like Agatha Christie’s 10 Little Indians? Will that corner bubbling with social discourse welcome me into a discussion of this month’s worthwhile networking events with a charity tie-in, or will I be standing adjacent like a tool? Am I conversation kindling or a conversation killer?
The longer you consider the evidence that’s been warped by your own insecurities, the more likely you’re going home without new connections. Thus, my thrill that social technology lets you cheat just enough to be a pro-active attendee.
A long-standing rule of networking for the social anxious: Stay until you’ve met X people relevant to interest Y. If you meet 3 people relevant to the work you do, or 5 people in a book club or writing group that could sponsor your entry, then you have met your quantitative target for the evening. At that point, you’re either relaxing a bit and getting lost in conversation, or you’re calling it a night and congratulating yourself for sticking it out until you met that goal.
And here is where social tech makes life a bit easier. Branded happy hours are popping up on Eventbrite because it offers easy registration and ticket purchasing. Groups with an established Facebook presence are sharing their events on the site for easy head counts and forwarding to friends. People are sharing their event intentions on PlanCast, which builds word-of-mouth for those outings, trainings or social calls.
By default, online RSVPs are increasingly siding with attendee list transparency, which can help you decide between a handful of overlapping events. If you’re looking to make new connections, an event with all the usual suspects is OK to skip, but if you’re having a rough week, you may just want to hang out with friendly faces.
And, more importantly, it helps you figure out who you want and need to meet in advance, allowing you to craft a more targeted networking objective for yourself. Eventbrite registrations are my favorites because the event producers typically ask for employer and social media profile information from attendees. That information is often included beneath the event listing, making it easy to quickly scan the list for people and companies that could be of interest.
With the inclusion of links to corporate websites, blogs, LinkedIn profiles and Twitter handles, you can do your homework and have a few questions and comments in mind when you stumble across your networking targets at the event. You avoid any panic in coming up with a conversation topic on the spot. A public RSVP list allows you to make that first impression less generic and to feel more in control, so you’ll be less focused on the happy hour specials and more engaged with the crowd.
As part of the moderated discussion, Gillmor shared his 5 Principles of Media Consumption:
1. Be skeptical.
Don’t take anything you read at face value. The information source can clue you into the bias that may be present. Gillmor dismisses the notion of objectivity; everyone and every media outlet has a worldview of some sort.
2. Don’t be equally skeptical of everything.
Use your best judgment when evaluating media and finding sources to trust. Sweeping generalizations and extremes may raise flags when you’re watching and reading. Over time you’ll find reliable news sources that you can go back to again and again.
3. Question yourself and your worldview.
When you care deeply about an issue it’s hard to remove yourself from that subjective space to consider new information that may conflict with your beliefs. Be willing to challenge your own biases and cast a wider net on the type of media you consume. It’s easy to find news sources that parrot your own beliefs,
4. Seek out opinions and perspectives different from your own.
(3 and 4 could be merged, but then we’d only have 4 principles, which doesn’t feel right.) Do your homework and learn about things you’re not likely to counter in your own life. You’ll be more informed and perhaps a bit more aware of the privileges and disadvantages of the groups you identify with.
5. Understand how media can be used to persuade and manipulate.
Factor in a 24-hour news cycle and profit margins into your consideration of media. What does the media company want you to believe and how does it benefit if you do? Don’t just look at what angles are pursued, but consider why?
Overall, these are excellent basic tips for expanding your worldview, as well as evaluating the weight and accuracy of the media you consume, but how do you convince people that they want or need to move beyond the echo chamber and filter bubble effect? How do you convince people to be skeptical of the news sources that tell them what they want to hear?
We all thoroughly believe our worldview is the correct worldview.
Remember the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor last summer, when Republicans expressed so much concern over her wise Latina remarks? Because the perspective of a privileged white male is so sacrosanct that there must be something wrong with that notion that a group of judges another race, culture or gender might draw different conclusions. To many of the male elected-officials in that hearing, there is only one way to look at the world.
The average media consumer is no different.
For more, you can download Mediactive for free or buy a copy.
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