Mutually Inclusive PR

Social Media Suggestions for High School Reunion?

My 30 year reunion is coming up this fall, and I've said I'd pull together a website. Any suggestions for a good combination of web tools to help people post information, sign up for events, share photos, and generally stay informed about plans?

I'm looking at various wikis as possible platforms for most of the information. And I was assuming I could possibly piggyback on a platform like Facebook, a photo sharing site, or something like that.

Any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated!

Leave me a note here, or e-mail me at eggertson (at) gmail. (dot) com.

Tags: reunions, wvss, high school, wikis, blogs, websites, west vancouver

Tod Maffin, Video Star

My favourite geek is coming to a screen near you.

 Starting June 1, Tod Maffin is hosting a live video show on blogtv.ca.

According to the Todster, it's about personal technology, and will feature 45 minutes of live call-in (via computer) every Friday night.

Tod says he has funding from Alliance Atlantis for the web TV show, which will include visits to various technology companies across Canada.

One thing's for sure: there's nothing on regular TV Friday nights to compete.

Good luck, Tod.

Tags: tod maffin, tv, video, canadian, tech, gadgets, todbits, webtv, live, blogtv.ca

The Canadian Telco/ISP Rip-off Continues

What the hell is wrong with the ISP and mobile phone business in Canada?

Gone are the days when you could just buy a service. Now, everything you do is an attempt to reduce the service levels below useless, or ding you for "extras" (no one has the guts to charge extra yet for services like "phone rings when someone's calling you," but that day will come). It's all about getting maximum ARPU (average revenue per user).

This week, Tod Maffin got me to fiddle with a Bell cell phone, so he could record the experience for his technology column on CBC Radio. It was rather ironic that two geeks spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out how to download a movie and watch it on the cell phone. Not only do they want to increase your spending, but they can't be bothered to make it easy for you to do that.

Today Techdirt has a good piece about Rogers throttling back its Internet speed for customers using torrents and other peer-to-peer downloading services. Their latest step is to reduce the speed of traffic that's encrypted.

What's wrong with this picture? One of the most common uses for encryption is e-mail, which should be the fastest thing in the pipeline, not the slowest.

Need more evidence there's something wrong with service in Canada? Here's Mark Evans:  Wireless Deals in Canada?; Wow! Signs of Competition in Canada; Less Regulation in Canada, Less Competition.  See also Boris Mann on prices higher than Mexico.

My very small act of defiance was to buy a smart phone that can access wireless LANs instead of tying me to buying all my bandwidth from the phone company. I had to buy a phone from Europe in order to pull that off, because the same phone distributed in North America has the wireless capability removed. (See Boris on his Nokia E61.)

What's wrong with this picture? I'm having trouble seeing what's right with this picture. We spend more to get less service, and valuable functions are disabled before they get to market.

Tags: telecoms, rogers, telus, bell, cell phones, mobile, wireless, throttling

Microsoft Lets Me Cancel XBox Live Subscription - Why Is that News?

Back when the XBox first came out, we bought one for Christmas, and I signed up for an XBox Live account soon after.

It was for my kid, so I really wasn't paying much attention when I listed birthday, and all the other personal information.  What a pain.  After that, every time I tried to edit the account, it would insist that I go through and confirm about 20 details in my account, including the credit card number I used.  Well, I don't know which credit card I used, and I can't find the bills for that month. Pardon me while I wait a year to see which credit card the renewal shows up on...

So when I tried to cancel the account, I anticipated an unpleasant experience.  Once again, the online service wouldn't authorize me as the account holder unless I answered every detail precisely correct (I set the account up four years ago).  If you get something wrong, it doesn't let you know which of the details is wrong.  Augh!

So I call the toll-free number, talk to the computer for a while, answering various questions, and finally I get through to a person.  A person who wants to assure me how easy it is to transfer the account to an XBox 360 (that's assuming I could get it to believe I'm the account holder).  I'm informed the account already automatically renewed itself, so I'm the proud owner of another year of Xbox Live! 

I explain I don't want to transfer the account, I want to cancel.  I have to explain that a couple of times, but finally the guy on the other end agrees to cancel the account.  And, surprise, he was able to get me a refund, that will be credited to my card.  Which is great, because it means I don't have to write a whiney post about how ripped off I feel.

It's all good for Microsoft.  Son Number One already received a subscription card for a year of Xbox Live on the Xbox 360, so it's not like they aren't making money from us.

What Does this Say about my Confidence in Customer Service?

So why do I feel it's noteworthy that a large company with millions of customers behaved decently, and refunded money for a subscription renewal I didn't want?

That says something about my low expectations.  It would not have surprised me at all if they had tried to make me eat the renewal fee, since I'd carelessly failed to notify them by the appropriate date, blah, blah, blah.

I've had almost universally positive experiences with customer service lately, yet I still get a sinking feeling every time I have to deal with someone.  They almost always make a half-hearted attempt to brush me off, in case I'm a pushover, or I really want to be convinced not to pursue the issue.  Otherwise, I always get the refund, or the exchange, or whatever I'm asking for.

Maybe I need to anticipate a positive experience.  Nah, then you can guarantee I'll end up in small claims court fighting for my money...

Tags: customer service, retail, expectations, employees, microsoft, xbox, refunds

Holiday Tableaux - Mix and Match

Via Ed Lee's blog, I came across Choose Your Own Holiday Adventure, set up by iStudio.

This is a nice little self-promotion tool for the web design firm.  I chose to NOT include music, so it's safe for work (unless you click on the video game - then all bets are off).

Based on your input, the Playmobil figures are arrayed in a tableau, so don't complain if it looks really weird.  (Playmobil figures always look a bit sinister, with their bland, Stepford normalness.  I think the dog did it in the study with a pipe wrench.)

For a look at a traditional Eggertson Christmas, check out my own holiday adventure by clicking the banner ad below (nobody will try to sell you anything).  I think Ed's North Korea Christmas has a more authentic feel...

And to everyone at iStudio, have a great holiday, wherever you are, and whatever play figures you choose to play with!

CBC's Blog Became Its Dark Site

Inside the CBC suddenly became one of the only sources of information Monday about why the cbc.ca site was unavailable for many hours.

The problem was caused by a server malfunction.  It took several hours to get a back-up server online.
So, for a few hours, the company's blog was there to inform people that the main site was offline due to technical problems.

Get out your business continuity plans, everyone, and test them.

In a post earlier this year, Tom Murphy wrote that a dark site is the best approach in the event of a crisis.  The company website is one of the first places people go when a company is in trouble. He warned against rushing to include blogs in the crisis communications mix.

Case in point - I'm sure the CBC PR folks would have preferred a bland statement on the blog that vaguely referred to technical difficulties on the cbc.ca server.  Instead, the blog posting went into detail about the cause of the problem, which led some blog visitors to suggest there's not enough redundancy built into the news service's IT infrastructure.

Well, the blog was created to talk openly about what goes on at CBC, without management oversight.  It served the added purpose of alerting some people why they couldn't get their fix of online news that day. 

Job well done, I'd say, no matter what the PR folks might say.

Tags:  pr, socialmedia, crisis, darksite, communications,businesscontinuity

Online Meeting Place for Arts Groups and Pros

The arts is supposed to be one of those areas where plucky artistic types toil away in poverty and obscurity for years until their brilliance is recognized.

That's still true for a lot of actors and other artists, but the business of running the culture industry is complex.  Theatres and publishing houses, galleries and film companies need to be run professionally, with outside help, when needed.

CultureConsultants.ca, a new site aimed at Canadian arts groups and the consultants that serve them has launched, with funding from Ontario's Trillium Foundation.

It looks like an online dating service for consultants and arts groups, with some other information posted.  It will be interesting to see if the site also has an interactive component.

The site is managed by the Association for Cultural Executives, based at the University of Waterloo, and has five years of funding from Trillium, which is part of the Ontario Ministry of Culture. News release.

Do Not Enter - Reputation at Risk

I reached a turning point shortly after I started reading blogs. After leaving a few comments online, I Googled myself and realized just how public my life would be if I kept on participating in The Writeable Web.

Staying invisible to Google and other search tools is hard, and getting harder. Some of the articles I wrote for my college paper in 1981 are now online. I'm waiting to see some of my more embarrassing articles bubble to the surface as my past catches up with me.

Thankfully, the poetry I wrote in high school has never been posted online. I plan to keep it that way.

While many online tools can be fun to play around with, Susan Crawford looked at the many ways privacy is threatened. And John Wagner and Stephen Silvers warned students to keep their online presence from jeopardizing job opportunities.

These are valid concerns, but if everyone worried that something written in second year university might cost them a job later, nobody would write anything worth reading.

Yes, avoid flamingly stupid public acts, if there's a way to do them privately or anonymously (good luck on staying anonymous). But employees of the future, please don't establish a standard of employability that screens out people who have done some stupid things in their past.

Is a life devoid of potentially embarrassing events worth living? Maybe, but it sounds awfully dull. Hopefully smart companies will look to hire both those with spotless records, and those who are spectacular in their screw-ups.

Employers: if you Google job candidates and find examples of errors in judgment or just plain errors, remember that you have something to gain from hiring people who are willing to take risks. Avoid the bozos who don't have a clue of the impact of their actions, but don't avoid those who show  smarts.

I've already made the decision that any future employer is going to have to be okay with my online reputation, or I won't get hired. I can live with that.

See also Recruiting the Millenial Student Using Social Software, by Una Walsh, and Online Party Crashers (New York Times).

Tags: reputation, blogging, bloggers, online, careers

Powered by Qumana

Lee and Sachi Do Asia

  Goth Kid with Contacts, Harajuku, Tokyo, Japan 
  Originally uploaded by LeeLeFever_TwinF.

Late last year, social media consultant Lee Lefever and new (last year, anyway) wife Sachi dropped everything and took off on a trip around the world.

They left Japan recently, and are in Thailand.

Check out their experiences on The World Is Not Flat, or just see the photos on Lee's Flickr page.

The Thai Elvis, and Japanese sexually ambiguous Little Bo Peeps are worth checking out...

My post about Lee and Sachi from Oct. 2005.

Damn! Spammer/Spyware Jerk Only Has to Pay $4 Million

I've never met him, but I hate Sanford Wallace.

In the mid '90s, I had just talked my spouse into an e-mail account and was helping her figure out how it could help her writing career.

That's when Sanford Wallace entered our lives, and started peppering her with the same e-mail every day. (Photo from O'Reilly Media site.)

I laugh when I compare that one intrusion with the dozens of spam messages one of my public-facing e-mail accounts gets hit with daily. Today I shrug them off without pausing. But that first spam attack by Wallace felt like the time our house got broken into. It felt personal, and abusive.

Our ISP was no help. I don't remember what finally worked in getting rid of that daily message from the spam king.

Now Wallace has been hit with a $4 million penalty for his spyware intrusions. All I can say is, the penalty is a decade late, and the penalty isn't nearly high enough.

Tags: spam, security, spyware, sanfordwallace, bastards

Powered by Qumana