Today a telemarketer from AT&T interrupted my workday (even though I’m on the do-not-call list) and offered to sell me a triple-play bundle of digital TV, Internet, and phone. When I asked him if AT&T offered digital TV in my neighborhood, he looked it up and said no. Way to go, AT&T.
AB — 10 May 2012
I’ve been working hard to be more courteous when speaking by telephone with customer representatives. As part of that effort, I’ve been reflecting on what drives me to be rude and sarcastic.
One important factor is that I rarely call up some large company for a happy purpose — it’s almost always a problem. Whatever has happened — a billing error, a product failure, a problem with an order — 90 percent of the time, it’s the company’s screw-up.
So, when I have to call customer support, it’s an interruption to my work, and I’m already primed for conflict. The pressure to respond with asperity mounts to the extent that the customer-service experience stinks — having to navigate through phone-menu options none of which apply, having to wait on hold, encountering a representative who can’t help me with the problem or is poorly trained or is not empowered by the company to do the right thing for the customer.
Fortunately, I’m usually able to maintain enough perspective to recognize that the customer representative is usually as much a victim of the company’s abysmal approach to customer experience as I am. Like most of us, the rep is just a poor soul trying to make a living within the limits of the reality they are presented with. Unless the rep is as incompetent or uninterested in the customer as their employer is — in such case, the individual might warrant some castigation.
I often take the opportunity of the interaction to ask the representative to pass along my feedback about what is wrong with their company’s customer relations. Like throwing a stone into the ocean, but who knows, someone might listen.
I would have to say that most of the time my experience with telephone customer service is negative, but normally that doesn’t justify mistreating the human being who is trying to help me.
ARB — 6 April 2012
Not sure why I never knew about Google Public Data until today. I’m forever researching some topic and looking for just the right data set and a way to great a graphical representation of it. Google Public Data brings many public sources together and allows you to create line, bar, pie, and bubble charts a la Google Docs.
AB — 15 January 2012
Recently I’ve been writing a series of columns on climate change over at ThomasNet Green & Clean. Although I do talk about the scientific arguments around human-caused global warming, I’m also interested in this issue as a social controversy, that is, what is it that drives people to one side or the other of the question? (Photo: Power plant, Finland. Credit:eutrophication&hypoxia, CC BY 2.0)
Here are links to each of the articles up to now:
Does the Public Really Believe Humans Are Causing Climate Change?
All This Wrangling Over Climate Change – What’s Up With That?
The Climate Change Controversy – What’s It Really About?
So, Have They Figured Out That Global Warming Is Real?
ARB — 19 Dec. 2011
Here’s a possible classification of extremists:
1. True Believers — People whose extremism arises from a sincere belief in the extreme ideology being promoted.
2. Needle-Pushers — Cynical practicers of realpolitik who adopt the extreme position hoping to counteract extremists on the opposing side and “move the needle” toward their own position, getting partisans in power or policies enacted that are more desirable from their point of view.
3. Knee-Jerkers — Followers who are led to back an extremist position because that position’s arguments speak to their own prejudices or harmonizes with their cultural background.
AB — 2 December 2011
I love TED Talks as a resource for encountering new ideas. Today I watched Kathryn Schulz’s insightful talk, “On being wrong.” Schulz is a journalist known for writing about wrongness.
Near the beginning, Schulz explains her purpose for the talk:
What I want to do today is, first of all, talk about why we get stuck inside of this feeling of being right; and second, why it’s such a problem; and finally, I want to convince you that it is possible to step outside of that feeling; and that if you can do so, it is the single greatest moral, intellectual, and creative leap you can make.
And here’s what I thought was a key insight from the presentation:
…trusting too much in the feeling of being on the correct side of anything can be very dangerous. This internal sense of rightness that we all experience so often is not a reliable guide to what is actually going on in the external world. And when we act like it is, when we stop entertaining the possibility that we could be wrong, well, that’s when we end up doing things like dumping 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico or torpedoing the global economy.
Here’s the video:
AB — 5 Nov. 2011
Over at ThomasNet Green & Clean recently, I wrote a pair of articles about small houses, with a mix of interesting photos, statistics on home sizes, and quotes from Henry David Thoreau. Here are links to the articles:
Living in Small and Tiny Houses – Thoreau Would Be Proud
Want to Build Green? Start by Thinking Small.
(Photo: Tiny house interior. Credit: RowdyKittens, CC BY 2.0.)
AB — 14 Oct. 2011
I thought this was an interesting and useful infographic highlighting the growing U.S. solar manufacturing business. Right now, it shows a $5.6 billion industry that imports $3.75 billion, for a $1.9 billion trade surplus.
I wrote something about the growth of the solar industry recently for ThomasNet Green & Clean — see “How Will U.S. Army Energy Initiatives Affect Expansion of Solar Energy?”
AB — 15 September 2011
Recently an acquaintance smugly told me that the “Close Door” buttons on elevators don’t work — they are just there as a psychological sop to make passengers think they actually have some control.
I didn’t contest this assertion — I had heard it before and wasn’t certain one way or the other. I was deeply suspicious, however — it smacked of the bogus rumors and conspiracy theories you hear all the time, or at least sounded like one of those things that everybody knows that just aren’t true.
So I was happy to learn today that Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope has already (in 1986) dealt with this critical question in his thorough and inimitable manner — he even interviewed representatives of the Otis elevator company and various elevator repairmen. See “Do ‘close door’ buttons on elevators ever actually work?”
The upshot is that the “Close Door” button is not an evil conspiracy to manipulate people into pushing a fake button hoping for a reward like Pavlov’s dogs. That’s not to say that they always work — they could be broken or disconnected at the request of the building’s owner. Here’s another reason Cecil gives as to why these buttons don’t always seem to work:
The button really does work, it’s just set on time delay. Suppose the elevator is set so that the doors close automatically after five seconds. The close-door button can be set to close the doors after two or three seconds. The button may be operating properly when you push it, but because there’s still a delay, you don’t realize it.
AB — 9 September 2011
Here’s an interesting infographic from Publicis Healthware International, a healthcare-focused communication firm based in Italy. I think this is interesting and potentially useful for marketers of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and products and services directed at physicians — it gives some idea of how physicians are using social/professional media and identifies some of the trusted communities where they might be reached.
In an accompanying article, Publicis writes that
The proliferation of small and large communities is the result of physicians’ increasing need to share ideas and discuss clinical cases with colleagues in every part of the world.
The article categorizes physicians’ online social media (although “social” doesn’t necessarily express the purpose of these communities) in three ways:
AB — 7 September 2011
A Thinking Person, a.k.a. Cogit8R 