If it was half as good as Microsoft claimed, they wouldn’t have such a hard time getting people to upgrade. The consumer would spread the word for them.

The fact is, you can do so many things with Vista. You can do all that you did before… you just have to do it differently. In many cases, it is much more difficult.

Here are some observations that I made a year ago that still seem to be an issue… even with the much touted SP1. Some are getting better, but still not there.

1. The interface is pretty cool; it is better than XP, but you can have the same (or better) interface with Mac OS X in a more stable environment.
2. My digital camera was very hard to connect. 
3. My battery life was terrible.
4. Microsoft claims greater security, but at the cost of convenience and efficiency.
5. There are plenty printing problems.
6. Plenty of program / OS compatibility issues… even with Microsoft applications.

Well, let’s add another to the list.

I have been going nuts trying to figure out why the new MP3 player in my car won’t work. It is the kind that you have to burn disks for. I have burned a number of disks with my Vista OS and every time I put a disk in to the car, it doesn’t work.

Finally, I tried with my Mac… which I should have done from the beginning.

First try… no problems.

Oh, I am sure there is a way to do on Windows Vista, but it shouldn’t be that hard. It should work right, out of the box, with standards that have been around for 10 years.

And here is the way I look at it. If I, who have an IT Degree, work on my computer 14 hours per day, build web sites, understand multimedia and love to figure out how to make new things work, can’t figure it out, then it probably isn’t easy enough.

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While I don’t believe in a "customer bill of rights" because I think that it is an easy thing to say and forget, I believe in good customer service policies that positively affect the customer experience.

1. I know I am not your only customer, but talk to me like I am as often as possible. When I am talking to you, don’t answer the phone, don’t talk to other employees unless you are asking them for me and don’t walk away from me.
2. Provide me various methods of communication. Sometimes I want to talk face to face. Sometimes I want to talk on the phone. Usually, I want to email or text message. Since I am paying you for your service, please communicate with me the way I want.
3. Don’t think I am too stupid to realize that you need to make a profit. I know you need to make a reasonable profit. It is how you stay in business. If you can’t do it for my price, be honest and tell me so.
4. Don’t hide the price so that I’ll "call for more details." When I am shopping, I want to know if I can afford something very quickly. If I want a ballpark figure, surely you know what the average sale is going to be. Just tell me when I ask.
5. Recognize that I have likely done research. Ask me how much I know and never assume my knowledge level. If you assume too much, you’ll talk over my head. If you assume too little, you’ll talk down to me.
6. Clean up a little. Clean your bathrooms and your windows. Organize your shelves. Shave. Comb your hair. Respect yourself so that I know you can respect me.
7. Don’t answer the phone with such a long introduction. I don’t usually call wondering why I am calling. It is annoying when I have to hear, "Thank you for calling Bob’s Pizzeria. Are you calling about our $9.99 pizza special where you can get all the toppings you want and a cold drink for $9.99." When, "Thank you for calling Bob’s Pizzeria" will do.
8. If I am obviously the next person in line, don’t ask, "May I help the next person?" Ask, instead, "Hello, how can I help you?"
9. Don’t try and throw the wool over my eyes. I am educated and I understand things. I am smart enough to ask when I don’t understand something. If I don’t want to give you my budget it is because I have been screwed too many times by dumb sales people. You tell me what you can do and I’ll let you know if it fits my budget.
10. Go out of your way to be nice to everyone. Don’t be fake. Don’t talk bad about other employees or other customers to me. I can’t trust that you’ll be nice to me when my back is turned if you aren’t nice about others.

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Corey Smith is the Chief Web Architect for ProspectBuilder.net and is Editor in Chief for Office Product News - a news service for the copier, printer and document management industry.


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Well, if you think you can’t get it done, then you will never get it done. If you want the results you are looking for, you have to be willing to work. You have to be willing to work hard.

Nothing great was ever accomplished by being lazy.

If you don’t have an ethic of hard work, don’t expect to have any real glory.

You may try to give me examples of people that have done great things without any work. The fact is, people may be able to do some pretty cool things by luck, but they worked hard to make that luck a reality in the past. Great things require hard work and often times you don’t see the actual work that others actually put in. Just because someone isn’t at the office doesn’t mean they aren’t working. Just because someone isn’t sitting behind their computer doesn’t mean they aren’t learning some key bit of information that will make something great happen down the road.

If you think you can luck your way into success, think again.

If you want real glory, work hard and the good luck will find you.

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40 hours per work week.

8 hours of sleep.

1 hour for lunch.

Arbitrary numbers are all over the place.

Someone, somewhere decided that 40 hours of work per week is "full-time." However, if you are exempt, that number doesn’t really apply (though you may think it does).

Someone, somewhere decided that adults need 8 hours of sleep.

Someone, somewhere thought that the workday should start at 8am and end at 5pm. (Although I don’t get why this should be the case in service industries like healthcare or automotive because that is the same time your clients work).

The fact is, all these numbers are just arbitrary. Just because they are the numbers that people have used for so long, it doesn’t mean they are the right numbers to use.

I need 6.77 hours for sleep and a 23 minute nap in the middle of the day. Some people need more like 8.43 hours for sleep.

One of the first keys to success is stop living life by these arbitrary numbers we put on ourselves. We need to sleep for as long as we need sleep. We need to work for as long as it takes to get the job done. We eat lunch for as long as lunch takes.

You can never expect to become efficient in what you do if you determine that you are going to stop at the end of an arbitrary time period because the clock says so.

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Here is a small excerpt from their press release:

“Over the past few years we have made significant investments in our offerings,” said Joe Garske, President. “The fresh new brand combined with the new website is part of our effort to communicate these new offerings to our clients.”

The company engaged ProspectBuilder.net to create a new logo and develop the new website.

“With the rapid move to installing color printers, our goal was to come up with a fresh brand that communicated the company’s new color offerings,” said Darrell Amy, President of ProspectBuilder.net. The new logo brings in a bright color along with an artistic brush stroke through the company name.“Many of our clients are realizing the benefits of outsourcing the management of their printers,” said Garske. “Not only do they save money, it also frees up their IT department to focus on more critical issues.”

You can see the full release at OfficeProductNews.net.

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Have you seen it yet?

I am not sure, but I don’t know that I see Yellow Book as a 1,000 Year Brand. In fact, I don’t know that they will be around for another 10 years… or at least be anything of any real significance unless they change their business model. If yellow book doesn’t have all the information now, how can we expect them to have all the information when there is 100 fold available by then.

The fact is, there is so much information available right now that YellowBook doesn’t even consider including.

As a quick comparison. Google has been around for 10 years (yup, that is it). Last year, it’s revenue was $10.6 Billion.

YellowBook has, essentially, been around twice that long (since about 1985) but it’s revenues are less than one quarter of Google’s at only $2.3 Billion.

You tell me which one is going to be around in the "future."

Advertising doesn’t make it so. A great product and brand make it so.

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The primary aspect of my job was to convince people that leasing telephones was a viable thing to do. (dumb, huh?) And I was very successful. I would lease cordless phones at $50 per month… and you could go and buy one at the time for $100.

I would very often get calls like, "I just noticed that I had a bill from you all for $4.95 for a Princess Phone. I don’t have this phone, please cancel my bill"

Upon further discussion with the client, we had been billing them since 1984 for that phone at $4.95 per month because prices never changed. (Our records didn’t go before the break-up) Nearly $500 over the 8 years. They often would not have seen the phone in 5 or 6 or more years… yet we were still billing them and they kept making the payment.

How does this apply today?

Well, at my phone book post, there has been a discussion about the thought that if a client buys an ad, he must think that it is worth something… it must provide him some value.

Nope. I don’t buy that sales line for a minute.

Sure, some people may actually see benefit. Some people may actually see an increase in sales, but, just because a salesman can continue to sell someone on something doesn’t mean it is worth the paper it is printed on.

Let’s not confuse the ability to sell something with the actual viability of the value of that product.

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One point really struck me as interesting by "kenc". He said, among other things, "The nearly $18 billion that companies spend on print and online YP speaks for itself."

His point, is that since people spend so much on advertising, it must be successful for them.

To that, I respond, "Huh?"

It reminds me of Cosmo Kramer in Seinfeld. In Episode #822, "The Summer of George," Jerry asked Kramer why the producers wanted Kramer to fire Raquel Welch. His response was:

Because they’re terrified of her. I heard from someone that when they cut one of her lines, she climbed up the rope on side of the stage and started dropping lights on peoples heads. Story like that has got to be true.

"A Story Like That Has To Be True!"

Just because businesses spend $18 million on an advertising medium doesn’t mean a darn thing. Business leaders waste money for a variety of reason. Not the least of which is because a skilled salesman showed them a stat that had to be true.

I am sure that some people see success. I would imagine that there are some companies that see success because of phone book advertising… and those are the stats that are bandied about. I tend to think that for the masses, it is a waste of money. In fact, even for those that are successful, I bet there are far better ways to spend those dollars.

Give me some proof other than conjecture and anecdotal evidence and I might change my mind.

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Oh, I know that people use it. I know that some people actually don’t have the internet. Not those in the circle I roll with, mind you, but I know they exist.

But still, I question the relevance of a phone book. I especially question the relevance of a phone book from one company.

You see, I have been so unhappy with Qwest, that I haven’t been a customer of theirs in three years. I know many people who have phones that aren’t Qwest customers. With wireless providers offering unlimited minutes, Cable getting in to VoIP (at a ridiculously high price, mind you) and all of the real VoIP providers like Packet8, Vonage, Phone.com and VoIP.com the percentage of customers that companies, like Qwest, have to put in the phone book is dwindling.

Because I haven’t been all that happy with VoIP providers, I have opted to use my cell phone with unlimited minutes for my communication. (I have to admit that my home phone is still a VoIP provider… no plugs because they aren’t great).

Here is what I am getting at. More and more customers are leaving traditional phone companies for other forms of communication. Not only that, phone numbers change. As fast the book gets printed, there are already changes.

I thought, maybe, the online form of the "phone book" at http://www.dexknows.com would have more data than just for Qwest. I am not listed because I am not their customer. So, I thought that I would check at http://www.yellowpages.com/ but, the same Corey Smiths show up on their list for Idaho. I thought that I would try out http://www.yellowbook.com/… they have two more listings for Corey Smith, but I am still not on the list. I wonder if, for the most part, they are just using the same database… could be.

At least I am on the first page at Google.

So, the phone book becomes obsolete the moment it is printed and even their online services don’t contain the phone number for people that aren’t their customer (not to mention people that opt out).

So, what is the purpose? Why does it exist? Why do people still use it?

At least I have some free fire kindling now.

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I get questions all the time from clients about RSS… I am often asked to give them a newsroom area to posts current news and events, but then I am asked to simply turn off the RSS icon. I think that a lot of people must not understand the beauty of what RSS can do.

You can checkout my post titled What is RSS and Why Should I Care?

Don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed at the right.

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