People who hate change love the status quo. Change scares them. Change is dangerous to them, because it requires them to do things differently, and that’s hard. Let’s face it, lots of people like the status quo because it doesn’t require them to do anything new, and it doesn’t require them to leave their comfort zone. The comfort zone is called that for a reason, because it’s comfortable. But you know by now, that being comfortable means that nothing new and life-changing ever happens.

So when CitiBike NYC was announced, half of NYC was all like “Cool!” and half of NYC was all like “This is the worst thing ever, it’s going to destroy us and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters is going to show up and kill us.”

But Bloomberg did his Bloomberg-like magic, and sure enough, NYC joins other major, forward-thinking cities and now has a bike-share plan. And guess what? By the end of the first week, over 10,000 trips had been taken on CitiBikes, and there’s currently a huge wait for membership approvals, due to the overwhelming popularity of the program. Personally, I love it – I’ve taken over twenty trips in the past week and a half, and have used the subway exactly twice. I’ve already covered the yearly CitiBike NYC fee in the money I’ve saved on subways and cabs, and I’ve been using the program for less than two weeks!

So… What can we learn from this?

1) There will always be people who are going to hate your idea! Just accept this as fact, get over it, and move on. And here’s something even more important: LOTS of people are going to hate your idea! And they’ll be INCREDIBLY vocal about telling you how much they do! In fact, some people spend the majority of their free time finding ways to tell other people they’ve never met about how much they hate an idea. GET OVER IT. There will always be people who choose to rain on your parade because they can’t make their own sunshine. If you believe in what you’re doing, KEEP DOING IT. HATERS ARE NEVER A REASON TO QUIT. If Bloomberg had quit this project because of the haters, I wouldn’t be able to get from 9th Ave and 42nd to 1st Ave and 64th in eleven minutes.

2) That said, find three people you trust, I mean, REALLY trust, and listen to them. REALLY listen to them. Both the good and the bad. And don’t fight with them. Don’t tell them why they’re wrong and you’re right.  If you really trust their opinions, (because they’re mentors, and you’re smart enough to have a mentor or two,) then hear them, and make changes as needed. Unlike haters, these three people you really trust really DO want you to succeed, so when they give you honest feedback, TAKE IT. Trust me – Even someone as successful as Bloomberg had mentors at one point, and most certainly still has trusted advisors. All the most successful people do.

3) Expect glitches, mistakes, and initial problems. But know they’re learning experiences, and not reasons to quit. A small percentage of CitiBike docks don’t work. They don’t accept returning bikes, and people don’t know if their bike is marked as “returned,” or if they’re going to get charged. So they have to park somewhere else for the first two weeks. Glitches happen with a new idea, but GLITCHES GET FIXED AND LEAD TO BETTER PROGRESS. Don’t let glitches stop you, but make sure you learn from the glitches and fix them ASAP.

4) Keep your ear to the ground! Make sure you have ways for the first people who use your product to contact you, they’re going to be your best advisors and tell you about your first problems. And not only should you listen, but you should respond and make these people YOUR BEST FRIENDS. I can’t vouch that CitiBike NYC is actually doing this, since I’ve tweeted them a few times and have yet to hear back, but think about it: If a customer is taking a chance on you and talking about you before the masses are, wouldn’t you want to do everything in your power to pull this first-mover over to your side? Reach out to EVERYONE who talks about you in any capacity in the beginning, whether good or bad. Good, thank them and reach out privately to reward them. Bad, reach out publicly and ask them to contact you privately so you can continue the conversation, fix what they believe is wrong (if it is,) and then reward them when it’s fixed. Trust me: When you fix a first-mover-user’s problem and they know it, they’ll go out of their way to promote you. It’s how you turn users to believers to customers who will take a bullet for you. And that’s what you want.

As I write this, I’m sitting here drying out from a hot 9 minute ride from my apartment to my office. It would have taken longer by subway. Instead, I got a little exercise, burned off an egg white or two, and got a jolt of endorphins. None of which would have happened if Bloomberg had listened to the haters.

Any other lessons one can learn from CitiBike NYC? Leave them in the comments. And thanks for reading!

Spiral out. Keep going.

This is a truly dark day – Not just for the photojournalists who were let go, but for journalism, for media, for the trust proffered by you to believe the story you’re reading is in fact true.

Not Instagrammed.

The Chicago Sun-Times redefined the value of a photograph and a news photographer this week. What was once “worth a thousand words,” has been callously downgraded to no worth at all, cast aside in a knee-jerk attempt by the Sun-Times Media Group to “stay relevant.” In fact, they’ve short-sightedly doomed their flagship newspaper to a guaranteed death.

I graduated Boston University’s College of Communications with a concentration in photojournalism, in May of 1994. Two years earlier, in 1992, I was working for The Patriot Ledger, a daily newspaper outside of Boston on election night, when the first digital photo was transmitted over the AP wire. We all knew this because it had a special caption – “DIGITAL PHOTO – NON-FILM” – As if the lack of TMAX-100 running through the camera made the photo any less of a documenter of history. I remember the photo editor had posted the photo on the wall – “Look at the future,” he said, before disappearing into the darkroom to develop another roll of film.

I kept shooting for several years – Landed a few AP wire photos, usually of spot news – a fireman in Allston, MA, rescuing a newborn baby from a burning house, an apartment groundskeeper fighting a losing battle with his plow against an incoming blizzard. I learned from seasoned, hard-nosed photojournalists on the job – First, they’d push me out of the way to get their shot, and after the frenzy died down, would talk to me – Not apologize for pushing me, but teach me how to get a better shot, and also how to stay the hell out of their way. And I learned.

I wound up taking a different trajectory, working in the newsroom of AOL as it was just starting, but I always stayed true to my “PhotoJ” roots – To this day, I keep a police scanner on my desk in my apartment – When I hear sirens, I cut it on and see if I can figure out what’s going on.

No one cared how many mobile phones were lost that day

I learned to be a photojournalist, to understand what makes a photo and why it’s relevant. As digital replaced film, and the choice of what mobile phone to buy became not about call quality, but camera megapixels and data transfer rates, every press photographer knew the times were changing, and some adopted these new tools into their repertoire, some even with great success.

But in the end, there has been, is, and always will be, a difference between taking a photograph, and simply grabbing a picture. It doesn’t matter how good the technology gets, the latter will never be as paramount as the former. But perhaps that doesn’t matter anymore. Perhaps the audience who used to read the New York Daily News for their amazing photographs has completely died off. (You know that original logo in between “Daily” and “News” on the paper? It’s a camera.) Perhaps the audience who looked forward to being amazed by their weekly delivery of “Life” Magazine is no more. Perhaps these were a few of the reasons cited in the meeting of the board of the Sun Times Media Group when they voted to kill one of the last remaining links to an era of quality journalism. Perhaps they were thinking “well, everyone has a cameraphone, and citizen journalism is free!” Maybe they actually believe what they wrote in their press release, “we believe our audience of today prefers video to photographs.” Or perhaps the board is simply made up of younger people now, people who don’t remember when a real news photograph could change the world.

Whatever the reason, it’s the wrong decision, and not one that can rely on “things change as time goes on” as a defense. Journalists and photojournalists have always relied on each other to create a symbiotic telling of the news. Replace that with a shaky, vertical iPhone video? I’d rather move back to the days of radio.

For journalism, it was a sad, sad week.

I was scheduled to race, and had pretty much told myself I probably wouldn’t because of the weather, specifically the temps. I was bummed, because it’s a fun race, but 50 degree water AND air temps are brutal, and the last thing I needed was to get sick at the beginning of the season. So when I got the email from NYC Swim announcing the cancelation around 10:20pm tonight, my guilt for not wanting to swim was immediately absolved.

Photo: NYCSwim.org

More importantly, NYC Swim did EXACTLY what a company is supposed to do when forces out of their control require major changes on the fly. The first email came at 7pm, alerting us that as of then, the swim was still on, but we’d get an email around 10pm with an update. In other words, “hey, we’re letting you know that we’ll be reaching out again in a few hours with the possibility of change, be aware.”

The update email at 10:20pm alerted us to the cancelation, and I saw it, and assumed that was the end of it. They followed up and let us know, as they said they would, cool. But then, four minutes later, my mobile phone rang with an 888 number I didn’t recognize. I answered it, and it was a recording from NYC Swim, alerting me again to the cancelation.

Two minutes later, my wife called me (I was on a CVS Drugstore run, welcome to having a newborn,) telling me that the home phone had just rang with the same NYC Swim recording.

Wow. So email first, mobile phone second, and home phone third. THAT’S notification.

Yes, it sucks that the race was canceled, but NYC Swim did exactly the right thing. They alerted in every way possible. But wait! There’s more!

See, here’s where it goes above and beyond from a customer service perspective: You’d think, “OK, they alerted people, they did what they should have done, end of story.” And you’d be right because that’s as much as we expect.

But NYC Swim took it a step further. From the cancelation email they sent, notice they did two things immediately:

1) Please feel free to join us any time between 9:25 and 11:00 at the start location to pick up your souvenir T-shirt and see fellow swimmers and volunteers. All swimmers who had been approved for the event will receive a 50% credit toward a new enrollment for a 2013 or 2014 swim series event. You will see the option to enroll at a discount in the online enrollment form.

2) Still want to get in a swim? Pick up your goody bag and take it to the Reebok Club on Columbus Avenue at West 67th Street. The complimentary entry pass inside gets you access to all facilities, including the pool, fitness center, track and Jacuzzi where you can warm up and soak the day away. We were really looking forward to this event and are truly sorry that the swim won’t be held. We greatly appreciate your support and hope to see you tomorrow even without the swim.

So to recap: They’ll be at the swim start tomorrow morning anyway, even though the swim is canceled, to greet anyone who didn’t get the email or phone calls, as well as anyone who wants to stop by for the goody bag. AND, (and you know they had to have done this in advance,) they made arrangements to allow one of the top gyms in the city to give every registered swimmer access to their pool, fitness center, track, and Jacuzzi tomorrow. Were you planning on using tomorrow’s race as a workout? Simply go to the Reebok club, and you still can, for free.

Consider that all this was offered to swimmers because of a weather cancel, something out of NYC Swim’s control, something they easily could have said wasn’t their fault. Instead, they stepped up. THIS is how you handle something out of your control. You do what you need to do on the spot, but you also pre-plan in case of a crisis. I’m willing to bet that every registered 2013 swimmer will sign up for the 2014 race, and that a good amount will show up tomorrow morning at the start, knowing full well there won’t be a race. I know I will.

Bravo to NYC Swim. Customer service and crisis management at its finest.

The responses were awesome. A lot of them are common sense things that no one bothers to do. (Remember, I always tell people that to succeed, you just have to be one level above crap,) but others are things I never even thought of.

So here are 9 ways to amaze and astound your clients and customers today. Do these things. The results you’ll get will range from “cool” to “awesome” to “holy shit, I landed a million dollar account today!”

@MeganMWagner says “Smile when you’re on the phone with clients or customers. They’ll know it.” She’s right. Here’s a story from NPR about how humans can “hear” a smile without seeing the person’s face. And let’s face it (no pun intended) – People want to do business with happy people.

@Webby2001 says “If there is a reliable and valid data source for a question they have, I know it, or I’ll find it. Whether it’s from my company or not.” Good point. We tend to forget that we’re here to solve problems for clients, and sometimes, when we can’t do it ourselves, we earn future points by solving that particular problem by recommending someone else who can.

@CarlaCacPRoffers this: “Offer to do something at no additional charge. People can’t stand to be nickel and dimed; if something is not going to take you long, throw it in. The gesture will be worth more in the long run than what you would have made on the service.” LOVE this one. I do this all the time – Sometimes it’s as easy as Googling something the right way, sometimes it takes a bit more. But it’s so worth it. Why? Because you become the person everyone wants to use, because you get results.

@AndreaJobs gives up one of her best-kept secrets here, which might not only be beneficial, but also cool, assuming none of her clients read it: “I do not have my cell phone # on my business cards. I hand write it on the card in front of them saying “Let me give you my cell # so you can reach me anytime.” Corny as it sounds, it makes them feel like I am sharing a personal secret.” Interesting – I totally get why clients would like this – I remember Mr. Wile, my high school guidance counselor, giving all the parents at orientation his private line. You never saw 1600 hands write down a number quicker in your life.

@chrisbrogan nails it, in a surprisingly few number of words for him: “Remember them. It’s fascinating how powerful this one detail truly is.” It’s true. When someone remembers me when I walk into a business, my defenses have already been lowered, and I already want to spend more money.

Creating amazement really isn't that hard.

Love this one from @johncorcoran, because it’s something I do regularly. It’s amazing how a follow-up that has nothing to do with you, but rather, is all about them, really works: “I will contact a client months after I’m done working with the client to send them a link to an article or resource I’ve found that I think would be useful to them. Or if I know about a personal passion of theirs (such as the NY Giants or hiking), I may send them an email about that topic. It shows I’m continuing to think about them long after they are done paying me, and it is useful from a business development standpoint because then they are reminded of me and may recommend me to one of their friends.”

I like this one from @smileboston – We spend too much time talking, and not enough listening – So repeating what the customer wants to make sure we both have it right is a simple self-check, right? “Truly listen to a response or question, repeat to confirm understanding (“let me make sure I understand what you said”), and oblige or respond accordingly. The repeat usually blows their mind and assures we are looking to attain the same goal.”

@curojo simply states: “Look for opportunities to give nice surprises whenever you can.” Smart. Customer service usually means reacting. What if it’s about proacting? (Is that a word?) Can you anticipate needs and make things happen for the customer that blow them away?

The last one is mine – @petershankman – “Read (listen to) body language, and react accordingly.” There’s a fun scene in the movie “Limitless” where Bradley Cooper takes NTZ and realizes that his landlord’s wife is mad, but not mad at him. “My existence shouldn’t make you this angry, what is it?” He asks a simple question, and she folds – telling him what’s wrong. Read your customer. Angry? Frustrated? Sad? Happy? Tired? How can you help them into a better mood on the fly? It’s usually not that hard.

I want to hear your tips to amaze and astound customers, and I’ll try and use them in a follow-up post. Leave them on the form here. Disagree with anything above? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.