iGoogle - A Must For The Avid Reader

I have been using iGoogle for over a year now, but just recently started subscribing to multiple blogs. My increased interest in blogs was the result of a business acquaintenance recommending Seth Godin's blog. I read it daily and amazed at the volume of insighful, succinct, and well-written ideas he has. I highly recommend reading his blog and purchasing his books.

I then began subscribing (and over-subscribing) to numerous blogs. I use basically three methods to find blogs:

1. Let Google pick for you. When I set up a new tab called "News", I clicked on "I'm feeling lucky. Automatically add stuff based on the tab name.
2. Look for the 'rss' symbol on currently favorite web sites. For example, I regularly visit as my local newspaper, The Courier-Journal, CNET.com, and sports pages.
   
3. Browse web sites such as Blogged.com that rank blogs.
   
4. Use iGoogle's "Add Stuff" to search for gadgets to add.
   

I now have tabs for News, Sports, Tech, Louisville, Blogs, Faith, and Sandbox. I have all the news feeds and articles easily accessible on one web site.

Blog from Email

Blogger offers a great feature where you can post a blog directly from your email. Just send an email to the address you assign in your settings and you can blog from anywhere. I have used this several times in the past, but it seems to have stopped working. I sent a blog last night and still have not seen it posted yet. Let's see if this one ever makes it to the blog. These free services are great, but sometimes you get what you pay for.

Telephone Etiquete

When leaving a voicemail, please remember the following suggestions. First, leave a header and a footer. At the beginning of the VM, leave your name, company, and phone number. Slow down when saying your phone number (and I mean really slow down). At the end of the VM, leave your name, company, and phone number again. Repeat your phone number twice. Say it so slow that it feels a little awkward. There is nothing worse than having to replay the entire message just to get the number at the end. In fact, you can just call back later if I can’t get it the first time.

Finally, please don’t just say call me. If it is important enough for me to call you back, then it is important enough to give me a least a brief description. I would like to know what we will be discussing so that I can come to the conversation prepared. The more preparation before the call, the more efficient and effective the phone call will be.

Jott

Check out Jott.com.  Jott is you personal dictation web service.  Just call an 800 number and leave a message. Jott will convert your voice to text and send you an email.  You can set up friend and co-workers and send them emails, too.  It's great for sending yourself reminders or using it as a personal reccording device.

How to deal with angry customers

I attended a workshop on how to deal with angry customers. The workshop attempted to provide numerous techniques, each with a long acronym to help us remember. Give me a break. Am I really suppose to take a step back, recall all this alphabet soup of techniques and apply them when an angry customer calls? The key is to develop a paradigm of excellent customer service that can be applied to angry customers, happy customers, new customers, and anyone else for that matter.

It's really quite simple -- proactive communication. Call them. Email them. Let them know you are working on the project. Let them know you are waiting on some info. Let them know you have not forgotten about them. Their are usually angry because we haven't called. We usually don't call because we know we've dropped the ball somewhere. Proactive communication is a lot easier when you are really taking care of the customer's needs.

Thunder Advice

My wife and I just got home from Thunder Over Louisville. We thought we could just go from River Road to Zorn Avenue to I-71 South, but I-71 was purposely closed. So was I-65 North. We had to go all the way around the Watterson to Sherman Minton Bridge which is only one lane. Watching the traffic coming out of Southern Indiana, though, made me grateful we were not in their grid lock. Although it took an hour to get home, the traffic diversions actually make sense. Force everybody to go one direction -- away from Louisville. Divert the crowd, thin it out, and clear the congestion. It actually works. My only advice would be to stay in your own state, if at all possible. Since the goal is to go away from Louisville and you cannot get from Kentucky to Indiana or vice-versa without going through Louisville, it much more efficient and logistically sound to stay in your state.