Oxymoron of the week: 'Let's incorporate social networking".
Just look at that sentence!
Incorporate. Social. Like saying, "Let's engineer some fun."
I hear this sentence uttered a lot these days, in corridors, over pret-a-mangers and bento boxes. Everyone's trying to make up the creek with a better paddle, Twitter and Facebook being two of them. "Social Media Director" is the newest gig on deck.
But Facebook and Twitter are not social networking. This I am certain of. They are merely tools we tenuously by which to build off-line trust that will endure should they be compromised. It's already happened - witness the recent spate of fake FB friends telling you they're stuck in some far off country and need money wired urgently. And note what happens when your broadband connection craps out – you groan but basically get on with your offline life without dwelling in it because you have to.
Fortunately, most of us can detect a spammer because spammers don't know how to talk to people. That's because they're not interested in people. They're only interested in themselves, what's in it for them. They have the empathy of a hit and run driver.
If you're a true social networker, you love and care about people who help themselves. You naturally put self, and your immediate needs, second. You notice when a community member is sick, in need, or poised for an introduction. You will make that connection happen, before brushing your teeth. You are a catalyst. The real test – will your community rally to your side in times of real need?
I work for a small, made-in-USA bicycle manufacturer in the Pacific Northwest.
We were invited to exhibit in NYC. We simply didn't have the money to produce and ship a special fleet of demonstration bikes cross-country at short notice.
The result: a booth staffed entirely with customers displaying their own bikes. Customers took over the desk like staff, mingled with the public, telling them about their bike and how it had changed their lives. These customers weren't company men, they were community men. It was clear that people responded to them as such, rather than keep a polite distance and avoid eye contact as we tend to do when exhibitors try to engage us at trade shows.
Last night I attended a presentation on France by a customer who, as a secondary feature, traveled across on our product. I admit I found myself shifting in my seat, sheepishly embarrassed at how he raved our product – thus keeping me in a job. A customer evangelist begets customer evangelists.
I've also just returned from three weeks in Japan. There, I was amazed to discover how enthused our customers are about our bikes.
"We are true customer evangelists!" said one couple, who rode a long way to be with us, on their matching bikes.
We've created our cult without Facebook and Twitter (although we do have accounts there that I haphazardly update). We did it with an old-fashioned, text-based listserve, we visit and homestay with our customers and we answer every email, one to one.
The blogosphere doesn't need another forum of grunts, half-baked sentences and lazy emoticons promoting ambivalence to your life's work. It just needs to be more social – genuinely social - and the networking will follow.
The Galfromdownunder has returned from 2 months evangelizing in Asia where she sat back and let her customers do their darndest. More about that here.
The movements are slow. Very slow. In a typical "lesson", you move a limb just the tiniest amount, maybe an inch or less, then move it back. Then compare how your body feels before and after.
It's customary to lie on a bit of thin padding, because we tend to flinch and stiffen up when we get down on a hard floor.
But, by the end of the lesson, you're amazed – you can roll about like a ball of goop on that hard floor. Like a rubbery baby, with no 'ooooffs' or 'yeowchs', you move with grace and purpose, like a seasoned performer or virtually any member of the animal kingdom who's not thinking moment to moment, "how am I looking?"
What's this got to do with Fast Company?
It's the antithesis: there's no success without failure, there's no dark without out light, there's no sound without silence, and there's no going fast without going slow.
"No one can learn when hurried or hustled," said Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984), a pioneering physicist, engineer, biomechanicist and black belt in judo. His sublimely cogent essay, "Learn to Learn", explains his "Awareness Through Movement" philosophy:
"Efficient movement or performance of any sort is achieved by weeding out, and eliminating parasitic superfluous exertion. The superfluous is as bad as the insufficient, only it costs more. When becomes familiar with an act, speed increases spontaneously, and so does power. This not so obvious, as it is correct."
Ever watched a powerpoint presentation with too much stuff on the slides and you didn't get it? Listened to a speaker who said way too much and you glazed over? Explained something to someone in too many words and they switched off? Spent a lot of energy worrying about the outcome of something that you couldn't influence anyway?
The Feldenkrais approach is about recalibrating our body awareness, by going back to ago 0 and re-learning how to move, so we can be more effective in all our moment by moment decisions, conscious and unconscious.
Some other soundbites – or rather, slow nibbles: The countenance of trying hard betrays the inner conviction of being unable, or of not being good enough. Thus, do not "try" to do well.
An act becomes nice when we do nothing but the act. Everything we do over and above that, or short of it, destroys harmony. Thus, do not "try" to do nicely.
Or as Yoda said: Do not try. Do.
Rather than plagiarize more of his essay, read it yourself here:
I recently became a certified yoga teacher. During my training I rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed, overthinking my class until I could run it start to finish so clearly in my mind. When I got up to "perform", it all vanished. I froze, full of angst and a sense of failure, and no room to let my subconscious "just wing it."
Do not concentrate. Rather, attend well to the entire situation, your body, your surroundings, by scanning the whole sufficiently to become aware of any change or difference, concentrating just enough to perceive it.
I needed Feldenkrais!
An example of this subtle awareness from bicycling: drafting is the technique of riding in the slipstream of the cyclist in front of you - 'sucking wheel' it's called. Concentrate too hard on that rear wheel and you'll run into it - with disastrous results. The key is soft focus - soften your gaze, let that spinning rear wheel be a fuzzy detail, yet be alert and attentive to the scene as a whole.
I came into contact with Feldenkreis 20 years ago in Australia, while taking an acapella singing class. (In New York, the Feldenkrais Institute
is only 3 years young). Despite the joke that Australia is "the 51st state of 'merica", that big sandy island is surprisingly quick to adopt cutting edge ideas from Europe.
Feldenkrais is a popular training tool downunder for performers of all stripes – dancers, singers, musicians, athletes - where success is all about "flow", a harmonious, effortless and movement-efficient performance. When you're not flowing, you're making mistakes - left feet, sweat on the keyboard and missed slam dunks.
"Psychology is a relatively young field," said our instructor David Zemach-Bersin, a physiological
psychologist and long
time understudy of Mosche Feldenkreis. "Physicists were so excited at their new theories being able to explain the physical world, they thought they'd apply it to humans too to explain how we tick."
He reminded us why animals are born in an advanced state of physical development compared to humans - their lives revolve around movement rather than intellect thought. Within an hour of birth an animal a fully functioning, barely wobbly member of its society. In contrast, the human head develops so much faster than the physical body, that we have to be born early else we'd be too big to pop out. Thus, our motor system takes a back seat to our intellect and according to Feldenkreis, we go through life hunched over, stumbling around, and getting lumbago and stiff necks, making excessive and misdirected movements and as a result, inefficient decisions in life. The solution? Go back and "re-learn" to "flow" like the wild things. Hence going back to moving that finger one inch at a time ... and back again.
A corollary to this notion is what Zemach-Bersin calls "the law of the least amount of effort to make a noticeable result". This is best illustrated using an example of physical weight: If you're carrying a fridge on your back, adding or removing a sachet of ketchup from your last take-out is hardly detectable. Research has determined that that the sachet would need to be at least 1/40 of the weight of the fridge for the average human to detect the difference. You'd need a lot of stolen ketchup piled in the crisper before you'd notice the difference! Now shrink that fridge to just a few ounces, balanced on a finger. A few goops from that sachet would tip the balance. In our lives, 'bigger-brighter-better-more' means that everything gets escalated in order to be able to detect a difference. Do you hate the way TV ads are broadcast louder than an already loud TV show? That's escalation.
An example of escalation from my world of bicycling: one blinky red light in the black of night is visible enough, but due to our landfilling-lust for bigger-better-brighter-more, bicycle rear lights have escalated, featuring more and more globes, and higher and higher intensities. Add that to the similarly escalating red lights festooning all kinds of vehicles (remember those lit up 'spoilers'?) and the resultant visual cacophony means I'm lucky if I don't get run over at night. No wonder my staying alive device is proving quite popular.
An example of escalation using sound: if everyone would speak at a slightly lower level in a restaurant, everyone could be heard while still retaining a buzzy ambience. But note how the volume escalates, so you have to scream, "pass the edamame!" - it's a strain on everyone. It amazes me how architects and interior designers continue to neglect this aspect of restaurant design, claiming that "the people want there to be a buzz." Do they really? Is it a buzz or a din?
Then there's escalation of information - showing and telling too much. In the words of famous Sao Paulo Creative Director Marcelo Serpa, "The more you say, the less people hear". Or "Say too much, you lose money." I get this feeling when I see overloaded webpages (like my own, I'm embarrassed to admit) or suffer loquacious CNN newsreaders - I just want to switch them off.
And what about Sex In The City lookalikes wallpapering cable TV? What a relief to the optic nerve when someone "dowdy" takes the limelight - no wonder Susan Boyle made headlines. No wonder we admire British drama and it's "warts 'n' all" casting.
So the faster and harder we exert ourselves, the more we escalate, the less sensitive we are to subtle changes, to light and shade, loud and soft, big and not so bug - and the harder we have to work to make a difference.
Try this as an exercise. Pick a 'mindless' activity, like reaching for a cookie jar or cleaning your teeth, and fully commit to it. Concentrate on precisely what movement is needed, no more, and no less. "When you commit to reaching for a cookie jar, ideally your whole body commits," says Zemach-Bersin. "So your right arm shoots up, the right side of your body stretches, and simultaneously your left shoulder and left side of the body angle down. You put weight on the right foot and release weight from the left. Your head and eyes look up to where your hand and fingers are reaching. You inhale."
Now by being rushed and preoccupied, you may semi-commit to the act, absent mindedly turning off the faucet, worrying about the clock, stepping on something slippery and end up straining a muscle and dropping the jar. One of the most common problems in driving a car is absent mindedly wrenching your upper body around from the drivers seat to reach for something in the back seat.
Now approach a work task similarly. Answer one email at a time, open one window at a time on your desktop. Breathe, drop the shoulders, and resist the urge to have several half-baked email and application windows open at once with incomplete eBay transactions and credit card lookups layed one over the other. Allow yourself to fully commit to small tasks and notice how effortlessly you complete one and flow to the next. Breathe!
By reducing the urge to achieve, and attending also to the means for achieving, we learn easier. On knowing what to achieve before we have learned to learn, we an reach only the limit of our ignorance.
Feldenkrais, Vipassana meditation, Avatar and other mind-body tehniques are ways to re-calibrate that internal escalator back to a time when our heads weren't too big for our bodies. Suspend your cynicism and check them all out with an open mind – shifting out of the fast lane into the slow lane can help us avoid a breakdown up ahead.
Last week in my post about coupon clippers I posted a photo of a sign I came across in Georgia. Once more with feeling:
Smile Call customers by their names Thank them for their business
We all recoil from cheesy and insincere platitudes, "have a nice day" being king of the hill. But in a recession, we should always be conveying the sentiment behind the above sign – we just have to make sure we execute it right.
A few minutes earlier my friend and I walked into the Bank of America to cash a check. A woman in a suit was shepherding people around as they entered.
As my friend transacted at a window, the woman came up behind her and the conversation went something like this ...
Woman: Excuse me, I couldn't help overhearing, you don't have an account with us?
Friend: I don't.
Woman: Who do you bank with?
Friend: Bank of NGA [Bank of North Georgia]
Woman: If it's not a personal question, is that your paycheck?
Friend: No, it's not.
Woman: Do they offer free automatic deposit of your paycheck?
Friend: I don't know, I don't work.
Woman (hands on hips): Well! Of COURSE you work dear! We all know women have families, you work, of course you work at home ...
... and she just kept on talking. My friend is actually single, with no kids and lucky for her, financially secure.
What is wrong with this picture? An earnest attempt at Customer Evangelism, but a poor execution. Unless you're a BAFTA award-winning actor (because no one does angst like the Brits), showing a genuine interest and engaging a person is, unfortunately, a matter of showing a genuine interest and engaging the person. It starts with hiring the right person for the job - someone who listens rather than hears.
As we left, I looked for a restroom.
"Ma'am can we help you?" said the teller curtly over the top of her glasses, in a tone that made me feel like a potential bomber looking for a place to sequester my unmarked package.
"Just looking for the restroom."
"We don't have one."
"Not even for customers?"
"No."
I guarantee that that something so simple as providing customers with a place to ablute, leaves a positive impression reaching beyond the millions spent filling mailboxes with platitudinous fluff. What is it with establishments that don't let you use the bathroom? Is cleaning a small toilet bowl and buying a roll of Scott 1000 so big an investment in ongoing customer relations? I guarantee it's cheaper than a 15 second TV spot - besides, you already have a cleaner doing the job anyway.
"I would never bank somewhere that wouldn't let you use the bathroom," declared my friend as we got in the car. "It's these megabanks, they have no idea how to relate to people." She went on, "with the recession, there's a lot of this new-style customer evangelism going on in banks. My hero Clark Howard hates the giant monster mega-banks: http://clarkhoward.com/shownotes/category/7/18/211/"
Next stop was the local Bank of North Georgia. I asked to use the restroom.
"Certainly, right over there," said a teller cheerfully, ignoring my cut off shorts and flip flops (it's awfully, awfully hot in Hotlanta). I looked around and noticed that the bank was laid out with casual low lounges and low desks scattered in an open arrangement where customers could sit down and talk.
On leaving the restroom, the sign:
Smile Call customers by their names Thank them for their business
sounded less like a cliche, and more like an affirmation of my simple, agreeable experience in this establishment, especially in a time of need.
Megabanks: whatever your expensive focus groups tell you, just let me use the restroom and I'm half yours. You'll get the other half when you talk to me, not at me.
Really, what's so hard about all of this?
UPDATE: Just a day later, this article appeared in the WSJ: Banks ramp up Pay Packages to Top Talent. Few would argue with being compensated fairly for a job well done, but smashing one's toys because you may get slightly less than the $100m compensation you got last year says one thing: the rot starts at the top and works itself all way down to the restroom ...
The Galfromdownunder believes that Customer Evangelism is easier done than said – just stand briefly in the flip-flops of the people who enable you to be paid.
A trendspotting firm recently asked me if I had any insights to share regarding customer service in a recession. No need for my second hand opinion - just stand in line anywhere in the city and you'll witness some elementary customer service blunders - in a time when companies can ill afford them.
A big area of opportunity - and also sales sabotage - is how businesses treat coupon clippers or, "here come the voucher people." I guarantee that in this recession, coupon clipping is second only to Sudoku and burning valuable job hunting hours surfing YouTube. Reflect for a nanosecond on the psychology of coupon redemption: the coupon holder experiences a curious mixture of anticipation, entitlement, and at the same time self-consciousness and even guilt about getting something for nothing. Understand this delicate interplay, and you're in a better position to convert them to repeat customers after they cross your theshold. Reporting from the guinea pig'ss chair:
Example 1: A local hairdressing salon offers free haircuts. Its staff called and begged me to be at the salon in 15 minutes, so a student could practice on my unruly mop and thus 'graduate'. Although I had plans for the day, I decided to spring for it, and was told I'd get two free products and the taxi fare paid if I arrived on their doorstep in 15 minutes flat. I did as instructed, got the cut, and passed by the front desk – as instructed.
"That's it?" I ventured.
"That's it," said the counter staff. Freeze frame – moment of self-consciousness and unfulfilled expectation.
"Um, I was told I would get some product for rearranging my day at a moment's notice," I mumbled. Freeze frame – now in begging mode.
"Oh yeah .... " The assistant proceeded to robotically and listlessly point out the offerings from the shelf, but I got the distinct impression she'd rather be back posing behind the counter.
I did get my freebies - but oh, how awkward! Did I feel special? Not at all. "What do you expect for a free haircut? To be treated like royalty?" crossed my mind.
Lesson: Make sure your staff are forewarned and ready to worship customers who enable you to be paid. Spare customers the ignominy of begging for their gifts – if I leave feeling bad, I'm not going back for more, and I'll just forget about recommending you, because that's what we do.
Example 2: I got a free coupon for a burrito at a promotion evening for local businesses. I presented it at the restaurant, a chain whose branches always seems strangely empty. The server behind the counter stared at my coupon like it was a severed head.
"Where did you get that?" she said.
"At the "Yelp Passport to Chelsea" event."
"I can't read the signature ... MAAAAARRRRTTTTAAA!!!!"
She hands the coupon back to me and goes about her business.
"Uh, don't you need to take this?" I ask.
"Yes, you first have to go down there." She thrusts her chin towards the start of the burrito birthing chamber.
I slunk down to that area feeling that familiar, odd sense of freebie-guilt as I pointed to the various ingredients making up my burrito. They were listlessly tossed into place. Was the server giving me "voucher person" 'tude? I asked if I could have a teaspoon of another ingredient.
"That'll be extra."
Lesson: Again, make sure your staff are fully informed of promotions, so coupon clippers experience nothing short of "Thank you so much for coming to try us out".
And, when all the coupons have been clipped, remember the good old-fashioned tactic of simply, following up.
Example 3: A financial analyst called me up and right off the bat, impressed me with his warmth and connection. He knew a lot about the company I work for, and showed a great deal of interest in my life. We talked for about an hour. I emailed him information that he requested. He promised he'd get back to me.
I didn't hear from him straight away. Or even later that day. Or the next day. My mind, busy with more important things, nevertheless started gnawing away at the fabulous impression he'd left. Why he's almost as good as a card-carrying Customer Evangelist at taking a genuine interest in people's lives. As more days passed, I started thinking, how pseudo-empathetic he was. More days pass. I send another email, and still no response. He's now mud, a con-man. Or, maybe he had an accident and is lying in hospital with one plastered leg pointing at the ceiling? Turns out, he'd gotten married and gone on his honeymoon.
Lesson: Follow up. All this gentleman had to do was shoot me an email saying "Enjoyed the conversation, let me work on your data and I'll get back to you." Or at the very least, simple auto-response message would have halted my imagineering.
So yes, go forth and sprinkle your coupons like fairy dust, for they will be gathered up with zeal by all and sundry - regardless of economic standing - especially in this recession. Just don't sabotage your investment - handle coupon clippers with dignity and grace. It's part of the old adage of paying attention to the details, to correctly feed and water that precious customer base you've spent a lifetime growing.
The Galfromdownunder clips coupons with the best of them in order to tell stories like this.
EVERYONE's feeling the recessionary pinch, but online businesses – particularly those selling ephemeral and risk-based products like say, travel insurance, have a distinct advantage.
No glassy storefront, no packaged inventory piled high somewhere in the boonies, no expensive print or TV advertising. Just a website that tells you to click around 'til your eyeballs dry up, and then "add to cart."
There's often a number you can call, but they'd rather you didn't, because that involves getting a human talking – talk isn't cheap anymore.
Don't you envy them? The lighter your boat, the more likely you'll float in a recession.
But online businesses are struggling with the rest of us, and as a Customer Evangelist will tell you, the smartest move you can make is to go back to 100 BC (100 years Before Cyberspace) and offer good, old fashioned personal service.
My 71-year-young mother is coming to visit me in New York.
She spends her days on a ladder stacking shelves at Peter's of Kensington and encouraging Sydney's yuppies and yarries (yuppies who've 'arrived') to part with discretionary income on decidedly non-ephemeral products.
"Recession? Not here. Gentleman came in bought a four-drawer box for his cutlery - $3000 ..." she said (on the phone).
She hasn't the patience to learn the internet, other than to say, "I clicked on the finger and it displayed something." But she's not dead yet, she's still eating, breathing and abluting; she's a potential customer, and she buys her airline tickets from a traditional travel agent – a person she can sit in front of. But realspace travel agencies have costs, and she was initially quoted her $A777 insurance on a $A1300 airfare for a 23 day stay. Whoa, back a full yard!
From a 10,000 miles away I Googled around and found a travel insurance website with most of the information laid out. Rather than post a phone number, they offered that you provide yours ("we only call landlines"). So I asked them to give her a quick call and sell her a policy.
This is the email I got back:
Dear Irene Chiang
Our site is designed to provide all our quotes based on the information
you input. All our policies are displayed on our site. Please return to [site name] then click onto "Get a Quote"
Please follow the prompts and it will lead you to a choice of those
policies that meet your basic criteria. You should then read each policy to ensure you select the one that meets your full requirements ... Once we receive the completed form it will be sent to the insurer for assessment. From receipt of the completed application form, the underwriters can take from 24-72 hours to decide.
They may opt to :
* decline coverage totally (i.e. require us not to sell you ANY
policy)
* decline the pre-existing condition but cover the rest
* cover one or some of the pre-existing conditions but decline the
others
* charge an additional premium
* charge an additional premium and impose a non removable excess
* charge an additional premium and make changes to various
conditions and terms.
If you do not agree with the decision, you have the right to appeal the
decision.
Regards,
What is wrong with this piece of selling? It's the first introduction I get to this company. Does it make you want to rush back to them for all your travel insurance needs?
Futurist Faith Popcorn (www.faithpopcorn.com), when asked about what matters to people in 2009, mentioned some lo-tech things that have never gone out of style: "personal service", "customization", "relationship". These may seem obvious to the service-minded among us, but people do not need to be informed, so much as reminded. We're so busy tweeting instead of meeting we forget there's a human being behind the @.
The above email, of course, is like waving a red feedback form to a playful Customer Evangelist. I replied:
Clearly, [x], you have no idea of what the words 'customer service' mean.
I'm in the USA, you and my mother are in Australia.
She is not internet savvy and can just basically do email and nothing else.
I was hoping you'd give her a quick call as you offered on your site, and quickly find out if the $200+ will suffice vs. the $600 one which you are pushing below.
If your margins are that paper thin you can't be bothered then she might as well go to Flight Center and at least be fleeced by a human being who will give her the time of day. I will be writing about appalling internet customer service like yours on my FastCompany.com blog.
I really thought the Aussies were getting better in the area of CS but I continue to remain disappointed.
Now before you berate me for becoming an insufferably rude New Yorker, I believe companies receive the very widest range of authentic emotion in their mailboxes daily. They should be very skilled at responding. No matter how unpleasant it is to read, it's a voluntary opinion survey, a barometer of customer satisfaction and free market research. Or it's just words.
I expected a response like this:
Dear Lynette, we'll call your mother right away.
Instead, I received a very long reply, none of it designed to entice us to buy a policy:
Mrs Chiang
I trust you will read this reply to your DAUGHTER entirely as I am appalled at her lack of interest in assisting you herself when she has all the necessary tools. As an Italian migrant myself, I expected more from a child - if my daughters behaved like this I would have stern words as they are too old to spank. Regards)
Dear Lynette
You can write what you like HOWEVER be sure of your facts and the LAW.
Firstly we are an internet company and any application has to be via the internet, secondly we provide ALL the documentation to make an informed decision, thirdly we provide both email and telephone numbers for people to contact us or the insurer direct for clarification of any point that is not understood.
We did advise you about a need to complete a mandatory pre-existing form while referring you back to our site to read the appropriate product advice. We also have an FAQ page to answer basic questions which it is obvious you have not bothered to look at ....
Who knows what other items in the FAQ's might not have addressed your unasked questions.
The LAW part
AUSTRALIAN LAW under the Financial Services Reform Act (FSRA) Administered by the Australian Governments Australian Securities Investment Commission (ASIC) EXPRESSLY prohibit any person in the Financial Services area (including†Travel Insurance) from providing any 'recommendation". To do so would open them to prosecution and termination of their right to sell products in this industry. No policy is worth losing our business for a legal breach of the law.
We handle 4 of the main Australian Travel Insurers and we have NEVER, since 1999 'recommended" any policy to any person any way.
Why? Well it is not a LACK of customer service, but we have no idea about the person requesting the information, we do not know what camera, video or other equipment they have. We do not know what they have wrong with them, what they consider 'adequate' cover and the list goes on. This point is highlighted by your own statement that your mother is not internet savvy other than perhaps email.. I was meant to know that, or did I not read my crystal ball?
We are an INTERNET BASED company, we can answer general questions not made clear by the Product Disclosure Statement that is provided for all the insurers on our website.
YOU have access to the internet, our site, the list of options complete with all policy information booklets and you are internet savvy and you know your own mother, so the information to make an informed decision is clearly available to you for you to advise your mother.
You wish to fob that responsibility off to us, sorry but it does not work that way.
SO if you wish to refer your mother to Flight Centre to be 'fleeced' as you put it then I think it says more about you than our company.
You wish to bog [sic] us , there is nothing I can do to stop you, but I am sure you would not put this reply added to your bog as it would show your inadequacies more than any this company probably has (because none of us is perfect).
I am very sorry that your mother has such an uncaring child and you will note I have forwarded this email to her so she can see your tirade as well as your failings. I am assuming her English is better than my 85 year old mother who handles English better than she gives herself credit for.
Yours sincerely
Well, now! That's a lot of words. I do believe simply picking up the phone and wham, bam, one insurance policy coming up ma'am, would have used less of the company's time. The travel insurance market is directly affected by the travel market, which has declined. The phone and a cheap calling card (for calling cellphones) could help resurrect it.
But at least I now knew there was a real human behind the @, and acknowledged him. Unfortunately, the rep didn't agree, and told me to get knotted:
We all have better things to do with our time. We will continue doing business as we have advised you.
Mother went back to Flight Center and was offered several hundred dollars less than their original quote, bettering even that of the internet company.
Moral: Go the extra nanosecond in this recession. And stay cool. Everyone's stretched. Never get offended by customers. They're offering to help you to continue to be paid. Stay one step ahead of them at all times, but looking over your shoulder. And smiling.
Watch out, online merchants. Your sluggish, expensive offline competitors are closing the gap.
Picture: Even if a customer walks around with a kitchen sponge strapped to his forehead, he has good reasons for doing so and more importantly, enables you to be paid.
Start spreading the news, I'm investing today I want to be a part of it - New York, New York These vulturous CEOs, are going away Banished from the heart of it - New York, New York
I wanna wake up in a city, that gets decent sleep And find I'm part of the solution - not just making a heap
These big town blues, are melting away I'll make a brand new start of it - in old USA If I can make it there, I'll not make it elsewhere It's up to us - New York, New York ...
Recently I became my own micro-manufacturing enterprise, part inspired by soft capitalism.
My product, a special kind of bag, is being made - not in China for a bar of a song, but in the famous yet increasingly impoverished Garment District of New York City.
The base cost of my product: pretty high. The satisfaction of paying that much: priceless.
It was not until I got to know the tireless and exacting seamstress who took on my project, that I reached this economic epiphany.
"This use to be the fashion capital of America," said Caroline, who's made clothes for some big names in couture including Calvin Klein, Baby Phat and Tracey Reese.
Like many immigrants, she worked her way up from scratch to supervising a large staff and knowing every computerized cutting machine in the business. Then, like thousands of others, she was laid off.
"The fashion companies shipped everything offshore, fired everyone - now look what's happened."
The "now look" she's referring to isn't the latest way to team a sarong with a business suit and get away with it.
It's the slump in the clothing sector; the very people who are meant to buy those clothes – the American public – just haven't got the money. According to Caroline, it's because companies are sending labor offshore, and commercial rents are become "luxury-condofied".
In a small, unluxe room in a rabbit warren of a building on 37th St, she sits among the bolts and bobbins of her trade, showing me photos of a dress she constructed for a first appearance by Hilary Clinton.
"I came here with no English and $300 in my pocket," she said. She waves away my probing for more "story".
"Every immigrant has a story," she insists.
Caroline's quote for my project is three, maybe four times higher than it would be if made in vast quantities offshore. In fact, a friend of mine showed me a highly constructed bag he got through his bike club, complete with club logo, zippers, compression straps and numerous pockets "for $6.50".
"I'm pretty sure they were made in New Jersey," he said. We conceded that if they were, someone poor seamstress was being paid in weak coffee and unbuttered bagels.
But if sweatshops still abound in the city, Caroline isn't spending time dwelling there.
"Every country has its situations. I just do the best I can, be honest, be reliable, be of service. The best thing you can do for this country is to do what Obama says – buy local, get things made local. Then people will have jobs, they will have money to buy food, clothes, make this economy stable."
That all sounds impressively logical. Did she read that somewhere? Caroline stabs her temple with a finger.
"No, I've just thought about this!"
She tells me she's making no money on my project – she simply wants to keep her talented understudy occupied - she likes to support personal creative endeavours.
"Work on your own ideas. You get a high paid job, you lose it overnight. When you have your own business, your original thinking, you can make your own business. YOu can make your way."
I can't help relating this story whenever I show my bag. It's the verbal swing tag I have hanging off it (there's no swing tag - saving half a tree). When did you last feel excited and proud to pay a fair price rather than a cheap price for a job well done?
My customers "get it". Without the story it's another gadget. With the story, it's a contribution to society. I've sold all of the original batch in just ten days.
Roll up your sleeve - what ideas have you got hiding up there? Make it in America - for everone's sake - and you will.
Thinking it might provide a palpable insight into the state of the nation for my FastCompany blog, I hastily printed out my resume as required (complete with a nice glaring typo - doh!) and jumped in a cab to make it by curtain call.
On arriving at 1.15pm - the cut off time for entry and 45 minutes before the advertised closing time - I saw a line longer than a queue for free immortality with front row tickets to U2 thrown in.
It started at the 7th Ave subway station and weaved around two sides of a very, very long block.
"GET IN LINE MOMMY, WE BEEN WAITIN' 2 HOURS," said a gal when I tried to politely askif "this really was the line expecting to get in by 2pm?"
I fantasized for a moment about boldly cutting in front of her and instantly biff! pow! aaarrrgh! starring in my own manga comic.
Iwandered all the way to the back of the line - a long hike - gaping at what I saw: people bundled up in the sunny but freezing air, clutching resumes and portfolios for as far as the eye could see. The stipulation about "smart business attire, no jeans, sweats, sneakers" seemed moot.
"It's the first time they've allowed men in," said one man waving his resume. He looked at the envelope in my hand. "Now why wouldja want to fold your resume?"
I asked if I could film him. He suddenly turned steely. "No you cannot. I charge $400 an hour for that." There were teeth.
"Neverseen anything like this before, some peoplebeen waiting since 6am," said a policeman, blowing into his hands.
He pointed to a guy in veryun-business like attire - unless you consider playing baseball a business - but at least the wind wasn't biting at his core. "No-one after that guy in the blue jacket is getting in."
I looked at the long, snaking trail of pure patience following the guy in the blue jacket.
"Why are they still standing there?"
"We told 'em, they're not listenin'."
Well,they say persistence pays off - my friend had been waiting since 11.15am and got in at 1.40pm - with frozen feet that still hadn't thawed by the time she got home to Jersey City that evening. "My feet are still killing me," she said later on the phone.
After filming the line, I returned to the lobby and eavesdropped on conversations as people left the fair.
"Did anyone think that was worth it?" said a women loudly as people spilled out of the elevator.
"Not worth a two-hour wait freezin' your titties off," replied another, out of earshot of the recruiters.
"Tiny room, everyone jammed together, company reps telling us to go check out the website ... what was the point?"
The organizers should have known that in this economy, the event would be utterly swamped, and held it at the Javitz Center or restricted entry - something. What about speed interviewing - like speed dating, allowing each of the thousands of people their 3 minutes? Do the math:
3000 people x 3 minutes/60 = 150 hours of interviews
150 hours/40 companies = 3.75 hours on average for the entire event, plus minus a couple of hours' leeway.
Or, what about having employers bundle up and stroll down the line talking to prospectives, who would hold up a card with their company of choice? What about thinking laterally about this?
Better that than allow people already desperate for work to suffer such discomfort and indignity.
"No solicitation" was the order of the day, yet in this climate, vendors selling hot coffee and cookies down the line would have been welcome, entrepreneurial and entirely appropriate, as is the norm in third world countries. And looking at the length of this line, I could barely tell what country I was in ...
Now, we return you to your $450K job with bonuses.
describes the fallout of the recession at every level - from an impersonal, quarterly earnings figure propped up buy thousands of lives, right down to the coping tactics of a single mother.
Reading through the litany of knock-on effects it made me think, this something we can actually influence just by doing something very fundamental – expecting a little less.
It would start with everyone taking a paycut all the way down and across the board. And I mean everyone, and the banks are a good starting point. (It actually goes back even further with having less sex and less babies, but let's keep it simple).
So a bank cuts a farmer slack, and that saving is then ideally passed all the way up the line to our table where we sit with knife and fork poised. A bank, of course, is composed of individuals like us sitting at tables, knife and fork poised, and so on recursively throughout society.
So where does it fall down? Same old, same old ...
Greed.
Such a system requires consensus, and take that far enough and people cry "communism".
We can't abide being told what to do, and we can help ourselves from sneaking some kind of advantage at someone else's expense when no one's looking.
What causes greed? Fear. Also apathy, which is a kind of "reverse greed" where you hallucinate that the world owes you a living. But at the end of the day, it's all greed.
Greed says: I want more than you. To get more, I need more money than you. I'm willing to do what it takes.
Greed is good to a degree – it motivates humans to strive and make our world if not better, at least more colorful a place.
But what if every sentient being could automatically dial down their greed when times are tough - like now, much like stopping eating before the first rather than after the 5th burp?
What if right now, your rent was halved. Gives you a nice feeling, doesn't it? Also a feeling of calm. "The world is looking after me" is the feeling that comes to my mind.
Also, what if you could sit down and get a great meal for $5?
This would be entirely possible if the cafe owner's staff, suppliers, landlord, creditors, health and other services providers were all on the same page - take less profit. Even walking across a busy street, my sub-sub conscious would tell me if I got hit by a bus, I'll be OK because everyone is cutting everyone slack in the medical world. And so on all the way down and across the board, reaching farmers, distribution channels, raw materials suppliers ...
Visitors to Australia talk about that feeling of "people being relaxed there". It's not just the sun. I believe it's partly the socialized medical system, however flawed. It's not perfect, but your health is one less thing to wake up in fright over at 3am. As Sal "Soft Capitalism" Anthony explained, a good life doesn't have to be free, it just has to feel comfortably challenged.
Am I dreaming?
Several news stories talked about the illogic of laying off people and doubling the work of others. You could call it natural selection, hello Darwin. But it's not a crowded sinking life raft where there are laws of physics in play – everything above the crust of the earth is manufactured consent. We can change that consent, those feelings of expectation, entitlement and obligation.
Of course, someone is always going to try and take advantage, much like looters do in a fire. This is natural selection. Gouging people with high interest is simply modern looting.
But I sincerely believe in hijacking that ripple, also an unstoppable physical phenomenon, but one we can hijack with intentional acts of goodwill.
As Mark Knopfler once said, "you can only wear one pair of jeans at a time."
A single bank executive earning more in 2 days than his employees earn in a year is not cutting people enough slack. Making a giant profit is only really admirable if, at the end of the day, it makes for a better society. Besides, you gotta live in it this stinking society – it's not like you have an extra planetary digs from which you can flee the scourge. Look what happened to the Ceausescus despite their walled-in Garden of Eden.
I challenge everyone to think about, what you can really, honestly, do, to help those around you.
My modest pay has never been adjusted for the cost of living; . I think my last bonus was $42 a few months ago. I now have it paid late if necessary so other people in the company with kids can pay their bills. It's not much, but it's something I am willing and able to do at this time.
I'm also heading down to my local patisserie, the Three Tarts, to have my favorite treat (pictured). I can also support the grocery story by buying the ingredients and making it myself. But someone gave me a discount today so I am taking that money over there. If they stay in business, in a roundabout way, I stay in business.
Can you afford to take a pay cut for a little while? Can you make a million or two less and enjoy the satisfaction and smiles of 20 more more families who don't have to foreclose? As the late George Kaye, GM of Australia's largest chicken business once told me, "what people are paid is not the same as what people earn."
Good times will fall upon us again, in the meantime, let's all try a little kindness - down and across the board.
Social multimediaclast Lynette Chiang aka Galfromdownunder believes the financial world is yet to be revolutionized by Customer Evangelism, which looks not at the bottom right hand corner of a spreadsheet, but at the 1:1 relationships behind it.
It's been almost a month since newly wikified Chesley B. Sullenberger III (one of the guys in the attached photo, don't mind which) executed a perfect duck dive. And unless cross-haired by a man in a tweedy peaked cap, ducks always end up bobbing right side up ...
The media have been harping on and on – and on - about it. After the third day I started getting flustered with the repetition - the pilot made a safe water landing. Isn't that why they get paid the big bucks? Isn't that what the laminated seat pocket card is all about?
After the third week and now talk show appearances, I'm only just starting to understand why it's still headline news: in a recession like this, good news is grrrrrreat news.
This is opposite to normal mass media conditioning. We're bludgeoned into believing that bad news isn't just good news, it's the only news. Recession, Madoff, Gaza ...
Now that the media is as full as an egg of bad news, could it be resorting to shocking us with ... good news?
Is this the Obama effect? Even before he plonked himself down in the chair, his conciliatory manner, "kind eyes" and at least verbal commitment to change bathed us in a wide ray of hope. And change ... who hasn't noticed an increase in black actors and newsreaders*?
As usual, the media can't help itself. When it's not delivering bad news, it's trying to keep churlishness at bay:
"A woman in a fur coat asked another passenger if he'd go back into the slowly sinking plane and get her purse."
Oooooh! What if that fur was as fake as the vest I got at a TK Maxx blowout?
I'd like to be a video-toting fly on aircraft cabin walls right now, recording how many laminated seat pocket cards are being pulled out, studied intently, studied some more, even before butts hit seats and overhead locker fights break out. For once, it will be read more than the SkyMall catalog with its pet iguana ottoman for $39.95 plus shipping ...
YOU SHOW me yours, and I'll show mine. My Obamabilia, that is.
I just watched a CNN story on the Mt McKinley-sized dune of opportunistic landfill featuring Obama's face, "with kind eyes," according to an ad for ornamental plates.
I love to mock those portrait platters with the gold trim that will blow up your microwave. And aren't I a fabulous nobody for doing so - apparently the manufacturer has sold a staggering 700,000 at $19.95.
Obama is already working his economic stimulus magic and he hasn't even uncapped his pen (or turned off his Barackberry).
By allowing his face to be printed, stamped, molded, frosted and die cut on everything edible and inedible to man - sans royalty - he's making a ton of small businesses a small fortune.
But could he, should he, take a royalty, and direct it towards his economic stimulus efforts? That is, put proceeds from the sale of goods bearing his or his family's image in a "Recession Recovery Fund," to be smartly and honestly managed by these people?
Imagine the kudos if he'd announced he was cutting the Inauguration Gala Fund in half and putting it towards the economy, and the gala events became a cheerful cook-out on the White House lawn ...
I bought my Obamabilia right after Nov 5. I paid $10 for a reprint of the 75 cent Chicago Tribune, after hearing that the New York Times' first edition was going for $400 on Ebay – and also discovering the Times site logjammed by orders for its $14.95 reprint.
I bought it because Obama is from Chicago. He lives in Chicago. He was in Chicago when he was proclaimed president-elect. I made this little clip with my camera poking out of a New York City window but I wished I was in Chicago. Surely, my Chicago Obamabilia is better than your Obamabilia?
Here's a sweet little morsel of Obamabilia: loitering with intent in a bakery in Manhattan Chelsea Market I saw these Obama-themed cupcakes and cookies (see photo). I'm not sure about ingesting color copied icing, but they were impressive. When I took out my camera the assistant behind the counter held up her hand. "No photos."
When I took out my camera the assistant behind the counter held up her hand. "No photos." I never understand "no photos". I don't recall Jackson Pollock sending the paintball police around when he came out with "Blue Poles" and he made a lot of money. Some ideas - like Obamacakes - are pointless protecting. Just be the first and make sure everyone including your friendly customer evangelist know it. There's great currency in being - or being seen as - the first. The guy who invented those raised dots for the road isn't suffering. (And then, after you become famous and make a pile, go a step further and destroy your fame and start again, like Banksy could).
Back to my Obamabilia: I confess I bought a couple of those silly Chicago Tribune "press plates" for $25 each and I have no idea why. It's a piece of aluminum with the front page printed on it in plain black type with two holes drilled at the top. I think it's a nod to some old offset printing method, but that's where the usefulness ends. It's got sharp edges, be careful. They've gone into overtime churning them out.
The Obamabilia curator at the Smithsonian sardonically informs us (while turning over an Obama shot glass in a surgically-gloved hand) that "the very definition of collectible means that it's not." Ah, maybe I can use my press plate as a Wobble Board – an Australian piece of "Rolfabilia" – and sing for my stimulus package.
Yep, I'm a sucker too - but hey, I'm stimulating the economy.
The Galfromdownunder would like a decal or skin for her Pearl – who's going to be first to invent it? Here's how her customers celebrated in DC and in Jakarta.And pictured: a picture of a picture of the Obama cupcake, from a poster at Eleni's cake shop, which I hereby mention even though I was told "No Photos." Ah, must be those "kind eyes."
Oxymoron of the week: 'Let's incorporate social networking". 
