Mind your Manners
March 15th, 2010
Archive
Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category
Response to Jason Calacanis’ newsletter “Is Facebook unethical, clueless or unlucky?”
December 14th, 2009
Response to Jason Calacanis’ newsletter “Is Facebook unethical, clueless or unlucky?”:
I am not sure if I would call Facebook clueless or unlucky. Maybe envious or a bit jealous of what Twitter and others who chose to setup their platforms / networks as open to the public from the get go. Though it is important to look at what your competition is doing and constantly innovating / making changes to stay ahead, you can’t do that at the expense of your customers / users. In a conversation that we had on Friday evening at the meetup, you talked about the culture and past leadership at AOL You mentioned they were very marketing driven and because of it had some of the highest CPM on their homepage but weren’t product driven and lost the concept of what their users wanted. What Facebook is doing reminds me of what AOL once did. People came to Facebook because it offered a sense of privacy. Unlike MySpace it was a closed network which made users feel safe. Despite the changes I can assure you the average user still thinks that is the case.
When logging into Facebook today there was a new event in my list titled “Phone is gone…..need numbers.” an event / trend that has become popular amongst the younger Facebook users. There is no easier way to get your phone numbers back when you lose your phone than asking “your” network of friends to respond with them. Within hours there were quite a few people that responded openly with their numbers. They are assuming that those numbers are only being seen by their network of friends. I don’t think they will be to happy to find those numbers in Google search results and live on the web.
Gary Vaynerchuk Keynote @ LeWeb 09: DNA + Culture + Customer Service
December 12th, 2009
DNA + Culture + Customer Service = Winning the game!
Get in the Trenches and Listen
November 8th, 2009
DNAmail was excited to sponsor a giveway of 20 copies of Gary Vaynerchuck’s book Crush It on episode 24 of This Week in Startups. In Gary’s video blog post below he explains why Social Media = Business. Most importantly Gary discusses why participating in social media isn’t about selling something. It is an extension of your customer service. It is getting in the trenches and listening to your clients.
Companies that realize that participating in social media is more about service than sales will find the true value in participating. Participating and being open in both good or bad situations will make your company transparent. That transparency will build a brand of trust and ultimately lead to a thriving business built on trust relationships.
Future of the Net: Insight from Web 2.0 & Startup School 09
October 25th, 2009
I had an opportunity to spend part of the day watching videos from Startup School 09 and Web 2.0 Summit 09. I am always intrigued by some of the success stories, hardships and visions of some of the great leaders / entrepreneurs of Internet based companies. Below are a few videos from the Web 2.0 conference with Sergey Brin from Google and Tim Armstrong from AOL which are both companies IKANO is fortune to work with. Moving forward content and applications / communication tools that drive people to that content will continue to be a large part of the focus for Internet companies like Google and AOL. Fortunately in my opinion there is a great deal of room for content providers and unique application providers on the web. Though a number of things will be driven by larger players in the space I think there is plenty of room for smaller niche players which will continue to drive innovation.
Web 2.0 Summit 09: Sergey Brin and John Battelle, “A Conversation with Sergey Brin”
Web 2.0 Summit 09: Tim Armstrong and John Battelle, “A Conversation with Tim Armstong”
Empowering your Customer Service Team
September 7th, 2009
Recently I had the pleasure of touring the Mahalo offices in Santa Monica and meeting Jason Calacanis. When I heard that Jason was launching a his new podcast, This Week in Start-ups, a few months ago I jumped on as a sponsor of the show prior to launching. Over the years we experienced great success sponsoring radio shows and podcasts with the likes of Leo Laporte and Bill Handel so despite not knowing what Jason’s show was all about I had a strong feeling it would be a great avenue to get the word out about our Hosted Exchange service DNAmail to fellow entrepreneurs and start-ups. Trusting in a fellow Greek likely played a small part as well!
Following our office tour a few members from the DNAmail team and I had the opportunity to have lunch with Jason’s production / conference director Alex Miller. As with most conversations of late, our discussion revolved around how businesses large and small are using social media (namely Twitter) and which ones were doing it right and wrong. During my tenure at DSL Extreme / DNAmail we have found great benefits in participating in various community outlets on the web. We didn’t do this to simply get our name out there (though that was a positive side effect) but rather to listen, learn and understand what existing client wanted and expected from their service provider. It is interesting to find which business use social media sites as simple another avenue to blast our their press releases (those that don’t get) and those who actually participate listen and learn from the greater community.
At the end of the day weather the interaction with a client is via new outlets like Twitter or traditional outlets like a phone call, it is important to empower your employees to find resolutions to clients problems. We have all been on the other side of the fence looking for support from a company that we purchase services from. Though at times situations can be frustrating, I find that in general clients simply want their issue resolved in a quick and efficient manner. Too often employees at all levels are tied behind corporate policies and aren’t empowered to come to amicable resolutions with clients. Does this mean that you should give into everything the client wants and asks for? No, I don’t believe that is necessary but allowing your customer service representatives to think outside the box and allowing them the freedom to make decisions that they think are in the best interest of the company and their client should be part of your customer service culture. It isn’t likely that a decision they make will put the longevity of the business in harms way nor is it difficult to guide and lead them to make solid and amicable resolutions.
Recently I had the pleasure of touring the Mahalo offices in Santa Monica and meeting Jason Calacanis. When I heard that Jason was launching a his new podcast, This Week in Start-ups, a few months ago I jumped on as a sponsor of the show prior to launching. Over the years we have experienced great success sponsoring radio shows and podcasts with the likes of Leo Laporte and Bill Handel so despite not knowing what Jason’s show was all about I had a strong feeling it would be a great avenue to get the word out about our Hosted Exchange service DNAmail to fellow entrepreneurs and start-ups. Trusting in a fellow Greek likely played a small part as well!
Following our office tour a few members from the DNAmail team and I had the opportunity to have lunch with Jason’s production / conference director Alex Miller. As with most conversations of late, our discussion revolved around how businesses large and small are using social media (namely Twitter) and which ones are doing it right and wrong. During my tenure at DSL Extreme / DNAmail we have found great benefits in participating in various community outlets on the web. We didn’t do this to simply get our name out there (though that was a positive side effect) but rather to listen, learn and understand what existing client wanted and expected from their service provider. It is interesting to find which businesses use social media sites as simply another avenue to blast our their press releases (those that don’t get) and those who actually participate listen and learn from the greater community.
At the end of the day whether the interaction with a client is via new outlets like Twitter or traditional outlets like a phone call, it is important to empower your employees to find resolutions to clients problems. We have all been on the other side of the fence looking for support from a company that we purchase services from. Though at times situations can be frustrating, I find that in general clients simply want their issue resolved in a quick and efficient manner. Too often employees at all levels are tied behind corporate policies and aren’t empowered to come to amicable resolutions with clients. Does this mean that you should give into everything the client wants and asks for? No, I don’t believe that is necessary but allowing your customer service representatives to think outside the box and allowing them the freedom to make decisions that they think are in the best interest of the company and their client should be part of your customer service culture. It isn’t likely that a decision they make will put the longevity of the business in harms way nor is it difficult to guide and lead them to make solid and amicable resolutions.
Welcome to the Blogging World
August 19th, 2009
Admittedly I am very late to the blogosphere which is odd as I am typically fairly cutting edge especially when it comes to technology. Though I have “consumed” a great deal of content over the years by following others and participating in various telecom specific discussions on sites like DSL Reports; I never took a significant jump into the conversation. With a desire to respond in more detail (beyond 140 characters) to others and share some hopefully insightful thoughts with the community around telecom, technology, marketing, customer service and life in general I finally decided it was better late then never.
Throughout my career I have always felt very strong about conducting business (both professional and personal) in a very transparent and open manner. By doing so you build trust and loyalty with your clients, partners and colleagues and ultimately create a sense of community. This can be crucial in building a business especially one that is customer service driven and revolves around recurring revenue with long lasting relationships. I attribute a significant focus on building that sense of community as one of the reasons for the past and continued success of DSL Extreme which is now one of the largest independent wholesale broadband providers in the US. Though the views posted on this site are my own and not a direct reflection upon any organization that I participate in; I hope that blog will give me an opportunity to share my thoughts at a more personal level.
I am looking forward to joining the conversation and welcome/appreciate feedback, suggestions and open discussion.