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The Customer is the person or entity paying. They may or may not use the service or product for which they are paying, but the money comes out of their account.

the Consumer is the person or entity using the goods or services. They may not pay.

A Colleague is someone with whom I have a mutual, reciprocal relationship that is ongoing and not (usually) influenced by monetary issues.

You are not a customer of the NFL. You are a consumer. Pepsi, Budweiser and Continental are customers. As such, the NFL is more likely to respond to the wishes of the customers (scheduling game times, selecting blackout markets, etc) than those of the consumers.

Closer to home, the manager who calls and screams at the Helpdesk analyst does so (in part) because they are under the (mistaken) impression that they are customer. The problem is not in their status, nor in our execution of services. It is in the consumer’s perception of the relationship.

Do we (or do we want to) communicate this to the end-users?

I have always found “customer” to be an uncomfortable word. It implies a fiscal relationship that isn’t there and therefore all exepctations are skewed. As my customer (I mean it), the company I contract at can decide that my services are substandard and therefore go find another vendor. As vendor, I can decide that the company is a problem client and prohibitively price myself so that I have said “no” without saying “no”.

No such privilege exists with the helpdesk. The users cannot choose to call another Helpdesk vendor, nor can the HD staff decide that the folks in one department are more trouble than they are worth.

In this situation, the word colleague, which is more like a marriage than a business partnership, seems to fit. In addition to the absence of choice I mentioned above, colleagues understand that they will have working relationships that last far longer than any specific project or organizational structure. Mary in accounting used to be Mary in the typing pool and before that she was Mary in the mail room and I saw her every day when she dropped off my mail and asked me about my kids. Next month, she’ll be Mary the V.P. of Finance.

Just a thought. I’m not sure where to take it or whether it has bearing.

I went out and bought the book. It’s a good read. Not exactly life changing, but potentially habit changing or perception affirming, depending on how you do/look at things to begin with.

Here’s one of the key ideas that I thought was relevant to “IT people”:

Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.

Nor can you bully a subordinate into becoming a genius.

Since the modern, scientifically-conceived corporation was invented in the early half of the Twentieth Century, creativity has been sacrificed in favor of forwarding the interests of the “Team Player”.

Fair enough. There was more money in doing it that way; that’s why they did it.

There’s only one problem. Team Players are not very good at creating value on their own. They are not autonomous; they need a team in order to exist.

So now corporations are awash with non-autonomous thinkers.

“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”

And so on.

Creating an economically viable entity where lack of original thought is handsomely rewarded creates a rich, fertile environment for parasites to breed. And that’s exactly what’s been happening. So now we have millions upon millions of human tapeworms thriving in the Western World, making love to their Powerpoint presentations, feasting on the creativity of others.

What happens to an ecology, when the parasite level reaches critical mass?

The ecology dies.

If you’re creative, if you can think independently, if you can articulate passion, if you can override the fear of being wrong, then your company needs you now more than it ever did. And now your company can no longer afford to pretend that isn’t the case.

So dust off your horn and start tooting it. Exactly.

However if you’re not particularly creative, then you’re in real trouble. And there’s no buzzword or “new paradigm” that can help you. They may not have mentioned this in business school, but… people like watching dinosaurs die.

As with any of my stuff, Caveate Emptor, YMMV, Objects may be closer than they appear, draco nuncum titilandus.

***************

The overall theme to this process is “wash, rinse, repeat”. Because viruses and spyware programs tend to have lots of little pieces which “hide” the other pieces from the operating system, your process to remove them is to get rid of the piece that is visible, then reboot, then get rid of the next piece, etc.

I have 3 tools that I use for this:

• Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
• Spybot Search and Destroy
• Grisoft’s AVG

Things to consider:
1) If you already have an anti-virus program, you don’t need AVG. That having been said, I’m not a big fan of Symantec or McAffee. In fact, I’m not ashamed to say I loath them. I used each for years, but find that their software has become bloated, convoluted, ineffective, unresponsive and even difficult to remove. If you have one of them and you aren’t impressed, I would suggest removing them in favor of the 3 programs above.

2) The same can be said for Spybot. If you already have an anti-spyware program, then you can skip this. If you DON’T have one, please make sure you install Spybot.

Step 1: download and install the software

• Download Malwarebytes from here:

  http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam-download.php

  Download Spybot from here:

  http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

  Download the FREE version of AVG from here:

  http://free.avg.com/us-en/download?prd=afg

  (you click button at the bottom of the left column where it says “FREE”, which takes you to a C-Net download.)

Step 2: Install Malwarebytes
For immediate virus/spyware removal, you only need Malwarebytes. But don’t forget that you need an anti-virus program AND an anti-spyware program!

Step 3: Run Malwarebytes
Once you have installed it, running it should be fairly easy to figure out.

After it has run, you will see a message about infected files. Make sure you choose to “remove selected” files rather than just closing out of the program.

Step 4: Reboot

Step 5: Run Malwarebytes again
Really. It sounds dumb, but just run it again anyway. Remember to remove any infected files you find.

Step 6: Reboot into safe mode
While the computer is coming up (immediately after restartng, before the Windows logo shows up) hit the F8 key on your keyboard. You will see a black screen with white letters, and the top option will be “Safe Mode”. Use the up- arrow key to get to that choice, and then hit ENTER to select it.

Once you are into windows (the screen will look way funky. Just stay calm), start Malwarebytes again.)

If you have problems with Safe mode, check this out for screen shots and more information: http://www.computerhope.com/issues/chsafe.htm

Step 6: Reboot normally (no safe mode)

Step 7: Run Malwarebytes again
At this point, you need to pay attention to the errors and such. If you are STILL getting messages about infected files, keep this process up. I would drop back to Safe Mode and keep running/rebooting until you can a clean run (ie: no infected files). THEN I would reboot into regular mode and run one more time for safe measure.

Step 8: Install antivirus and antispyware
Remember, if you don’t have an antivirus program, or if you have one that isn’t working for you, I would remove what you have, and then install AVG and Spybot.

 

Ask a kindergarten class, “How many of you can draw?” and all hands shoot up. Yes, of course we can draw—all of us. What can you draw? Anything! How about a dog eating a fire truck in a jungle? Sure! How big you want it?How many of you can sing? All hands. Of course we sing! What can you sing? Anything! What if you don’t know the words? No problem, we make them up. Let’s sing! Now? Why not!How many of you dance? Unanimous again. What kind of music do you like to dance to? Any kind! Let’s dance! Now? Sure, why not?

Do you like to act in plays? Yes! Do you play musical instruments? Yes! Do you write poetry? Yes! Can you read and write and count? Yes! We’re learning that stuff now.

Their answer is Yes! Over and over again, Yes! The children are confident in spirit, infinite in resources, and eager to learn. Everything is still possible.

Try those same questions on a college audience. A small percentage of the students will raise their hands when asked if they draw or dance or sing or paint or act or play an instrument. Not infrequently, those who do raise their hands will want to qualify their response with their limitations: “I only play piano, I only draw horses, I only dance to rock and roll, I only sing in the shower.”

When asked why the limitations, college students answer they do not have talent, are not majoring in the subject, or have not done any of these things since about third grade, or worse, that they are embarrassed for others to see them sing or dance or act. You can imagine the response to the same questions asked of an older audience. The answer: No, none of the above.

What went wrong between kindergarten and college?

What happened to YES! of course I can?

Come to think of it, I should probably print this and hand it out to certain members of my family, and stand over them to make sure they read it. And then show them the clue-by-four I’ll smack them with if they violate the rules set therein.

http://lifehacker.com/#!5798413/how-to-identify-and-avoid-spreading-misinformation-myths-and-urban-legends-on-the-internet

How to Identify and Avoid Spreading Misinformation, Myths, and Urban Legends on the Internet

Adam Pash — Even if you’ve never embarrassed yourself by unknowingly spreading an urban legend as fact to friends and family or, say, retweeting a fake quote by Martin Luther King, Jr after Osama bin Laden’s death, you’ve at least been on the receiving end of one of these misinformed messages. Next time an email, tweet, or link seems a little fishy, here’s how to spot it before your itchy trigger finger sends it to all your friends or followers. (Send this one to your forward- or retweet-happy family and friends.)

A little timely backstory: Osama bin Laden’s death resulted in millions of bin Laden-related tweets every hour on Twitter. Thousands of those related tweets included a nice quote attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr that, unfortunately, had never been uttered by King. The story of how an innocent Facebook update turned into a widespread fake quotation is an interesting read, but more importantly, for those of us who prefer to avoid internet egg on our faces: How do you identify and avoid spreading misinformation, myths, and urban legends on the internet?

Click here to read the rest of the article.

- Leon

I apologize for the delay. Here are some thoughts, ideas, pointers and – most of all – the start of our conversation.

1) homework.
Here’s some online reading you can do. First, there’s http://www.parrotsecrets.com/ which we talked about

Next, there’s http://www.cringely.com/2009/03/parrot-secrets/, which was written computer pundit who writes about computer geek stuff, and it’s where I originally found out about Parrot Secrets and the secret behind Parrot Secrets.

Now on to: http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/ and more importantly this downloadable PDF: http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/overnight-success/. You need to look at EVERYTHING this guy has done. He’s built a “following” in less than a year, and makes about $45,000 a year from his site where he does little more than travel, write about travel, and write about writing about travel.

Yes, that’s a lot of writing. And I guess that’s a point. If you don’t want to do a lot of writing, online may not be the way to go. The internet is about connections and community. If people don’t feel connected to you (and to an extent to each other) they won’t feel like they are part of a community and they won’t buy stuff. Unless you are Amazon.com. And even there, do you notice what they do? Customer reviews, feedback, recommendations, etc. They are building community too.

Last stop is my new site: http://www.edibletorah.com. Once again. A lot of writing. And I’m not even selling anything. Yet.

2) web site basics
Nope, I’m not teaching you web coding. I just want you to see how some of the basics work. First, check out: http://www.adatosystems.com/websites.php and look at all the links on the lefthand side. There’s a HUGE variability of what you can do with a web site.

Next, check out these sites: http://www.openwebdesign.org, http://www.oswd.org/ and http://www.freecsstemplates.org/. These are HUGE clearinghouses of free designs. Eventually, I’m going to tell you to go dumpster diving through those designs and pick one. I can change the color, size, shape, etc but I like to use these as a starting point. Want to know how much I can change? Check out this template: http://www.freecsstemplates.org/preview/balanced Does it look familiar? It’s what I used for the basis of http://www.edibletorah.com.

Eventually we’re also going to talk about web applications – blogs, forums, shopping carts, etc. But for now, we just have to decide what we want the site to look like. And THAT is determined by what you want to do there. Meanwhile, keep in mind that www.parrotsecrets.com is really nothing much to look at. But it rings in over $400k per year.

3) Search Enging Optimization (SEO)
As I mentioned, there’s stuff you can control and stuff you can’t. Once you are done NOT doing stupid things (which takes all of 30 minutes), you are pretty much finished. You are either going to show up in search rankings or you aren’t. What REALLY makes a difference? Getting listed on OTHER people’s web sites. Which means getting recommended, which means connecting to people which means (you guessed it) writing so people know you are out there.

4) What next?
Next, I want you to come to terms with the fact that a lot of this is going to rest on you, not me. I can whip off the design, set up the server, install the applications, etc. I can’t write the content of your web site for you. I can help you publish eBooks but I can’t help you write them. I can put all the technical tools in place so that people can find your web site and navigate it easily, but I can’t make them know who you are. That’s all you.

If you are up for it, so am I.

FWIW, IMHO, Caveate Emptor, YMMV, Objects may be closer than they appear, etc etc etc.

I’ve been building web sites as an amature for over 14 years now. Being a new member here, I wanted to share some of my thoughts and observations about blogs and websites in general . Based on what I’ve been doing and building lately, here are some (semi organized) thoughts:

First and foremost, think “channels”, not “flyers”. Web-based communication is not like publishing a flyer or newsletter. Or even like a daily newspaper. It’s more like being your own media conglomerate. The idea is to leverage as many different channels of communication and let the consumer decide which works best. Some of my readers like to receive twitter updates to their “dumb” phone. Others prefer facebook messages on their smartphone. Still others want new posts to appear in their RSS feedreader. Many will want an email in their inbox. The point is that none of these methods are wrong, and you CAN manage all of them without losing yourself into a digital circle of hell. As long as you have a plan.

That having been said:

1. Everything you do should lead back to your web site – that one place on the internet that contains the heart of what you are doing. If you are a consultant, it’s the place where people get your service listing and rates. If you are a writer, it’s where people can get your resume and samples. You get the point.
2. (Almost) Everything you do should not only LEAD back there, but it should be created IN ORDER TO bring the reader there. If you are writing a guest column, make sure you at least get a mention of your site, if not direct links back to it. Don’t post main articles or content anywhere else. Post it on your site and then link from other places back there. Etc.
3. If you publish a newsletter (whether physical or electronic), consider publishing only PART of the article, with a “click here to read more”.
4. Cross-post! Very few people are going to read your archives list (you DO have a link to your archives, don’t you?!?!). More people will look at your “top xx posts” list (and I’m SURE you have that on your sidebar, RIGHT?!?!). But if you reference your other posts within the post they are reading, those links are just screaming to be read.
5. Cross-post (the sequel): Write guest bits for other bloggers. They will appreciate the additional content as much as you would, and you get an entirely new set of readers to see your stuff. I’ve found that even offering a repost of things that appear on my site is often deeply appreciated.
6. Finally, whenever you create a link – whether it is to someone else’s site or your own internal stuff, use the _blank tag. This will open a new window or tab, which means your reader can get back to YOUR page without hitting the back button (which they never do). To use this, the format of the html looks like this:
   a href=”www.newsite.com” target=”_blank”

But the most important thing I’ve learned:
Create in one place, let tools disseminate. Nobody wants to have to remember to post to the blog, then create a twitter post about the blog post, and then create a similar post on Facebook. Then Stumble it. Or whatever.

This takes a bit of work, but you will be happy you did. A lot of these tricks rely on Feedburner. It’s not the only way, but recently feedburner added several features that make it VERY easy to do this stuff. Once again, caveate emptor.

1. Make sure people can sign up for your blog via email. (in feedburner, you set this up under the “publicize” tab, then pick “email subscriptions”)
2. As Heidi Cool writes about here, don’t hide your RSS feed.
3. Equally true, don’t hide your Facebook account, Twitter link, LinkedIn profile, etc. Make sure that people who LIKE that stuff can connect to you via THEIR CHANNEL of choice.
4. Make sure your blog automatically alerts Twitter about new posts (again in feedburner, you would look under the “publicize” tab. There is a “socialize” item that will let you add your Twitter account.)
5. Set up Facebook to automatically pull in your Twitter updates. You can do that two ways:
   • if you ONLY use Twitter to promote your website, you can use this application.
   • if you post other things to twitter that you DON’T want to appear on Facebook, you can use the Selective Tweets Facebook app. Then the only things that go to Facebook are the ones you post with a #fb hashtag. Which Feedburner lets you add from it’s automatic repost to Twitter, by the way.
6. Stumble is your friend. I’m not a big user of Stumble Upon (http://www.stumbleupon.com) but over half my hits now come from people finding my site. To add a “Stumble This” link using Feedburner, go to the Optimize Tab, “FeedFlare” option.

Hopefully this gives everyone something to chew on. To see some of these tricks at work, check out my blog (you KNEW I was going to add that somewhere, didn’t you?): http://www.edibletorah.com/.

OK, you had me at Blade Runner.

Once I got past the geeky joy of it, what I was left with was a story that left me confused and overwhelmed and conflicted.

(As a side note, it was the first of two times that weekend I would be left in this state. The second time was watching a show on the Food Network, that I wrote about in the essay “Waste Not”.)

I could go on a long, rambling synopsis of the episode. Or I could talk about how it affected me deeply and how I’m looking at my technology differently.  Or I could begin to pose questions about how we could possibly act to change the status quo.

And all of that is true, and all of that is important.

But first, I think you need to listen to it yourself. Here it is:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory

I’ll wait. Post a comment when you’re done, and let the conversation begin.

• Having a descriptive domain name
• Creating and submitting a sitemap
• Descriptive titles and meaningful content
• Getting other websites to link to you

In this post I want to explore the final item:

Getting other websites to link to you
For a long time, this was Google’s secret sauce. Instead of using metadata, or just the words on your webpage, or some other easily-manipulated option to set your page ranking, Google looked for links TO you that existed on other sites.

They still do this, and it’s still useful. It’s also useful because it’s an indicator of how popular your webiste ACTUALLY is on the internet. If people are talking about your site – linking to you, repeating your posts, etc – then you are popular. If they’re not, you’re not.

However, it’s a hard trick to pull off without resorting to various “link exchange” programs and such. One thing you can do that helps a bit is make it very easy for readers to “like”, “retweet”, “+1″, “Stumble” and “Digg” your pages and posts. Each of those creates another link out in the internet that can be picked up by Google and contribute to your page ranking.

But you have to make people WANT to click those options, and these days people blow right past them.

The best advice I can give you goes back to the previous point – creating meaningful content that people care about, and it will be repeated by others and thus improve your ranking.