Thursday, December 17, 2009

Pay attention people!

I grew up golfing. I played Jr. Golf starting at age 7 and went into retirement at 17. At 21 I realized that if I was going to work in technology sales in the bay area, I was probably going to have to play again. So, now, 9 years later, I play 1-2 times a year, max. Golfing or anything about golfing should matter a LOT less than Healthcare.

But all the sudden our country cares more about a golfers extracurricular activities than they do about the way that we receive health care in this country. Tiger isn't going to affect the doctors you can see for the rest of your life. His sluts aren't going to be the nurses that care for you as you recover from your heart attack, at least you better hope not. Elin doesn't care if you have to pay 50% of your income to pay off hospital bills, she's going back to Sweden, which has government funded healtcare if you care.

We all need a little gut check on our priorities. We need to quit clicking on the tiger stories and instead tune into CSPAN to see what's going to make a difference in our lives.

COME ON PEOPLE!!!!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Being really good at what you do...

I was always taught to be proud of whatever you produce. This requires work. It means that you work hard to put something together that you are actually proud of. I know when I don't do things 100%. I can feel it. I try to make excuses, but deep down I know.

side note: it's why this wedding thing and lack of control over production quality (multiple vendors that I don't have experience with) is kinda freaking me out!

And the people close to me are the first to say "I know you can do better than that." But keeping people like that near you makes you better. They force you to give 100% all the time.

Based on where things are with the economy I would bet that only the 100% companies and people will end up on top...

PUSH it Folks! It's the only way you will make it!

Friday, October 2, 2009

Unemployment rises again

I just read on NPR that unemployment is up to 9.8% nationally. It's the highest in 26 years... I am surprised by this because people have been whispering for the past month or so about how we might be coming out of this. I guess that's not quite the case.

NPR also put together a great map of foreclosure rates, unemployment rates and median household income across the US.

I really think that it's going to take a new year to turn this around. It's not just about people feeling better, but about a new beginning.

My gut says: Q1 2010

Friday, August 21, 2009

Passion makes an influencer

I have heard it from @aaronstrout @garyvee, @gwenbell, @chrisbrogan, @danschawbel etc. The list of social influencers goes on and on. "It's all about you providing meaningful value to the world."

M-E-A-N-I-N-G-F-U-L V-A-L-U-E

It means different things to everyone. But I would suggest that meaningful value means at least:
1. you care about others
2. you want to make something better (the world, a user experience, your kids' lives)

When blogging first started people didn't understand others' need to get on their soap box and shout at the world, and then people started taking an interest because people started commenting and conversing about issues. Great, now we are talking... phew!

And then came twitter, it became a shorter way to converse about things that matter to you. And all of the above mentioned social influencers preach about the importance of conversing, and not shouting. And this is the MEANINGFUL VALUE I was talking about.

So the value is YOU, but a thoughtful one, not a soap-box one. Your brand, your recommendations, your opinions, your passion. It's like everyone is a celebrity, and if you have done the conversing right, you probably have an entourage of people who care about what you care about. And you listen to what they say, and they listen to what you say.

And I get it. I am on board people! But the biggest hole for me is- what is my passion? I am passionate about my three things: education, the economy and the environment, but that's a lot to be passionate about. And should I focus on something that I can change? I can't change the countries public education system, I wouldn't know where to start, I just know when something clearly doesn't work, but that's not rocket science, that's common sense. Same thing goes for the environment and the economy.

Until I figure it out, I am going to keep watching and reading things like this to keep me motivated to find my passion!


I would like to thank Aaron Strout for pushing me off the ledge so long ago when I was scared to say anything at all...

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The business of higher education

It's been quite a few years, 13 to be exact, since I seriously looked at undergraduate programs. This week my cousin came to visit Boston with my aunt and it all came flooding back- the test scores, the pressure of writing the perfect essay, the lists of pros and cons, etc. And as I was sitting there discussing everything with them I realized how much work has to be put in not only from the student but the parents.

My cousin is responsible for figuring out what she wants to study, researching schools, ranking schools based on compatibility and then requesting visits for her top places. But someone needs to put up the airline miles, arrange the hotel stays, get the car rental figured out, and be realistic about matching her expectations with her desires when it comes to financing an education.

My Aunt and Uncle run Best Crystal, a online store for fine crystal. So, they aren't slackers. And as we were eating dinner I realized that this is essentially a part time job for her and her husband. I joked with her that she can excuse the decrease in profits over the next 6 months to "Daughter 1 was looking at colleges." Probably not the best business model, but life happens and this is an important decision, not only for the student but parents as well.

According to the NYTimes, "published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007, adjusted for inflation, while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade, and students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families."

I don't envy any student or parent looking at funding or attending college anytime in the next 10 years. I can only hope that we as a country figure out a way to make higher education a priority and therefore a reasonable expense.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Customer Service in a recession

Customer Service is in existence because customers are people and people can't always be serviced by machines. Don't get me wrong, the machines are great, but sometimes you need a little human thoughtfulness and maybe an actual person who can think outside of the box, machines are boxes, they certainly don't think outside of them.

In the past week I have encountered two very different kinds of customer service and I believe that good customer service directly correlates to increased revenues. That is not a novel idea, people have been saying that for years. I do think that sadly, in a recession even normally good companies let their customer service values fall by the wayside, and that is the real tragedy.

Customer Experience Number One: Banana Republic
I was an AVID Banana fan. I have been buying clothes from them on a very regular basis since I got out of college. I know my sizes, everything fits perfectly, the style is perfect for me- classic and conservative, but not my mom's conservative.

And then this weekend happened. I had purchased 6 items via bananarepublic.com at the end of June. They arrived and didn't like 2 of them. I planned to return them, and then of course, life happens. I moved, I started a new job, spent weekends in Maine, etc. In the back of my mind, I always thought I had 60 days to return these items, so I wasn't worried.

So last weekend I brought my items to the store at the Cambridgeside Galleria I was rudely informed that I needed to have returned it within 30 days. I thought to myself, "you know, I think I would have read that somewhere on the return slip." So I walked away from the counter reading the slip and found no time limits were noted on the returns so I walked back up and asked... "it doesn't say anything about a 30-day return policy on here." I was quickly told by the manager (they weren't busy so all the women were just milling around the register) that it is clearly stated in the online checkout process that its a new 30-day return policy.

This is now 50 days later and I can't say I remember where I put my car last week let alone what the check out process said on an online form I filled out 50 days ago... I digress. I am used to a 60 day return policy or none at all, especially since I am a Banana Republic Card Holder and have been shopping there for years.

I asked to speak to someone who could help me and the manager had to get on the phone with bananarepublic.com in order to find Kerry who supposedly said they could make a "one time exception" for this case and will let me return it.

Many of you are probably saying, "Thereasa, stop your whining and get it in the mail." And don't worry, it's in the mail. But, I think that people on the front lines should be given more power to so whatever they can to make the customer happy, especially in a recession. Right now customers have all the power, why not do everything to keep them coming back rather than give them even one reason to never return. It's in times of need when you find out who your friends really are, the same can be said about any service or company you purchase things from.

Customer Experience Number Two: L.L.Bean
L.L. Bean on the other hand has been a beacon of exception customer service for years. Spending most of my summer in Maine my fiance and I have done a fair amount of fishing and a month ago the top piece on his fly rod broke in 1/2. He's had this L.L Bean rod for over 10 years, and he loves it.

So, we drive to Freeport in the hopes of finding a piece that might replace the broken one. At the customer service desk the cashier proceeds to say he can take just that piece back but he's worried that they might not have just that single piece so they might just have to replace the whole fly rod. He says that the service dept will look at it within 2 days and he will get a call telling him what they will be doing and they will ship him either a replacement piece or a whole new rod within 10 days. Now that's the kind of service that you would get from a good friend.

L.L Bean's Customer and quality guarantee is listed here. It's probably why they have been in business since 1912. Here is a screen shot from their website, where they preach the importance of customer service.

beans

Banana Republic on the other hand has only been in business since 1978 and was purchased by the Gap in 1983. I will be interested to see what happens to Banana as they continue to treat their customers with such disregard during times like these and in the many years to come...

I truly believe that exceptional customer service comes from treating your customers like friends and that will lead to a long life, not only as a business but as a person.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Plastic bottles hurt more than the environment

When I was a camp counselor at the St. Mary's Summer Camps my friend ErinRose started telling me that I shouldn't re-fill old plastic water bottles with new water. She claimed the plastic would produce a residue that would leak into the new water. It made sense to me, so I quit re-using water bottles. But that lead to more plastic being wasted, so the next logical step in 1999 was to get a Nalgene bottle, it cut down on the plastic bottle waste. But it turns out, I was probably doing as much damage to myself as re-using the original plastic bottles.

This great article in the Boston Globe talks about the toxins that leak from hard plastic bottles.

About a year ago I bought a Klean Kanteen, which I swear by. It's an easy replacement for a Nalgene bottle, and I highly recommend them to anyone looking for a viable alternative to hard plastic water bottles.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Renting for life

I was recently lamenting the joys of apartment living to my mother and mother in law to be and neither one of them had any advice about how to deal with noisy neighbors. It occurred to me that they had never lived in apartments. They went from their parents homes, to college dorms, to houses with their husbands. Houses that they were actually able to afford. The money they put down on their houses amounts to what I spend on my annual student loan payments.

And I am sitting here thinking, what in the world do you need these days to get a house in a decent urban area (think Boston, SF, Portland)? The answer is 20% down. And that's what the difference is. The average home value in these urban areas in 1960 was $58k Today the average is $169k Even though the average income has only increased $33k. And this doesn't count for the mounting debt brought on by the cost of college educations...

There is a great article from the Times Online from the UK "Generation Rent: is home ownership falling out of favour?"

Now I know there are a lot of people out there who were living beyond their means who are now losing houses they could never afford in the first place, but for those of us who have yet to get into the market. It's not an easy task...

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Trust is the crux of the matter

Trust has come up a lot for me lately. It comes up all the time at work. We talk about how a good compensation strategy and plan that pays correctly and on time will build trust between sales reps and the organization. I also hear it on NPR in the morning when we are talking about banks and lending.

I think the real problem with our economy is trust. We don't have it. No one has true trust. And it's been missing for a while. Reflect with me, and I am reflecting not based on experience, but on what I have heard, so correct me if I am wrong, but remember back to the 1950's when you shopped at your local market, you knew the butcher by name, you had a florist and a dry cleaners and you KNEW them. They KNEW you, and guess what? You TRUSTED them to do their jobs and provide you with good service and quality products. They TRUSTED you to pay them on time if you were using credit, or return to them on a regular basis if you liked their goods and service.

Today, things are different. You can't trust big chain stores, they are just looking out for their bottom line, do you think the butcher at Stop and Shop cares if you come back? He might care if everyone stopped going to Stop and Shop, because he would lose his job, but one person isn't going to make a difference.

Today banks won't lend because they don't trust people will pay back their money, because people haven't been paying back their mortgages. They haven't been paying back their mortgages because they weren't purchased through the local bank, they were purchased on line and now when they are close to defaulting, people don't know who to call and they can't work out a payment schedule because not even the original bank knows who owns the loan anymore.

I am not saying that we need to excuse the people who took the money or the people that lent the money, but I think that had we stuck to our roots and borrowed from people we trusted and lent to people we trusted, we might be in a better place.

So, do the economy a favor and find people and businesses you trust and repay them with your trust and business.

Monday, March 16, 2009

What industry is booming in this recession?

I don't get it. But being newly engaged, I am intrigued. Sunday morning while in Maine I read that the wedding industry in Maine is booming, and it's not just Maine. I guess the recession causes people to celebrate big occasions even more than normal? I think it might be a sign of the class division that is becoming more and more clear across the country. There is no way that middle-class Americans can afford a $28,800 day. Yes, that's the average cost of an American Wedding for 2007.

There is something wrong with our country when we want/need to spend $28,800 on a single event and we can't pay off our mortgages!

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

The Evolution of the American Household

This is a great article about how the American Household has changed in the past 50 years...

http://www.womansday.com/wd2/Content/Family-Lifestyle/Evolution-of-the-Household

We are eating a TON more chicken these days...

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Peace, Hope and Love

I haven't felt much peace in this country the past eight years, I certainly haven't felt much hope the past 4 years. I rarely hear of acts of love among strangers, but lots of stories of violence. I hope that today will begin a new American Tradition of more Faith in our leaders Hope in our own abilities to do great things and Love among all Americans as we begin this new adventure together... 

Friday, January 9, 2009

Unemployment

I know at least seven people that are unemployed. I can't think of another time in my life when I have known this many people that are out of work. I am blessed enough to have landed another job, and I really look forward to getting started on Monday. But in the mean time, I am still amazed by the depth and breadth of this unemployment. It's not just older people, it's not just managers, it's not just new employees. It's everyone. It's cheap recent college grads, it's expensive and bright managers, it's people at large companies, small companies...


I am sure it will turn. As I have said in earlier posts, our country is built on new ideas and innovation, and our drive. I do think for a while we have been sitting back enjoying ourselves, now and I would say at least for the next decade hopefully we will see it turn and our country will reap the benefits of a highly productive and happy society. I just hope we can all find a little balance with all the work we have ahead of ourselves.