In 1965, Chilton, a small publishing house in Philadelphia, released Frank Herbert's Dune, which taught us all that we should beware of heroes....

Hope we all keep this in mind and rely on our own judgement given the zealots on the left and the right that seem to increasingly dominate culture and politics in the US and around the world. Those who believe that they are "ordained" to lead are truly dangerous. Check out this short clip from an interview done with Herbert late in his life:

A while back, I picked up a case of plantar warts. They are stubborn buggers and numerous treatments have failed to beat them so far.  Most times they are just mildly annoying, but on a few occasions they have cracked and really caused discomfort. During one of these periods last year, I stopped by our local CVS looking to stock up on fresh doses of sialic acid.  Spent a few minutes getting guidance from the pharmacist. When I showed it to him, he said to hold off on the acid treatments and that he had just the thing.  He took me across the store and pulled a square green metal can off the shelf.  I was introduced to a great 100+ year old broduct from Vermont, Bag Balm.

Bag Balm was invented over 100 years ago in Vermont to help dairy farmers deal with the effects of wind, cold, rain and snow on their livestock.  It has used the same branding and packaging for all that time. It is a wonderful American-made product.

A few years back I was down in Key West for a weekend and stopped in to one of the nicer places on Duval Street for a light dinner.  They had a small bar in the back that was quiet, so I decided to sit there for dinner.

Great tip by Gizmodo today on new DVD trade-in/Upgrade program. Limited number of titles so far, but nice move on WB's part.

Engaging video content  is becoming "a price of entry" for an effective online presence.

Here is a great example I just received from my high school, St. John's Prep in Danvers, MA on the north shore of Boston.

Take a minute to watch!

If you are inclined, drop them a small donation. The Prep is a great school.

I have been on a tear to go as paperless as possible for the past year.      I have gotten most of the people I do business with to send me everything in electronic format or figured out how to do it myself with a .pdf print driver and my HP Scanner.

One of the vendors I hadn't made the progress I wanted to with was GEICO. They are actually pretty good with their own products, but not so good with products they resell like renters insurance and umbrella policies.

So I was really pleased when I recieved an email today that I could get all my homeowners renewal documents electronically.  To make sure I took advantage of this the email had 4 links/buttone to the URL that would let me sign up.

I am phyched!!!  I go there, fill out the information they need (not much, no problem), press submit and nothing.   Really no response, no error, nothing.

I try again. Same thing.

I finally copy the URL and try IE instead of Firefox.  Works like a champ.

Do you wonder about big companies that are so tied to their own internal reality that they don't understand that their customers might be different than them?

If they had at least told me I had to use IE, I would have given them credit for awareness.  Instead, I just say clueless.

If you are in South Florida later this month, please join Andi Nelson and I for the Marketing Strategy Bootcamp at the FIU Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center
on Thursday August 27, 2009.

This is an full day interactive workshop where we will discuss the latest trends in marketing and show examples of how companies and non-profit organizations are successfully leveraging social media and other contemporary marketing techniques to continue to grow in a difficult economic environment.

You can register online.  Looking forward to seeing you!

    

As a part of my business, I do recurring wire transfers overseas to my international vendors.   To get this done, I had to go by my local branch and have one of the managers complete a fairly intricate form.   They were always helpful and responsive, but I did have to figure out how to be in town at the end of every month and spend an hour to go and get this done.   BofA had an option to do this by phone.  We filled out a bunch more forms and submitted them, but I never seemed to be able to get the phone pin thing working right, so I settled with taking the time to go to the branch to get this done.

I was pretty pleased last month when the person that I worked with at the local branch told me I would be able to do this from online banking starting in August.   I do all the rest of my banking that way and am pretty happy with it.   When it came time, I decided to do a small test before I sent the full amount.  The new online capability was easy to use.  I was able to select the specific branch of the overseas bank my vendor used and send the transfer.  I received online and email confirmations. My vendor monitored their account and confirmed when it was received.  No issues and I was a happy customer.

Then I did the full transfer.  This time it said it was on hold for review and asked my to call to verify.  Figured this was for security, which was more than ok.  Called the number and was told I needed to call back during the business day. No big problem, so I called back first thing the next morning.  Got the autobot saying they were busy and my wait would be more than "6 minutes" (no kidding).  This particular autobot came back every 2 minutes to tell me how sorry it was.  2+ hours later I got to speak to a human.  Took about a 5 minute conversation and everything was released. While I was appreciative of the precautions, it seemed like the bank should have anticipated the increased load and had things staffed correctly.   Things went through ok, but my vendor got feedback from their bank that the SWIFT transfer was not "really correct".   Another 2 hour wait with BofA and then a transfer to the wire department and this was resolved.

So this is not a horror story, but it is an example of how a good program can fail because the "fit and finish" is not done.  I think this is a great new service.  I makes me even more "loyal" to BofA because they made my life easier. If they had anticipated issues and given me an easy, quick way by phone or online to connect with the right person I would be singing their praises.  Instead I am writing about how businesses should pay closer attention.