One of the most difficult questions to answer in life, is why are we here.  In childhood we have lofty aspirations of becoming doctors, lawyers, astronauts, etc.  As we grow older many of us begin to aim lower as our situations change and our lives play themselves out.  Then one day we look back and wonder where all time went.  One day we’re looking forward to the last day of school, so we can start a long summer vacation. The next we find ourselves sitting at the dining room table, sorting through the bills and trying to figure out which ones we will pay.

I am 32 years old and have been fortunate enough to be able to do the one thing I’ve always wanted to do for most of my life, working with computers.  I can remember back to my early childhood and my first exposure to computers and the basic programs I would write.  Using books my grandmother purchased, I worked through all the examples and learned to think like a computer, processing information one line at a time.  To some extent this has carried over into other areas of my life where I find myself faced with multiple issues but yet processing them individually till conclusion.

Before I went to middle school I remember my dad getting a job shining shoes at an upscale car wash in Highland Park.  He worked there for over 10 years and it was always somewhat weird whenever other people would ask me what he did for a living.  While some of my friend’s parents were doctors and businessmen, my dad was the guy who fixed their shoes when they got scuffed up.

As I grew older he would let me work with him during the summer to make extra money.  It turned out to be a pretty good job for a 13 year old, as I made anywhere from $50-$100 per day.  The longer I worked there, the more I realized that there was nothing wrong with being the guy who shines shoes.  As long as people wear leather shoes, there will always be a demand for his service and he just happens to make pretty decent money.

While I’m sure this isn’t the dream my dad had during his youth, it is the career he finds himself in.  He has many other passions and interests in life some of which probably pay better.  I hope that before he dies, he is able to experience some of his other desires, but in the mean time he’s making the best of his current situation.  His customers know when they visit him they will get a quality shine every time, and many of them have been coming back for years.

Now what impact could this have on you?  What difference could you make at your job if you gave it your all everyday?  How far could you go in your career if you focused your energy on being the best at whatever it is that you do?  Could you be the garbage truck driver who learns the business and opens his own waste disposal service?  Could you be the athlete that goes on to buy his own team?

Each of us only gets one chance to live our life.  Personally I would much rather strive to be the best because it gives me a sense of personal accomplishment.  I enjoy going to bed with a smile on my face when I think about the things I was able to do that day and look forward to what the next day brings.  But then I guess I just enjoy the small things.

Today is truly a sad day for me as I have been forced to end my relationship with my cell phone company, T-Mobile.  For the past two years we have had a pretty good relationship as I have always done my part, paying my bill, and they have done theirs, providing my service.  While things haven’t always been rosy, such as when I ordered a new Blackberry and they shipped the wrong one out and took nearly a month to fix the situation, overall I have remained fairly satisfied.

The biggest reason I have remained a customer is because of their belief in innovation, as evident with their commitment to the Android OS and the constant improvements in their 3G network.  When I first became a customer in 2008 it was hard to believe that a major cellular company in the US was not running a 3G network.  However I took a chance because I was tired of AT&T/Cingular/Whoever we are today and thought Verizon was a bit overpriced.  T-Mobile represented the best bang for my buck and word had it that the 3G network was on the way.

While they were constantly rated tops in customer service by companies such as J.D. Power & Associates, each interaction I had with the customer service department increasingly left a sour taste in my mouth.  A typical phone call to the customer service department would go as follows, confirm my information through the IVR system, speak to an entry level CSR who barely spoke English who would then ask for my information all over again.  Next they would run through their scripted answers to my questions, none of which ever actually addressed the issue and finally I would be transferred to someone else to start the process all over again.  I would typically speak to 2 or 3 people each time I called and go through this process which each of them.

Before I give the wrong impression, I have absolutely no problem with outsourcing customer service in an effort to cut costs.  I run my own business and I know what it means to make hard decisions such as this sometimes.  However at some point American companies became so cost conscious that they lost sight of the level of service they were supposed to be providing.  It does absolutely no good to cut costs if you then butcher your relationships with your customers in the process.  I have said time and time again “if your English isn’t that great, you don’t need to be dealing with customers who speak English”.  It is extremely frustrating to talk to someone over the phone and try to explain your problems and in turn not be able to understand what they are saying back to you.  It is equally frustrating when the person on the other end of the phone is not able to use simple logic to fix a situation.

In my most recent encounter this week I had two goals, switch my account from Flexpay (prepaid) to post-paid and change to an updated rate plan.  This should have been simple enough I thought, I read what the requirements were for the conversion process and was pretty sure I qualified and I picked out the new rate plan I wanted to change to.

Phone Call #1: I go through the automated system and get to a CSR.  I tell him what I am trying to do and he checks the system to see if I qualify for the conversion.  Initially he tells me that I must pay for the next month of service on my account and I remind him that I am trying to switch to a post-paid plan which will not require me to pay right now.  He puts me on hold to check my account some more.  After a few minutes, he comes back and says again that I qualify for the conversion and he is working on processing it.  After nearly 10 minutes he says that he will have to transfer me to the activation department in order to complete the process.

Transfer #1.1: I am transferred to a rep in the activations department and start back from the beginning of explaining what I am trying to do.  This rep again goes and checks to see if I am eligible for the conversion even after I state multiple times that the previous rep said I was.  After a few minutes of checking he then says that I am not eligible because I was late with my December payment and the rule states that you can have no service suspensions for 6 months.  I agreed that I was a few days late in December, but that I had also been a loyal customer for the past 2 years and had always paid my bill on time prior to that.  Unfortunately my customer history didn’t matter and the policy stood.

Call #2: I call back and try to state my case to another CSR.  After reviewing my account and the policy she states that she sees I have been a good customer for 2 years and should qualify for the conversion.  She then puts me on hold while she enters the information in the system to process the conversion as well as switch me to a new rate plan.  After 15 minutes or so she assures me that everything is taken care of, and the conversion and rate plan change will go into effect on Jan 21 when my new billing cycle begins.  She also says that a member of the T-Mobile staff will give me a call on the 21st to ensure that everything was converted properly.

Call #3: Upon waking up this morning I see that my service has been suspended due to non payment, which means the conversion has not gone through.  I call back and explain the entire situation all over, and the rep tells me I should be eligible for the conversion and he will transfer me to the activations department to figure it out.

Transfer #3.1: I speak to a new CSR, explain the entire situation again, he then states that he is also in customer service and not in the activations department.  He doesn’t know why I was transferred to him, but he looks to see what he can do to help me.  After 15 minutes of researching the issue he says that unfortunately I’m not eligible for conversion due to my December payment glitch.  Completely frustrated at this point I ask to be connected with the cancellation department in order to cancel my account.

Transfer #3.2: I am connected to the customer retention department, confirm my personal information, tell the entire story all over again.  She is sorry to hear about my situation and offers to see what she can do to rectify the situation.  After sitting on hold for nearly 10 minutes I am magically disconnected.

Call #4: After waiting a while to calm my nerves I call back, verify all my information again, tell a new CSR that I want to cancel my service, and then am forced to explain the situation all over before she will transfer me to the customer retention department.

Transfer #4.1: I get a new rep, explain the entire situation again.  She informs me of the ETF of $200 and I agree to pay it just to be done with this entire situation.  She then says I can cancel my current account and then apply for a new postpaid plan, and I decline since I would rather have a hole in my head than continue to deal with this.  She then informs me that she will have to future date my cancellation till next month since my service cycle just started…lol.

Well that’s it folks.  4 phone calls and 4 transfers later my service is still disconnected and I have to wait another 30 days before I can actually cancel my account.  The truly sad thing is there is really no good alternative.  Cellular companies have been comfortable in their position as being a necessity in our lives.  While I’m sure this situation is somewhat unique, I fear that it is more commonplace than should be acceptable.  My mom grew up in a time where the corporate mantra was “the customer is always right” and “do anything it takes to please the customer”.  While I don’t think that is always the case, it is a sad day for me as I have always been proud of my relationship with T-Mobile and the service they provided.  Now I am just mum.

*Update* This is the response I just got from the @TMobile_USA twitter account…

@geekycyberdad We are sorry to hear about the ordeal you have been through and decision you made.  Hopefully things will be better for you.

CLASSIC!

Now before you worry, I’m not about to complain about “the man” and his oppression of the black man.  However, I have worked in the IT industry for over 10 years now and have noticed a very disturbing trend.  While I have mostly worked in small to medium sized companies, I would dare to say the trend is common in larger organizations as well.  There is a very vast shortage of minorities, namely blacks in the tech industry.

With over 800 facebook friends and roughly 2,000 twitter followers I’d like to think that I’m pretty knowledgeable about the happenings in the social media world.  I regularly read popular blogs such as TechCrunch, Engadget, Gizmodo, etc and do my best to stay up to date on the latest news in the tech industry.

I’m not blaming this issue on anyone in particular or trying to call anyone out, I’m simply curious as to why this has turned into such a large void of representation.  If I were in search of black people in the sports and entertainment industry online there would be no such shortage as the web is super saturated with these personalities.  I keep seeing lists of the top/key individuals in the industry, yet I never rarely see someone who looks like me.

It would be nice to not always be the only brown skinned person in the room when I attend tech events.  It would be nice to not be the only black guy in the office.  Can someone please tell me what gives?

I recently got into a conversation with a close friend about the current state of the economy.  We have both seen the natural ebbs and flows of the financial system and concluded that at any particular point in time we are only one event away from a major economic collapse.  It amazes me just how fragile the global economic environment is and how little it takes to change things in an instant.

This got me thinking about why things are the way they are and I couldn’t help but think of the way businesses are run these days.  At some point the fundamentals of business were thrown out the window and wild speculation and guessing took over.  I remember back to the dot com boom when companies were boasting stock prices above $300 per share, the same companies that either now no longer exist or trade for pennies on the dollar.  While even the most basic investor should have questioned the valuation and market capitalization numbers being put forth at the time, everyone allowed greed to dictate their moves.  Then of course the bottom fell out of everything and people lost a ton of money.  But shouldn’t there be something in the system that prevents this from happening in the first place?

Fast forward to today and I exactly why we are in our current recession.  Once again companies were allowed to do whatever they wanted and all the warning signs of collapse were completely ignored.  Everyone  put their hand in the pot to get a share of the money and quite a few made off with billions of dollars.  Of course this means that for every person who made money, another 1000 lost everything they had.

I’m currently in the process of launching my own company, a parking reservations service called QuickPark.  When I first sat down and came up with the concept a few years ago one of the first things I did in my initial due diligence was come up with a revenue plan.  Now while its easy to sit down with Excel and put together a spreadsheet of numbers that get you excited about the future, it’s a crucial step for anyone serious about launching a new business.  As the title of this post points out businesses make money.  Anything else is no different than an 8th grade science project.  This needs to be the #1 rule taught in every business class  around the world.

Far too often I see my fellow entrepreneurs come up with great ideas that have no supporting revenue model.  Again I say if you don’t have some plan of generating money, then it doesn’t matter how clever of an idea you have come up with it is not a business.  Right now the whole world is infatuated with Twitter.  As recently as this past September Twitter was valued at $1 billion.  Now don’t get me wrong I completely love the site and all that it has to offer but there’s no way any company should be valued at nearly $1 billion when they have never generated a dime. You cannot get through a hour of TV without seeing some reference to Twitter whether it be in a Sprint commercial or the local news station advertising their page.  Twittermania is in full effect and yet they have failed to capitalize on their success.  There has been talk about premium services for business and possible inclusion of ads on the site.  I’ve heard these rumblings for years and still nothing has been implemented.

The problem with operating a business in this manner is that you are relying on your popularity to fuel your existence.  While Twitter is very well funded, receiving over $55 million to date, at some point your popularity wanes and people move on to the next big thing.  Just ask Friendster if you don’t believe me.  While Twitter may very well pull through and eventually become a profitable company, it is not a sound strategy for starting and running a business.  The only way to make sure that companies can withstand the frailties of our economic system is making sure they are built on a solid foundation.  This means operating with morality, focusing on gradual and long term growth and of course generating revenue along the way.  At least that’s my two cents.

One of the bigger news story that I paid attention to in the last few weeks was news of the US Postal Service posting a $2.4 billion loss for the last quarter.  While this doesn’t come as a total surprise given their track record, what is surprising, or maybe not so much, is their continued ignorance of the bigger issue.  The US Postal Service has become completely irrelevant and almost rendered completely obsolete.

Think about how much mail you receive in a given week.  Now how much of this is junk you never read.  Oh what you do read, how much of that could have been delivered electronically?  I like many people typically pay whatever bills I can online.   Some companies leave a lot to be desired with their electronic payment websites, put if the option is there, I usually take advantage of it.  At this point the only thing I depend on the mail on is Netflix deliveries.  Eventually I would imagine their entire collection will be available electronically which would be a godsend once internet speeds can keep up with the demand.

Over the last few years the prices of stamp have incrementally increased, but I haven’t seen many real changes in the postal system overall.  I suppose the flat rate shipping boxes were a good idea, but ultimately this does not benefit the majority of their customers.  A recent development that will come in handy is the new smart barcode system, but this system still seems light years behind what Fed Ex, UPS and others have been doing for ages.

Shutting down locations is bound to happen to help decrease the bleeding as will reducing delivery to only 5 days a week.  But ultimately neither of these measures will save the postal system.  Unfortunately I think it may be too late for this old dinosaur due to decades on indecision and non innovation.  Companies like Earth Class Mail seem to be on to something with electronic mail delivery, but I even wonder how effective that will become in the future.

Ultimately this comes down to the same rules that govern all businesses: Evolve or Die.

I like most of America just finished watching this year’s BET awards and it was a spectacle to say the least.  I thoroughly enjoyed many of this evening’s performances such as Maxwell, Ne-Yo and the O-Jays.  It is always refreshing to be able to listen to good music and watch artists at work.

I understood this evening to be a tribute to the late, great Michael Jackson, arguably the greatest artist of all time.  While I totally understand your limited time to prepare for the event due to his untimely death, I think you have truly done a disservice to his memory with tonight’s programming.

I personally do not know all the steps involved in putting together an event of this magnitude, but I do feel betrayed by your choice of content during this “tribute”.  While the organization of the show was noticeably “off”, I am willing to overlook that due to the time allotted to prepare.  However what I cannot overlook are your poor decisions of material.

Throughout the evening there was a need to censor much of what was said by the host Jamie Foxx and others on the program.  While I know the standards of what is acceptable to say on television is constantly evolving, the definition of decent and proper is unwavering.  This was a historic event with a large audience of families, many with small children watching.  Having the host of the event go into graphic detail about sexual material in the opening monologues was both insensitive and completely inappropriate.  It is still possible to be funny without being obscene.

As I continued to watch the show waiting for an actual tribute, I was consistently disappointed by the lack of any such thing.  The most offensive and appalling moment came during the performance of Lil Wayne.  You mentioned HIV awareness multiple times throughout the evening both through commercials and remarks made by the host.  I just don’t see how this message mixes with a song about “fucking every girl in the world”.  While I’m sure this was out of your control, it did not help matters to have young women on the stage at the time.  This moment was completely unacceptable in my opinion.

I used to truly enjoy the programming on BET all the way back to the days of Video Soul with Donnie Simpson.  Your network was a groundbreaking opportunity for people of color to show the world what it was like to walk in our shoes.  However, somewhere along your road to success you have lost your way.  Many of us thought it was with the acquisition by Viacom, but I believe this presented you with an opportunity to improve with better funding.  Instead it seems your programming has taken many steps in the other direction, often showing very irresponsible examples of what being “black” is all about.

I don’t know how much difference this letter will truly make, but I want to stand up as one person who is willing to speak up and call wrong what it is.  I am embarassed tonight for the entire Jackson family and the mockery you have made of their son, brother and father.  I am embarassed for all of his fans who put their faith in you to put together a fitting tribute to him.  Most of all I am embarassed for you, a network formed to highlight the black experience but which has rather done it a great disservice.

Ultimately I believe the reason for tonight’s programming is a culmination of all the bad programming you have been producing over the past few years.  Your standards have continued to drop as you have struggled to stay hip and relevant.  Well you have now lost me as a fan and viewers, for tonight you have failed.

The one thing I am happy about is that Mrs. Katherine Jackson did not have to experience this embarrassment in person.

Sincerely,
Shawn Scott

It’s hard to believe that it has been 13 years since I enlisted in the US Army.  August 22, 2006 is probably a date I will never forget, as it was a true turning point in my life.  I can still remember the night before, being unable to sleep due to all the uncertainty of the upcoming months.  I remember the tears streaming down my mother’s face as she witnessed me growing up in a way she had never imagined.  I remember the rage in my father’s face the day I came home and first told him I had joined the Army.  He couldn’t believe that I had done it, especially without talking to them first.

I remember sitting in the room that morning with 100 other people and giving the following oath:

“I, Shawn Scott, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

I remember getting off the bus in the middle night being yelled at from a million different directions, calling everyone a sergeant out of sheer fear and ignorance.  I remember the first week of in-processing, going through the variety of stations required to become a soldier.

I remember getting off that cattle truck and the world as I knew it coming to a screeching halt.  I remember standing in the blaring sun for 3 hours with a duffle bag on my back and cradling another to my chest.  I remember the sheer exhaustion of just standing there, listening to drill sergeants bark out orders while sweat poured down my face.

I remember the countless times of getting “smoked”.  I remember all the times when I heard “half left face” and just moaned because I knew what was coming next. I remember the many nights of pulling fire guard, especially when my time fell between 2-4 am.

I remember mail call, the anticipation of getting a letter from home, and the disappointment when my name was never called.  I remember the feeling of joy I experience the first time my name was called and I received an envelope with my name on it.

I remember the morning going into the gas chamber and the feeling of losing total control of my body.  I remember the confidence course and climbing the 50 foot wall with nothing to support me but the fear of falling.

I remember graduation day and the feeling of accomplishment I had for making it through the entire experience.  I remember watching my friends hugging their parents and family members, longing to know how that would feel.

I remember the bus ride from Dallas to Fort Stewart, GA.  I remember stopping at every little town in between over the course of that 36 hour trip.  I remember when I finally arrived and the week that followed with more processing and lots of immunizations.

I remember my first deployment, of all places to go it was Ft. Bliss, TX.  I remember stopping through DFW on the way home and my mom meeting me in the airport and the easter basket she left me with.  I remember the look on her face when she was finally able to see that I was OK and really maturing.

I remember being in the field with the Rangers for a week, unable to bathe or shower.  I remember digging my first foxhole with a handheld shovel.  I remember all the gun ranges and all the stuff I shot and blew up.

I remember the car wreck that changed everything.  I remember driving by the guy that hit us as he pulled over to get beer out of his trunk.  I remember sitting at the light one minute and the big crash the next.  I remember the pain I experienced over the next few weeks as I recuperated from my body absorbing the impact of that crash.

I remember getting the choice to go home or stay, and choosing to come back to Texas.  I remember the long drive home cross country in my new car.  I remember the next 7 years of my time in the reserves.

I remember the phone call from my mom saying I had a letter from the Department of the Army.  I remember her telling me it was my final discharge papers and that I was finally done, in the midst of a brand new war.  I remember the relief.

Ever since I was a kid, one of my biggest pastimes has been collecting new gadgets.  Now as I sit here looking at my desk, I met with a plethora of USB cords, cellphones, mice and more.

After making a few new purchases this week, I thought it had to be about time that I started sharing my experiences with other people.  For some strange reason I get a bit of enjoyment from sharing my life with other people and am always looking for their feedback as well.

Starting next week, I will be launching GeekyCyberReviews.com where I will give you my honest opinion about the latest gadgets in my life. This site will be totally run by me and I will not be getting paid to endorse any particular products.  The only thing you will find is my honest opinion on devices I personally own and use on a daily basis.

As always, thanks for stopping by.  This should be fun!

For my day job I work as a sales engineer for a wonderful company which produces some amazing products geared at improving performance in marketing campaigns.  We have spent many months building and continually refining our product to address the needs of our user base.  From time to time I even get pulled in and run a few marketing campaigns myself as I look to establish new prospects in my sales territory.

One thing that constantly amazes me is the general acceptance of failure when it comes to measuring marketing initiatives.  It is not a problem that solely effects our marketing efforts, most of our campaigns are very successful when compared to traditional standards.  This is a much more global problem that effects the entire marketing industry as a whole.

On average a good email marketing campaign has a 3-4% success rate.  This simply means that 3-4% of people who receive the email actually follow through with whatever the call to action might be.  So if you send an email blast to 1000 people promoting a new sale at your online, on average 30-40 people would actually buy.   These numbers are based on the fact that your campaign is pretty well put together and relevant to the audience who is receiving it.

Now take a step back and look at this situation from a different perspective.  When we were in school you had to achieve at least a grade of 70 in order to consider to pass a test or class.  A 70 was a C and was considered the baseline of success.  If you got an A or B you were considered above average.

As another example think of airline on time percentages.  Typically airlines try to stay above 85% with their on time arrivals and departures.  In my frequent traveling I often think I always find a way into that other 15% but typically people don’t.

So if in almost every other area of our lives we measure success at levels above 70%, why on Earth do we allow the definition of successful e-marketing to sit at less than 10%?  That means 90%+ of the money spent on these campaigns is thrown away.

How many things are you willing to accept a less than 10% success rate on in your life?  An even better question is, how do we fix this?

Earlier today I had a pretty interesting conversation with an old college friend who happens to work for Microsoft about the status of their company.  She told me of a recent good experience she had at the corporate store, which led to a discussion about the upcoming Microsoft retail stores.  I have blogged about that topic before, so I won’t rehash those thoughts.  The thing that I did start to wonder is what happened to the Microsoft we used to know?  What happened to the company that used to actually innovate instead of strictly duplicate.

I remember back to my early college days in the mid 90’s when the web was still in its infancy.  The first web browser I ever used was NCSA Mosaic which at the time I thought was pretty cool.  Then came the days of Netscape and ultimately I moved to Internet Explorer full time.  Around this same time I distinctly remember the big hype that was Windows 95 as it was a huge departure from the Windows 3.x world I had come to learn.

Through the late 90’s Microsoft reigned supreme at almost all things computing related, then one day everything magically changed.  First companies like Yahoo and Alta Vista came around with search engines as a way to find information on the Internet and Microsoft was magically missing from this market.  We all know what happened next when Google came in and basically kicked everyone in the face and became a household name.

On the OS side of the house Microsoft still had a very tight reign over the market as Apple struggled to define who they were.  Of course that was until they invented the iPod and iTunes and the rest is pretty much history.  Once again for years, Microsoft remained miraculously quiet until they finally had to act.  This brought us the well-known Zune.  While the device was actually superior to the iPod in many respects, it never has gotten a firm foothold in a market dominated by Apple.

In a matter of just a few years, it seems that Microsoft has gone from being a market leader to constantly playing catchup in their leading business segments.  The only two products that have remained consistently strong all this time are Microsoft Office and Microsoft Exchange, which are pretty much defacto standards in their respective categories.

So what happened to the company that used to rule the world?  More importantly how do you fix it?  Any thoughts you have are greatly appreciated.  I have lots of thoughts and suggestions, but I’ll save that for another blog post.