Beyond the Information Age

As any avid blog reader knows, the information age is already behind us. Let's say it was basically 1985 to 2001 give or take. Intrinsically we all know it: life is no longer linear. Our transition out of the information age reaches into every corner of our lives. We are now in the recommendation age according to Chris Anderson author of the Long Tail. Distributed intelligence and the probabilistic truth model of Wikipedia and the likes has taken our Post Modern world view and stretched it until it has given birth to a new paradigm. Information is everywhere, ubiquitous, always on. It's a matter now of organizing the infinite cornucopia of information into meaningful systems, networks, and experiences.

Life is no longer linear, in fact linearity seems funny in some ways now.
If you are old enough, you'll remember a time when businesses would name themselves silly things like "AAA Pools" just so they would show up first in the phone book (a paper anthology of businesses that people used to read to find information before Google and keyword search).

Back when music was stored on physical media such as records, tapes, and cd's you used to have to buy a whole album just to get one or two songs you liked. What a rip-off.

There was even a time when people watched television for the news! Imagine having to sit and wait for half an hour (and through commercials) just to get to the 10 second story you were interested in. How pompous of the newscasters to decide what I want to know about. Who did they think they were?!(Incidentally, for those of you who don't use tv anymore, fyi they still broadcast news shows. You should see one someday, what a laugh! There's no substance, no context. It's all fear-mongering and shocking images. I watch the cbc news when I eat breakfast because it's so geriatric and funny it makes my day.)

As a kid I remember listening to the radio for hours hoping that they would eventually play a song that I liked (please don't laugh, it still hurts). Nope, sorry kids, there was nothing to click on that would make it go. I had to wait in line like everyone else. Now, thank God, we can all have our own personal radio station (sorry, this link only works in -gasp- Internet Explorer.

We are going through such a huge evolution of culture right now that in 100 years or less the twentieth century will be lumped in with the Enlightenment as the historical period between the Medieval Ages (before the printing press) and the current epoch (after the internet).
Welcome to the future.

Customer Service: 3 strikes in one day

(I haven't written much in a long time, I've had a hectic couple of months. Luckily my dedicated readers will forgive me. I'd love to be able to sit around and just blog all day like Scoble does. What is that guy selling anyway?)

Things, as they say happen in three's. Perhaps because I've been reading a lot of Seth's Blog, I noticed a disturbing trend in three encounters I've had in the last 24 hours. I've broken it down into three posts 'cause I'm wordy. Here are links to posts 1, 2 and 3.

--- I think of customer service as a subsection of the Golden Rule: treat others in a way that you'd enjoy being treated. Obviously if you're a masochist this won't always pan out well, but you know what I mean. People are lazy. We have narrow areas of interest, and most things outside of this area of interest fall into a category called "shit I wish I didn't have to deal with".

For example, I used to have a folder in my filing cabinet marked "TAX" where I put all my income tax forms, phone bills, student loan applications, bank statements, receipts, etc. I thought 'tax' was the correct label because it included all the organisations in the world that pick my pockets. But when I realized I was also filing appliance warranties, apartment leases, and passport renewal applications in my "TAX" folder I realized that it was actually my "shit I wish I didn't have to deal with" folder after all. But I digress.

Good customer service takes something out of the "shit I wish I didn't have to deal with" pile and puts it into the "shit that someone else took care of so I can get on with enjoying my day" pile. And that's a great pile, even when it's a bit steamy and smells of beef. The best way to help people out is to take care of their needs. If you have some skill or ability like a car to lend, a delivery network, or a service that people find useful, make it easy for them. After all, you need them more than they need you: there is often competition just around the corner.

I don't want to hear "there's nothing we can do". That goes nowhere but straight into the "shit I wish I didn't have to deal with" pile. Give me "here's what we can do", "there has to be a work-around somewhere, I'll take a look", or "I'll take care of it for you". Give me some initiative. Great service does make a difference and it does get rewarded. And it's not about subjugating yourself to the customer, it's about taking control of the situation and being a good host.

Anyone want a job tending my filing cabinet? Hey, maybe Scoble will hire me to file his blog posts...

Continue to strike 1

Customer Service: Strike 1!

1. Yesterday I went to rent a car for work at Avis. I was renting on the company account, which is on a Gold Visa so includes insurance. The customer service agent couldn't add insurance to my bill because the feature was locked 'off' on his computer. It's locked this way to prevent redundant coverage being added to the Gold Visa (aka accidentally overly-covered accident coverage). Unfortunately only the names of the firm's partners are on the card so the insurance does not cover me (I am but a young peon). I don't know how it is that I can rent a car on the card but not be covered by its insurance, but that's a matter for Visa to address. Apparently Avis can do nothing. And that's what the agent told me again and again, and what he then told my office manager over the phone in incrementally ruder tones.

Now I've worked my fair share of minimum wage service/retail jobs and I know that sometimes you are just in a bad mood, or tired, or hungover, or going through a bout of philosophical depression: working for minimum wage is not high on The List of Things that Add Value to One's Life. But come on! Work with me people! It wouldn't kill you to think outside of the box for just five minutes would it?

So this agent, his co-worker, and manager all watched me walk 30 feet to the Hertz desk across the hall, exchange my card for a set of keys, and get on with my now substantially delayed day. They didn't just 'lose a customer' in some figurative manner of speech, they physically watched me go, and take the rest of my company's corporate account with me. We are now proud members of AutoShare, although Hertz isn't so bad despite their 'death and decay' colour scheme and the tragic onomatopoeia of their name (why not Burns brand condoms, or Choke bread company?) Hertz turned out to be less expensive than Avis, too.

Avis, you're fired.

Continue to strike 2

Customer Service: Strike 2!

2. We sent out an important document to a client with a tight deadline. Purolator (Puro-later?) ensured us that it would be there by 9am, just like the stickers on the package declared. Our client called in a panic at noon asking us where the hell the document was. Now we look like fools, thanks to Purolater . We called the couriers to see what the hold up was. They accidentally delivered it to the wrong city, so they are delivering it back and will send it to the correct address tomorrow, a day late. What?!

They are couriers. They carry packages. Just one thing that they do. That's it. And they didn't get it right. Ok, we're all human. People make mistakes. That's cool. But when you make a mistake, and you know that you made a mistake, and it's perfectly clear that your mistake is going to ruin someoneelse's day, FIX IT. Clearly if tomorrow was ok, we wouldn't have stuck a bunch of colourful stickers on the package that said 9am today!

Again we are reminded that just because a job doesn't pay well, doesn't mean that anyone can be good at it. This is the second time they've lost our packages and made us look like fools to our own customers.

Purolator, you are fired.

Continue to Strike 3

Customer Service: Strike 3?

3. I called Rogers, the local telecom/ISP company, to get some issues ironed out with my bills and to address a few promises that they had failed to deliver on since the last time I had enough motivation to sit on hold waiting for one of the agents to get to me. While I'm on hold I'm thinking, 'this fucking sucks! Why can't they call me back? I should have the option to either hold or just put my phone number in 'priority sequence' and the next available attendant can give me a ring when they're ready. They are the phone company, if anyone should be able to call me you'd think it would be them. They own my phone dammit.' Of course being a cable company too, they'd only be able to do as good as 'call you back sometime in the next 1 to 5 hours' and we all know how well that turns out...

Anyway, eventually I get a super-helpful agent who solves all my issues. She was so good that I was going to ask for her manager's email so I could write a thank you letter. Hey, you can't tip a call centre worker, but good service should be noted and duly rewarded, I think. Unfortunately, 36 hold-ridden minutes later, while she was getting ready to transfer me to a tech person to finish off my call, my phone died and we lost connection. Now I can't call back because I'll just be on hold for 10 minutes before I'm transferred to some new attendant. I will have to explain everything over again because it's never "on their computer". I don't remember the name of the attendant I was working with, and even if I did I'm sure there is more than one Julie or Amanda or whatever working there. They have my number. It's right there on her screen. They have my address, my name, my credit card number. There are about 5 different ways that they can find my number, even if they didn't own my damn phone. And they didn't call back. Why the hell won't the phone company call me back?

God damn it, I'm going to wait a month until my next bill comes. I hope it shows the changes I spent 36 minutes of my life working on. If not, then Rogers will be fired too, unless that agent can think outside the box for just a second, take some initiative and call me. How sweet would that be? Sadly, it would set a new bar for customer service in the telco industry. Just like the 73 helpless minutes I spent on the phone with Primus set a new low. Primus (fully and forever Fired since 2005) still owes me $3.70 but they "can not process returns through a credit card" like that's fucking rocket science.

Sleep and Dreaming

I've found some great podcasts of CBC radio's Ideas program on sleep and dreaming. There are 2 parts about an hour each. For some reason I can not download part 1, but part 2 comes into iTunes no problem. Regardless, they are well worth a listen.

Anyway, it turns out that there's some scientific and even genetic background to whether people are early birds or night owls. I am definitely a night owl, and I live with an early bird. It's really funny in the mornings how I'm nearly dead and she's talking already, and then at night it's the reverse: I'm just waking up finally and she's passing out.

I really like the bit on different culture's sleep practices. I've always been a very skilled napper. One of my favourite parts of the day at summer camp was the after-lunch rest-period until 2:30. I know a good nap when I just barely lose consciousness but not quite, but my body goes completely relaxed. These are the naps where I wake up feeling fully reset and ready to go. 10 or 15 minutes is perfect, but 45 minutes is a real kick-ass nap, sometimes even better than a regular night's sleep. If I nap more than 45 minutes it'll take hours to wake up again.

In highschool I would nap during my spare period in the library using a very think history encyclopedia as a pillow. Highschool classes were 50 minutes long: perfect nap time with 5 minutes of leeway. If you get the right book, you can sleep without cramping your neck. No one ever used the history encyclopedias, so there was always ample floor space in that aisle. In my undergrad university I had awesome naps after lunch before my afternoon classes. I thought I was an insomniac by senior year though because my sleep schedule had stretched out to the point to where I couldn't fall asleep until 6am. Definitely a night owl! I'd say my circadian rhythm is like 28 or 30 hours. On the weekends I easily stay up until 3 or 4, and monday is always a case of jet lag.

I've also noticed that every once in a while, maybe once a month or so, I absolutely can not fall asleep until 3 or 4 am, but then I get up at 7:30 or 8 and go to work and feel like I had a regular night's sleep. That happened last night, and now I'm writing this blog at 2am again. Wish I could figure out the cause and even harness this power.

I would love to explore the siesta more, too. Seriously! There has also been some research published lately relating sleep to stress, health, and length of life. I can't find the link right now, but it's a pretty popular topic so it's all over the web. Maybe you've found a link you can comment on below. I did find a really cool article by a guy who went on a polyphasic sleep cycle, sleeping 20-30 minutes 6 times a day. He kept a log for 90 days!

I would love to try something like this, or maybe more like the Mediterranean siesta routine. I can't see a sleep schedule working out if you don't share most of your schedule with those you live and work with. Maybe one day (hopefully soon) I'll be the leader of a very progressive Creative Economy company that will have napping facilities and encourage people to recharge, relax, live longer and be healthier and more productive. Imagine being able to read into the wee hours of the morning (or blogging at 2am) and then going to work for a few hours and nabbing a kip before lunch. Brilliant! Then you could work from 1 to 5, run home for a nap, have a huge dinner and stay up for another 6 or 10 hours. Well, I still work for a bunch of early birds who expect me to put in a full Industrial Age 8 hours, so I'd better put my head down. Now where's that history textbook?