Quantcast

Client services 101

2007.05.31 @ 17:59

If you think you’ll have your deliverable ready to hand over by the close of business, tell your client you’ll have it by noon the next day.  Then you’ve built in margin for the unexpected and have hedged your bets against disappointing them.  Or, you’ll underpromise and overdeliver.  Either way, you look like a champ.

This is what happy, and six year old, clients look like

Same goes for managing up and around.

Failing this basic rule makes you look ineffective, sloppy, and lacking in the Department of Attention to Detail.

Remember:  clients / managers / colleagues care less about having it done in four days instead of two; they just want to know you’re working on it and when it’ll get done.  (Yes, some will push back and demand two days, but your response will be a list of your tasks and a gentle inquiry for them to suggest an alternate priority.)  Don’t beat yourself up over how long it’s going to take.  But give people a time-frame for when they can expect to receive your inbound pass.

You’ll be remembered as a great team player who was on top of their game, who knew how to communicate, collaborate, and — most importantly — deliver.

And you won’t ever inspire someone you interface with to post a gentle reminder like this on their blog.  !

(Sorry for the sports references, cat-lady.) 

+del.icio.us | File under Marketing | Comments (2)


Protected: Yale Alumni Magazine > May / June 2007 Class Notes

2007.05.31 @ 13:02

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:


+del.icio.us | File under Clips 06520 | Enter your password to view comments

Oppurtunity / cagary

2007.05.31 @ 09:52

Those are the two words I did not spell correctly in eighth grade at a spelling bee and at Spell Bowl, respectively.

Now, any ass-hat who was writing down the word opportunity would see that it was misspelled.  And, to my best friend’s point just now:

Spelling out loud doesn’t make any sense…  When you’re talking, you don’t need to spell.  It’s when you’re writing that you need to spell.

Yet again, ALO Esq.’s logic is unassailable.  (<-- The lack of a red squiggly line underneath that word suggests to me that I’ve spelled it correctly.)

And in my own defense, the poopy-headed emcee at Plymouth Middle School (PMS!  we would giggle on the school bus en route to any manner of athletic events) mispronounced cadre as cage-ry.  Harrumph.

Tonight, ABC, 8 pm, the national spelling bee.  Bust out the orthodontia and start droppin’ consonants like Hiroshima drops bombs.

Word.  (<-- Irresistible.)

+del.icio.us | File under To do | Comments (3)

links for 2007-05-31

2007.05.31 @ 06:23
+del.icio.us | File under Rando | Comments (0)

links for 2007-05-30

2007.05.30 @ 06:21
+del.icio.us | File under Rando | Comments (8)

Unsubscribe

2007.05.29 @ 17:49

Open source business idea:

An “unsubscribe” button on your email client (a la spam). I often use the spam button even when I know darn well that I subscribed but:

  • The sender’s website opt-out process is Labyrinthine, Baroque, or just plain broken
  • I’ve tried before and it didn’t work (because the “to” address <> the “from” address, etc. etc.)
  • I’m feeling lazy that day

Unfortunately, this means that senders might get flagged, incorrectly, which makes me like the rudie-rudes on Craigslist.

In simpler, and more Icelandic, times

It would be great to have some company that unsubscribes people on their behalf.  But who would pay for this?  Legitimate emailers who want to stop being regarded as spammers by lazy punks like me?

Maybe clicking “unsubscribe” would subscribe them to some email list that could monetize the unsubscribing efforts of the button-maker.  ;)

+del.icio.us | File under Marketing | Comments (0)

links for 2007-05-29

2007.05.29 @ 06:22
+del.icio.us | File under Rando | Comments (0)

Math (wo)man

2007.05.28 @ 12:48

So my desk was just sold to a nice transplant from Madison, Wisco who is here to teach math. So I started thinking about the confirmation bias / self-fulfilling prophecy that is math education.

“I’m never going to use this,” scoffs the seventh grader in algebra class while warily regarding an equation containing a letter flanked by ^3.

And sure enough, his half-hearted study of all things exponential mean that he’ll never find a use for the beautiful powers of numbers turning inward, dancing with themselves, n * n * n * … swirling on a ballroom floor and parabolically pirouetting to the upper limit of y.

I use this on the regular

Meanwhile, I’m about to invoke the power of 3 to refine a model I’ve been working on at the o-f-c.

See, I’m projecting revenue for this thing I’m building, and revenue is partly a function of pageviews, and pageviews are partly a function of site visitors as well as site content, but site content is a function of site visitors –

So, giving network effects the propers they deserve, the model is currently exponential, where pageviews in month T is a fraction of (pageviews in month T-1)^2. Of course, the problem with this, as I’m sure Ari and Chris “Gold Medal Excel Olympian” Prince have already figured out without even looking at the model, is that there is no leveling effect built in. It assumes that pageviews will always increase, up up and away, when in fact there is an upper limit to the amount of interwebs (<-- lingua Briggsla) that humans can consume.

So I’ve been trying to figure out how to build this into the model, and I think I’ve figured it out. It’s going to involve something to the third power, a fraction, and a minus sign.

“This is cool,” I thought as a seventh grader surrounded by eighth graders in Mrs. Lyle’s algebra class at Urey Middle School while copying down some notes about exponents et cetera.

“This is cool,” I thought as a thirtysumfin this afternoon while resting from the sale of my desk and cogitating on formula fixes for my revenue model.

Bias confirmed.

Mmmmmm, maff…..

+del.icio.us | File under Thinky | Comments (5)

links for 2007-05-28

2007.05.28 @ 06:19
+del.icio.us | File under Rando | Comments (0)

Somebody’s getting murried

2007.05.27 @ 23:31

I’m having such a wonderful weekend, with great weather (albeit a mite moist) and nice times catching up with people, including my old boss and many of my good college friends, two of whom are staying with me while in town for a mutual friend’s wedding.

This morning, a bunch of us met up for dim sum at Jing Fong, and I realized it’s time to start posting some of the pictures from the wedding I attended there the night after my first day at my new job. It was the Chinese wedding banquet of the sister of a family friend, and I’ve only uploaded pictures up until the first course (lobster salad).

More to come, but for starters, here are a few of my favorite snaps:

Fei & Wilson wild out
.
Fei fakes a grin while Kevin gets his bearings
.
Warning label: may cause red splotches & profuse sweating
.
Something captures Kevin’s imagination
.
A moment to herself

I have a lot of other thoughts about kindness, love, the warmth of seeing your friends grow up, pride, happiness, and all that good stuff, but need to eat some grub and get my thoughts in order before sharing.

+del.icio.us | File under Feely | Comments (0)
««