Author: sarajarjoura

Categories
little people

Tweeting as a Life Skill: Customer Service on Social Media

Now this is a first for me – social media network turned lifesaver.  Last Wednesday we had an electrical storm that fried my router.  A word about that storm – intense, lightning every few seconds.

My wireless didn’t work, and since the modem was plugged into the router, I didn’t realize I was online, just my computer couldn’t connect through the router. I was under the impression it was an area service outage – except the outage didn’t end, and no one else seemed to be affected.

A day into the “area outage” I realized I needed to call customer service at Comcast – the ole 800-COMCAST number.  I tried speaking with the random person that came on after navigating the phone menu.  She tried resetting the switch and said it should be working.  Then when I mentioned the service outage she agreed that must be it and told me I could get reimbursed for the time down.  I had a funny feeling that was not the right answer, so the next day I tried calling one of the retail locations near me, found using Comcast’s store locator.  That was quite the dead end, as I was told that unless I needed something installed they wouldn’t be any help.  Keep in mind that my problem was actually not with Comcast, so in a way they were right.  It was faulty equipment, but I was still under the impression that there was something affecting my area, so I wasn’t pulling out wires and figuring it out.

Finally I dared a buddy of mine to dare me to try a post on twitter (or tweet) to the attention of comcastcares, whom I would later affectionately refer to as Frank.  For anyone who might need to know, to tweet to someone’s attention on twitter you post the @ symbol in front of their user name, and the @ plus user name has to be the first word in your update.  Otherwise they probably won’t see it.  This is referred to as “replying” to that person or “atting” that person – yes they call it replying even if it’s not in response to a prior tweet from them.

I tweeted:
” @comcastcares alright here goes – I’ve been without the internet since the MA/RI storm & tornado – zip is 02769, called Comcast, no luck “
Within a few minutes I got a reply back:
“ @saranicole If you DM the phone number on the account I can take a look”
For any non-twitter users out there, “DM” means “direct message”, which is Twitter’s private messaging system, accessed using the direct message tab in the sidebar on the home page. Frank proceeded to reset the modem and told me it was online so I should be good to go. However, if I had any further questions I could DM him from home from my mobile phone.

Fast forward to that evening – still not online, so I dm’d him my woe-is-me-still-not-online and within about two minutes the phone was ringing.  It was Frank, and he actually talked me through troubleshooting the equipment.  He cleared up the question I had had about the area-wide service outage – it was actually a cable television outage, which had nothing to do with internet service.  In other words I would have been waiting with no hope in sight under a mistaken impression had I not taken action.  Meanwhile, he concluded the modem was faulty after about ten minutes on the line (this was a mistake, but it was because I didn’t plug in a cable correctly – otherwise he would have undoubtedly figured out it was the router, no problem). I went ahead and bought a new modem on his recommendation and feverishly installed it and called Comcast (the 1-800 number) to activate it.  Still no.  By process of elimination the router was it.  I rushed back to Best Buy (which doesn’t need a customer service twitter patch by the way – I could call their phone number and get a local, knowledgeable person, as opposed to Circuit City which I called first and got nobody, so service really does matter) and bought a fifty dollar router five minutes before they closed.  I hooked up the router and presto – back online, both my desktop and my laptop.

On one hand, companies shouldn’t need a “twitter patch” for their customer service.  When I call I should get a live, local person with the power to help me.  Since I mention Best Buy, their Geek Squad probably could have helped me figure out the problem too.  However for getting in touch with a real live rep from Comcast who could help me, Frank was the man.   I’m going to get a little personal here and challenge Amtrak and Dell to apply the twitter patch to their customer service nightmare.  It may not work for everybody, but it will work for some, and I’m glad not to be a statistic, still waiting for my “area-wide service outage” to clear up.

Additional links:

New York Times article this Friday on Frank and Comcastcares:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/technology/25comcast.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=comcast%20cares&st=cse&oref=slogin

Adele’s blog post on ABC and Twitter users from this Tuesday:
http://www.adelemcalear.com/2008/07/22/abc-sets-up-new-twitter-users-to-be-disappointed/

My conversation with Frank via Twitter:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=comcastcares+saranicole

Link to my Phreadz post talking about Comcastcares and my customer service experience
http://phreadz.com/p/1R5B4AP7U16/

Categories
tools

Customizable Radio Stations – Rock on

My musical taste has traditionally been pretty limited as I don’t take the time to find artists I like.  Alright, limited is putting it kindly – I’ve been oblivious to just about everything beyond the 80’s soft rock I grew up hearing.  Like, who are the Beatles oblivious – I kid you not.

This weekend I found the tool my sad repertoire has been lacking all these years.  Pandora is the schnizzle – I can now create stations from “seeds” – so I give it an artist or a song that I have somehow discovered despite my lack of awareness of pop culture.  Then the super accurate algorithms kick in and generate other songs that resemble the ones I’ve given it to work off.  As I go along I give certain songs thumbs up and thumbs down which influence the choices.  Basically it gets better and better at predicting my taste so that after about two hours of use it becomes a virtual mind reader.  If I don’t like a song or an artist, I can vote it thumbs down – two thumbs down on the same artist bans the artist from the station.  The only aspect I’ve seen that I don’t like is that there are a limited amount of times that I can skip songs due to license issues.  If I run out of skips I’m forced to listen to something I don’t like even if I give it a thumbs down – I usually end up muting it and letting it run out.  Other than that, great service that will keep me entertained for many hours to come.

How does it compare?  Well I tried Last.fm and I will vouch for the relative poverty of the algorithms they use.  I’ve been using it for several hours and it’s no closer to understanding what I want.  Besides asking me to download a streaming software widget, they keep  insisting that if I want to create basic things like a personal station I have to subscribe to their paid service.  Hey, I just want to stream the music I like – I thought that was the basic service.  I keep trying to get the artists that I want to play on the station and it seems to give me everything but.  Not cool.  The only somewhat decent feature was to let me listen to my friend’s stations.  Even that got poor as I kept going – after several songs it pops up an alert that all the content has been used up.  How does that work – I refreshed the station too and sometimes got more, sometimes got the pop up again.  Whatever.  I won’t be using that again – Pandora’s definitely got my ear, and I’ll be playing my rock and reggaeton happily ever after thanks to them.

Categories
writing

Blogging Passion: Why do I write?

I am so not even a B-lister – and the fact is, I’m not interested in blogging for status among my social media peers.  If I were, I’d have to work harder, for one thing.  Who needs that … so why do I write?

 I write for anyone who takes an interest in me through my other activities and wants to read more about how and what I think. 

There are a few impressions of me that I would like someone to take away once they have read my blog.  True to form, I will make them into bolded subheadings:

Breadth of interest
I am a student, first and foremost.  I like learning and honing new skills.  My posts show a variety of interests and a tendency to challenge myself in different technologies.

Documenting my Activities
I’ve blogged on my projects, such as NewBCamp, in an attempt to maintain a record of what I’m producing with my skills and how I’m participating in the broader social media network.

Showing a Personality
I want anyone who reads my posts to get to know me better as a person.  I have a sense of humor and an interesting take on life in general, so I hope my blog spreads the word about the character that is Sara Streeter.

Passion to Grow
I enjoy writing for its own sake.  Additionally, I find that it sharpens my understanding of myself and my pursuits, giving me a platform for “thinking out loud.”

Success, in blogging as in life, is all relative to the intent.  I hope my blog posts bear witness to the fact that, hey, I’m having fun.

Categories
web development

jQuery, my love …

I have a new fetish (web development fetish, of course) and that would be jQuery.  I had been introduced to it a few weeks back thanks to that most awesome of instructors Hilary Mason (www.hilarymason.com), but now having seen the man himself John Resig present on it at BarCamp Boston 3, I am yet more eager to explore its marvelous functionality.

John Resig’s presentation (to be posted on Youtube before too long, according to kind audience member who thought to record it) was a wonderful overview, going from nuts to bolts in a half an hour.  He explained that jQuery is a Javascript library which, at a minified 15k, provides a way for HTML and Javascript to interact that usually takes server-side scripting to accomplish.  In fact it can act as its own programming language even to the extent of replacing some server-side code. 

Besides enabling cool visual effects such as the toggling of show/hide, accordion drop down menus, and custom animations, it allows manipulation of DOM elements such as your div tags and header tags.  PHP groupies will love the dollar sign syntax, and those who have mastered the CSS #id and .class tags will find learning jQuery an easy transition.

What really perked my ears were two features that I am dying to try out – the AJAX call to load an HTML page and then strip out only those elements that are needed, and the chaining method in which an element is acted upon by multiple events, in a series that looks like this:  div.show().foo().bar() , where show, foo and bar all act on the same element to accomplish their respective functions.

Three books I plan on purchasing in sequence based on Mr. John’s recommendation are Learning jQuery (Packt), jQuery Reference Guide (Packt), and jQuery in Action (Manning) with none other than John Resig writing the foreword.

Interested in learning more about jQuery?  Check it out at jquery.com .  John Resig’s blog is ejohn.org/blog

Categories
unconference

Seesmic, hunh …

Just got back from PodCamp NYC 2, and my new thing is Seesmic.  It’s nifty already, a way to let loose my natural charm and wit on the social media crowd.  I’m impressed with how much more personality one is able to convey through this medium – I follow these people already through twitter, but these video posts have that dimension of fun that isn’t as easy to convey in 140 characters or less.  It is more personal than YouTube, giving the feel of the character behind the content being posted.

So thank you PodCamp for this new time-sink – but it feels so good going down …

Categories
future

The Future! (BETA)

If the future were a website, would it be one of those that perpetually has the sign up “Under Construction”?  When are we going to get some closure on these “Beta” web applications that are down every other week, or the software that will be compatible with my operating system “in a few months”?

 In a “Web 2.0” world, the future amounts to a collage of constant upgrades and updates.  Growth is version-bound, incremental, in the style of a digital clock.  Rather than a cycle, change is a linear spectrum.  The old isn’t old, it’s outdated, and the new is what outperforms the old.  Never stagnating or repeating, if you don’t like the way things are, just wait a minute.

This perception of time is an technology-driven, impatient one.  But if I think really hard I’m able to remember another one, when once upon a time, the future was the gently flowing dream of a life we’ll eventually get to, a la “Row row row your boat.” 

Remember the swell of the shadow on a garden sun dial, or the sweep of an analog watch?  In the natural world, growth is cyclical, based on the rhythms of the body and its environment.   Change, rather than being the end of the old, is its renewal. 

I would argue that the integration of the two systems of thought is an optimal framework, allowing the human mind to find continually fresh content, and the body to find stability in the ebb and flow of the daily routine. 

So take the nap, but set the digital alarm, and let the future come to you.

Categories
life

Try the Frivolous Google Search Game

While amusing myself by typing phrases in to Google and seeing what pops up, I discovered some intriguing results. It is a challenging time-waster to find a phrase that produces mostly content on a Google search rather than the name of a company, a movie, or a song, and diverse content at that, like blog posts. Try it – see how many phrases you can come up with that produces more than a collection of Wikipedia entries, IMDB listings, Amazon books, and other name aggregators. When you do come up with a good phrase, the results can be intriguing.

Here are some highlights …

“the art of”:

  • The Art of the Prank
    Insights, information, news and discussion about pranks, hoaxes, culture jamming and reality hacking.
    pranks.com/ – 72k –
  • The Art of Demotivation
    A text so historic deserves art of equal import. Kevin Sprouls, the celebrated creator of the Wall Street Journal Portrait Technique, lent his pen and …
    www.despair.com/artofde.html – 37k –
  • How to Change the World: The Art of Schmoozing
    Schmoozing is both a skill and a fine art. Tech guru Guy Kawasaki has posted an excellent piece called The Art of Schmoozing in his blog Let the Good Times …
    blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/02/the_art_of_schm.html – 137k –

“top ten”:

“how not to”:

  • Bicycle Safety: How to Not Get Hit by Cars
    Ten ways you can get hit by cars (with pictures) and meaningful ways to avoid them. Not your typical lame Bike Safety page.
    bicyclesafe.com/ – 72k –
  • How Not To Get Laid
    How Not To Get Laid – How Not To Get Laid, A Compendium of Coitus Rejectus.
    www.hownottogetlaid.com/ – 54k –
  • How to Not Be Annoying – wikiHow
    If you laugh loudly at everyone’s jokes, even if they’re not all that funny, read up on how to avoid laughing at inappropriate times. …
    www.wikihow.com/Not-Be-Annoying – 36k –

PS I also found out that there are weird HTML tags embedded in the code of Google search results – they make it look pretty on the Google page but when you lift it it can be annoying.

Categories
newbie

Unconference.zip: Speed Mentoring

At NewBCamp I gave a presentation called Speed Mentoring. This was a 45 minute session divided up into smaller 6 minute segments during which geeks answered the specific questions of newbies on a one-on-one or a one-on-three basis. Basically your robust version of the high school “study hall” but without the bespectacled school marm telling you to tone it down.

My expectation was that all the newbies would float from geek to geek learning a little here and a little there, having a few questions about this and that, moving when the gong was sounded. Far from it. The newbies had questions about particular processes on the internet – how do I upload photos, how do I create a blog, how do I install a Paypal button. Yet more surprising, it was the intermediate users who were most in demand. I had asked that several ‘super-geeks’ – really advanced users – be available for questions. I sat around with them trading NewBCamp observations while the rest of the newbies and intermediate users went at it. The gong was hardly heard as the people who had partnered up stuck together as they exchanged information and at the end, contact e-mails.

Based on my observations, I would say that this session is conceptually analogous to the unconference packed into a single zip file: spontaneous self-organization, collaborative conversational model, participant driven. One word of caution – I organized this session with 20-30 people in mind. More than that and one might have to have an honorary bespectacled school marm to ensure that all the newbies can find those geeks best equipped to help answer their questions. Some form of personal tagging might be appropriate (a sticky label that says, “Ask me about social media!”).

Categories
personal branding

Bad Resume

Human resources managers, if you’re looking for my actual resume, try the About Me page.

BAD RESUME
inspired by Steve Yegge
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/09/ten-tips-for-slightly-less-awful-resume.html

Objective: I am seeking a position as a self-employed executive.

Education:

  • 12 years of Sunday School
  • Applied to Bryn Mawr College
  • Accepted into University of Pennsylvania’s post-doc program; chose not to attend

Experience

  • Custom Latin motto designer – “semper ubi sub ubi” solum principium erat …
  • Formed a political party for women with the first name Sara (also Sarah)http://sarahsara.wordpress.com/
  • Produced and sold hand-crafted crocheted hats, gloves, etc.

Job Titles

Skills

  • Calligraphy
  • Domestic Animal Calling (specializing in cats, chickens, and pigs)
  • Free Form Poetry Composition
Categories
writing

“Sidedish” Writing

Technology goes hand in hand with content.  Lots of content.  And that content has to be written, and I’ve got to write it – at least some of it.  So where can I find inspiration? 

I would suggest that rather than looking to outside sources for topics, I start with myself – my “sidedish” writing.  That would be all the writing I do incidentally – updates to social media websites, e-mails to colleagues in the relevant field, chats with geeky friends.  I use the term “sidedish” because I think of it as analogous to the sidedish you eat along with your lunch – you didn’t go there to eat it but you do because you’re there.  Tidbits from these casual conversations can be channeled into “main dish” writing , which I would characterize as whatever you’ve committed yourself to write on a regular basis that you hope will impress someone else.

Accordingly, a favor I can do for myself is to increase the quality and quantity of my sidedish writing.  Here are some suggestions on how to do that:

find sites that encourage frequent updates:  I find that Twitter is useful in this regard for the simple reason that it generates a log of all the updates I’ve made.  Since I’m on Twitter, I can go back to that clever update I posted two weeks ago and use it to seed a post.  Any site would work that encouraged me to return to it frequently and write quick notes about what’s on my mind.

make friends with people who like to geek out: I want to write about technology, so I seek out friends who enjoy talking about technology.  Not only are they great resources for answering questions, they bring out my geeky side, and I generate higher quality content when I’m communicating with them.

take advantage of any passionate interest:  When I am passionately interested in something, regardless of whether it is related to my main topic, I research it and write about it.  Writing will come more easily to me if I do it more often.  If I’m already in the habit of following up on my passionate interest, I will be more likely to do the same when I am writing about my main topic and less likely to keep going with something that’s actually boring me.

tag content – email conversations, chats, etc: If I properly archive my materials, it will make finding relevant clips of content that much easier to find.  Gmail allows tagging of email conversations rather than placing them in folders.  I provide myself with an index to my own thoughts so I can draw on them when I need them.

Improving the quality of these incidental conversations is valuable in and of itself.  Properly archived, they will be a source of self-generated leads.  When I am looking for a seed for my serious writing, that can turn my “sidedish” into a satisfying main “meal.”