Solomon Giles Design

There are two digital ad networks I know of that share a similar mission. They both connect a small number of beautiful ads, advertising a small number of useful products & services, with a short list of elite websites. The idea is that the ads, products & services and websites all share a similar audience namely,

creative, web and design professionals

This is how, savvy ad network, The DECK describes their audience. But this description could easily be of their doppelganger, Fusion Ads, who’s goals and audience are nearly identical to the former.

Think about this for a moment. Both these networks are ridiculously picky about who they’ll let show their ads. In fact, both networks are invitation only. They also publicly list every website that make up their ad network.

The result is, two of the all time best lists of great content producers going. They’re maintained with a meticulousness and care that could only be attained by small businesses entirely focused on the such maintenance.  The kicker is, all of these websites are guaranteed to have only a single, unobtrusive ad, which you’ll probably find interesting anyways.

So, if you’re itching for a great new online publication to follow, check  out The DECK members list or the Fusion Ads Network Members for some of the best, curated lists of content on the interwebs.

When I started working on this list, I’d been having some utterly awful customer service experiences. It felt like my whole life was boxed in by incompetent and inconsiderate assholes. Assholes that I was paying to treat me this way.

But the fact is, while it’s near impossible to be perfect all the time, it’s dead easy to expect perfection from those you’re paying. Once I cooled down, I realized that sometimes, I too drop the ball. This is human.

On the up side, it’s largely avoidable. I’ve compiled a list of what I take as the 10 pillars of outstanding customer service. I intend to largely use it myself and it may evolve over time. I hope you find it useful too.

1. Silence is not golden. You don’t have to have an answer right away. But, telling people you’re “on it,” right away goes a long way to building confidence and quelling the panic people feel when left in the dark.
2. Keep your promises. What ever you say you’re going to do, do it. if you can’t too bad. If you really can’t, then explain why.
3. Be Considerate of Yourself. If you don’t treat yourself well, you’re going to have one hell of a time treating those around you well. Among other things, this means only agree to things you can deliver and work for a a wage you feel is fair.
4. Be considerate of others. Good advice even away from the playground. You’re not the only person who gets stressed, worried or upset. When you’re pissed off or worn down, take a moment to really try to see thing from the customer’s perspective.
5. Do work you can stand by. This relates to number five, do your best and you won’t have any problem asking for a good wage, respecting yourself and getting respected. And, once you do that good work, trust yourself, or no one else will.
6. No surprises. Generally, people don’t like surprises. Even if you think it’s going to be a unpredictable road telling people up front will go a long way. Don’t waste your time gaming people with good surprises either.
7. Customers aren’t stupid. Don’t treat them like they are. No matter how expert you are in your field, your customer knows the most about their situation than you do. And if they are, why are you wasting your time working for them?
8. Honesty really is the best policy. Forget getting caught. Forget that people want to work with honest people and avoid those that aren’t. Be selfish. Dishonesty is just too much work.
9. It’s a human equation. Customer + You = Customer Service. Treat people like people ought to be treated.

If you’re doing everything you can and your customer are unappreciative lunks that make your life miserable and lose you sleep: drop em. They’re not worth the time and stress.

The Early Edition is an iPad app that gathers news from across the web and puts it all together in one shiny package. It’s essentially as RSS reader who’s format natively supports everything from Blogs to Forums to Twitter.

“Your own personal, daily newspaper,”

So reads the app’s tagline on the Glasshouse Apps website. And herein lies the curiosity of this phenomenon. On one of the highest tech pieces of consumer electronics going, it displaying digital news, aggregated from the interwebs, as a faux newspaper. But here’s the thing, I’m not harping.

I feel the appeal myself and will probably pick up an app. I’m not alone either, The Early Edition currently the ”iPad App of the Week” on the App Store. Plus, it’s has raked in nearly 500 ratings, amounting to an impressive 4/5, all in the short time the iPad has been out.

So, Why the Success?

The reasons are four fold. New media design (think iBooks) that pay homage to their print ancestors have some real reasons to cite for their often received popularity,

1. Good design is good design. Print design has been around for hundreds of years. A lot of thoughtful people have honed its essential presentation into the standards now being adopted by new media.
2. Nostalgia. People develop emotional attachments to things because they connect them to important experiences in their lives. Books, Newspapers and Magazines all carry this obvious cache.
3. Familiarity of UI. Learning new things takes time and people are busy. I know how to scan a Newspaper page already. To use Fever I had to a take the time to learn a new interface, that’s a cost not everyone is willing to pay.
4. Confidence. Familiarity is not just about ease of use. People are a lot more willing to invest their time when they know they’ll receive a good ROI. Popularity is a good way to measure this, but so is familiarity.

Some things carry over well, some don’t.

And this is important to remember. An iPad, because of it’s size and tactile nature, lends itself well to replicating the experience of books, comic books, newspapers and magazines; an iPhone or a webpage viewed on PC or laptop don’t. As we try to take the best from the past and combine it with the best from today and tomorrow it seems that, The Medium is the Message… Design.

I’m new to participating in social media conversations, which basically means: I’ve consumed for a long time but only in the last couple of weeks have I really started trying to have conversations. I’ve started a blog, commenting on other people’s blogs and I’ve gotten really into twitter.

What I’m dying to figure out is:

What’s the social protocol on who should have the last word once a conversation has begun? I know it seems like a benign question. Maybe it is, I just really don’t know the answer.

Take ‘real’ life. Someone says “thanks” and you say “you’re welcome”. But online, “you’re welcome” (or the last “thanks”) is like a whole new comment or email or tweet. And I just don’t know what’s more rude; to take up the extra space and time in people’s busy lives or to just end the conversation in silence.

• Die Hard (1988)
• Home Alone (1990)
• Elf (2003)
• Miracle on 34th Street
• The Santa Clause (1994)

TV

• Twas the Episode Before Christmas (Moonlighting – Season 2, episode 10 )
• Undeck the Halls (Modern Family – Season 1, episode 10 )
• Loose Lips (Boston Legal – Season 1, episode 8)

So are iPads.

Nostalgia is a great reason to love something. So is practicality.

Both iPad and Books offer plenty of reasons to use them. Even in pure UI terms, both have certain advantages over the other. Outside, books win. That is, most times. In super-bright daylight I actually prefer an iPhone screen as it doesn’t blind me.

But I’m goosing around the point: technology rarely progresses in a linear fashion. Vinyl records are nicer to listen to than MP3s, yet you can fit weeks of digital songs in your pocket and not a single record. Catch my drift?

Choose what you love for reasons that you care about and screw the rest.

Our first “list post”, I’m so excited!

So, Why is treating your staff badly bad for business? Let’s have it:

1. I found out. And now my many many readers will know too.
2. I found out you make your employees pay out of their meagre paycheques for honest errors at the till.
3. I know they’re honest errors because I saw it happen. And this is what I saw:

[sound of tape rewinding, what's a tape young readers... try wikipedia]

Yesterday afternoon I was in line at Starbucks, when the man in front of me was unclear about his hot chocolate order. He said he wanted a hot chocolate, but once it was rung up and he had paid then it all,

Woe is me! You rang up a normal hot chocolate but I said I wanted the fancy extra-flavoured hot chocolate! (I may be paraphrasing for dramatic effect.)

The delightful custodian of the till had two choices at this point (wait for it… another LIST!)

1. Grumble and refund & then re-charge the customer for the over priced fancily flavoured chaud coco, thus delaying the always expanding, caffeine-withdrawling cue, or
2. Say, “No prob Bob, we’ll get you that hot coco you were looking for just move on down cause I’ve scribbled the correct and strangely confusing code on the side of your cup. No extra charge, no extra wait. Next please!”

Our hero, the brave barista went with choice #2. I was next in line and I was impressed.

Until today, that is. Today, our friendly barista, who happens to have become my friend of late, confided in me that we was charged for this “mistake” out of his own paycheque.

Are you kidding me?

If you run a business, don’t be an asshole. Treat your employees like people and they’ll do the same for your customers. Fear tactics lead to bumbling incompetence, I saw today in my capable friend. And, they piss off very popular bloggers who let the world know what a bunch of creeps you are.