And here you thought snow balls came from the ground. Oh no my friends. The fresh ones come right off the vine…er snowman.
I have a feeling others have done this joke before me only cuz it seemed so obvious. I am sure my astute readers will point it out.
So what age is it that you can’t wait to leave your own party because you are tired. We hosted a party this weekend. I can remember in my 20’s when we didn’t even go out to the bars until 10PM. Now 10PM is the time we are coming home. I don’t know how many more years I have before I dye my hair blue and am eating dinner at 5PM (with a coupon).
In my 20’s I could go to bed with a dirty place after a party and deal with it in the morning. Now in your 30’s/40’s, somehow you get all responsible and feel the need to spend an hour cleaning up before you go to bed so you don’t have to deal with it in the morning.
Seems Secretary of State John Kerry flubs on the mic almost as much as Vice President Joe Biden. But the difference is, Kerry might have stumbled into a way that forces the hand of the Obama administration thus preventing the U.S. involvement in Syria. More details at the NY Times article.
Many may remember the line used and abused by the right when Kerry said “I was for the war before I was against it” referring to Iraq. Now it looks like he may have to change his mind again as Russia tries to call his bluff.
For those of you who use Social Media (be it Google Plus, Twitter, Facebook) is there a sweet spot for the number of posts a person should make in a day/week? How much is so little you think they abandoned or at least aren’t interested? How much is too much that you tend to ignore their posts and probably miss good things from them but can’t weed through all the noise? How does resharing/retweeting posts factor?
I have my own thoughts but want to hear from you.
Fun fact cartoon for the day. Did you know that Fidel Castro wanted to remove any signs of Capitalism when he took power of Cuba? So one of the first things he did was order all Monopoly Boards destroyed. In pretty much all communist countries even today, you would be hard pressed to find a Monopoly game anywhere.
I have noticed a trend lately as identified in today’s cartoon with people who describe themselves as introverted. Many of us have taken a Meyers-Briggs type assessment for work or fun that tries to identify our personality. Companies use tools like this to try to help teams understand the different dynamics of its members. In my days of using these tools I preferred DiSC as it measured behavior versus MB’s personality. What is the difference, you ask? If you ask people at work if I was Introverted or Extroverted they would all say Extroverted because my behavior at work is very outgoing in nature. However my true personality is introverted.
In situations where I am at work or a work function, among a group of friends or the center of attention, I behave in a manner that is very extroverted. Most other situations, (bar mingling when I was single, networking for non work related functions, etc) I am extremely shy and introverted. So behavior is situational while personality is hard fast.
So while some people are introverts in real life, I see more and more people behaving like extroverts online and proudly beating their chests about being introverted.
How about you? Are there situations where you would describe yourself as one versus the other?
If you asked me if I was starting out doing a parody mash up of Dos Equis Beer’s “Most Interesting Man in the World” and Papa Smurf, the answer is no. Just as I started drawing the famous ad man’s face I noticed his resemblance to the old blue guy.
By the way if you notice some strange things with my site the next week, I am trying to update a few things. Hopefully all will be complete by next week.
Gallup is in the news recently for issues surrounding their polling processes used during the election where they predicted a 1 point lead for Romney. Interesting my beef is not only with Gallup but any company that is involved with corporate polling to survey customer experience at retail establishments (banks, car dealers, etc).
You have all seen the signs: “Strive for Five”, “Gimme 5”, or “High 5”. I recently saw the strive for five sign at my local Kroger and reminded me of the incident above. Of course I took artistic and creative license with it but the scenario was similar. I went in for the second time for the same issue, had to wait longer than they told me to get my car and at the end the service manager practically begged me to give them fives. He claimed they never got less than a 5 rating. Thus is my problem with the way customer experience is tracked.
As someone who is familiar with statistics and employee engagement, I find it embarrassing that so many companies rely on quantitative data only. It is great that they get a five in different areas, but why? I have a friend whose company started using this as a way to track their engagement because they felt the higher the engagement with customers, the better their sales results. Which I agree with. Low performing locations saw their sales increase as their customer service scores did. Most likely, they weren’t doing what they should have been in the first place. So that is good. However, locations that were high performing could have passing or failing customer engagement scores from month to month. There was nothing being tracked to say WHY the customers rated lower.
When I asked his opinion he said it was because the rating scale was outrageous. Think about your own experiences recently at a restaurant, a store, etc. On a five point scale, what would you rate it? Normally if the service was good I would give a four. I tend to reserve fives for those that really “wow” me. However, in some industries a 4.6 score is considered a failure. REALLY? You know how you get to a 4.6. Ask ten customers to rate your company and have four of the ten give you a four rating and the rest give you a five. Or have nine customers give you a five rating and one person who either had a bad experience or a chip on their shoulder give you a one. Without additional information saying why you got the score you did, it is difficult to replicate the good behavior or check the bad.
So why is the failing grade so high? Because companies like in my example above have learned to manipulate your behavior rather than improving their customer service. Now instead of a four, I am shamed into giving them a five. When you are face to face with a person asking you to give them a five, you feel an obligation not to be the one person that kept them from getting a raise or other compensation. So you give them a five. OR, in my case when the service is less than ideal, I might do you a favor and not answer the phone when your company calls to rate your service. All that skews the data even higher.
So the top brass can brag about their high scores, but nothing really ever changes for the customer experience. There are three questions that I learned in the beginning of my career that works well in both performance reviews and customer engagement.
Those three questions will get you stronger information than quantitative data alone ever will.
BTW, if any company that does this feels I am wrong in my analysis, I would love to talk to you about how your methodology works differently than described.
So the new season of Arrested Development has finally streamed on Netflix to what appears to be heavy streaming of the new episodes, disappointment from critics, and a stock tumble because reception of the fourth season wasn’t as good as expected. I will be honest, I remember when the show premiered on Fox, I wasn’t a fan. I guess I wasn’t the only one because it peaked at about 6 million viewers and was about 120 on the ratings list. Sure you can blame Fox for poor scheduling but it just never caught on during it’s run even though the critics lauded it.
But unlike the Fox run, as my cartoon alludes to the poor ratings, those critics got the buzz continuing and it saw new life on streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu. So the rabid fan base couldn’t wait till the new season. Sadly the critics aren’t as giddy with Season 4 so we will see if there is a Season 5.
Are you an Arrested Development fan? What am I missing?
Today’s cartoon is for the environmental movement and what I consider a failure of public opinion. Many of my friends on social media are sharing this article which asks the question why people can’t believe in Global Warming if the majority of scientists do. On one post by fellow Cincinnatian Craig Froehle I wrote the following:
I think the Environmental movement made a grave mistake years ago when pushing the Global Warming agenda. Not saying it is true but even those who believe in Global Warming will point to history of it happening on earth and question whether the current climate change is man made or natural.
Pollution seemed to be something people could grasp as it was something visual they could see and see the effects of making better choices. IMO many of the strides we made years ago to fight pollution are being stalled as people debate Global Warming.
Pollution and the impact of it is a visible thing. So when we clean our rivers or our air, we can see a visual impact of our efforts which in turn helps decrease issues with Global Warming. But now we are hung up in a debate whether it is man-made or naturally occurring.
What do you think?
Thank you Thank you Thank you. I once again stepped up the goal and you once again helped me deliver.
Blog about the Challenge – $10
Adding Beartoons.com to Blog Roll or Banner Ad Addition – $5
New Followers on Google Plus – $1
450 new followers – $450
For the remainder of the month I am still counting new google plus users and donating that money to the Red Cross.