« July 2007 | Main | September 2007 »
August 29, 2007
Uncoordinated Customer Obligations - UCO
"You-CO" or "Yuk-o"
What is a UCO?
In its' simplest form it is a bad practice where person A makes a commitment to a customer upon behalf of person B, without bothering to talk to person B beforehand.
Sales people do this a lot. "Sure, Joe will take care of it, no problem" then they get back to the office and say "We told them we'd do blank."
Leaving someone else to fill in the blank, as they move along to their merry way, having cleared this upon their checklist.
The problem with UCOs is that there could be reasons (technical or resource related) where the OBLIGATION might not be met. Leaving the customer to yell at some later date, "You told me this would happen!!!"
Not a good scene.
UCOs stem from bad communication and the desire to get something done,, but one should never make an obligation -- even an implied obligation -- to the customer without all company parties involved understanding the expectations involved.
Posted by dmohney at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)
August 21, 2007
Where's Jeff? Is he sleeping outside.. Where's Jeff?
"...is he going for a ride?.." Oops, I don't think Jeff (Pulver) knows much about Jeff Wiggles, his children being above the age dateline.
Anyway, I have taken up Jeff (Pulver's) offer to be on dopplr, a website that allows you to enter your trips on line and then compare your travel plans to other dopplr users. If you are traveling a lot, you can see where you can meet up with others in your community.
It's a good start.
I'd prefer a version down to the conference hall level where I can take my cell phone and "ping" to see who else is around that I might want to talk to, but that's probably a decade away, given the crudity of location-based services right now.
"Where's Jeff? Is he partying outside? Where's Jeff? Is he on-stage live? Where's Jeff? Is he singing with the Herding Cats? Where's Jeff? ..."
Posted by dmohney at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)
August 19, 2007
Phone Port at Bad Time
My Sprint Samsung A920 started eating battery at an obscene rate for some unknown reason. I was hoping to hold onto it for another year or so in order to get a crack at either an EVDO Rev-A phone and/or a WiMAX-enabled phone. (It would have also given me an additional $75 upgrade credit on the hardware, but...)
(Of course, Sprint shows all their WiMAX stuff last week in Reston but can't find my phone number even though VON Mag has done at least one big WiMAX piece, so go figure...)
ANYway, so I spent time acouple of weeks ago week figuring out what type of new phone I needed (RAXR), buying it, and then transferring my phone contact list onto the new phone.
Part of the deal at the local Sprint store is you get $75 credit plus another $30 or so activation credit if you buy two accessories in the store along with a new phone. Easy purchases there, one new car charger, one new AA-battery "emergency" charger.
Figures that the week after I buy the phone, all the info comes out on the RAZR2 or whatever it is. *sigh* Can't win, can I?
I also spent another $50 bucks or so buying the extended life 1300mA battery and the humpy-back battery cover for the RAZR. Here's to hoping that I haven't wasted my money for the extra battery life.
Posted by dmohney at 11:48 PM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2007
Hey, I'm still catching up with LinkedIn
I know Jeff (Pulver) has gone to Facebook with a passion, but I can't bring myself to ditch LinkedIn.
As a matter of fact, my LinkedIn community -- that almighty established base of people who have linked to me -- continues to grow on a steady basis. So I can't really get spun up with a new social/business networking tool since I'm slowly creeping along in LinkedIn. There's the old DIGEX people, there's the steady community of people in the IP communications community I'll admit, and a couple of good endorsements to boot. Can't really transfer endorsements without retyping by a third party.
So, if I switch now, I'd have to start from scratch. Bummer.
I have to confess, LinkedIn hasn't really brought me a lot of fame or fortune. It has brought me some annoyances as a few people have asked to link to me and either I don't know them or don't remember them.
Is this an ENDORSEMENT of LinkedIn? Not really. It's there, I agree to link to people and I occasionally will scan the links of my compadres over the years to see who has reconnected with me since *gulp* 1993-1997...
Posted by dmohney at 07:42 PM | Comments (0)
August 14, 2007
On a personal note...
Before I went out to DEFCON, I got a raging case of poison ivy.
Rather than listen to my primary care person, I said "Oh, only the 6 day steroids pack should do." "If it comes back, you'll be back here and we'll have to do the 12 day sequence." "Let's try the 6, I don't like the way the 'roids get me hyped."
Sure enough, get back from DEFCON, poison ivy returns for revenge, now I'm mid-way through the 12 day sequence of 'roids. Bigger pills, more pills per day, edgy-edgy... At least I am not slavering benedryl 3-4x per day on the scratchy skin (See? did you NEED to know this? No, but it's a BLOG so it's OK if I talk about it, riiight?)
I know, what this this have to do with the blog? I've been so edged up on getting daily work (newsletter, current cycle of print production, start work on October pieces), that I have trouble focusing on blogging for information.
Posted by dmohney at 06:17 PM | Comments (0)
August 08, 2007
NASA TV - But not on my downstairs TV
I wanted to TiVo tonight's launch of the Space Shuttle tonight, but Cox cable doesn't carry NASA-TV anymore and it's unlikely that -- barring disaster -- the evening news will carry more than a 90 second clip of the liftoff.
If I wanted to futz around for more than 5 minutes, I could probably figure out a way to get TiVo to pick up a live stream of NASA-TV, but I want to record, rather than watch live.
Mayyyybe I just don't have the fine intimacy of TiVo that I should. I may have to try out the new-fangled search feature that scours both recordings and online archives for key words in order to get what I want for this evening.
Maybe I should see what Network2 has .. Hmm...
Posted by dmohney at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)
August 06, 2007
New DEFCON Sport - Running of the Reporters...
If you didn't already hear the news, a Dateline NBC producer tried to sneak into DEFCON on Friday. The producer was allegedly looking for something to "shock Kansas," but she might have been better off trying to get into CIA headquarters.
DEFCON organizers knew she was coming and even had her photograph - something that begs the question as to who over at Dateline might have dropped a dime on her and why. DEFCON organizers offered her a press pass four (4) times, two before she got on site, and two when she was on site.
Compounding matters, staffers had her spotted from the minute she came in and trying to sneak around a camera in one of the most paranoid conferences in the world shows, well, lack o' thought and planning.
The producer was hoping to catch the ritual "Spot the Fed" contest on Video tape, but organizers "Outed" her at the opening session. She walked out the door before her picture went up on the big screen projectors, followed by a group of people touting video cameras and shouting questions in a deja vu turn about.
Be interesting to see if Dateline NBC shows a little humility or tries revenge in the future.
Posted by dmohney at 12:18 AM | Comments (0)
August 01, 2007
A Rough Ride to TV White Spaces Usage?
The FCC released some initial test results of "prototype" devices designed to find open TV "White spaces" channels in the 700 MHz for unlicensed broadband use. You'll find them around July 31, 2007 at www.fcc.gov, along with a bunch of other docs.
Reading between the lines, it looks the "prototype" hardware is still, well, prototype. One device didn't act as advertised, while the other device did OK in the lab, but wasn't taken out for some ad hoc field trials. Devices were provided by Microsoft and Philips.
Needless to say, the White Spaces technical people are going to meet with the FCC technical people to discuss the initial testing protocols and examine why one of the two prototype devices didn't work as well as it should in terms of picking up wireless microphones and digital TV channels.
A source I spoke to today said the FCC results were a partial victory because one of the two devices was indeed able to detect DTV signals at a very very low signal level.
Stay tuned. It'll be interesting to see how the NAB folks react to the FCC report.
Posted by dmohney at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
Some news, isn't.
Do I need to get an e-mail on the most recent blog by the CEO of a company? Or, for that matter, what PR firm is representing firm XYZ.
No.
Let's take these in reverse order. If PR firm is representing firm XYZ, then I expect the PR firm to call me up and start pitching me about firm XYZ, end of story. If not, I don't care, just like I don't care about who is picking up the firm's garbage, catering their meals, or providing their office supplies.
Most recent blog of CEO: Well, if I was following the guy's blog in the first place, I'd care, yes? I'd be RSS-ing it. Or the PR firm would be pitching me the latest philosophical statement of CEO, rather than "Hey, here's the guy's blog, and he says X..."
Hey, if he's saying X, shouldn't the PR firm be lining up interviews, doing a little pitch, etc, rather than this passive/aggressive "Here's his blog opinion."
If it's really cool, I'm going to end up reading it in Jeff Pulver's blog anyway.
Save press release for news. Let blogs be blogs. Thank you.
Posted by dmohney at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)