Everyone has probably sent an e-mail they regretted right after clicking the send button. It’s natural to want to include emotion and tone in your e-mails, it’s how we naturally communicate. Without this tone, our communication would be uninteresting and robotic. However, without facial expression and non-verbal communication cues included in the transmission, our words can often be taken out of context. A new Internet tool helps with this problem and it’s way cool!
The service is called ToneCheck. ToneCheck reports that studies show e-mail is misinterpreted 50% of the time. That’s a pretty high statistic, don’t you think? Don’t fear, ToneCheck is here!
ToneCheck flags sentences with words or phrases that may convey unintended emotion or tone, then helps you re-write them. Just like Spell Check… but for Tone. – ToneCheck.com
It currently only works with Outlook. However, they will soon be launching support for web-based e-mail like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo etc. I highly recommend for anyone in the business environment who deals with a lot of e-mail, especially human resources and managerial positions. This service could really save you a boat load of office hassle, believe me! It would also be useful for college students who often communicate with professors via e-mail. Check it out and let me know what you think of it by commenting!
Many readers aren’t aware that I’m an avid weather enthusiast. I’ve loved mother nature’s fury ever since our home was struck by a tornado when I was a child. I’ve been chasing/spotting severe storms for 10 years total, and 8 years on my own with various chase partners. I’ve chased all over the upper-plains from Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and into the Dakotas. In addition to this life-long obsession, I’ve been an amateur radio operator, or “ham”, for four years. However, I’ve been involved in two-way radio communications and electronics since I was a child. Now I have premised my experience, let me get to the point of this blog!
This evening, a large area of severe weather struck Minnesota, eventually making its way into the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. The Minneapolis/St. Paul Metro SKYWARN swung into action taking check-ins from all over the twin cities metro. What sounded like an older female was acting as net control. This operator is my primary, but not only, criticism.
Coming into this evening, I’ve respected the professionalism and coordination the metro SKYWARN group has. However, now my confidence is shaken. The net control seemed to be lacking the skill set needed for this position. She couldn’t even keep the difference between watch and warning straight. I hopeshe understood the difference at least and was simply mixing them up. She often repeated “warnings” that did not exist, instead telling operators in outlying counties they had “tornado warnings” when really they were under a “tornado watch”. This happened at least seven times in a one and a half hour span. One time she was corrected by another operator on-air, just once. Otherwise stations simply ask for clarification because what she is saying doesn’t even make sense.
“Washington county under a tornado warning till 11 p.m.” She stated this at 9:15 p.m. for a squall line racing through.
Wait, an hour and forty-five minute tornado warning!?
Then she’d come back on the air 2 minutes later and say a list of counties like, “Washington, Hennepin, Chisago etc. under a tornado watch till 11 p.m.”
2 minutes later…
“The NWS out of Chanhassen has extended the tornado warning until 3 a.m.”
You can see how confusion can then add up and discredit much of the net.
In all this confusion, a local camp ground manager came on the net and asked for clarification. I don’t blame him one bit. He had obviously been tuned in listening to the net and was so twisted by listening to this female net controller, he had no idea what was occurring anymore. He informed net control he had over 100 campers piled into a safe area and wanted to know if a particular tornado warning had expired so he could release his campground from shelter. Instead of an answer, another net control station, possibly an emergency manager, told him in a very condescending and direct way to tune into his “AM/FM radio” for the answer. Are you kidding me? Is this how you treat a completely understandable request? Your net control can’t say hardly anything properly and this guy is overseeing the shelter and campers and your giving him a hard time? There was obvious tension on-air between the campground manager and the net controllers after this spat on the air. I side 110% with the campground manager. If your net controller is announcing watches and warnings over the net, reading statements, then they should be held accountable to provide clarification, and not snarky either.
Later into the evening, a station asked the female net control station where the area of interest was and if she had heard of any rotation in a particular storm. She replied,
“I’m looking at radar now and don’t see any rotation.”
You may ask, what’ s wrong with that? If she can’t distinguish between a watch and warning correctly, do I really trust her to interpret radar? I sure wouldn’t. Is she qualified in the least even as an “amateur radar observer” to know what she’s looking at, and what kind of software is she using?
Then the highlight of the evening. A station ID’d and checked into the net with a report of UFO’s over the metro. I laughed quite hard as this man described lights flying in unison across the sky. He was quite excited and perhaps even a bit liquored up, it was hard to tell. The net controller instructed this station to dial 911 and report the UFO phenomena. This led to another operator coming on-air repeatedly cursing the other operator out calling him a “stupid fuc*” and to “have another fuc*ing drink”. You can see how when your net isn’t properly controlled, things can get out of hand quickly. You can stop anyone from interrupting a net, but you can deter those by having a clean and well executed net.
So what have we learned? It is imperative you have the right person “behind the controls” when you need it most. Tonight’s net controller was obviously not that person and their net was really quite poor. From constant “repeating” of simple information that took up time and created extra traffic, to false information about warnings and watches and everything in-between, the net was a borderline disaster. The bright spot was collecting damage reports. Aside from some problems not being able to transcribe fast enough, most damage reports were handled quite well. One problem spot on damage reports I heard went like this…
“9463 damage…” operator
45 seconds go by
“9463 damage…” operator
“standing water…” net controller
10 seconds go by
“9463 DAMAGEEEEE”
“station all I heard was standing water over roadway”
I ask how in the world do you get “standing water” when the station is clearly stating his SKYWARN ID number and that he has a damage report. I’m not sure what in the world was going on here. Again, confusion.
I’m sorry Metro SKYWARN, I thought you were better than this. I heard bright spots of good, but a wholeeee lot of bad in there tonight. You and I provide a valuable service to the community and there needs to be professionalism through out the process. I know you mean well and I know were all volunteers. I hope you choose to do a debriefing on this net and find where the hiccups are and correct them. I might add a suggestion, look at net control from tonight first and go from there.
A report published I read this week really surprised me, or did it?! When I think about Internet privacy I imagine my parents who are too afraid to use Facebook or do heavy amounts of online banking or shopping. They don’t have any kind of presence on the Internet, and they want to keep it that way. However, some new research has led to some intriguing results.
Mary Madden and Aaron Smith of Pew Internet and American Life Project published a very interesting report, Reputation Management and Social Media, that really put my mind into a spin.
44% of young adult Internet users say they take steps to limit the amount of information available about them, compared to 33% of users ages 30 to 49 and 25% of those ages 50 to 64.
71% of younger social networking site users actively change their privacy settings to limit what they share with others online, compared to 55% of those 50 to 64.
41% have removed their names from photos of them posted by others, compared to just 18% of those 50 to 64.
So what does this say about the state of privacy? I believe the younger generation is more willing to share their life online and engage in socialmedia. However, they want to know their in control of the information. They want the say in what is streamed out, and what is not. Rightfully so I might add. A larger portion of the younger generation have an online presence because it truly is “norm” for them. So even the privacy conscious feel compelled to be on these social platforms; however they really take note of their privacy trying their best to lock it down tight.
Older generations are either with it, or they are completely against it. If they feel okay with having their information online, they are generally very “open” type people. They have nothing to hide and don’t fear what others may know about them. These types of people are much less likely to be overly concerned about privacy. They don’t change privacy settings and they don’t un-tag photos of themselves. Those in the older generation didn’t grow up with it so they could take it or leave it, it’s not viewed as a “necessity”, like it is to some of our younger generation. In essence, the adopters of technology in the old generation are truly comfortable with having their indentity online.
These reasons are why Mary and Aaron received the results they did. I wouldn’t call them overly surprising, but more so highlighting the generational divide in technology adoption and the varying principles between the two.
Do you ever think just how important the Internet is these days? Its reach is enormous. From our nations power grid to playing PS3 with your friends across the country. The Internet has quickly integrated into our daily lives; some integration we don’t even realize. A common tactic to flame the fire is the idea of the Internet literally collapsing. But,is that even possible?
The Internet is not one giant pipe that can be severed. The nature of the Internet is that it’s split it a spider web of networks all interconnected. If your data can’t get from A to B because someone maliciously severed a connection somewhere, the traffic could be routed from A to D to C and then to B. The key point in that sentence is the data still gets from A to B, just in a different manner.
So, could the Internet be taken down? In terms of logical ways to sabotage it, no. The Internet is gigantic; it would take a massive attack, and I mean GIGANTIC ATTACK, both of hardware sabotage and network/packet sabotage to Internet backbones around the world. This coordination would be a huge logistical task and highly improbable.
If an attacker severed an “Internet backbone” as their known, traffic disruption on the Internet would occur. In 2008, fiber optic cables on the sea floor were being cut with no culprits ever being found. Some have theorized the attacks were government entities testing the waters on how the public and private sector would respond to disruption. Cutting large cables on the sea floor is no cheap task, I have no doubt it was some kind of professional operation by someone.
So could your e-mail and Netflix suddenly vanish because of no bandwidth some day? Surely, but don’t expect the flow of information around the world to cease at the flick of a switch or slice of a giant scissors. You may be able to slice a chunk of the network out, maybe even a few, but no person or organization could take down the entire Internet. No one.
When many people hear the word Zappos, they think about shoes. That is partially correct. Zappos is a major player in the shoe game online, but their company thrives and is centered around one thing, customer service.
So much of our economy is centered around chasing revenue and meeting market expectations etc. While having capital to continue operating is important, caring about your customer is more important. Customers don’t want to be a number or just another face in the crowd. They want to feel close and cared about by the brands they love. Your customers keep you in business, care about them, not their money.
Zappos has used strategic moves to serve their customers to the fullest. Zappos operates their warehouse in Kentucky 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Running a 24 hour warehouse is not the most cost-effective. It would be cheaper & more efficient to let orders pile-up and let the picker gather a larger number of orders. However, this practice slows down delivery. Zappos picks your shoes when you hit the “Submit” button.
The next key in their strategy is Kentucky. You may be confused like, what, Kentucky… What the #&$^?! The Zappos warehouse is located just 15 minutes away from the UPS hub located in Louisville, KY. If you’ve shipped UPS, chances are your package went through the hub in Louisville. If you order a new set of Crocs at 10:59 p.m., Zappos can have them picked from inventory and on a UPS plane before midnight and you’ll have them the next morning! Oh, did I mention they will upgrade you to overnight shipping without your knowledge just to surprise you for free. Zappos calls this the “wow” effect. They want you to say, “wow!” with every aspect of their company you deal with; ordering, customer service, delivery, you name it.
Zappos by nature is a customer service company that just happens to sell shoes. Take a look at this real customer feedback:
I don’t purchase a lot of stuff on the Internet, but you guys really changed my mind into doing more. I was going to purchase my shoes with another online store, but I decided to go with you because of the free shipping both ways. So, I placed my order at 4:45am on Thursday. And you did not disappoint! You upgraded my shipping to next day for free, and I am wearing the shoes as I type on Friday at 9:40am. That is what customer service is all about! Thanks, you just earned a lifelong customer by doing the little things right! Again, Thanks
It’s all about doing the right thing. A recent computer glitch at Zappos caused their prices to be incredibly lower than what they should be listed at. The funky pricing only lasted about 6 hours. There were $1500 items selling for only $50 on one of their associated domains. Orders came in at those prices and Zappos honored that price. Zappos ended up losing $1.6 million dollars on this 6-hour glitch. But without even thinking, they honored those prices. Why scorn their customers when it was their computer glitch that caused the problem, right? They may have lost out big on those products, but what will that choice do for them in the long-term? Lots!
Zappos is a perfect cultural atmosphere to study and try to model any business after. It’s about doing the right thing, caring about your customers and doing the little things. Little things go a long way, in the long run. Zappos isn’t worried about this quarters revenue; Zappos is concerned about the long-term impacts of their actions.
Don’t sprint, you’re running a marathon.
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Want to learn more about Zappos? I suggest this 10 minute Nightline segment produced by ABC News. It really captures what Zappos is all about
New media is changing how our society communicates and keeps informed on the topics that are most important to us. Whether friends, family or our favorite celebrities, social media keeps us connected. Barack Obama illustrated how new media platforms could play an integral role in politics. From raising money to keeping constituents informed, new media has solidified its place in the future of politics. One candidate for Governor in Wisconsin is using these new platforms to drive his campaign to what they hope will be a favorable vote this fall.
Hyper Focused Advertising
Inexpensive ads are one of the many advantages for campaigns. The most useful platform for very narrow, focused ads that don’t hurt the pocket book is Facebook. Traditional advertising mediums like television and newspaper may blanket a vast number of people but there is no telling how much waste is included in traditional ad campaigns. The problem is they are not highly targeted, and that is some new media platforms like Facebook deliver. Not only are they a fraction of the cost, but they also let you target extremely narrow demographics and focus a particular message for that group. This kind of targeting is incredibly valuable to political campaigns and traditional business alike.
There are many stories around the country of success with using new media for advertising in politics. One of these is Republican Patrick Mara. Mara defeated a 16-year incumbent in a DC city council primary in 2008. His campaign said they had excellent results using hyper focused ads on Facebook to reach their core demographic.
Put Your Net”work” To Work
No one can help you more than your constituents. Motivating your network to action is an extremely powerful task to accomplish and is now easier than ever before with new media tools and the Internet. Passing your messages and beliefs through your followers is much more effective than any high-dollar ad campaign can accomplish. A personal conversation between friends or family is much more likely to carry weight than a TV ad or a radio spot. Your network is your biggest and most powerful advocate. Don’t forget it, you’ll need them!
Don’t underestimate what your network will or won’t do. Don’t assume they won’t help your cause or do what you ask. Once you have solidified connections with them, your message hits hard. While casual messages through television, radio and other traditional mediums may reach constituents, the message isn’t nearly as personal and is less likely to influence. When your followers choose to connect with you on a new media platform, they’re allowing you into their personal network, they’re not picking up background noise on traditional mediums. Messages are hence stronger and make a larger impact on your constituents, and are more likely to spread.
Bring Your Network Into “The Huddle”
To utilize your network, you need to bring them into your huddle. A disconnect between executives, administrators is a very common problem; both business and politics suffers from this disconnect. This disconnect is often referred to as “Ivory Tower Syndrome.” The leaders of movements often fall out of touch with their base and aren’t aware of what their constituents really feel and really want. New media platforms connect leaders with even the smallest of their base.
82 year-old Dorothy in a town of 1500 people can get on her Facebook account or Twitter account and voice her opinion; something that without these new technologies would be incredibly more difficult for her. This is the power of the “Huddle.” Being your network close and communicate. Don’t just spew one way and use your tools as broadcast platforms. Talk with them, engage them and good things will happen.
“Sometimes we have to ask the hard questions and get real, truthful, and sometimes harsh answers. The more we know about what our constituents are thinking, the better we can serve them.” said Nicole Russo, Legislative Aide to New York State Senator Kemp Hannon. (Mashable)
Transparency = Trust
All of these efforts provide transparency for the candidate. Transparency is something Barack Obama really mainstreamed in his presidential campaign. People want that from the political candidates today. With all our personal information being streamed online, it is becoming the norm to receive your most important & personal information on the Internet.
What are my nephews up to today via Facebook? VOIP chat with them online via the PlayStation Network, and see what my friends around the country are talking about today on Twitter. This transparency is further illustrated by the explosion of location-based services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt. Millions of people have no problem sharing their location every second of the day with the world.
Making the candidate transparent lessens the probability of your messages being lost in translation and makes it much stronger. Trying to communicate solely through press releases or your press team making statement can lead misinterpretation and statements being mis-judged. This can quickly swirl into a PR nightmare. Keeping fresh content and being 100% open on your new media platforms keeps everything on the public record accurately. Transparency also allows to handle small fires that arise on the political trail quickly before they can spread out of control. Cutting the legs beneath allegations and disputes before mainstream media picks it up while reassuring your base of your stance. Mobility and timeliness are key in putting out the fires.
The Neumann campaign uses video to discuss Mark’s stance on the issues and answer question he receives online. The key to efforts like this boils down to one word, genuine. If you think Facebook, Twitter, E-mail will just be another one-way street with you soapboxing your messages, your horribly mistaken. The ship has sailed for you. These platforms need to be personal, they need to be genuine. Your constituents want to feel connected to you and your causes. They do not want to feel connected to your PR team and press releases.
Here is a perfect example from the Neumann campaign. It’s not overly produced and you can tell it’s just Mark speaking, no fancy scripts, no constant cutting and splicing of the video. It’s genuine and it offers some personal details about his life
Wrapping It Up
New media has a firm place in politics. Candidates who fail to utilize these technologies, I feel, are at a significant disadvantage. The Neumann campaign has dedicated effort to the social media sphere and has a following of over 50,000 constituents online because of it.
Don’t be afraid to embrace the new and understand how society is changing. People’s information gathering is changing and they have certain expectations from public figures. Meet those expectations, engage with them, be transparent, and be genuine. Mark has, what can’t others?
A lot of my geek friends are already raving about the new iPhone 4 that has yet to be announced. Many are ready to get their MacHead hands on it as soon as it’s available. Finding out if you’re elgible to upgrade to the iPhone 4 is very easy.
If you’re a current iPhone user; simply dial *639# and hit “Call.” A text message will reply within 60 seconds letting you know if your eligible to upgrade. If you’re not eligible right now, the message states what date you’re able to upgrade with no additional fees. Those who may not be eligible can still upgrade, but there will be substantially higher fees associated with doing so.
Not upgrading to the iPhone 3GS was a smart move on my part, this is a much more revoltionary rather than evolutionary like the 3GS. I’m eligible!
Facebook has taken a lot of heat, a lot! Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, recently took the stage at AllThingsDigital; a prestigious tech conference where all the big players in tech were watching, including tech journalists. It was here where Zuckerberg was on the firing post around recent privacy concerns.
Come on people; leave this guy alone! At least consider cutting him some slack. A young CEO who only created the biggest thing on the Internet today out of his Harvard dorm room and become a multi-billionaire! Sure he has made some mistakes; he’s human as we all are. Many journalists are swarming around recent leaked IM conversations Zuckerberg had with a friend from Harvard. Who cares what he said before Facebook was even, Facebook!? A young college kid holding a private conversation. I don’t think it holds any viscosity on the current privacy heat Facebook is taking. People should not judge that old, private, conversation as his firm stance on privacy.
Zuckerberg’s recent moves with Facebook and these leaked details may be the tipping point for Facebook. MySpace wen’t through the same slow death with people migrating to Facebook. However, Facebook shouldn’t quiver just yet. There is no suitable competitor to Facebook therefore no matter how angered, people don’t have another social network to migrate to. I also feel Facebook holds much more value than MySpace ever did and leaving it will be much more difficult for users.
You have to give him credit for even taking the stage and facing the heat head-on, even if he didn’t handle it perfectly. Some CEO’s would have just cowered and not even shown their face.
I’m sure everyone has heard of the BP oil spill by now, it’s all over the news. One thing BP has done is setup a live camera from unmanned submarines at the ocean sea floor. The camera is trained on the oil well 24 hours a day and accessible by anyone on the Internet at any time. This satisfies our society’s craving for instantaneous data and “LIVE” coverage. The cam makes the oil spill story much more impactful when you see the oil spewing from the sea floor. However, is BP damaging it’s brand by feeding society’s need for this “LIVE” type coverage?
Every time major news outlets talk about the spill, they show this live camera with oil spewing out. This is really ingraining this image of oil tainting our oceans into the minds of viewers. Not only that, the use of the word “BP” as you view the live cam re-enforces that BP is the company involved with the spill. Twitter users have even began to spread pictures of BP’s logo with a slight modification (see below).
So is BP doing the right thing by streaming the oil spill online 24×7 or are they hurting their reputation and brand even more,as if the spilling of millions of barrels of oil isn’t enough to damage them already. Does the public have a right to view the problem even though it’s miles below the surface of the gulf? All I can say is, I hope they hire a great PR firm.
UW-Stout’s e-Scholar program has come under fire early this summer. An editorial in the Leader-Telegram talks about the cost in having a school-issued laptop for their four-years at UW-Stout. It cites the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill that pay a fraction of what UW-Stout students do. The editorial makes some good points, however it’s not a 100% accurate comparison.
UW-Stout is substantially more than UNC because of how the program is designed. UNC is almost a more ala carte offering where students can choose from 4 different PC’s and isn’t required to be pre-loaded with all software the university has licenses for. This is where most of the cost is incurred, software. UW-Stout’s laptops are packed with professional, top-notch software that is often hundreds of dollars each by themselves. Some of these packages include AutoCAD from Autodesk, Symantec Anti-Virus, Adobe Design Premium, Microsoft Office, and Rosetta Stone. That’s not even the complete list! The software offered from UW-Stout is quality, but it could be improved in the way they issue it to students.
UW-Stout has stated it would be more costly to split the software so certain software is installed on computers for students who will actually use it. I have never once, in my three academic years, open up AutoCAD. Why? I’m not an engineer nor apparel design major and have no idea how to use it. It may be installed on my machine, but it holds no real value to me as a student. I could probably scrap about half of what is installed on my laptop because of two reasons; I’m not trained on its use or I have no interest/need for the piece of software. This is one area where UW-Stout should evaluate its procedures.
Is this the most cost-effective method for students? Or, could UW-Stout get by with less licenses and only install it only on certain laptops for particular majors. I presume it has to do with how the contracts are structured with Vanguard Computers, the supplier for UW-Stout’s e-Scholar program.
Students should be able to bring their own computers, right? Students can bring them, but are still given a laptop from UW-Stout. It does have multiple advantages over your personal machine. Screen broke? No problem. Got a virus and can’t use it? No Problem. Battery wore out? No problem. The support UW-Stout provides is critical to the programs success is quite good, though it could use some upgrades. UW-Stout takes away the hassle of owning a high-end notebook computer. Another area of concern is compatibility. With a consistent offering across the board with standards, UW-Stout minimizing compatibility issues and other software related problems. It’s much easier to support two or three computer models with identical setups rather than thousands of different laptops with who knows what on the machine. Uniformity leads to sanity for the Stout IT department in this case!
Let me be clear, UW-Stout should certainly be analyzing how to bring down costs and/or re-structure the e-Scholar program. It does have draw backs and universities need to be fluid and responsive to our current economic crisis. However, I can’t stress how imperative the e-Scholar program is to students. UW-Stout is a technology epi-center in the UW-System and a good platform for other universities to observe and mold themselves after. Technology is literally transforming our world, whether personal, business or otherwise. Citizens who are unfamiliar or unable to use technology are already three steps behind in the workforce. With my urging I hope UW-Stout continues its innovative focus and takes their technology view another step further.
Everyone has probably sent an e-mail they regretted right after clicking the send button. It’s natural to want to include emotion and tone in your e-mails, it’s how we naturally communicate. Without this tone, our communication would be uninteresting and robotic. However, without facial expression and non-verbal communication cues included in the transmission, our words can often be taken out of context. A new Internet tool helps with this problem and it’s way cool!
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