A couple of days ago I went online to Time Warner Cable and added the SportsPass package to my service level. It was remarkably easy and I thought that Time Warner Cable had finally figured it out. I checked channel 529 to see if my NESN channel was showing up, it wasn’t. Then I noticed an email from Time Warner that said they had received my order and that it should be available shortly.

I checked it the next day, still no access. Today I checked again, still no access.

I log on to the Time Warner Cable website to get their support number and I see they offer online chat. Cool, I fire it up and start typing with Anna. Anna has trouble writing English but I do get that she is going to send a signal to update my cable box. What that really meant was she was rebooting it. While we’re waiting, she tells me I can also call a toll-free phone number for support. A minute or two later it’s up and running again, still no service on my NESN channel.

I ask her to double-check my account to be sure the SportPass is showing up. She tells me that it isn’t. She then asks if there is anything else she can help me with… um, yes. I ask her to add it to my account for me. She can’t do that and tells me to call the toll-free support number.

I dial the Time Warner Cable support number and use a phone tree that asks for my phone number to route the call correctly. After being on hold a few minutes I talk to a pleasant young woman who asks me for my phone number. She then asks for my address which I give her, then she asks for the last four digits of the account holders social security number. I don’t know my wife’s last 4 digits of her social security so I tell her I can’t provide that. She sits silently for about 10 seconds. I ask if I can substitute the account number, which she accepts.

I tell her that I ordered additional service a few days ago online and that it still isn’t working. She informs me that ordering things online doesn’t usually work and that you need to call in to actually add service. Oh, okay.

Before she adds the service I called her about, she asks me if I’m interested in signing up for their digital phone service. I say, “no thank you.” She asks why I’m not interested and I explain that we have 2 cell phones and haven’t used a home phone in over 10 years. She makes a final plea by explaining that it’s only $19.99/month. Ok, but the answer is still no.

A minute later she says that she has worked her magic and it should now be working. I check quickly and it is indeed working.

How many businesses could even think of running that way? Having a monopoly position makes you stop caring about your customers. Cable companies control roughly 60% of the household television access and I have yet to see the cable company that is trying to make their customers the priority.

The story above is why Apple getting into the television market is so damn appealing to so many regular people.

In 1992 the U.S. Olympic basketball team was a true dream team. Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan were just 3 of the superstars on the team. The closest game they were in was the gold medal game, which they won by 31 points. Every professional player on that team is now in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

What would your dream team look like? What if you could have exactly the right people around you to make things happen. Would you be able to stop saying things like “move the needle” and start saying things like “change the world”?

What is it that stops us from bringing together our dream team? Often times it’s the idea that a dream team will blow out the budget. I’m not sure that’s anywhere close to the truth, in fact, I think it’s the exact opposite.

A dream team shares a unified purpose, a unified ethos and a unified desire for excellence. If you hit your snooze alarm 7 times each morning it’s safe to say you are not part of a dream team, you have a job.

When I think of people I would bring together for my own personal dream team, they are expensive. They are also so ridiculously talented that they are still under paid what they are truly worth! If a dream team member has a salary of $100K and a level 2 player has a salary of $65K it appears like you are saving $35K by hiring the level 2 player right? Usually the top performers are producing twice as much good work as an average employee – so you’re probably actually saving $30K by hiring the dream team member.

Then there’s the multiplier effect. What happens when you assemble an entire team of superstars? You dominate. What is total domination worth?

Who would be the first person you would pull on your dream team?

A few months ago my friend Cord Silverstein had an opportunity to work through what his dream job would look like. It’s an exercise everyone should do at least once a year, but somehow we never find the time. I have the time today.

About 15 or so years ago there was a software store called Babbage’s. I remember looking up the name and finding out about Charles Babbage. Babbage is considered the father of the computer, but that wasn’t what I really found interesting. I loved that he would throw himself into things that he found fascinating. He was wealthy enough that he could follow his passion even if it took him away from the field he had specialized in for the past few years. That type of lifestyle is almost unheard of now. The only modern person that I can think of even close to that is Sir Richard Branson.

Just 10 years ago, my passion was website design and development, 5 years ago it was search engine optimization, 2 years ago it was social media. Today it is all of them as one.

There is no longer much space between the web, search and social media. They have all become one giant blob to be managed, optimized and leveraged. I love being at that intersection.

I am a people person. Yes, I really just said that, and actually take pride in the fact that it’s true. My greatest strength is in my ability to connect with people. I can speak English fairly well, but am also fluent in corporate mumbo-jumbo, developer be-boop, social media unicorn and rainbow dialect and my natural language of “Wouldn’t it be great if…?”

I am a better than average idea guy. I tend to brainstorm even when everyone else has moved on to the real life scenarios of “let’s build a website”. The truth is, that’s not always the answer.

I know I work best as part of a group. I never bought in to the idea of the lone genius. I need to work someplace where there is time to think. There have been times in the past where I’ve been to busy to think about anything. That means too busy to think about how to do my job better, too busy to think about how to streamline the process, too busy to sit and talk to my co-workers about just a better way of doing the work that keeps us so damn busy!

I have realized that if I don’t have time to write, I’m too busy. I like writing for this blog. I have about 5 ideas for each one that finally gets published here, that’s a good thing. That’s when my brain is firing on all 8 cylinders.

I’ve learned to despise talk of tactics, because it usually means the strategy page has been completely skipped over. I am bound and determined to change that with any client I ever work with from this day on. All crazy ideas will then be followed by, “How does that fit into the strategy?”.

Finally is the team. I hate working in CYA mode. I work best when I’m surrounded by people so talented and dependable that they don’t require hand holding. Working with people like Les James, Jeremy Jordan, Laura Bryant, Lucas Myers, Robbie McAlister and Morgan Siem has shown me that the cost of excellence is worth it. When you hire the best, they do the work of 3 people.

I’m not sure exactly what all that adds up to, but it would be something along the lines of Digital Strategist.

I’ve had a credit card through Household Bank for many years. This morning I opened an email from them and saw that they wanted me to log into my account for an important message.

I wondered what it could be? Has my account been compromised? Has my identity been stolen?

So I immediately log into my account…

The message waiting for me wasn’t important to me in any way. It is important to them, just not to me.

I understand that Household Bank wants to stop sending me my statement every month in the old-fashioned way. I understand that it costs them money to do that and that they would save lots of money if they never had to mail anything again. What I don’t understand is why I should care about their cost-cutting measures.

How about this instead, “Hey Phil, if you sign up for email notifications instead of paper mail we’ll lower your interest rate a bit!” See how that suddenly becomes a message that is important to ME?

UPDATE: It just happened again. That message must be on a 3 month rotation… ugh.

I’ve decided to no longer organize the Raleigh MediaLeaders.tv organization.

When I first reached out to them in January of 2010 I was looking for a way to achieve escape velocity from my job at McClatchy Interactive. I saw Media Leaders as the perfect way to help expand my social network. It turned out to be so much more.

I reached out to some of the smartest people I knew to help me get it going, including: Sarah Burris, Brian McDonald, Dan London, Morgan Siem, Karl Sakas, Meg Crawford and Rachel Healy.

What I came to realize over the last month or so is that the reason medialeaders.tv was started and the reason I wanted to participate are not in sync. It’s nothing terrible, we just see the opportunities differently.

What I hope to do is to run a more open source media leaders event. Rather than a centralized organization making decisions about how the local event should be promoted, priced and who should have access to attendees information, I feel like that should be in the hands of the people doing the work locally.

The best part of the early events was that all the cities rocked on the same night. With that in mind, I’ve started to reach out to friends in other cities that I think would benefit from an awesome open source networking event.

Step 1: I’ve spoken with Tiffani Murray about expanding this open source media leaders event into Atlanta.

Step 2: I’ve spoken with 9 other people who have expressed interest from Miami to Boston.

Step 3: World East Coast domination!

I will be aiming for early November for the next event. I hope you decide to continue this journey with me and the great group of people helping me make something awesome.

The other day I was talking to my friend who is in somewhat of a life crisis. He wants to do what he feels in his heart, but at least for right now the pressure applied by society is making him do what is the responsible adult thing to do – work a 9 to 5 job.

He’s not even 30 years old, has no serious commitments, no pets, no mortgage, no spouse.

Living in the United States brings with it great blessings but also an enormous amount of pressure. One thing is the pressure to conform. We are taught from our toddler years to sit down, shut up and follow the rules. By the time you hit adulthood you feel the pressure of your family expecting you to get a job, find a spouse and move into a house.

For many people doing those things is indeed following their heart. Personally I love all that stability because I know I need it to thrive. But I also know that I am not everyone. Some people are meant to be nomadic. They function best when they are exploring new things, new people and new ways of viewing the world.

I like the way I first read about the Hunter vs. Farmers theory from Seth Godin’s blog.

10,000 years ago, civilization forked. Farming was discovered and the way many people spent their time was changed forever.

Clearly, farming is a very different activity from hunting. Farmers spend time sweating the details, worrying about the weather, making smart choices about seeds and breeding and working hard to avoid a bad crop. Hunters, on the other hand, have long periods of distracted noticing interrupted by brief moments of frenzied panic.

When I look back on my life I see opportunities missed. We tend to let opportunities slip by because of the reasons we never say out loud. Reasons like, what if I fail, what will my dad think, what will it look like on my resume.

I went to college to please my dad. At the time I thought it was what I wanted, but looking back I can see that I was self-sabotaging at every turn. I had zero interest in it and would have probably been better served by spending those 7 lost years in the military learning a little self-discipline and getting some self-confidence.

My advice for my friend is to live life in a way that makes you happy. There’s already enough people leading lives of quiet desperation.

Looking back, what would you have liked to follow your heart on?

One thing I’ve learned over the past 30 years is, when there’s a problem, it’s almost always a communication problem.

Does your boss not value you enough? Try talking to her honestly about what you’re trying to accomplish, maybe even ask for some pointers.

Does you girlfriend think you don’t appreciate her? Try talking to her about why you do.

Does a client frustrate you to no end? Rather than bad mouthing them with your team try setting up a heart-to-heart talk with them where you can listen to them. Chances are, they’re frustrated too. Talking honestly can help to bridge the gap and get your project back on track.

Communication skills are key to every aspect of your life. Don’t try to communicate with real people like you do on Facebook and Twitter.

Have you ever written an email to a client like this?

Dear Client,

Here’s the thing we promised you.

Let me know your feedback and we’ll start in on revisions.

Yea, so have I. It’s terrible. Stop doing it right now.

Your client hired you because you have some level of expertise and knowledge that they don’t. Remember that you need to communicate that value when you are selling your work. The selling part continues even after they signed the contract and work has started. Even quick notes to your clients need to have your values expressed in them.

Dear Client,

I’ve finished up the thing we talked about. I found that X, Y and Z will work best because of the super-awesome logarithmic system that we mentioned during the kickoff meeting. In the past that system has increased sales 9% and I think you should see similar performance.

Let’s set up a time tomorrow so I can explain the data points that lead us to thinking this is the best path for your business and what the next steps should be. During that meeting we’ll gather your feedback and plan revisions with you.

The truth is, you’re smart and the client should trust you 100% already right? Maybe after 10 years they will, but for the first 10 years you need to remind them how awesome you are.

Could you do a better job of selling your ideas?

photo by: John McNab via Flickr

Imagine you’re grabbing lunch at a restaurant and the soup you ordered arrives stone cold. You call over the waiter and tell him the problem. He takes the cup of soup and throws it out the nearby window then turns and walks away away. You wait for a while thinking he’ll come back to address the problem. He never returns.

If you were the manager of that restaurant, would you sanction that type of customer interaction?

That’s basically what happens when you remove a negative comment. You have accomplished 6 things:

1. You have shown the person that they wasted their time commenting.
2. You have missed an opportunity to engage with a customer and solve a problem.
3. You will probably not deal with the underlying issue of the complaint meaning others may leave the same comment in the future.
4. You may have pushed the person to start commenting places where negative comments live forever.
5. They will now talk about the bad interaction AND the fact that you deleted their comment.
6. You’ve raised the bar so that people will assume that you never have any problems.

Your customers are going to complain sometimes. You’re not perfect. The good news is that customers don’t expect perfect. What most people expect is communication and sometimes a pat on the back to let them know they are special.

Not long ago I was at Brewmaster’s Bar & Grill with a gang of friends. Everything was fine, but when it was time to pay and leave, it took forever. I left a review on Yelp with that information. The next day, I had an email from them telling me that they wanted to fix the situation and have me back again. That’s how you handle a negative review.

What was the last place that really impressed you with their customer service?