Hi this is Jessica adding an entry to my Dad's blog. I want to share with you a picture of me and my best friend Emily. I am the girl on the left and Emily is on the right. This picture was taken at Club Libby Lu in the Menlo Park Mall. We had plenty of fun that day picking out pretty clothes and styling our hair. After we played we went for ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery. It is one of my favorite places to eat ice cream because they mash up the ice cream right in front of you. I like the peanut butter cup with Vanilla ice cream. Its good to have a friends and always be nice to them and never let them down! My Daddy let me type all this by myself. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think?
I was a very proud Dad yesterday. My oldest daughter decided on her own to donate 7 inches of her hair to the locks of love organization. It is great non profit group that donates hair to children who suffer hair loss from Chemotherapy or other miscellaneous illness. If you have not done so I encourage you to check out the link. I thought it was a very mature and thoughtful decison made by an 8 year old child. I was a bit skeptical about Jess losing her long hair, but when you saw how proud she was of herself with a smile from ear to ear the length of her hair didn't seem to matter.
It was a rainy day in New Jersey today. In order to kill some time I watched Happy Feet with the girls. It is one of the better kids movies. The problem is when I see the movie I get the Stevie Wonder song - I Wish stuck in my head. Stevie Wonder – I Wish
In honor of the song I have added the lyrics below in hope that this great song gets stuck in your head as well.
Happy Feet Soundtrack- Stevie Wonder - I Wish
Stevie Wonder
Lookin back on when I, was a little nappy headed boy, Then my only worry, was for Christmas what would be my toy, Even though we sometimes, would not get a thing, We were happy with the, joy that they would bring,
Sneakin out the back door to hang out with those hoodlum friends of mine Greeted at the back door with "I thought I told you not to go outside", Tryin the best to bring that water to your eye Thinkin it might stop her from whuppin your behind
I wish those days, could , come back once more Why did those days ever have to go I wish those days, could, come back once more Why did those days ever have to go, cause I loved 'em so...
Brother says hes tellin, bout you playin doctor with that girl Just don't tell Ill give you, anything you want in this whole wide world, Mama gives you money, for Sunday school You trade yours for candy, after chuch is through
Smokin cigarettes and writin somethin nasty on the wall Teacher sends you to the principle office down the hall You grow up and learn that kind of thing aint right But while you were doin it, it sure felt outta sight
I wish those days, could, come back once more Why did those days ev-er have to go I wish those days, could, come back once more Why did those days ev-er have to go, cause I loved em so.......
We love Sasha, but she isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. She is scared of her own shadow. This is a picture of Sasha after she decided rolling in the mud would be fun!
In effort to consolidate all my links I have listed them below. As I look at all these URL's the only thing i can think of is clutter. Or better yet web clutter! Most likely I will add them all on the right side of my blog. I know claim ID is supposed to centralize these URLs for me. I want to create a web site that decribes who I am on the web. I think in the future something better needs to come along. All these links are my presence on the world wide web. The problem is they are scattered across the internet.
I have been using a great FireFox extension called ScribeFire to do many of my blogging. It is a great utility to have for any blogger. It allows me to write to my blog directly from any web site. It is fast and saves plenty of time. I don't have to log into my blog to add an entry. The link is below if you want to kick the tires and give it a try.
I was thinking recently of some of the things I learned the last ten years as a Customer Service and Technical Support Director. Their are so many lessons learned that I can think of. You know the one item that you just can't replace is experience. I can't tell you how many times that in order to make a business or support decision I had to simply go with my gut. Their were situations when I could NOT extract the numbers from the CRM or other data to back up a hypothesis. I would confer with fellow colleagues for input when it was an option and then research industry standards. When some or none of these options were available it was really reaching back to my past experience and going with my gut or instincts. I would often have a running joke with one of my managers that my Spidey senses are tingling. I couldn't get the information I wanted from the numbers, but I just had this feeling in my gut that something was not right. It would usually happen before a big problem occurred.
As I stated my experience has taught me so much over the last ten years. Here are the three principles I will always carry with me.
Empathize - Empathy is one of the most critical skills a customer service, technical support, call center agent can have. Empathy is very different then sympathy. To empathize with another is to put yourself in the individuals shoes. An example is I understand Mr. Doe this problem is causing you not to be able to finish your project.
Knowledge - The next item is the product or technical knowledge you posses. You are not going to add value to the customer unless you can help them. The customer is looking for quick answers and if the knowledge is lacking it will only cause more frustration. The last thing a customer wants to hear is that you have to pass them to another rep because you don't know the answer to a question
Professionalism - To me professionalism is taking ownership of the customers problem. Communicating to the customer they are in good hands with you and you will resolve the problem. This makes the customer feel you are their advocate and you are fighting for the customers needs. Some people may call this account management. I prefer to label this as great professional service. No one calls a call center to let them know everything is great with the products they are using. If they are to call it is a good feeling to know the other person on the end of the telephone, IM, email will be able to assist them with the problem or issue of the day.
In honor of the Simpsons movie coming out this weekend here is 101 Simpson quotes. 101 Greatest Simpsons QuotesThe Homer quotes are my favorite.
Homer: Oh, so they have Internet on computers now!
I really hope you don't think I am going to blog about serious topics going on in the world right now. And currently the only thing I am concerned about with the DJ sale is when should I cash out my stock? I am unemployed and enjoying spending time with the kiddies. Its a Wiggles World and we are all just eating our fruit salad and trying to get by!
Who says lightening doesn't strike twice? In less then six months I was laid off again by Dow Jones. The first lay off was January 9th. The second one was last week July 9th. As I said when it happen the first time in January working at Dow Jones has been a great experience. I made plenty of life long friends. My second go around at Dow allowed me to meet new people and make even more friends. Although I only worked with the Dow Jones Customer Service Team a short time I was lucky enough to work with some great hard working people.
I am now back on the job market. If you know anyone who needs an experienced Customer Service/Call Center/Technical Support Director let me know. Here is my resume.
Maybe its time to start my professional poker career!
In a bold move I have purchased the domain name for http://michaelwishnick.com. You can also use this link to get to my blog. Maybe in the future the site will become more and not just a blog.
In any case stay out of the heat and drink plenty of water.
Sprint is dropping the customers that call Customer Service to much. So they are basically saying sorry we don't want your business go to AT&T. I wonder who is person who thought of this idea? Do they still have a job. Check out the letter below.
I love this song Code Monkey. I heard it a few months ago and thought it was great. Check out the video that was just made for the song. It is real good. Here are the lyrics and the site. It is from an artist named Jonathan Coulton.
The Wall Street Journal Online announced a new Auto Page on WSJ.com. The page contains the latest news for automobiles and the car industry. The site has buying tools, ratings and great articles and blogs.
The Auto Page is open to everyone. Click here - Auto Page
Do you need to create a quick form? Planning a wedding, poker game, or want to create job application. Then check out Wufoo. The best part it is quick and easy to use. You can build up to three forms for free. The forms can be used as its own page or you can add it to your web site or blog.
What is Web 2.0 to you? I suppose it is a trick question. Web 2.0 can be almost anything you want it to be. For me Web 2.0 is about knowledge sharing and collaberation. Working with friends or co workers from around the world to achieve a common goal. So why blog about Web 2.0? At the Web 2.0 expo that I didn't attend one of giveaways was a shirt that asked the question -- What is Web 2.0. One of my co workers attended the expo and wrote about it on her blog http://danielabarbosa.blogspot.com/
Also you can check out what other people are saying about Web 2.0 by checking out the pics on Flickr.
I love Google as much as the next geek, but do I need to hear radio ads from them on the FM dial? Thank goodness I mostly listen to podcasts and XM Radio! Where does the Google empire end? Or the better question is when will the Google empire end?
From the article it states - Clear Channel said it has agreed for Google to sell a guaranteed portion of the 30-second spots available on its 675 radio stations in top U.S. markets, in a bid to expand the universe of local radio advertisers to Google's online buyers.
I realize Google is branching out into other media outlets. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a Google Channel on our Cable and Dish providers. As I said I am a fan of Google, but when is it enough? What about working on enhancing my Internet experience. Google can work on the My Google page. Their are others that handle RSS feeds much better like Yahoo and Vibe. Although Yahoo hasn't change the page in years. What about changing the UI in gmail. I really don't like it. I do like the amount of space you get, but the interface is clunky to me. I moved my email back to Yahoo. I like the Outlook look and feel much better.
Ok now I am off my soap box. Remember to make good decisions!
I came across this website. I am not sure if it is a real useful tool or not? What caught my attention was the clever way the word schmuck was added to describe the benefit of the site. Click the link below to check it out. I will download it eventually to see how it works.
I officially had my one thousandth visitors to my Blog today. I am sorry to report no special prizes are given away. Ok so one thousand pales in comparison to other web site and blogs. Some sites get a thousand hits in an hour. But I don't care! This is 1000 new visitors to my site. Not to be confused with page views which is around 1400.
Also I added my resume online. If you click on the Hotjobs icon on the right it will appear.
The Wall Street Journal has an article about the mobile web. The mobile web is web sites that use the suffix .mobi to get to a web site. Think about the more mainstream web sites that end in .com, .net, .tv, and .org and replace with .mobi. The benefit to dotmobi is that it makes the traditional web site compatible for browsing from a mobile phone.
You can lear more about dotmobi technology by visiting the Wiki Article.
Its been a while since I added a post to the blog. I have been focusing on the new job and family. Some months are busier then others. The job is going well. I will post more about it later. The team I am working with are a great bunch of people.
I came across a few sites I want to share with you.
http://justin.tv - It is 4 guys who do live video blogging 24 x 7. It reminds me of the Truman show.
101 shareware and freeware - It is a great list of anything you can think of. Browsers, email and most important security software. Go check it out
