A plague o' both your houses

Often quoted as "A pox on both your houses." This is a famous quote from Romeo and Juliet. As Mercutio dies, he utters this phrase three times, cursing the families whose rivalry led to his death. We’ve all had nightmare customer service experiences. Some experiences so vile, so painful, that we might find ourselves secretly cursing the person on the other end of (the phone, the email, the “your call is important to us” phone robot). This probably brings back vivid memories of wishing you could transport yourself (like on StarTrek) to the call center.  “Energize, Scotty! I’ve got a customer service miscreant that needs to meet my phaser...”

And then, every once in a great while, the opposite happens. 

A customer service experience so good, so amazing, so flawless - that it stops you in your tracks. Customer service so impressive, that is makes you feel like you are watching Triple Crown winner Secretariat taking the Belmont Stakes in what remains a record time, leaving the field far behind him (I was there in 1973 screaming “That’s impossible!”)

We use Highrise and Basecamp in all of our companies. The FAQs on their respective websites are good, and their “self-service” customer service is strong. But I had a specific question about how a certain feature worked in Basecamp. I was about to make a significant change in how we do things in our back office. If I got it wrong, disaster could ensue. So, even though the FAQs were clear, I needed some hand-holding. I needed to make sure. So I sent off my email to Support. On a weekend. I’m hoped to hear back sometime next week.

Ah, no.

Minutes later, “James” from Basecamp is in my inbox. No robot, no auto responder. James (turns out he was in Berlin) is answering my question, with such detail and care that it felt like he was talking to me, standing behind me, with his hand on my shoulder. Words matter, but I “felt” James in the room with me.

There was a flurry of emails back and forth, with me now having a virtual conversation with my new BFF James from Berlin. And then with all of my questions answered I sent this email to James (and to the entire support team) at Basecamp:

Just so you know, the level of customer service from Basecamp may indeed be the best - as in - THE BEST I have ever experienced. I am not trying to be overly dramatic here.  It is so good, so fast, so efficient that it makes me pause and wonder how does one duplicate this level of professionalism in my own company. How do you TEACH this? How do you hire for this? We use Highrise and Basecamp to run all of our companies (plus a handful of other SaaS tools). But the technology is only a small part of the process, yes?  I feel that your level of customer service is the gold standard of using technology plus talent via remote work. How can we learn and teach the ways of Basecamp?

Best,

Tom@NYDLA.org

What happened next pushed me over the edge. James then responded with the most eloquent, detailed, helpful, caring email I have received in years. I cannot cut/paste it here without permission. Suffice it to say that James was talking to me like he was my best friend - partner - investor - cheerleader. One human (not a single robot involved) talking to another human. And, he needs my mailing address to send me some “goodies”. I love goodies! Goodies are my favorite thing!

The book REWORK arrives. I have now read it twice, and before this weekend is over, I’ll probably have read it three times. It has been 8 days since my email exchange with James. And I am still stunned.

How can I repay James?

Maybe I can give every member of the NYDLA.org a FREE copy of REWORK, on me. Maybe I can give every member a free trial of BASECAMP and HIGHRISE. And if they love it (what’s not to love) I’ll pay for their first month AFTER their 30 day free trial.

Maybe I can do all of the above?

If James can do customer service like Secretariat, then so can I - so can we! If James can love his customers to this degree, so can we! So it shall be written - so it shall be done!

Starting in September, all new NYDLA.org members will receive a FREE copy of REWORK, and 30 days of both BASECAMP and HIGHRISE. We shall care about our clients and our customers and our vendors and our sponsors - and ALL MEMBERS of our community, with the same passion as James.

There you go, James. I just returned your serve. “Goodies” back at ya!

My Checkered Past

Today for the first time in many years, I played checkers. Similar to the life lesson on the sign: when a kid from the neighborhood comes over with a checkerboard under their arm, you play checkers. You stop writing your blog - and you play checkers.

And, you make sure you look happy and surprised and thankful for the opportunity.

And, you lose. You answer toy phones, and you lose to neighborhood kids in checkers.

Now, I was not sure what was in the box: were we going to play chess, or checkers? Based on age, I assumed checkers (but I did not want to assume anything) since my other neighbor was International Master Dean Ippolito, who started playing chess at the remarkably early age of two-and-a-half, and is one of few International Masters in the United States. Ippolito attained the elite level of International Master in 1999, is a ten-time All-America Team member, eleven-time National Champion and one of the foremost and recognizable chess players in the United States.

But today’s game of choice: checkers.

And, it is going…slow. We are playing checkers, but it is at the speed of chess. And so, I smile as I take out my phone and I Google checkerboard. I asked myself: are checkerboards and chessboards the same thing?

GOOGLE KNOWS ALL:

A checkerboard is a board of chequered pattern on which English draughts (checkers) is played. It consists of 64 squares (8×8) of alternating dark and light color, often black and white.

Other rectangular square-tiled boards are also often called checkerboards. In this sense it refers not to a physical board as such but to the mathematical abstraction of such a board.

The adjective chequered refers to the pattern shown in many contexts, such as the checkered flag used to signify the end of a vehicle race, the popular ice cream flavor or the livery on some emergency service vehicles. However, when this pattern is used on such vehicles, in certain countries, it is called a Sillitoe Tartan.

A red-and-white checkerboard is the medieval coat of arms of Croatia, and is widely used in national symbology there.

The checkerboard pattern is often associated with the Ska music genre, for breaking the racial barrier between black and whites at the time.

A checkerboard marking painted on a hilltop was used as visual guidance on Hong Kong's old Kai Tak Airport. Many taxicabs also use a checkerboard pattern.

A checkerboard pattern of alternating aviation orange and white is commonly required for compliance with the FAA as a means of making tall or sufficiently sizable structures stand out, so as to make them clearly visible to pilots, including water tanks, gas tanks, grain storage tanks, tall buildings and flags.

In the time that it took me to lose a game of checkers on my back deck to a fine young gentleman from the neighborhood, the power of the Internet allowed my mind to wander, and drift around the world.  Checkerboards, checkerboard patterns, the “math” of the checkerboard matrix.

And then I asked myself: which came first, the checkerboard or the game checkers? Or the chessboard or the game chess? Did the board come first, and then the game followed, or was the game invented - and then a board made to support the game? And why an 8 x 8 matrix of 64 squares? Why not 6 x 6 or 5 x 5?

Where are you going with this, Tom?

Chess computers were first able to beat strong chess players in the late 1980s. Their most famous success was the victory of Deep Blue over then World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, but there was some controversy over whether the match conditions favored the computer. Chess programs running on commercially-available desktop computers had convincing victories against human players in matches in 2005 and 2006. Since that time, chess programs running on commercial hardware - more recently including mobile phones - have been able to defeat even the strongest human players.

And there it is: today - our smartphones 

can now beat any of the strongest human chess players.

My checkers match on my backyard deck took me around the world today. It made me pause and reflect on how Artificial Intelligence is coming. 

Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos says we're at the earliest days of artificial intelligence and the influence it will have on consumers' lives.

"It's hard to overstate how big of an impact it's going to have on society over the next 20 years," Bezos said on stage at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

I guess it is inevitable that robots will soon be smart enough to beat any of us - all of us - in chess, checkers -or any game. International Master Dean Ippolito or Gary Kasparov or anyone - we are not going to be a match for the AI robots.

I hope that these same AI robots who are doing more and more of our repetitive tasks (our jobs) are also going to be smart enough to know how to LOSE to a kid who rings your doorbell and wants to play a game.

AI robots will soon be able to beat us, every time, all the time - in many, many things.

But will they know when to lose?

Be careful who you poke fun at

One should be careful who one pokes fun at. Last week, I publicly made fun of folks wasting their time chasing Pokemon. To me it was like fiddling while Rome is burning.

Pokemon Go is really big. Like bigger than big. Data is emerging that shows the game is catching on more than dating, chatting with celebrities, all things social media. Even bigger than all professional sports combined. It’s hard to process how massive this phenomenon is - and growing. Reddit is one of the most-visited websites in the world.This graph shows the most popular subreddit (sections) on the website for the month of July. AskReddit (a subreddit where celebrities answer questions from the general public) had a staggering 38 million page views from 4.5 million unique visitors in the week after Pokemon Go was released.

See the dark blue line? That is the Pokemon Go subreddit, and the green line is AskReddit. The game wasn’t out the month before. That week after Pokemon Go this dedicated subreddit accrued 92 million page views from almost 8 million unique visitors.

Google Trends graph: the most frequently searched terms from January 2010 to the present day. The first green hump you see on the left there is Game of Thrones which jumps around the same time every year. The red line is ”Gangnam Style.” The purple line is Breaking Bad. The yellow line is the term “Trump” spiking around the time he won the New Hampshire primary. That giant blue line on the far right is Pokemon Go.

This graph shows Android phones that have Tinder installed versus Pokemon Go. New installs went viral. 

A game about chasing things that do not exist has now crushed an app that involves meeting new people and going out on dates.The app has shot past Tinder and looks to rival Twitter for dominance.

Not all countries can install Pokemon Go from the Google Play Store. 

Users are downloading the app’s APK file and loading onto their device via a very cumbersome process. People are doing whatever it takes to get the game and play the game. Despite these limitations, Pokemon Go is installed on over 7% of Canadian Android devices that are in use. 

I made fun of people running around outside chasing things that do not exist. Well the thing that DOES exist? The people doing the chasing. These people exist, big time.

I can’t wait to see what the next seven days does to these numbers. This is bigger than big. And it looks like it is speeding up with no signs of slowing down. I have yet to play the game but I am no longer ruling it out. Ah yes, be careful who you "poke" fun at. 

Maybe I can launch a game called "Eating Crow"?

WHY us?

Simon Sinek "The WHY of the USA"

Two years ago, I did my Sunday blog during the Fourth of July holiday weekend, and I called it 

The Declaration of Dependence. 

This morning, our good friend Simon Sinek of Start with WHY fame was my muse for today's holiday blog. If you have not watched Simon's TED.com talk, you should. Today is Sunday, tomorrow is a holiday. No excuses - go watch that TED.com talk before your next day at work. 

Why America is NOT the greatest country in the world, anymore?

Remember this one? HBO is a major media provider, so there is a good chance that you have seen "The Newsroom" series. YouTube says this video has well over 4 million views. So, if you are reading my blog, that you probably have seen this clip more than once. 

If you did not watch Simon's video above, and if you truly never watched the above clip from "The Newsroom" you can continue reading, but it will make more sense if you have watched them. So please, go ahead, I'll wait.

OK, ready?

I found this on the Internet. Now, some of you are cheering and shouting YES! And some of you are now violently ill. I get that. But let's break it down:

• This "hat" assumes that we can "make" our country (or any country) great.
• This "hat" assumes that our country once was great, but for some reason stopped being great, but (have no fear) it can be fixed and made great again (like we took a wrong turn on our family vacation, while driving to Yosemite).
• Did anyone actually look up the definition of the word again before they made this hat?

Examples from Cambridge (get it?  USA <> UK? Oh never mind...) Dictionary Online:

• If you think it's wrong, cross it out and write it again.
• "I never want to see you ever again, " he shouted as he stormed out of the house.
• I'm not going to let him repair my bike again because he made a really bad job of it last time.
• I was very nervous about driving again after the accident.
• If the phone lines are busy, please try again later.

From what I can see, the word "again" is often associated with errors. Mistakes. Negative experiences. Experiments gone wrong.

The Great Experiment is often a reference to the United States. I love the word experiment. A procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a hypothesis, or demonstrate a known fact.

Two years ago, I blogged on "Dependence Day" in an attempt to tie all things technology to our everyday world. You would not be reading this blog it were not for the Internet. You would not have HBO, or YouTube, or the iPad or laptop or tablet that you are using to read this post (hopefully from the beach). Colleges and Universities would not be "in the cloud" and there would be no Telemedicine, no Netfllix, no Uber and certainly no self driving cars. 

If it were not for "The Great Experiment" of the USA, we would not have 99% of the things that we take for granted. Sure, many other countries might have followed our path. Many others might have eventually went to the moon, and cured polio, and invented the laser. But we did it. The USA. The land of the free, the home of the brave. 

And with our "laboratory tools" such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, our WHY, our HOW and our WHAT have become an amazing TED.com talk with "Ideas Worth Spreading". 

I'm not sure if America needs fixing. I'm not sure if it was ever broken. I am not sure if it was ever great, or if ever stopped being great. What I am sure of is this: I'm glad it exists. 

Is TED.com a good thing? I think so. I guess someone out there probably hates TED.com and says it is a terrible idea. But for me, the fact that TED.com was created, the fact that TED.com was "born" and that TED.com then "spread" is a good thing. It was a good experiment.  

We should always seek out and support and spread the good experiments. But the only way to get to the "good experiments" is to go through the pain and suffering of the bad ones. 

And now, through the miracle of "The Internet" (Thank you, USA) here are the last minutes of "The Newsroom" to bring it all home for you. Enjoy. 

What makes America the greatest country in the world?
You do.

The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link billions of devices worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries an extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, telephony, and peer-to-peer networks for file sharing.

The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the United States federal government in the 1960s to build robust, fault-tolerant communication via computer networks.

You, as a Verb

You, as a Verb. Part One

I still remember it, vividly. It was a hot Sunday morning in August, 2010. I noted how it was already “hot” as I sat on my deck, having coffee. Little did I know, I was about to have a life changing moment. My “Seth” moment.  

(Please follow the “cut and paste” of my email exchanges below; I sanitized some of it for obvious reasons.)

On Aug 1, 2010, at 8:08 AM, Thomas A. Capone wrote:

I saw you on Ted.com and now I am off to buy all of your books.  I hope to catch you live when you are in the NYC area.  Good stuff. < ...and I hit………*send >

******

*That was it. Done. I just felt compelled to send off this little missive to someone I did not know, so I did. I certainly did not expect a return.  And now, back to my Cheerios.

******

From: Seth Godin  

Sent: Sunday, August 01, 2010 8:46 AM

Subject: Re: thank you

thanks Thomas!

=============================

Seth Godin

45 Main Street 3R

Hastings on Hudson, NY 10706

******

Wait, what??? In less than an hour, on a Sunday morning, I’m getting a response to “that” email? Was this an auto-responder? If so, why the delay??? And so, I must return the volley!

******

On Aug 1, 2010, at 8:57 AM, Thomas A. Capone wrote:

I don’t know if this is “really Seth” or an autobot, but here goes.......  I never bought any of your books.  After watching you on Ted.com I am now compelled to buy them all.  And I will – promise.  I’ll fax you the receipt.  My question is this: since you have so many books, would you recommend that one read them in any particular order?  I thought that the order that I read them might make a difference, since things do change.  I really am a “salesman” at heart, and I love the science of sales and marketing.  If I could just sell sell sell all day long, I would be a happy camper.  I am now signed up on your blog. Very cool stuff; I am in sync with your style.

So, if this is really Seth, you have a new fan.

If this is an autobot email responder, take the rest of the day off.  Go ahead, Seth will understand.

 

Thomas A. Capone

Chairman & CEO

******

And then……… his return:

Sent: Sunday, August 01, 2010 9:17 AM

Subject: Re: thank you

it's me

salespeople will like All Marketers are Liars (new title All Marketers tell Stories) the most, followed by the Dip and Linchipin and Tribes and Purple Cow

have fun

Seth Godin

45 Main Street 3R

Hastings on Hudson, NY 10706

fax 914 674 XXXX

******

Oh……….my……….God.  I knew it was “him” since he misspelled Linchpin! A robot would not do that! I am emailing back and forth with Seth Godin. This is...happening.

And so, it began. I have a new pen pal. Sunday, August 1st, 2010. A day, that will live in infamy. No, wait. What is the OPPOSITE of infamy? Dignity, goodness, innocence, morality, righteousness, virtue? Oh, never mind. The ball was now in play!

I did not “know” this man; I knew “of” him. And, I knew enough about him that he must get a million emails from a million people, daily. And here he was, on a Sunday morning, hitting the email tennis ball back and forth across the net. With me.

2149 days have passed since that original email exchange.

A few days ago, my email to Seth:

Date: Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 7:58 PM

Subject: 4th row

I was in the 4th row at Sales Machine. We were a sponsor.

Why would ANYONE ever agree to follow you on stage????????  ;-)

Simon pulled it off. But really, never follow Seth.

Best,

Tom@NYDLA.org

*******

Date: Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 9:36 PM

thanks Tom

you're very kind, sir

and I think Simon did great!

Seth

******

Wow, approximately 90 minutes later, I get a response. From Seth. Not an assistant, but him. Maybe one of the busiest, most “in demand” people on the planet, replied to my email. As he has done dozens of times before. Folks, process this. By the way, we were talking about the amazing Simon Sinek of Ted.com fame, who followed Seth on stage.

After 2149 days of “Seth being Seth” he is still Seth. How many keynotes has he agreed to do, since August 1st, 2010? How many (more) best selling books has he published? He commits to writing and posting a daily blog. And to him, daily means - every day. Over the past 2149 days, we have become friends. Over the past 2149 days, we have added Seth (and all things Seth) to the NYDLA.org because it felt like the right thing to do for our global community. Introducing the world to “Seth” and all that he stands for, feels like a duty. My job. Introducing the world to Seth is like giving someone a shortcut to things that matter. Keeping Seth a secret feels, well, wrong. Seth Godin certainly does not need my help to “spread” his brand - but he does not turn it down, either.

And now, over the past 2149 days, many of Seth’s friends have become our friends.

You, as a Verb: Part Two

You hear it in movies, TV shows, among your friends and you probably say it yourself: "I Googled her before I called her." "I know because I Googled it." "What's the temperature in Fargo? Google it!"

But Google wants you — and the world — to stop using Google as “a verb” for looking up anything on the Internet — unless you actually used Google's search engine to do so.

Google became so good at what they do, that even if you used “another” search engine, you would be thinking you “Googled it”. With Google as the leading search engine, there's little doubt that we mean Google when we say we Googled something. As comedian Ellen DeGeneres said on her show, talking about technology's impact on our lives, "If you need to know something immediately, you can Google it now .... Ten years ago, if you said you were going to 'Google' someone, you got written up by Human Resources."

So, what can be bad about using "Google" as a verb for saying you looked up information on the Internet?

Ironically, because of Google's "significant brand recognition," the company "has started down the path of becoming synonymous with search engine services and, accordingly, towards the genericization of a trademark," wrote attorney Matthew Swyers, founder of a law firm specializing in trademark rights, in an article for Inc. last year.

A generic trademark, also known as a genericized trademark or proprietary eponym, is a trademark or brand name that has become the generic name for, or synonymous with, a general class of product or service, usually against the intentions of the trademark holder.

And becoming generic is bad because it threatens a company's legal right to a trademark.

Aspirin was originally a trademark of Bayer. Escalator was originally a trademark of the Otis Elevator Company. Even the word Zipper, at one time, was a trademark owned by B.F. Goodrich. Now, because of their respective fame and genericization, they merely refer to classes of products we see every day and do not identify the source of those goods.

Google became “a verb” because they honed their craft. Google became much better than the rest; they were understood to be “so good” that it simply became “the way” to do it.

I feel that there are many life (and business) lessons buried in today’s blog. As you can tell, I have become a huge fan of Seth Godin’s work, and it is still climbing. But the one lesson that stands out to me the most, the one concept that resonates, the one thing about this man that “should spread” (as Seth would say) can be summed up in only one word:

Google: Seth

< Mic drop >

Simon Sinek following Seth Godin on stage