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Ugh.

by John Goodell

I used to dread support emails. Inevitably I would feel my heart race as I saw a ticket come in, or got pinged on my phone by a long-time client.

About a year ago, I decided to make a change. I adopted the following guidelines to help me realize that “support emails” are the foundation of what we do:

  1. I am going to communicate with a joy and energy that conveys an overall vision for what my organization believes and does.
  2. I am going to treat every interaction (phone call, email, blog post, tweet, etc.) as an opportunity to convey my passion for what I do, and I understand that every communication crosses over “departments” – sales, service, support, training, advertising, marketing, etc.
  3. I will use tools that empower everyone on my team to communicate effectively, efficiently and in a timely manner.
  4. I will use tools that accurately track what is “actually happening” and I will regularly check in with these analytics to identify strengths and weaknesses.

Over the past 12 months, our average response time is measured in hours, not days.

Over the past 12 months, our own products have dramatically improved, and we are serving a record number of equally passionate clients.

I now *run towards* at any opportunity to interact with any organization interested in doing something better.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: customers, listen, story

Two kinds of teachers

by John Goodell

  1. The teacher who teaches the same material in the same way year after year, regardless of who he is teaching.
  2. The teacher who teaches the same material but finds new ways to teach depending on who is in the room.

How do you find new ways to teach the same material? Set aside dedicated time every week to be a student. Inevitably this also exposes you to *new* material.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: listen, story

Online Image Editor

by John Goodell

I get asked a lot what image editors are useful, intuitive and free.

https://apps.pixlr.com/editor/

When I’m without an Internet connection, I use Pixelmator on my Mac. It’s not free, but it is a good tool for a reasonable price.

For things like cropping and resizing, many of our online services have built-in editors. But for more advanced options, and better overall control (think homepage images for websites, headers for newsletters, etc.) you might just fall in love with PIXLR (linked above).

Happy editing!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: image editor

That sounds funny

by John Goodell

A while back, I taught an autistic child how to play the piano. We worked together for over a year, and I was regularly frustrated by how challenging it was. I was also amazed at how this boy would, seemingly out of nowhere, totally understand a fundamental skill that had apparently eluded him for weeks prior. It was clear he was listening, but not on my timeline.

During one particular lesson, as he started to play his piece on an electric piano in my office, he stopped and said, “This piano sounds funny.” I thought nothing of it until he started getting rather angry at my request that he continue anyway. I asked him if it was too loud or just sounded different. He simply repeated that it sounded funny. His father, who sat in during our lessons, looked as confused as I was, and to save the lesson, we moved to another room with a different instrument. He seemed content.

Not two weeks later, while arranging something for piano with my computer playing in the background, I noticed that the pitch of the electric piano didn’t quite match the recording on my computer. As I investigated, it seemed that the piano had been digitally adjusted (accidentally) to tune at 441 Hz, instead of the generally accepted 440 Hz. In other words, it was almost imperceptibly sharp.

The piano in my office did, indeed, sound “funny” — it was not tuned correctly, and after setting it back to 440, I immediately emailed my student to let him know that the piano had been “fixed” ahead of our next lesson.

I am a classically trained musician with 35 years of experience, and a 9 year old boy heard something that I did not. Was I embarrassed? No. Upset for not hearing what was so obvious to him? Absolutely not. I was and still am in total awe of each individual’s ability to perceive uniquely. I live with total appreciation that everything I do, every person I interact with every day offers me an opportunity to learn something new…to perceive something, however mundane, in a different way…to pass along my own passion for what I experience in a complete piece of music, or a simple A 440.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: music, story

The last time

by John Goodell

A recent family situation has helped me appreciate the distinction between two “lasts”: knowing when the last time is going to be (“the last day before this store closes” or “my last day in high school”) and only coming to know that it was the last time long after the moment passes (“the last hug or kiss of a loved one” or “the last day I would live in that house”).

“When” things happen is rarely in our control.

I am not sure that it’s the same as, “Live each day as if it was the last,” but I am certain that the more I observe and listen and explore the realm of what is happening NOW, the more I am actually in touch with what I did not “know” before – that is, I notice things that were previously unknown. Removing the assumption of “when” opens up the reality of the only certainty: what is happening right now.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: story, time

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