Link: Will we ever get out of debt?

Great blog post by my buddy Mr. Hermann Peterscheck, amateur economist and opera singer.  Excerpt:

We tend to concentrate on the total debt (which has pretty much always gone up), but we rarely look at the debt as a percentage of GDP, which in my opinion is much more interesting. Just like your credit cards and student loans, how much debt you have is relative to your wealth and income.

Too bad American government isn't powered by rational thought.

Read his whole post at http://lifegame.typepad.com/lifegame/2011/02/will-we-ever-get-out-of-debt.html

Now I know what a Creative Director looks like

Thanks facebook ad.  I've been doing it all wrong all these years with my jeans and t-shirts.  Apparently to be creative you have to look like Jonny Depp in a 3D movie.  I wonder how many pieces of flair is the bare minimum at this ad agency?

Consumer Disconnect and your Big Company

I just spent 5 minutes surfing around T-mobile.com looking for a way to report two simple bugs on the website.  It won't recognize my consulting email address of @glhf.biz, which is the way I pay for my phone service there.  Secondly, their easy pay sign up isn't working, and hasn't been for me for the last 3 months.  After trolling around, and getting constantly redirected into phone FAQs and then the forums (where I have to create an additional account on top of my already logged in account?!?), I gave up on trying to let this company know they had a problem in their software.

I mean seriously, t-mobile has no way that I could find to just shoot off a quick message "Hey this webpage is busted just FYI".  Think about the value that is lost in that fact.

Now I can imagine a business analyst or perhaps a consultant sitting somewhere in the pretzel and beer decorated hallways of T-mobile corporate sitting down and looking at conversion rates on their Easy Pay (automated payment) system.  Perhaps they are drawing conclusions that consumers just don't like automated bill paying.  Perhaps this further reduces resources for that system and team due to an analyst decision, thereby moving support away from something the consumer really does want.  Perhaps this is one of many factors that leads to overall customer dissatisfaction with a brand.

I don't know, but I know I wanted to help and I gave up trying so I could make this blog post and rant about it and hopefully make another penny on my google ads traffic!

So, companies playing in any service-oriented space, especially the big boys and I guess I'm looking at you T-mobile, ask yourself this:

1. How easy are you making it for your consumers to express what they like and don't like about your product?  What percent of your consumer population will bother to call or take the trouble to register and post on a forum for issues large or small?
2. How many barriers of entry before a consumer can access a touchpoint at your organization and have a voice?  Why not allow effortless fire-and-forget commenting at any time from your customers to your CS staff?  
3. Why in the hell would you ask your customer to create and manage multiple sign ins to aspects of your service?
4. How many problems are you failing to address, and more importantly how many opportunities are you missing everytime a casual consumer voice isn't heard?

But hey, the myTouch 4G is still pretty sweet.

Have you thanked your favorite teacher lately?

It's been almost 20 years since my 10th grade English class.  As I had a moment to reflect tonight, my tenth grade teacher left an unmistakable mark on my entire life and career in those 20 years.  I remember her not being a favorite at the time, but as the years have flown by, she stands out above so many forgotten names.  

So I just found her on facebook and wrote her a letter.  I thought sharing it here might inspire a few of you other yokels to do the same for one of your favorite teachers.  

(By the way, any of you RHS Raiders in that class remember those weird ass drawings posted on the wall?  "Da Lizard King likes Da Blue Bus" etc.?)

Dear Mrs. Hayes-

I am so happy to find you on Facebook!  I've thought of you often over the years and the difference you made in my life.

I'm not sure if you remember me, I was a student of yours at Rangeview back in the early 90s.  I just attended a parent info night at a local charter school, Westgate, as I consider where to enroll my oldest son in first grade next year.  The director was a passionate educator, with a philosophy of discovering gifts and talents in as many kids as possible.  She related several anecdotes from her experience, and discussed the many types of gifted children she came across.

Some of the classifications she noted included "underachiever" and "underground" kids.  This reminded me of you, as I recall you talking about smart kids sometimes.  You would point out how some kids would hide their smarts from the system so as to avoid insane expectations and stress, avoid getting additional work and avoid being labeled in uncomfortable ways in peer groups.

It was my senior year and I was no longer in your class.  I started in AP English that year but dropped it within a few weeks.  I don't really remember the exact reason except for a vague memory of not getting along with the AP teacher on some fundamental level.   I remember you hunting me down at my locker and refusing to let me snooze by in regular english class.  You wouldn't take no for an answer until I agreed to do an independent study research paper with you.

I agreed, but just to ruffle your feathers (because I knew you led a bible study group at the school), I picked the topic for my paper to be "Legalize Drugs".  Although I didn't know this at the time myself, I think this was a challenge from me to you to see how fair and committed you would really be.  May I say that you were all class, and objectively reviewed and edited my paper based on the facts and structures I proposed, without taking me to task for the opposite political stance I staked out.  I still have a copy of that paper today, I go back and read it once in a while.

Unfortunately, you created a monster that semester.  I now have an insatiable appetite for looking past the surface issues of any topic and a passion for researching everything.  I also have this incredibly annoying habit to push myself beyond what I think is just good enough.  This creates significant annoyance to my wife, colleagues and friends… that is, until I find something better than the easy/obvious choice of whatever topic is at hand.

So thank you Mrs. Hayes.  Thank you for never giving up on me even though you had no obligation to be my teacher that year.  Thank you for pushing me to do more than the educational system ever bothered to ask of me.  Thank you for igniting a fire in me that will never die.  I can only hope my three boys come across a teacher as unflinching and passionate as you were at some point in their life.

My sincerest wishes that you are happy in life and I hope you know what an impact you've had on certainly countless others like me.

Love,
-Ryan Seabury

Ps- I made cheat sheets for all your Word Wealth quizzes.  Funny thing is… by making the cheat sheets I pretty much learned all the vocabulary!  I have a feeling you knew this!

An Open Letter to Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa

Finally someone on the national stage has picked up on the issue of transparency and 501c tax-exemption for churches, as the article "God Knows, but the IRS doesn't" written in The Economist reported.

I wrote a letter to Senator Grassley just now expressing my support.  If you're like me and expect honesty and transparency from anyone calling themselves a "church", and maybe see a few billion dollars of unaccounted money do some work for the American public in dire times, contact Senator Grassley and back him up.

Dear Senator Grassley-
I just read a small blurb in The Economist on your efforts to require more transparency and accountability to the public for 501c organizations classified as churches.  This has long been a very high point of frustration for me, and I am thrilled to see someone tackling this very obvious issue, especially in the current economic climate. 

Although I am not a constituent of yours, I want to applaud this effort and signal my support on a national level.  I do not understand why any organization which is subsidized by our public funds (effectively via tax exemption) is allowed to keep their books private.  

As a business owner and operator myself, having created hundreds of jobs in the state of Colorado, I see far too many examples of churches large and small operating very much like businesses, developing significant land holdings and commercial venture investments.  Without having to pay taxes, private sector businesses like mine that are playing by the rules are left at an economic disadvantage. 

While the aim of the majority of churches is undoubtedly humanitarian, not having transparency and public accountability in finances opens the door for corrupted and opportunistic individuals to seize control and abuse the system.
The financial reserves of our country's largest religious institutions are not insignificant.  

I personally believe a greater degree of transparency would motivate these organizations to do more for the people who really need it, and expose those organizations that are using this system for dishonest purposes counter to the public welfare. 

It raises serious concerns to me as a private business owner and a taxpaying citizen that tax-free churches may be uncomfortable with the public (and their own members) knowing how they spend their money. 

After all, if you are a legitimate church with humanitarian goals, what do you have to hide about how you spend your money?  

Again , thank you for spearheading this initiative and count this citizen behind you. 

Sincerely, 

Ryan Seabury