Archive for November 2006

Michael Stelzner asks how a document’s appearance engages readers and he also shares lessons from a well-formatted paper. Yes, formatting matters.

My mom’s (Happy Birthday!) three kids are power users with careers revolving around computers and the web. Yet, she sends long emails where she gives the impression her Enter key is broken. I gently remind her to create paragraphs for easier reading as it’s hard to keep track of your place in a long note.

A long article without bold headers, bullets, or whitespace easily loses me. I’m a content scanner and studies reveal that most people scan when it comes to online content. The same often applies to white papers and other long business documents. Once in a while, a reader reads these documents word-for-word especially if the reader is interested in making a business decision regarding the subject.

Stelzner shows an example of a white paper’s use of a colored page with nothing but a quote. This reminds me of ads I see in magazines like Direct and BtoB where the ad contains a dark background and a thin font. This makes readers work harder in viewing the ad. But an ad that pleases the eye has a greater chance of grabbing reader attention.

That’s the point Donald A. Norman makes in Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. From a content perspective, using bold headers, whitespace, bullets, appropriate images, and other content formatting engages more readers than one with small font and little formatting.

Just started reading Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman, the author of the famous and often recommended The Design of Everyday Things (my poor copy sits on the shelf collecting dust waiting to be read). Norman opens his newest book with a discussion of three teapots he has. He doesn’t use them, but they each tell a story. One is impossible to use (see picture in book below), one is a classy glassy Michael Graves design and one is unusual.

Norman says when we like the look of an object, we’re more willing to overlook its flaws to use it rather than switch to something with no flaws and an ugly design. I think flickr.com is a good example of this from a web site perspective. It isn’t so much about flickr’s look-and-feel, but many of the non-designers, everyday Internet users understandably find the site difficult to use.

flickr.com gained a reputation in the world of web design and IT — the kind of people who find their way around the more difficult to use sites — that many flocked to it because of what friends and colleagues told them.

Norman talked about a beautiful set of tools from his childhood that his friend showed him. The friend was excited by his collection while Norman immediately recalled his negative experience with the tools. Enough time had passed for his friend to overlook the negative experience he had with the tools. So when he came found them, he saw them as a collectible rather than something he struggled to use. Had those negative experiences been more recent or memorable, would he have bought the set?

What objects do you have that aren’t the easy to use, but you overlooked the flaws because of their beauty?

I wish I had a camera with me when I saw a bus drive by with a huge ad with, “Hungerectomy” emblazoned on it using Snicker’s famous design. Searched for it on the web and plenty of people caught the same ad. Apologies for this cliche, but isn’t this neologism wrong on so many levels?

Anything ending in “ectomy” is usually not a good thing as it’s the removal of something. Then there’s a specific word smack dab in the middle of this one that’s not appropriate to spell out. If many of us immediately saw the problems with this ad, why did Snickers do it? Check out the Snickers page with other neologisms that instantly evoke thoughts the company wouldn’t want us thinking.

I just played into Snicker’s game as I write about this ad and give publicity to the candy bar. After all, any publicity (good or bad) is good, right? Could that be what the company was shooting for? You can have your neologisms back, we don’t want it.

For the past couple of weeks, Paul and I have had trouble communicating with each other through our Sidekicks. We haven’t been going to out of the ordinary places. In most cases, we’re in the same places when we typically communicate with each other through the Sidekicks.

Yesterday was the last straw. We had a family situation and I couldn’t reach him. If the network had cooperated, it would’ve avoided a very embarrassing situation. Had I been able to reach him, everything would’ve been fine.

So I wrote to T-Mobile customer service explain the exact situation and the lousy service. I told them my contract was almost up, providing me with the opportunity to switch. Got the usual immediate auto-reply (good, that means my email went through). Within one day (also good), a rep responded saying he forwarded my email to the appropriate department. I appreciated their letting me know they’ve started addressing it. It’s OK if they don’t have a solution yet.

A couple of hours later, another email arrives. I’ve copied the note at the end of this post so you don’t get bored with the standard response. Here’s another post on T-Mobile Customer Service with links to other blog posts.

The email asked for specifics on the location (down to the street level), date, time, etc. Well, the service has been down more than up, but I used the family emergency as the basis for the answers.

Customer Service

Check out this line from T-Mobile’s email, “We strive to provide J.D. Power’s award winning customer service; we won four times straight.”

Is there a good reason for bragging about your customer service? Do customers care what awards a company has won? And what kind of customer service the company provides? This information might be more beneficial for businesses who want to know about a company’s process. But business-to-customer types of customers typically don’t want to know such info.

Furthermore, the emails used my name too many times that it felt phony. I’ve heard many stories on how saying people’s can be positive, but can using the name be too much of a good thing?

Customer Retention

T-Mobile did one thing right — quickly followed up and responded. So far, the company hasn’t taken any real action other than replying. We want to upgrade my daughter’s Sidekick as hers is falling apart. With contract almost up, you’d think they’d offer a deal. But so far, all the deals are for new customers. You know this thing called “customer retention?” Offering deals to current customers helps that.

I also wrote the company last week asking about their offering Palm Treo 700p. They replied and I’ve included that below (contents not edited). That one uses my name in almost every paragraph. Only one paragraph provided useful information (the part about manufacturer availability). The rest was blather. Hmm, do companies hire outside writers to write their customer service scripts?

I worked in telecommunications for 10 years and understand the limitations surrounding the and hardware. But they could still take action to gain the customer’s respect and loyalty by offering upgrades, discounts, or credit. Logitech, on the other hand, took action. That’s a post for another day as this one is getting too long.

Spotty Network Service Email

Thank you for taking the time to contact T-Mobile USA. We understand your concern about the lack of Network service in your area and you are thinking of leaving the T-Mobile family for another carrier. We understand your frustration not being able to communicate during your family emergency. We certainly hope everything was all right and we do apologize if it was an issue on our Network that may have prevented you from communicating. We are more than happy to assist you on this issue, since we do not wish to lose our valued customer such as yourself.

Meryl, we did investigate the issue with the billing address you have provided and have found no issues in that area. You have full coverage for residential automobile and Outdoors in your area and no Network or service interruptions. At this point we will have to investigate why you are experiencing and outage when there are no issues in your area. To be able to assist you please reply to the following questions.

1. Exact location with major cross streets
2. When did you notice the problem (time/date)?
3. Is this a recurring problem?
4. Where were you at the time the problem occurred?
5. Have you tried a different T-Mobile SIM Card in this device? You may take it to any T-Mobile store to test it.

Did you know you might use T-Mobile.com to search for a T-mobile store closest to you? Simply follow these steps.

1. Use your browser to access www.t-mobile.com.
2. Click on the “Store Locator” in the bottom menu.
3. From here enter in the required information and click “Submit” to perform the store search.

We strive to provide J.D. Power’s award winning customer service; we won four times straight.

If you have questions or concerns remaining, please reply to this email with additional information, or contact us while in the USA by phone by dialing 1-800-937-8997. You may also visit our website at www.t-mobile.com for more information on our plans, promotions and upgrades.

Meryl, thank you for being a valued T-Mobile customer since December 09, 2004, we appreciate your business.

Asking about Adding the Treo 700p to Product Line

Thank you for taking the time to contact T-Mobile customer care. My name is Matthew and I will be happy to help you out today.

I understand from your email that you would like to know if we will offer the Treo700p in the future as you would like to use a Treo device with T-Mobile service. I know how exciting state of the art equipment can be Meryl and I can definitely look into this for you today.

Unfortunately Meryl, at this time we do not have access to pre launch products including the availability of the Treo700p. The selection process of our products and launch dates are dependant on manufacturer availability and the contribution of information our customers give.

Final pricing and launch dates for further great new T-Mobile products are announced as they become accessible and you can bookmark the following T-Mobile product site and refer to it for information as it becomes available: http://www.t-mobile.com/products/.

I trust that this information will be useful to you, but if you have any other questions Meryl, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

In addition Meryl, I would like to personally thank you for being a T-Mobile customer since 2004! If there is anything that we can do to improve your experience with us please let us know right away so that we can ensure you are satisfied with your service.

Once again Meryl, thank you for taking the time to write to us. I hope that I have addressed your issues today to your satisfaction, but if you have any more questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to either reply to this email, call our toll free number (1-800-937-8997 or 611 and SEND from your handset), or visit any T-Mobile Store. We always appreciate hearing from you.

Thank you for choosing T-Mobile Meryl; it has been my pleasure assisting you today. We truly appreciate your business.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving in the U.S., one of my favorite holidays. It’s simply a time for family and friends to get together, have a good meal and enjoy each other whether it’s with football or something else. No gifts. Little work (just the cooking).

Paul and I were talking about the kids. I said, “… tomorrow is Sunday…” and Paul caught my error and responded while sneaking in the word “Friday.” I realized my mistake. While out and about today, I was thinking about what I needed to do tomorrow — thinking it was Sunday.

Today just doesn’t feel like Friday. I went to breakfast with my daughter, a good friend of hers and her mom who came in town from Houston. Going out for breakfast is a rarity. Before breakfast, I shopped at two stores (woke up at 5:30am for no reason) since I needed to return something at one store and the other one was next door. No crowds.

That’s all the shopping for me on Black Friday, thank you. Prefer to stick with online and no overcrowding.

Will I get my days straight again come Monday? Not so sure because I’ve got to take a kid to the doctor in the morning and go to my own appointment in the afternoon. It feels weird when mixing up the days. Date confusion happens to us — it could be vacation time, a day off, illness and missing work… anything out of the ordinary.

Happy FRIDAY! Got it right, finally.

When I created the Grammar Gotchas page a few years ago, I had hoped to creat a resource similar to the one at Innocent English. It didn’t work out, but sites like these fill the gap for us grammar geeks. Occasionally, I find a This Is Broken post that involves a language boo boo.

I’m all for recycling, but these classified ads aren’t worth it.

* Toilet Paper

* Tombstone

* Dentures

* Partially-eaten Turkey

Be sure to check out the other ads. Are they for real?

Non-Bush fans will appreciate the site’s capture of a TV caption, “Bush: One of the Worst Disasters to hit the U.S.” Here are more Bush bloopers and Bushisms.

Nowadays, it’s chic to turn nouns into verbs. The latest to receive verb status is ”
gift.”

Milk a cow. Water the grass. Fax a document. Some experts estimate that as many as one in five verbs began as nouns, Mr. Nunberg says. But that’s not to say that he — or his colleagues on the usage panel — approve of the use of “gift” as a verb. “Nobody ever likes this one,” says Mr. Nunberg, who feels it is tainted by commercialism and its overuse in gossip columns and press releases.

“Google,” “blog,” and “email” all started out as nouns.

Looks like the grammarians blame the celebs for this change. So is “gifting” like high profile gifting? How many times have you heard “re-gifting,” the “passing on a gift received to someone else as a gift?”

Gift me with returning “gift” as a noun.

FYI: This is Thanksgiving week in the U.S., so posting will be light. Please enjoy the time with friends and family.

How do you pronounce “Casio’s G’zOne?” That’s what Strategic Name Development asks. Just the other day when I volunteered at my kid’s school book fair, a few of us were talking about Mo Willem’s Knuffle Bunny because we all love the Pigeon books. I thought it was pronounced “nuffle bunny” like “know.” The librarian thought “K-nuffle” where you pronounce the “K” followed by “nuffle.” Either way, it’s a cute book and she was telling us that the pigeon is in that book. It took kindergartners to point it out before she learned that secret.

Thanks to Bad Language for the pointer and for sharing more troublesome names. He had me thinking about boring plane names. He’s right. Southwest is a fun airline and even doesn’t have an exciting name. Just a direction. JetBlue probably has the most exciting name and I wouldn’t even call it a cool name.

Paul and I were watching the news last night where they reported people had lined up for the PS3 since Tuesday and it was windy as heck here in Dallas on Wednesday. One woman wasn’t interested in the PS3 — she just wanted to auction one on eBay where they’re going for over $5K! Then I asked Paul, “What’s the w-i-i? How do you even pronounce it? What makes it so different from Nintendo’s previous generation, the Gamecube?”

When Verizon’s new name came about… we wondered if it was “very-zone” or “very-zon” or like “horizon.” Now we know.

I’ve been stuck with my name since birth and it’s also my company name. Still can’t get people to pronounce my name right after all these years. Meryl, two-syllables-not-one-and- rhymes-with-Cheryl-Barrel-and-peril-not-pearl.” I’ve never heard anyone say “Cherle” instead of “Cheryl.” And with Meryl Streep… that doesn’t help either except when I introduce myself. I have trouble saying words with the letter “r” in it. Well, dang I’m lucky to get a name with an “r” smack dab in the middle of it. So I introduce myself as “Meryl Evans like Meryl Streep” and that usually does the trick. No, I’m not named after her as I was born before Kramer vs. Kramer.

Pet Peeves in Customer Service looks at common annoyances with customer service (yeah, this article from WSJ is supposed to have 10 tips, but AOL’s next page link breaks). Considering it takes me longer to make phone calls using the relay, I probably get annoyed faster than the average user.

Pet peeve #1: Calling a customer service line, an automated voice asks you to enter your account number or some other identification number. When the live person comes on, what does she do? Ask for the same information. This happens frequently. But automating customer service can easily get messy as Running a Hospital explains. I appreciate the hospital listened to the customer’s complaints and doing something about it. I also appreciate this entry from CRM Blog.

Pet peeve #2: “We’ll deliver it between 8am and 12pm.” “We’ll fix your plumbing between 12pm and 4pm.” We specifically told a plumber that we would NOT be home at 4pm, so they needed to come and be finished before then. They called at 3pm and said they’ll be here at 4pm. This was the third strike / canceled appointment, so we hired a different plumber. We understand service people can’t estimate their arrival because one job that should take 15 minutes ends up taking an hour. But three times was too much.

Pet peeve #3: Though I can’t hear public address systems, I felt the effects of this problem last week. I’m the chair for an arts program at my kid’s middle school. I asked the administrator to announce the awards. One parent contacted me and said her son couldn’t understand the announcement. This is at a quiet middle school, so I imagine it’s a big problem at airports and other noisy places like a sports event.

Pet peeve #4: Amen on getting a cell phone and using it with any carrier. I’d like to get a Treo and use it with T-Mobile. T-Mobile is the only carrier to have a data only plan at its rate, but no Treo.

Pet peeve #5: Banks can immediately withdraw money from your account for debit-card transactions, but take five days for a check to clear and be posted to your account. True.

Pet peeve #6: Make sure the “Next page” link works! Can’t view the rest of the pet peeves. Apparently, it worked at some point because others link to it and list the 10.

In 2005, I created a list of original gift ideas and popular 2005 gift items. I thought it would be helpful to create an entry of this sort without a year tacked on. So I’ve combined web sites mentioned in the past and will continuously add to the list. Of course, no gift beats one from the heart — writing a note by hand. This list will grow as I add more categories. Of course, gadgets and geeky stuff is included!

Gifts and Surprise offer ideas for the difficult to shop for person (I have a few of those in my family). The Obsession Gift Box Company focuses more on corporate gifts.

DailyCandy provides the scoop on what’s hot, new, and undiscovered from fashion to gadgets. It has nine daily email newsletter editions covering eight cities and one “everywhere” so you can get ideas for the next time you’re reminded it’s someone’s birthday, anniversary, or job promotion.

Old-fashioned gifts (Read: no batteries required!)

Books are almost always a winner. You can check my reviews on Amazon to see what I liked and didn’t like. Or just go through the reviews here. A little self-promotion here, but my story is only one of 100 stories in Stories of Strength — I don’t get a penny as all of the proceeds go to charity.

My son’s school is having its twice yearly book fair this week and I always know I’m in trouble when that time comes. He wanted a building cards that builds castles from Klutz. I asked if he would really use it. He started building a tower before bed time in my room. Taking a look at it, I ended up building a full castle. This set comes with 150 pieces and you can buy more (of course) so you can build the giant castles shown in the booklet. One problem — Klutz doesn’t include a container to keep the puzzles in. The pieces come in plastic that you have to cut open and can’t be reused. Of course, a year later — the cards are buried somewhere in the junkyard… known as the game room.

Games are responsible for many fond memories when I was a kid and they continue to make memories in adulthood. I never get tired of Scrabble, Pictionary, and plain old cards.

I like to play these occasionally or my family does: Tri-Ominos, Cribbage, and Life. We play many others. It’s unbelievable how many games are getting a make over with cartoon characters. Operation with Homer Simpson (though this needs batteries, I’d say it’s a classic), Dora the Explorer Candy Land (my son’s favorite cartoon), and Clue with Disney’s Haunted Mansion. You get the idea.

Newer games worth checking out: 20 Questions Handheld Game (Okay, so it needs batteries, but it’s an old-fashioned game that allows you to play by yourself), Carcassonne (we have this, but have yet to play it), Settlers of Catan Board Game (ditto), and Fib or Not? (we’ve played this one and it’s a blast).

Got Cranium Hullabaloo, a cross between Twister and musical chairs. My six-year-old liked it. The 2 1/2-year-old can’t follow the directions, but he played with the set. Join the kids and get some energy.

My middle child and I played Guess Who? At first, I thought this game was a blow off and too easy for an adult to win. But then we played it a few more times and I finally saw how it could go either way for either adult or child. If you ask, “Does your person have blonde hair?”, you either get to put down a lot of characters or only a couple of them depending on the answer. A good one to play with kids around 1st grade.

Front Porch Classics believes games should be showcased instead of hidden behind closet or cabinet doors.

Gamesake lets you create a game about the recipient. It’s ideal for parties, showers, and group gatherings.

Players aim to lose all 10 of their inalienable rights in the Feel Safe Game of Homeland Security.

GiftTRAP takes a creative approach where players receive cards with different gifts. They have to decide what they think their friends would want to receive. Like other social games, this starts conversations so whip it out at the start of the party and avoid that awkward period.

Jewelry: Silver Jewelry Club has free jewelry where you only pay $5.99 per item for shipping. I’ve gotten stuff from the site and my daughter likes them. She thought they were fancy (for an 11-year-old). For me, I could get some specific colored jewelry and stones like Garnet and London Blue Topaz (no Sapphire here). I am stocking up on nice ones to give as gifts to girls. One item is on display for 15 minutes or until it’s sold out.

Just Ask Leslie is a blog that spots jewelry, provides tips and suggests jewelry gift ideas.

Watches still make great gifts. I miss wearing a watch, but it got annoying to have my medical ID bracelet clashing with it. The Watch Report watches watches.

Original and Unique Gifts: For the person who has everything or you’re out of ideas, sometimes going the original or unique route does the trick.

Second Term Edition Bush Cards are a cross between a book and a game. They’re targeted toward non-fans of Bush, but they are funny enough that even Bush fans with a sense of humor could enjoy them. Even cabinet members that are subjects on the cards buy them.

While on political satire, a great gift for political fans are CDs from Capital Steps. I’ve heard they’re a riot (no pun intended).

Know a Howard Hughes or Adrian Monk? Perfect gift: VIOlight VS100 Toothbrush Sanitizer and Storage System.

Chick-fil-A had an adorably clever calendar in 2005 displaying 12 months of cows in shining armor. Who can resist the fun the company is having with this? “From out of the mists of history come 12 heroes and heroines of cowdom from ages long past. They fought the forces of burgers with courage, cunning and cud.” Okay, maybe PETA wouldn’t like this. The company is having fun with its marketing and it’s working as a bunch of us parents (our school partners with a nearby restaurant for spirit night) bought the $5 calendar. Every year the theme changes and 2007 it’s “The Good, the Bad, and the Hairy.” You can watch the commercial for the 2005 calendar.

Whoopass Enterprises creates custom bobbleheads that can look like the recipient or an animal.

Self-contained fish bowl requires no feeding, no filters and best of all, no water changes!

Then these funky shirts from Sharp as Toast have funny political cartoons, sayings and other non-political stuff.

Running out of time? Know someone who gets bored at work and can play games at lunch? Old-fashioned PC games from Big Fish Games where you won’t find violent or mega-games. Instead, it has family games like FizzBall, Cake Mania, and Haiku Journey.

Geeky Stuff

They’re getting cheaper and bigger in capacity every minute. flash drives a.k.a. thumb drives and USB drives make great gifts as they’re portable making it easy to move or carry files with you.

Get a second monitor or even a third and the recipient will love you for it. When I first started working with dual monitors, I found it weird and annoying. Now I can’t stand being without them! I’ll have to write up something about it in the future. All you need is a video card that can handle dual monitors like VisionTek VTKRAD7K64P Dual Monitor 7K 64MB Ddr Pci and a second monitor. I think I’m in love…

Just about anything from ThinkGeek and lots of good stuff at Newegg.com.

DocuPen scans a whole page and works with Windows and Mac systems. Oooh.

href="http://www.fossil.com/shopping/search/searchresultsmain.jsp?fresh=1&searchType=advanced&iMainCat=0&iSubCat=0&attribute14=0&attribute15=0&attribute16=0&RS=1&keyword=atari">Fossil Atari Watches. The games aren’t playable, but they’re animated. Perfect for the ’80s game fan. Comes with choices of Asteroids, Centipede, and Breakout.

Migo has a USB thumb drive for taking your data with you including Outlook, emails, contacts, and other stuff. Four versions available.

Gadgets for women at Popgadget. Must.Stay.Away.

Give Your iPod Character

Does your iPod scream for stylin’ clothes? Is she a princess or perhaps,
a cowboy? Maybe she wants variety? href="http://www.iattire.net/">iAttire has clothes for the iPod,
Mini and Shuffle.

Prefer fur? Try href="http://www.fluffpod.com/fluffer.html">Fluffpod. Not into
dressing up objects? Maybe babies?
Rather just have something simple like href="http://www.pixelgirlshop.com/gallery.php?cat=ipod">stars or
lines? Sporty folks can make the iPod look sporty with a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0008JEVA8/gadgetmadne04-20/002-6509447-4264815?creative=327641">hoody.

Make it a guy, put it in tights, or removable wrappers. OK, OK, I’ll stop already.

Unique Stores

These stores sell the kind of things you don’t find everywhere. They may also have a unique theme.

eLuxury sells designer stuff that isn’t sold anywhere else online. Just like its name, the things it sells are expensive.

Poketo! finds art that you can use everyday in your home, on you (apparel), and stationery.

Alphabetsync has an assortment of classic toys from the ’50s and ’60s along with new items on the market including t-shirts, fine gifts, jewelry, wacky cards, and everything in between.

Chiasso, Clio Home, CB2 (Crate and Barrel 2) and Swoozie’s have a variety of fun items.

I loved playing sports while growing up. It was my “thing,” where I spent all my free time outside of school. Girls’ sports has grown and places like Just for Girls Sports let us show off how proud we are to be athletes.

Woozie Wear: Clothes for dogs.

Punkster: Funky tees for babies.

Shop Composition and The Guild are all about design and style. It sounds like this site prescribes to Donald A. Norman’s Design of Everyday Things and Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. To see the different items, click the box NEXT to Select a Vendor. Took me a minute to figure out.

Art lovers will love artnet, a resource for serious art buyers to buy, sell, and research fine art online.

Car collectors, check out Hemmings, which claims to be the largest collector car marketplace.

Not exactly a store, but design*sponge and Shelterrific share neat products for the home.

Sporting Reviews blog provides ideas for the sports fan like my dad.

Someone on her second, third or fourth child? She might have all she needs by way of hand-me-downs, so get ideas from Babygadget. With three kids of my own, people surprised me with something different — just make sure it’s usable.

Food

Ah, food is a popular choice. Though you can find plenty of good eatin’s in your area, there are some delightful items you can get online.

Dale and Thomas Popcorn gave away free popcorn and became overwhelmed with free order requests. But the move paid off. The popcorn was SOOOO good that I didn’t share (I think I’m good about sharing). I keep the company info handy as I do want to shop there when the right opportunity comes.

Know a foodie? Someone who loves to watch Food Network? The Original Food Lover’s Trivia sounds like a winner.

I’ve been sending gift baskets and towers from Wine Country Gift Baskets as thank yous and they’re always a hit. They have great prices.

Can’t beat a food blog from Paris. Chocolate & Zucchini shares thoughts, recipes and cooking tools.

Thanks to WSJ article on shopping by blog for some of these resources.

Updated: December 13, 2006