ScrobbleDroid – Closer, But Not Quite There Yet

May 28, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

For many music fans, a key to their listening experience is scrobbling to Last.fm. For those not familiar with the term, it refers to recording the songs that you play. Last.fm has built its unique offering based on the ability to record when and how you listen to music. The process of recording is called scrobbling. For years, whenever you listened to things on iTunes, they could be recorded on Last.fm’s site. Even the Songbird team built scrobling into their basic product offering.
Why is this data important? That’s a great question. People care about this kind of data for a variety of reasons. Some people just want their friends and followers to know more about themselves. Some people like to be considered experts in something (e.g., a band, an album or a community of mutual interests). And some people like to meet and interact with other people that share their interests. Scrobbling collects data that makes all of these things possible. [Note: Scrobbling also lets record companies and bands target their music and their marketing to serious fans.]
Because a large and active community chooses to publicly record their music preferences via scrobbling, most music products have open interfaces and/or direct interfaces to the Last.fm service. Consequently, you can scrobble with almost any PC or Mac-based music player. But this is not the case with mobile phone-based music players.
Because most music players on Android do not provide native support for scrobbling, creative people have built their own scrobbling engines for use on the Android platform. ScrobbleDroid is one such engine. This product was originally a Google Code project. It is now a product that can be obtained from the Android Market. And it is an excellent (and free) tool for scrobbling your listening habits to Last.fm.
Unfortunately, it only works if you use the Android Music application. So it currently supports only music that is stored on your Android phone. But I have high hopes that someday, it will be extended to support both the Google Music platform as well as the Amazon Cloud Drive platform.
In the meantime, if any of you know of a different scrobbling tool that works with streaming music, drop me a note (via comment, email or Twitter).
-Roo

Quick Takes on Music Beta (by Google)

May 22, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

After spending quite a bit of time (and devoting a little coin of the realm) to the Amazon Cloud Drive, I received an email informing me that Google has requested me to participate in the private beta of their new music service. I am more than a little surprised that I was included. But who am I to complain. It’s that much more tech to play with.
But don’t expect this post to be a complete review. This is just a few quick takes from what I’ve seen so far.
Here are my first thoughts (in order of relative importance to me):

Google is offering this service for free. And that means free. I can store up to 20,000 songs free of charge. Period. This simple truth is more than worth the price of admission. And it surely beats the pricing that Amazon is offering. [Note: I do wonder how Google will monetize this. I suspect that it will be context-driven ads. But without a retail engine, where will they drive the traffic to?]
The music selection and loading tools are blunt instruments, at best. You can select everything from iTunes or everything from Windows Media Player. You can also select everything in a directory. This is hardly a precise instrument. You can take a big swing at everything or take no swing at all. The crudity of this method is heart-wrenching. With the Amazon Cloud Drive, you have far more options to selecting and loading your music. But both tools really need to take advantage of metadata that you may already have in your music. I want to do complex Boolean searches on tags and have the selected files loaded.
I really want to control the loading of all files onto the service. I still have a bunch of files that came from unclear origins. Don’t get me wrong, I own all the music that I have on my hard drive. But sometimes I have downloaded songs rather than record them from LP. And after spending years of using tools like MusicBrainz and MP3tagger, I have files with some really oddball ID3 tags.
I would really like more social media tools. Thee is no Last.fm integration. There is no way to comment and tweet those comments to my followers. And there is absolutely no interaction with Facebook. I really want my cloud music service to be more social. After all, music is a community affair. Sharing occurs within fan groups. Even the folks at Myspace knew that. I really think that Google should link this offering to Buzz, Wave, Facebook and Twitter.
Finally, where is the integration with a music retailer. Apple (and iTunes) integrate with the Apple iTunes Music store. And Amazon integrates with their well-established MP3 sales channel. Without a retail engine or agreements with the labels, I am skeptical of the overall success of this offering. I am sure that these things will be added. But their absence in the initial product is rather troubling.

I will write a much more comprehensive review when all of my songs are loaded. Right now, I am +4,000 files of my +6,500 song iTunes library. Let’s see how this car drives when I have all of my clutter on board. But for now, the truck is a good one. It will haul my stuff. I just need to drive it around for a while to see how it handles.
-Roo

Social Music: Socially-Allowable Sharing?

June 20, 2010August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

For anyone’s who has read more than one of my blog posts, my next statement won’t be a surprise: I truly love music. I love all kinds of music. And music has always been a social experience for me. And whether you believe that we were created by an all-powerful God or you believe that we were fashioned through fortune and natural selection, rythmn and music have always been a part of the humanity experience.
Music is a means of communicating messages of all kinds. Music is in commercials. Music is in pageantry. Music is in exaltations of faith. Music is in calm moments of reflection. And while music can stir emotions even in solitary settings, its most powerful manifestations are found when the composer/performer is communicating emotions to the audience.
And ever since there was “technology” to harness, music has been present. And today is no different. Whether access to music is dampened by concert ticket prices, concert hall construction, the requirements for expensive instruments or even the existence of digital rights management, there are those people who seek to control access to music. Some control music in order to generate income for themselves. Some control music in order to control the emotions and the actions of others.
But as the technology wheel spins ever faster, it is increasingly harder to erect frameworks of control. And it is becoming increasingly easier to scale any such barriers that are erected. Indeed, music is becoming more plentiful and it is becoming more accessible. AND I LOVE IT EVEN MORE.
So before I wander off into even deeper philosophical weeds, let me get to the point. In the past few days, I’ve run across new modes of music sharing.
As most folks know, I use many music players. But my favorite players are Songbird and iTunes. I also use many tagging and metadata tools. And I also use many sharing tools. I have used Last.fm for years. And I used to be very active on Blip.fm. I have fiddled and played with iLike (in Facebook) for almost as long. I’ve used Pandora for over a year.
I buy most of my music via Amazon. And now that I use Songbird more frequently, I’ve bought a few songs via 7Digital. Nevertheless, I’ve been known to purchase a few tracks from the iTunes music store. And now my youngest daughter just got me turned on to a new streaming source (i.e., Grooveshark).
So here are my big questions:

What is Facebook planning to do with music?
Is iLike the Facebook music play or is Facebook going to do something else?
Is Facebook’s music approach going to be just another means of using me as a market data point or as a sales target?
Just how much music sharing is enough? [This one is a tough thing to answer as the answer varies from person to person.] But how much musical “attention” data is too much?
How are new sharing tools (e.g., Grooveshark) going to monetize their services?

And if those aren’t enough questions to ponder, I have a few more question for my brothers and sisters in Christ:

How will the Christian community exploit all this new technology?
How can we demonstrate a moral context for file sharing.
And how can we ensure that the music we create and share affirms the Gospel message?

We really need to remember musicians like Keith Green. He had the world as his musical oyster – so to speak. But he gave up massive financial gain when he realized that the gifts and talents he could use to generate money were not given to him for that purpose. God gave him the words and the music as a means of communicating the Gospel. Therefore, he turned his back on “success” and “fame” and chose the life of a prophet and a pastor. May God bless us with men who share Keith’s heart for the world – and his wisdom for the role of music in that world.
-Roo

Social Media: Is Narcissism Noteworthy?

June 14, 2009August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

Over the past three weeks, I’ve been playing the Spymaster game. I am sure that everyone has heard of it. Tweets about this game (and 160Mafia) clutter many people’s twitter streams – including mine.
If you want a review of the game, there are plenty of other places to go. As for me, I feel compelled to talk about the more personal aspects of the game. At its most harmless, it is an inexorable time sink. At its worst, it is an ego-fulfilling waste of time.
So after three weeks, I’ve determined a few things. First, I really seem to get absorbed (and borderline obsessed) with being ahead of other people. On Twitter and Friendfeed, this is manifested by my desire to have more followers. Why do I need more followers? I want to fool myself into thinking that more followers ensures a richer collaborative experience. And I might be convinced into believing that I have something “important” to share with others. But that is poppycock; I want to have “more” than you have. Period. This is an admitted character flaw on my part.
Second, it is so incredibly easy to set aside personal ethics in the name of gameplay. No, I’m not doing anything wrong – in the “real” world. But I am pretending to do many things that would otherwise violate many of the Ten Commandments. I am coercing mobsters, stealing weapons and secrets, and even “murdering” ambassadors and heads of state. And once I reached level 30 (the final level), I started to “assassinate” other game players. [Note: This is all done in a virtual world. I hope my mere mention of these virtual acts hasn’t tripped some FBI filter within my ISP and its network.] These are not things I would ever do in real life. But I have had no qualms about doing them in the name of gameplay.
Third, I have allowed gameplay to affect my online personae. In order to excel in the Spymaster game, you need to convert your Twitter followers into spies. At first, I really resisted this temptation. But I did send out a few targeted invitations. Then I heard about some of the spy rings that were emerging on the net. By joining one of these rings, I got a 50% increase in followers. I truly appreciate the new followers. But I am sure that they are not in it for the erudite and insightful commentaries that I provide. Rather, we follow one another to boost stats in the game. Bottom line: I have indirectly used my Twitter followers to augment my status in a game.
Truly, this is no different than the situation that many other people find themselves in. I’ve even seen Louis Gray (or someone with his name) out on Spymaster. But in my case, I have a new Twitter follower base to care for and to feed. Before Spymaster, I had a discrete set of unique follower groups. These were based upon mutually interesting topics. Specifically, I had a group for each of the following:

Conservative politics
Christian faith and living
Cycling
Social media and technology
Music
Parenting

And now I have to add in the category of “Spymaster enthusiasts.” Do I mind the new group? Not at all. Indeed, I like to have connections with new friends. And I love to hear the interests of other people. Of course, this does take time away from other things. And for the past three weeks, it has taken time away from personal freedom!
But after looking in the mirror, the reality is clear. I have played the game in order to fulfill my need to have followers and to be more important. But beneath this charade is the real need: I want to be loved and needed. The quest for followers is a veiled quest to be valuable and “wanted” by others. At its root, is a misplaced desire to augment myself and my stature. In true clarity of thought, it is a violation of God’s command in Exodus 20:3 – you will have no other gods besides the one true God. And I have been placing myself in the center of my own “godhood.” No, Spymaster isn’t a god. But I have willingly placed myself and my ego fulfillment into the center of my own solar system.
Yeah, this sounds like a stretch. But it is not. Have I been spending my time for my glory or for God’s glory? Have I been seeking God’s direction, or the admiration of others? Or have I tried to reassure myself that I am bright and competent – i.e., “better” than others?
To truly understand my absorption into this game, I must conclude that I have misplaced my focus. God will forgive my indulgence in this vanity. And I’m sure that I am learning more about myself than I had intended – even before I started to write this posting.
Now the question is simple: will I forgo further gameplay and personal ego augmentation?
-Roo

Google Is The Center Of The Universe – Part II

February 4, 2009August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

I am a casual user of Brightkite. I use it to log into four or five different locations on a regular basis. And I use it to do a couple of location-specific tasks – such as location posts and location photos. But as a general rule, I use it only a handful of times each day.
But there are a couple of things I love about it:

Entering location data is easy. I have a few dozen Placemarks set. And I can enter my location by referencing one of my preset Placemarks.
Phone integration is quite mature. SMS data entry is a snap. I can send an SMS message to a single phone number (after associating my phone with my Brightkite account). Checking in is easy. And sending pictures and text are a breeze.

But I am not altogether thrilled with everything that Brightkite does. Indeed, I have a couple of problems with it.

I have to build a completely separate friend/follower base. I hate this. I want to have one friend/follower/contact base for all my social apps. It’s not hard to use Brightkite’s functionality. But it is yet another user database.
I have to use a separate user/password to signon to the service. I really want a single signon or federated signon.
I really want my location solution to integrate with my mapping solution. In this way, I can do dirctions and distance calculations simply.
I would love for my social systems and my location systems to work together. Specifcally, I want to be able to IM or send tweets to folks that are around me. And I’d love to have the ability to use XMPP as the infrastructure for these communications. In that way, I can leverage the immense automation potential of Jabber-based systems.

Do I need another location-based system? Probably not. Do I want another location system? M0st definitely.
Enter Google Latitude.
This morning, Google told the world that Latitude was available for testing and use. So I downloaded itand gave it a try. Google Latitude does some things extremely well.

Google gets the basics right. I can check-in. And I love the fact that I can use Google Maps to put a pin where I am located.
Google does get the GPS fundamentals right.
Google has mobile clients for all the major phone platforms (although I am hearing that the iPhone client really needs a little help).
Google uses the single signon system that my other Google apps use. More importantly, it can leverage OpenID in a federated model.
Google integrates with Google Talk. Hence, it is XMPP-enabled.
Google integrates with Google Maps and Google Earth.

While it would be fair to say that Google has the framework and fundamentals right, it still needs to polish some of the rough spots. In particular, the check-in process is particularly clunky – especially for phones w/o GPS. Since GPS is avaialble on all “new” phones, Latitude reaches the tech savvy folks who like new toys. But the reach is limited for those phones w/o GPS. And the SMS functionality appears very immature. There is no simple way to check in (via a service like Placemarks).
Bottom Line: Google Latitude is a great first step. It gets the fundamentals and infrastructure right. But it really needs some work on the UI. With a few more polishes to the UI, this WILL replace my Brightkite use. But for now, I will use both and incur the overhead of doing the same thing twice. This offering will force Brightkite to up its game or risk losing everything it has worked so hard to earn.

-Roo
P.S. Louis Gray has a great write up on Latitude and its impact upon Brightkite and Loopt. His thoughs are available on his site.

Let's Set Our Music Free

November 15, 2008August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

I am not someone who believes in music piracy. I buy music. And if I download a song for some reason, I have to go out and buy the music at some point in the near future. I guess I have a finely tuned inner voice (call it the Holy Spirit) that doesn’t let me get away with stealing. But I do believe that I should be able to listen to music (that I have purchased) anywhere and everywhere I go. For this reason, I rip every CD I have into MP3 format. And when I download music, I try and buy music that is not encumbered with DRM technology.
But like most music enthusiasts, I have had to settle with Apple’s music ecosphere for far too long. I do love iTunes. But it is a very pretty walled garden. I can have anything and everything that Steve Jobs wants me to have. I can even have video and games – as long as I buy them from him. And I can even have “DRM free” music (called iTunes Plus) – as long as I buy it from the iTunes store.
But if I buy content from other sources (or rip it from obscure CD’s I own), it is dreadfully difficult to add it to my iTunes library. Yes, I can use Amazon’s store and install their add-on software. And I can use MusicPass (from Sony/BMG). But both of these technologies have an uneasy feel about their integration with iTunes. It’s all getting better and better. But integration advances are under the control of Apple. All they have to do is change iTunes versions and unilaterally disable anything done by other people (or organizations).
And that’s where Songbird comes in. Songbird is an open source media player that is based upon the Mozilla foundation. And this week, the Songbird team is getting very close to offering a competitive product to the iTunes ecosphere. This week, they released the second release candidate for Songbird 1.0. And while they ask bloggers and editors to refrain from comments until the software is stabilized, I still have to provide a glimpse into what will soon be available – a world free from the rules of Steve’s Matrix.
Songbird does the basics with ease. You can organize all of your music/media files with ease. And the interface is familiar enough. I am a little concerned that too much of iTunes’ “look-and-feel” may be incorporated. And with that, there is risk that Apple may take legal action against the Songbird team. But there are enough differences in “look-and-feel” that this will be difficult to prove in a court of law. And I hope that Apple will not challenge Songbird in court. Rather, I hope that Songbird will be seen as the competition that Apple needs in order to make their product even better.
While Songbird gets the basics down cold, it is the new and innovative touches that are so much more impressive. Songbird is trying to make a competitive ecosphere to the iTunes ecosphere – and they are doing a pretty good job of it so far. So what is the Songbird team doing rght:
– There is an add-on / plugin architecture that is showing some initial success – and a whole lot of promise. If developers start creating new add-ons, the future promise of the platform will be amazing. As new technologies are developed, they can be plugged straight into Songbird. So we won’t have to wait upon a new mega-release from Apple. Rather, we can incorporate those changes that we need from any number of competing software developers.
– The core HTML rendering engine (Gecko) is quite an improvement over the rendering that is based upon the Safari engine. Yes, there is a great deal of similarity between Gecko and Webkit. And there is a lot to like about Webkit. But Gecko is still a superior application infrastructure – at least, for now.
– Using the add-on foundation, there is some excellent Last.fm integration already available. There is insufficient room to discuss all the cool things about Last.fm. But here is the short version: Last.fm is an exceptional system for collecting immense amounts of metadata about personal music libraries. And I can use Last.fm to build a community around the music I listen to, the music of my friends, the music of my favorite bands, and the music of bands I might like to listen to. And whereas the Last.fm folks do have a plugin for iTunes, the integration in Songbird is “out of the box” – and can be revised/extended via the add-on / plugin framework.
– There are a couple of very good add-ons for the Twitter community. Unlike the iTunes add-on (from Last.fm), I have direct control over which songs I want to tweet about. So I can send an occasional tweet about who I’m listening to – rather than flooding my Twitter feed with every song every few minutes. This is incredibly important as I want folks to know when I’m listening to music – but don’t want to swamp them with a flood of tweets. When I was scrobbling all 5500+ songs in my library (over a two-week period) this would have been catastrophic to my followers.
– There are some very cool add-ons that are still a little bit unstable. For example, I really like having access to a lyrics database that is online. But at this point in time, the lyrics add-on is a little unstable. So I’ve turned it off. But the fact that I can enable and disable this features with very little effort is so very encouraging to me. It shows that the plugin framework is robust and manageable.
– I can’t wait to see the next series of plugins that will show up. Personally, I am very interested in seeing Musicbrainz integration. Musicbrainz has a very nifty song fingerprinting system that can be used for obscure CD’s that might not be in Apple’s library. And up until a few months ago, this included Beatles CD’s. So I used MusicBrainz to determine which album art and which ID3 tags to associate with CD’s I couldn’t get recognized by iTunes. Again, I would rather work with a community source of metadata rather than a corporation that seeks to “provide” and “manage” metadata about my music.
There are a couple of things that still need to be ironed out before the final 1.0 release. Some of the add-ons that are available need to be stabilized. And some of the core needs some performance tweaks. And I still think there are some race conditions present in hte Vista code. But I’m sure that will all get ironed out in the next couple of weeks.
But the single largest element that is missing is the tight integration of a music store. I’m a little conflicted over this item. Songbird really needs this to be competitive. But it needs to be done in a way that any number of stores could be used. I would love to see integration with Wal-Mart, Amazon and a host of others. But I wonder how that can be done in short order. In any case, I really would love to see cleaner and sharper purchasing capabilities. That way, I can buy new songs I find. I don’t want to go through ridiculous hoops in order to purchase and import music into my library.
Bottom Line: Songbird is an exceptional platform for building an entire music ecosystem. And its architecture is fundamentally extensible in a way that iTunes never will be. I can’t wait to see how my new media player evolves.
-Roo

Let’s Set Our Music Free

November 15, 2008August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

But like most music enthusiasts, I have had to settle with Apple’s music ecosphere for far too long. I do love iTunes. But it is a very pretty walled garden. I can have anything and everything that Steve Jobs wants me to have. I can even have video and games – as long as I buy them from him. And I can even have “DRM free” music (called iTunes Plus) – as long as I buy it from the iTunes store.

But if I buy content from other sources (or rip it from obscure CD’s I own), it is dreadfully difficult to add it to my iTunes library. Yes, I can use Amazon’s store and install their add-on software. And I can use MusicPass (from Sony/BMG). But both of these technologies have an uneasy feel about their integration with iTunes. It’s all getting better and better. But integration advances are under the control of Apple. All they have to do is change iTunes versions and unilaterally disable anything done by other people (or organizations).

And that’s where Songbird comes in. Songbird is an open source media player that is based upon the Mozilla foundation. And this week, the Songbird team is getting very close to offering a competitive product to the iTunes ecosphere. This week, they released the second release candidate for Songbird 1.0. And while they ask bloggers and editors to refrain from comments until the software is stabilized, I still have to provide a glimpse into what will soon be available – a world free from the rules of Steve’s Matrix.

Songbird does the basics with ease. You can organize all of your music/media files with ease. And the interface is familiar enough. I am a little concerned that too much of iTunes’ “look-and-feel” may be incorporated. And with that, there is risk that Apple may take legal action against the Songbird team. But there are enough differences in “look-and-feel” that this will be difficult to prove in a court of law. And I hope that Apple will not challenge Songbird in court. Rather, I hope that Songbird will be seen as the competition that Apple needs in order to make their product even better.

While Songbird gets the basics down cold, it is the new and innovative touches that are so much more impressive. Songbird is trying to make a competitive ecosphere to the iTunes ecosphere – and they are doing a pretty good job of it so far. So what is the Songbird team doing rght:

– There is an add-on / plugin architecture that is showing some initial success – and a whole lot of promise. If developers start creating new add-ons, the future promise of the platform will be amazing. As new technologies are developed, they can be plugged straight into Songbird. So we won’t have to wait upon a new mega-release from Apple. Rather, we can incorporate those changes that we need from any number of competing software developers.

– The core HTML rendering engine (Gecko) is quite an improvement over the rendering that is based upon the Safari engine. Yes, there is a great deal of similarity between Gecko and Webkit. And there is a lot to like about Webkit. But Gecko is still a superior application infrastructure – at least, for now.

– Using the add-on foundation, there is some excellent Last.fm integration already available. There is insufficient room to discuss all the cool things about Last.fm. But here is the short version: Last.fm is an exceptional system for collecting immense amounts of metadata about personal music libraries. And I can use Last.fm to build a community around the music I listen to, the music of my friends, the music of my favorite bands, and the music of bands I might like to listen to. And whereas the Last.fm folks do have a plugin for iTunes, the integration in Songbird is “out of the box” – and can be revised/extended via the add-on / plugin framework.

– There are a couple of very good add-ons for the Twitter community. Unlike the iTunes add-on (from Last.fm), I have direct control over which songs I want to tweet about. So I can send an occasional tweet about who I’m listening to – rather than flooding my Twitter feed with every song every few minutes. This is incredibly important as I want folks to know when I’m listening to music – but don’t want to swamp them with a flood of tweets. When I was scrobbling all 5500+ songs in my library (over a two-week period) this would have been catastrophic to my followers.

– There are some very cool add-ons that are still a little bit unstable. For example, I really like having access to a lyrics database that is online. But at this point in time, the lyrics add-on is a little unstable. So I’ve turned it off. But the fact that I can enable and disable this features with very little effort is so very encouraging to me. It shows that the plugin framework is robust and manageable.

– I can’t wait to see the next series of plugins that will show up. Personally, I am very interested in seeing Musicbrainz integration. Musicbrainz has a very nifty song fingerprinting system that can be used for obscure CD’s that might not be in Apple’s library. And up until a few months ago, this included Beatles CD’s. So I used MusicBrainz to determine which album art and which ID3 tags to associate with CD’s I couldn’t get recognized by iTunes. Again, I would rather work with a community source of metadata rather than a corporation that seeks to “provide” and “manage” metadata about my music.

There are a couple of things that still need to be ironed out before the final 1.0 release. Some of the add-ons that are available need to be stabilized. And some of the core needs some performance tweaks. And I still think there are some race conditions present in hte Vista code. But I’m sure that will all get ironed out in the next couple of weeks.

But the single largest element that is missing is the tight integration of a music store. I’m a little conflicted over this item. Songbird really needs this to be competitive. But it needs to be done in a way that any number of stores could be used. I would love to see integration with Wal-Mart, Amazon and a host of others. But I wonder how that can be done in short order. In any case, I really would love to see cleaner and sharper purchasing capabilities. That way, I can buy new songs I find. I don’t want to go through ridiculous hoops in order to purchase and import music into my library.

Bottom Line: Songbird is an exceptional platform for building an entire music ecosystem. And its architecture is fundamentally extensible in a way that iTunes never will be. I can’t wait to see how my new media player evolves.

-Roo

The Customer Is Always Right

November 15, 2008August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

According to Efrainm Turban, “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.”
The Setup
I worked at home yesterday. That is not the normal way I meet my executive’s expectations. Instead, I was staying home to meet my family’s expectations. And so begins a trail of disappointment…
When we bought the house (over twenty-one years ago), it was a relatively new house. And it had Anderson-built casement windows throughout the house. Since the house is aging, we are starting to notice that some of the windows are starting to deteriorate. And two casements in particular absolutely needed to be repaired/replaced. So a few weeks ago, we invited a sales representative from Home Depot to our house. Our desire was to have Home Depot replace the two deteriorating casement windows.
We chose Home Depot for two reasons. First, the sell Anderson windows. So we figured that they would be able to match the windows as closely as anyone else. Second, we had some experience with Home Depot acting as our project manager on a small household project. Last year, we had Home Depot replace the guttering on the entire house. And they did an excellent job. So when we determined that we needed to start replacing some of the 30-year old windows in the house, we decided to let Home Depot have a crack at the first few windows.
When the salesman came to the house, he measured the windows twice. And he highlighted the window that would best match our existing windows. This was critical as we weren’t replacing all of the windows at the same time. So a close match was important. He gave us a bid on the spot. And it was a fabulous price. So we accepted the bid. When he left, we were feeling quite exuberant about the situation. And then the other shoe started to drop.
Within thirty minutes, he called to tell us that he had made a horrible mistake on the price. He had charged us $900 less than he should have. We gulped and then told him to come back so we could fix the situation. I kinda thought that the original offer he made was a little low, but I gladly accepted a good deal. Now, we had to decide whether or not to fight. Since the salesman had made an honest mistake, we decided to accept the amended contract.
Once signed (again), the orders went into motion. We got a call from an admin assistant to the project manager. She informed us about who they were subcontracting to do the installation. And she told us about the amount of time we would need to wait since the windows were custom-sized to our household measurements. Once we got through all of this, we had to wait – about three weeks.
Yesterday, the appointed day of installation arrived. I took off work so I could meet the contractor and let him in the house. I got the typical call from the admin assistant who informed me that the contractor would be late. Since I always expect this, I wasn’t too upset. However, I was a little peeved that I had yet to hear from the project manager. After all, I was really paying Home Depot to be my project manager.
In this transaction, Home Depot arranged financing, hired the contractor, managed the manufacturer and scheduled the project. They got a very handsome premium for performing this service – and I got the luxury of trusting a professional to manage the project. This is the kind of project that either my wife or I should be able to handle in our sleep. But we didn’t want to. We both work hard at our jobs. And sometimes, it’s nice to pay someone else to do the management for you. Well, my cautionary tale to everyone who reads this is to never let someone else do something that you can do by yourself. But that is water under the proverbial bridge.
When the contractor measured the first window (to validate it), he realized that the window was the wrong size – it was an inch too big. When he told me this, I started to get a little frustrated. This should have been handled by the project manager who is responsible for ensuring that the manufacturer produces a product to our specifications. The PM failed. Fortunately, the contractor noticed this before he removed the original window.
So the contractor and I tried to get in touch with the project manager. He was not available. So we spoke with his admin assistant who apologized for the error and promised that everything would be taken care of. So we decided to focus on the second window. At least we would have one new window!
Wrong again. After removing the old casement, the contractor noticed that the hinges on the window were in the wrong place. The two frames were supposed to be hinged on the outside of the window frame. Instead, the were hinged on the inside. Indeed, this was something that we specifically mentioned to the salesman. And he had scribbled something to ensure that it was properly noted. But now we had a problem: we had a hole in the wall of our house. And we had a window that would fit – but was otherwise unacceptable. So we had to call the office once again.
We called the office to discuss the entire situation. We were told that they would install the errant window and then replace it when a proper window arrived. We decided that this was alright. At this point in time, I was quite short with the assistant. I wasn’t rude – but I wasn’t polite either. At this point in time, we had experienced the following errors: 1) a bad price quote, 2) a late contractor, 3) a wrongly sized window, and 4) a wrongly configured window. Throughout this entire process, we had yet to speak with the project manager. In any event, the contractor installed the temporary window so we wouldn’t have air infiltration (when the temperature dropped below freezing later in the day). He took one old window and the one wrongly sized new window and left.
At this point, I figured that we were done for the day. I figured that nothing else could go wrong. Boy, was I ever wrong. When my wife cam home, she immediately noticed that the frame itself was not even close to the one that was installed previously. We expected minor differences. But the difference between the new window and the windows throughout the rest of the house was alarming. [Note: I would never notice this as I am not very visually adept.]
So now we need to call Home Depot and have them get their salesman out here again. We have to ensure that he orders the right style of window as well as the right size of window. And we need to do this today.
The Service Paradigm
This entire fiasco started with a fundamental failure in communications. First, the salesman did not properly record what the customer wanted. Second, the salesman did not record the proper pricing/cost of materials for the project. Third, the project manager did not validate the manufactured goods when they arrived. Fourth, the project manager did not properly schedule the contractor to ensure timely arrival on the site. Fifth, the project manager was not available to rapidly address and resolve problems. Finally, no one really spent the time to ensure that the customer’s expectations were met – or adjusted as the situation changed. Instead, this entire situation has become a blog posting about customer service.
As companies like Home Depot move from a traditional retail delivery model to a service-oriented model, they must adapt to the needs of the customer. And they must create a communications and feedback-rich environment. And the person to do this was the project manager. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen that way.
But it did start to happen in a different way. I decided to tweet my frustration. I noted that I was struggling with Home Depot to resolve some customer satisfaction issues. I didn’t say bad things about Home Depot. I just tweeted what I was doing. And within fifteen minutes of posting the tweet, I had a response from a Twitter account associated with Home Depot customer service. Home Depot gets high marks for this.
And it gets a little better. Sarah (the person associated with the tweet response) hooked me up with the right customer service queue (via email). So I think I am on the path to getting this resolved – at least, I hope so. We will soon see. But a person was using scanning technology to find customer service complaints. That person contacted me and directed me to a different service channel. Brilliant. They didn’t try and solve it on Twitter. [BTW, that would have been horrible because public outbursts in 140 character chunks cannot be good for brand image.] It is this process of blending technology and the personal touch that impressed me the most. Let’s hope that the next steps by Home Depot are equally as adept.
And then I did a little research myself. I had called the PM – or attempted to reach him. I had tweeted my issue. I had sent a summary email to Home Depot. I began writing a blog post. And now I decided to look for social media channels for customer service. And I quickly ran across GetSatisfaction.com. This service is a social networking web site that is tailored for customer service. It links customers to company contacts (or employees that want to help their customers). It stores data on other customers’ troubles in a searchable infobase. And it can cross-post to Twitter and other services. In many ways, this service is the start of something quite innovative. If it were fully realized, I would readily use it as a primary channel for getting feedback to Home Depot. But the service is still evolving. And it really needs strong linkages to formal support teams within companies. But it is a great start. I can’t wait to see how it evolves.
But in the meantime, I am forced to manage this incident myself. I sure hope that I can get the Home Depot project manger to be fully engaged as he should be the one locus of support for the customer. Indeed, involvement of a professional project manager was the real reason that I spent a premium for Home Depot’s involvement. Let’s hope that their PM can get fully engaged and can resolve these issues post haste.
-Roo
^ Turban, Efraim (2002), Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0131854615

Social Media Schizophrenia

November 8, 2008August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

It is Saturday afternoon and I’m spent. This week has been full of lows – and highs. Here is the brief rundown:
1. My Country – The lows: The election has confirmed my belief that conservatives are now in the wilderness. The Republican party got thumped in the election – and deservedly so. The only thing the Republicans didn’t lose was the ability to conduct Senate filibusters. Everything else was washed away in the tidal wave of anti-Bush sentiment. And if I could have voted up/down on Bush alone, I would have joined the masses. But I was unwilling to cede all power to the Democrats simply to send a message to the Republican party.
The highs: As I noted last week, the rejection of the current Republican party establishment is a GOOD THING. We need to purge ourselves of encumbrances like “party affiliation” and “reaching across the aisle” to embrace watered-down policies. Don’t misunderstand me. I am in favor of embracing our fellow Americans – even when we disagree. But let’s not be so willing to compromise our principles in order to be loved by all. The prophets of the Old Testament dd not worry about whether their message was accepted by their listeners (and readers). Rather, they spoke truth to power. And that is what the conservatives in exile must begin to do.
I think I may be writing a whole lot more about this in the future. But for now, know that I am both disheartened as well as elated. I don’t believe that conservatism has been rejected. Indeed, we haven’t seen real, honest-to-goodness conservatism for quite a while. So now is our chance to proclaim that truth.
In the meantime, I am so incredibly proud of my country. First, there was tremendous participation in this election. Second, we took one huge step towards erasing a legacy of social schisms. Our forefathers struggled about whether to include emancipation of slaves into our Declaration of Independence. The first step towards John Adams vision of equality came with the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln. The second step came with the US Civil War. The third step came with the civil rights efforts of the fifties (esp. the US Armed Forces) and the Civil Rights Act of the sixties. And the most recent step came with the election of an African American President. This was truly a remarkable election that every American should be proud of. It demonstrates all of the best things about America.
2. My Family – The lows: My middle daughter has been having a very tough time at school. I really don’t want to go through all of the details as this blog is publicly available – and her challenges are very private. But suffice it to say that she started the week very disheartened.
The highs: After several days of struggling with herself and seeking the counsel of others, she has come to some decisions. In candor, I do agree with her decisions. But I am still brokenhearted as I don’t know if she is fully invested in her decisions. Indeed, I suspect that she is only grudgingly accepting he unanimous counsel of others. But she has taken the first steps towards returning to the mission that God has set out for her. I’m praying that God speaks to her in intimate and affectionate ways. I’m praying that she sees His hand guiding the way – even while His other hand is lifting her up to keep her from stumbling.
My third daughter came home for the weekend. And she brought seven friends with her. They came to KC so they could experience First Fridays in the KC arts district . They were all thrilled to walk around art exhibits, munch on appetizers and act all artsy-fartsy. OK, that is harsh. I can’t truly appreciate the visual arts because of my poor eyesight. But I really shouldn’t discount the joy that some people receive when looking at a wonderful piece of art. Fortunately, they all enjoyed the art and the joi de vivre they experienced.
BTW, Bailey has some great friends. They spoke with us. They laughed with us. They discussed politics with us. And they ate our food. So a good time was had by all.
And the biggest family high point this week was my wife’s return to full-time employment. Three months ago, her previous employer had to terminate a large number of employees. And my wife was assigned to projects that were being reduced. So she was released. And while I know exactly how Cindy felt, I couldn’t really help bear her burden. She has had to bear a lot of the emotional burden herself.
But as of this past Monday, she is now fully employed. And her work is both more challenging and more rewarding than her previous assignments. In almost every way, she has been kicked up the work ladder. For this, I am so very grateful to a God that has met our family needs while He guided her to the right interviews with the right people. Now I’m paying for her success with a new team and a new company.
3. My Job – The lows: One of the projects that I was working on was halted. The software worked. The inter-corporation communications worked. But the product was still canned. And the basic reason for the project termination was the general economy today. Our key financial partner declined to under-write the loan instruments that were pivotal to the product. So the product has been suspended – at least for now.
The highs: While the one product was terminated, the overall system will be used for other products this season. So work proceeds. And even if it didn’t, I have so many other projects that I am working on. I’m not worried about my continued employment. Nor am I worried about my standing in the eyes of executive leadership. In many ways, I have the privilege of being considered a “go to” person in the organization. So I am quite pleased.
4. My Twitter Egosphere – The lows: About a week ago, I was reading a note from Jennifer Leggio (a freelance writer for Ziff-Davis) about her philosophy concerning following and unfollowing people on Twitter. Actually the article was about Qwitter, an app to track who quits following you (and what the last posted tweet was before they quit following you). It is a true vanity app.
Early in the week, I got a note from Qwitter that Jennifer had unfollowed me. Normally, I don’t care about who follows me. But this time, it actually struck a raw nerve. After everything else that happened this week, I actually felt a little upset that someone I respected had unfollwed me. I didn’t feel so bad that I sent Jennifer a note. But I did feel bad enough to tell Noah about it.
The highs: Noah sent a quick note to Jennifer and asked her what had happened. It turns out that I hadn’t offended her with anything I had said. Rather, she was having Twitter problems and inadvertently unfollowed a ton of people. So Jennifer sent me a very heart-warming note apologizing for unfollowing me. That was truly unexpected. But it occurred at the same time that everything else was swing upward as well. So this warm note and ego boost came when everything else was on an upswing.
5. My Social Media Metaverse – The lows: I have way too many social media networks that I am part of. The current list includes: Twitter, identi.ca, Friendfeed, Brightkite, Del.icio.us, Google Reader, Flickr, GoodReads, StumbleUpon, GMail, Jabber, GTalk, AIM, Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Last.fm, Blip.fm, and a few other services. I am often overwhelmed by all of this. So I’ve focused on Friendfeed as my social media aggregator. And the folks from Friendfeed have now added the ability for Friendfeed posts to be sent to an IM account. In my case, I’ve decided to try this with my GTalk account.
The low associated with all this integration is that I have so much social media stuff and it is now funneling to one place – me. I can’t just turn stuff off. I have grown accustomed to the buzz. I hate being swamped. But I love being informed of all sorts of things at the same time. I have so many inputs now arriving at my frontal lobe. And every beep, tweet, blip and alert is begging for me to switch focus. It’s great to be connected. And it is a real pain to be connected. But as of now, I can’t imagine not being connected. I feel like an addict that just needs one more hit of stimulation. Arghhh.
The highs: After the addict comment, I don’t need to repeat the highs associated with social media and networking . But I am quite excited about the levels of integration that are starting to coalesce into something almost discernible. As everything begins to congregate through Friendfeed, the link to IM poses an amazing integration point. With XMPP based IM integration, it will be possible to set up processes that run on my system – and under my control. These processes can be intelligent agents that will consume XML from an XMPP server. And as XMPP and OpenID are starting to come closer to one another (see http://openid.xmpp.za.net/), the possibilities become quite mind-bending.
Whew. That list just skims the surface of highs/lows for this week. There really was so much more. But amidst all the sensory and emotional input that is causing my “virtual” schizophrenia , there is one thing that remains constant. No matter how much is going on in this world, I know that my God loves me. And I know that however I feel (whether high or low), nothing can separate me from that love.
Romans 8:38-39 – For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things yet to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.