Category: General

I recently had a protracted conversation with someone on LinkedIn about mobility, and being to practice my craft from wherever I am. Regular readers will notice a couple of themes emerging in my posting, customer service and mobility among them. It’s very cool to me when they intersect because when it’s done right, it comes off a smooth as silk.

Like any artisan (and I’m going to stretch here and say that customer service is an art form and that not everyone who does it does it well, or even knows how to do for that matter) the craft has it’s tools. Like with any tools, to be able to use them skillfully in situations where you need them, you need to be practices with them.

For me, the remote tools that I use generally include an iPad mini and a Bluetooth keyboard, That isn’t necessarily the right gear for every mobilist, but that covers me in a lot of circumstances. When the time comes to provide that customer service on the fly, it isn’t going to be any good and won’t inspire any confidence if I’m fumbling around with things and trying to establish connections.

You’ve got to be practiced with your tools so you can use them almost without thinking.

As I was trying to describe this for the person I was having the conversation with, I was reminded of a time many years ago when I was a paramedic. We had to know every piece of gear on that ambulance so we were ready for what ever we might roll into. We had to be able to use that gear like it was second nature.

That’s how it’s go to be for the mobilist as well. What ever tools they use they need to know them like the back of their hand so they can install confidence in the customer.

Aside from that, the other thing that occurred to me is that if you take a paramedic out of his ambulance, where he doesn’t have the gear and the medications and the things to do his job, you’ve effectively got a really good first aider. The gear makes a big difference in how effectively the job gets done!

It isn’t any difference with mobilists. If you take away our gear, we’re basically a sympathetic ear, but won’t be much good at helping out if you need us. This is why so many IT guys run around with back packs that look like they could live on a small island for three days with them, by the way. 😊

I got an email today from a company that sells bags (slings, satchels, backpacks, and the like) and the title in the email was “Going Small”. The focus of this particular marketing campaign was on the smaller bags in their collection, but it brought mobilism to mind. Many things bring mobilism to my mind these days.

As someone who identifies as a mobilist, I think the term can be applied more broadly than it is when you first think of it. Initially it conjures images of people on the go, commuters on trains, writers in coffee shops. And those people certainly are mobilists, but I think about it a little more broadly.

Someone who doesn’t have an office I think of as a mobilist. Someone who works in a lot of different places can be thought of as a mobilist. And that makes me think of people like college professors who go from classroom to classroom and have to connect to all kinds of equipment and be prepared for all sorts of contingencies from projectors that don’t work to laptops that won’t connect to Wi-Fi networks.

Mobilists have to be prepared for all sorts of things, but so do the people who support them! They need all the appropriate adapters, power supplies, and laser pointers, they need fresh batteries, and mostly, they need to be prepared for when those adapters fail, the batteries die, and the connections aren’t there.

As their support professional, I need to be prepared for all of those contingencies as well, and I need to be prepared for when my customers are not. That means having a “go bag”, sling, satchel, backpack, or the like ready with all the things that I might need when I get called into action.

I’ll have more to say about that in later posts, but I wanted to bring preparedness to mind, for when the rubber meets the road.

I’ve got an on-line friend in France, an entrepreneur named Aurelio Volle, who runs a company called WP Umbrella. One of the things I appreciate most about Aurelio is the tag line on his LinkedIn profile:

Building in public the company I wish I had when I was an employee.

That’s a really bold statement and a grand ambition! I especially appreciate that he’s building it public.

WP Umbrella is a management tool for agency folks who manage a lot of WordPress sites. I hope to do enough business one day to need a tool like that.

Aurelio posted on LinkedIn recently “Here are the 5 biggest mistakes I made building WP Umbrella (and what I learned)”. It was mistake number one that really caught my attention. That won’t surprise many of you.

Not hiring fast enough for customer support: Before Boris Zarev joined, both Thomas and I spent our days handling support tickets. This slowed down new feature releases and platform improvements, while also compromising the quality of support for our users.

I thought, “I can save few $k month, and it’ll only take 2-3 hours a day for support.”

The reality? It doesn’t work like that.

Support is always a priority, and it disrupts everything else. The lack of focus was total.

The importance of support cannot be understated. And when it isn’t done correctly, everything is disrupted and the lack of focus is total.

I work in higher education where I support professors in classrooms and I often illustrate the importance of my role in what they do by asking them to think of a favorite TV show. Most scenes will have between a few and several actors in them, but it’s what goes on behind the camera, the lights, the sound guys, show runners, producers, directors, camera guys, boom operators and dozens of other roles that I don’t even know the name for that enable those actors to be in front of the camera. For them to shine at what they do, shaping young minds and future generations, they have to be well supported.

The same is true of the agency folks. They need to be well supported so the can build websites that shine which is why they use tools like WP Umbrella.

And for Aurelio to make a tool that enables the agency folks to shine, he needs to be well supported. The cascade goes on and on.

When companies don’t get support right it’s like erecting scaffolding on shaky ground, if they aren’t very careful the whole thing can crash down around them.

I hope that more companies come to this realization and begin to prioritize support as they have at WP Umbrella. Having good support enables so many more good things to happen.

There’s a lot going on in our world today and a lot of it is pretty messed up. There are also a lot of opinions about what to do about what’s going on in our world today. Depending on the issue and depending on who you’re listening to, it can be pretty confusing.

And while I’ve got my thoughts and opinions, those aren’t really important to anyone but me. I’m an IT guy, not a politician. I can’t do anything about anything! What I can do, and my encouragement to each of you is to vote. Do your homework on the issues that are important to you, figure out who speaks most reasonably to you on your particular issues, then get out and vote.

It’s important. Really.

Three of our cats simply adore me. They follow me around the house, they sit on me when we’re watching TV, they’re often not too far away from me, seemingly afraid they’ll miss out on some much-needed attention.

The reason for this is because of the relationship I’ve formed with these cats. I pay attention to them. I know just how they like their ears scratched, and which ones will have their tummy rubbed. (And which ones will snap at me when I try to do that!) I know where they like to eat their treats and which toys are the favorites of each of them. What I mean is, I pay attention to them, and I cue off the ways they communicate with me.

My customers aren’t much different. They have work style preferences and like things done in certain ways. Some don’t want me to touch their computers but would rather have me show them what needs done. Other times, they’ll get up from their chair and sit down on the other side of the office until a problem is fixed.

Knowing their preferences and how to interact with them is all about relationship building.

I frame almost everything in life in relational not transactional terms. Life to me is all about the relationships that I form. Not just the relationships with my cats, but also my wife, my auto mechanic, the person who’s serving my food in the restaurant. And also the relationships I have with my customers. Knowing their preferences and being able to anticipate their needs enables me to provide them with better service, so I seek out opportunities to interact with my customers. I don’t usually pass an opened door without stopping to ask how things are. I do things to try to drive foot traffic into my office so more people will stop by thus allowing me to touch their machines and check for updates and things.

The people I support are pretty important in my eyes. Not only are they educating the next generation of leaders in this country, but we’re also an R-1 research facility where some world class research occurs that has the potential to be life changing! (If you think I’m kidding, the Rice Krispy Treat was invented right here in 1934!)

Life isn’t a series of transactions where you conduct your transaction then move on. The relationships we form are what’s going to pave the way for us work more closely, be more collaborative and resolve conflict more efficiently.