Quality over Quantity

Some people approach social media as a way to to get as many messages out about themselves, their business, or projects as possible.  They figure the price of joining most social networks is free, so it becomes an open river into which to dump their messages, regardless of who they reach or the impact they have on anybody downstream.  It’s all about loading up the pipes at the top, with little concern about where the pipes empty out on the other end.  This is clearly a quantity-based approach.

Google Adwords often work on a quantity based approach.  Google will serve up your ad in a slightly targeted way, but the return on serve v. actual click through or conversion is incredibly small in the vast majority of cases.  It is a great way to generate traffic for special events, promotions and the like, but very few of those folks seem to stick around long term as clients or audience.

A quality approach requires more effort.  It means talking when you have something to say.  It means thinking of when and where you place messages, and who you are trying to reach.  It means narrowing the scope of your messages and audience.  It requires more time and thought, but the quality of your interactions, conversations and conversions will likely improve.

While quantity gives you an initial buzz and a feeling you are doing “something”, the quality and staying power is smaller than the more thoughtful, quality approach.  Online, we’re deluged with information, but it’s much more difficult to get knowledge.  Information needs to be processed and needs to be relevant to the audience to make an impact, which is the whole reason anyone picks up a book or newspaper- we don’t need more unprocessed information- we need knowledge, and hopefully, wisdom.

You’re always going to get much farther with any message you want other people to receive- a marketing message, teaching a child to tie their shoes or motivate them to clean their room, learn about american history, convince someone to do business with you, talking to your spouse, tweeting or putting an update on facebook- it doesn’t matter where, what or when- if you keep your audience in mind and focus on quality over quantity.

That’s the way to build relationships and a receptive audience for the long term- give people what they want, when they want it.  You’re not always going to hit it perfectly, but if you focus on quality over quantity, the return in the end will be higher.  I promise.

AT&T Microcell- Solutions!

UPDATE: (And possible solutions if you are having issues…)

You can read the part of my original post , where I just couldn’t recommend the Microcell because of the headaches I was experiencing getting the thing set up.  The root of the problem(s) I experienced turned out to be largely a web activation problem.(!)

After hours of unsuccessful phone based customer service, I started to whine on Twitter and got a rep to respond there.  (Yet another Twitter is my Hero story coming, I’m afraid!)  I got a hold of an AT& T customer service rep. (@ATT Chris) and he put me directly in touch with the Microcell service team. (Why the phone staff couldn’t do this, I have no idea.)

A wonderful guy, Gerard Morales (hope I spelled that correctly), walked me through the process.  The documentation for setting up the Microcell has two options, one that uses a wifi router and one that uses the direct modem that connects to your ISP.

Basically, Microcell needs to be working in parallel, not serial, with your ISP connection.  When it was set up in serial, it was hogging bandwidth from the modem directly, and blocking our internet connection altogether.  Once we had the Microcell instead plugged into the wifi router (Apple Time Capsule), and did a deactivation and reactivation on the AT&T website, we were up and going in minutes.

In essence, all the time I spent on the phone with customer service was based on a bit of a red herring- a backend, server side activation issue.  It caused people to assume it was an “idiot customer failed to plug stuff in right” problem, not that the website activation portion could possibly be at fault.

The rejiggering the cables, plugs, connections and everything else on my end (per instructions from phone-based customer service) was not the problem at all.   Once we handled an activation/deactivation sequence and reconnected everything correctly, we were fine.

So for anyone else wasting a weekend day with microcell activation issues, here are the steps.

1. If you are having activation problems, go to the AT&T website and sign into your account.

2. Go to Manage AT&T 3G Microcell settings on the left hand side of the screen.

3.  Deactivate the Microcell.  (The website will walk you through this.)

Now, the hardware.

4. Use the yellow ethernet cable and plug it into the Microcell, and then plug the other end of the cable into an open port on your wifi router.

5. Connect the power cord to the Microcell.

6. See what happens.  In a short period of time, the microcell got up and functioning, and we were in business.  I didn’t even have to go and “reactivate” the account on the AT&T website.

I have to say, all the customer service people were fantastic, but most of the front line reps just don’t understand the Microcell setup.  Before you know it, people are worried about router port settings and you are off to making a simple problem really complicated, when it can be as simple as a website activation problem.

Let’s here it for people making a simple problem more complicated than it needs to be, and assuming that the software is infallible.  Guess what?  It’s not always the customer’s problem, folks.  It surely can be, but not always.  And Occam’s Razor of “try the simple stuff first” ended up being the answer.

And I swear, if I ever am in Seattle, I will buy your awesome customer service rep, Theresa, a coffee.  She was great.  ATT Chris and Gerard Morales, you are on my Christmas card list, for sure.

Thanks again for solving the problem and I am sure I will love the Microcell once the emotional scars scab over.

Tags: AT&T, AT&T microcell fix, microcell, microcell connection fix, Microcell connection issues, microcell connection solution

AT&T’s Microcell Micro Disaster

Please See End of Post for Suggestions on how to fix any connection errors on your AT&T Microcell…

Initial Post and Complaint:

I am a geek.  I am tech savvy.  I can set up wireless networks in the house, I can set up all sorts of gear- so plugging stuff in in series and getting it up and going isn’t a big problem for me.

We also are iPhone addicts, but we live in an area where the cell reception is erratic at best.  So when AT&T announced its Microcell to improve connectivity, I was psyched and called right away to get on the wait list for it.  In this area, we even have problems getting consistent 3G coverage- often it keeps dropping down to Edge, so the microcell, even at a cost, was a welcomed piece of news.   While I understand folks who complain about AT & T’s poor coverage, I also know I live in a semi-suburban area outside Wilmington DE, and all carriers have dodge-y connections here.  I also understand that the iPhone and iPads have turned normal cell phone users into data hogs, and the influx of folks now using mobile data at a drop of a hat would overwhelm any company’s network.  I’ve tried to be patient and understanding, knowing that putting up cell towers is not instantaneous.  It’s a time-intensive process, even after all the legal hassles and property rights have been resolved.  So they have all my deepest sympathies going into this.

I got even more excited when we received a coupon that let us go pick up a microcell for free at a local AT&T store.   It made me feel less whiny for all the times I logged on to my “service problems” app and repeatedly complained about our poor reception at home.  AT &T was going to fix it for us, and I was thrilled.

My husband picked up the unit and tried setting it up, but he’s rather impatient.  So when I got home from our recent trip, I sat down to give activation a try.

The first hurdle is that after you try to activate the microcell online, you have to wait 90 minutes to see whether or not the activation worked.  After an hour and a half, I am naturally off doing other things, so I tried to get it set up one afternoon, and waited until the next morning to check- but the activation had a problem.  I went through all the troubleshooting steps, set and rest everything, and still- activation problem.

When I called customer service, they informed me it was a server side error on their part.  So they allegedly fixed that and we tried again.  Nope- now they claimed it was a cable problem, so we got the router out of the way, and did everything directly through our cable modem to the microcell.  We know the cable modem and router work fine, but the microcell won’t “talk” to my computer and prevents any signal from the cable modem from reaching my computer once it’s inserted into the circuit.

Several more phone calls, waiting periods, guesses and the like later, and I have spent close to ten hours on this set up, much of it on the phone with AT&T representatives, only one of which hung up on me.  Theresa was particularly lovely and helpful, but we still are at an impasse and the thing is still not working properly.

Part of me is incredibly stubborn, and just wants to get the thing working, because I assume that once it is up, I will be so much happier with my service.  (Because our home 3G service is so poor, I opted against a 3G ipad and went for wifi only-for this reason alone).  The microcell possibility even had me second guessing that decision.

Yet, as of this writing, the Microcell is stubbornly resistant to any intervention tried by me or the AT&T customer service folks.

While I wait to get the situation resolved, I have to say I am not sure the Microcell, a brilliant solution to connectivity issues using broadband service most customers already have in their home, is ready for prime time.  Maybe a slower roll out would have helped.  But maybe you don’t know what’s going to happen until you start rolling the gear out to customers and field test it, for good or for ill.

I’m trying to find the silver lining here and find a way to understand why this process is so difficult and burdensome.  But I am at a loss.  And I would love it if we could just finally get this problem resolved, without spending another day arguing with this thing.  I am frustrated and the ever changing story about cables vs. Server side vs. modem settings debate is getting silly.

Please see next post for Updates and Solutions if you are having problems.

Tags: AT&T, AT&T microcell fix, customer service, microcell, Microcell connection issues, microcell connection solutions, microcell fix, not ready for prime time

Teachers and Mentors

Seth Godin has a great blog post  about two different types of teaching- one that’s all about facts and procedures, and one that’s more about learning to see and solve interesting problems.  This caught my attention, because I’ve been having alot of conversations lately with folks about what makes a good teacher, and the difference between “teaching” and being a mentor.

In the medical profession, folks graduate from medical school, but they are not yet ready to go out and practice medicine- they need to do some more formal training- a residency- usually in some sort of specialty.  (Even family practice is a specialty.)  Yet in residency, the training and additional education young doctors need before they can practice on their own comes in two forms.  One is specialized reading- sometimes the reading is assigned, but most of the time, it is assumed you will use your “educational money” and buy the specialty text books you’ll need, not only as a resident but in practice, when you come up against something you might not have seen before.  The second is on the job practice, where you see patients but are supervised by another “attending” physician, who is supposed to help you learn and guide you, like a mentor.  Not all doctors teaching residents are good at imparting the art of their practice to others, as well as the base knowledge required to do the job.  Practicing medicine and teaching it are two different things, and not everyone is good at both.

Similarly, many teachers went into teaching because they love learning.  They loved being in school themselves.  They loved having a guiding path through all the cool stuff there is to know, and somewhere along the way, decided they wanted to do this themselves.  They mastered the whole school process, start to finish. They almost have a nostalgia for school- it is a precious place to them.   But the problem is often that the best students don’t always make the best teachers.

Teaching is a different skill set from learning.  While teaching and learning are clearly complimentary, they are not the same thing.  My dad, for example, was a brilliant engineer, and fantastic at math.  Yet when he tried to help me with calculus homework, I often ended up frustrated and in tears.  For me, the conflict arose because he largely couldn’t remember what it was like not to know all this math, and couldn’t explain it in a way a neophyte would understand- what the Heath Brothers call “The Curse of Knowledge” in their great book, Made to Stick. I think many teachers suffer from this problem as well-they love their subject matter and understand it so well that they have a hard time remembering what it was like not to know.

The skill of being able to be a guide through complicated material, all while making it an exciting and engaging process is a rare skill.  While I think there are methods and checklists and other tools people can use to help make what they know accessible to others, great teaching is an art form.  It requires not only understanding the subject area, but understanding it well enough and liking it enough that you can make it exciting for almost anyone.  It requires a bit of stage presence, improv skills, and being able to communicate with the students so you know what they understand and what they don’t.  Teaching at its best, is an interactive experience between teacher and student. (This is also why going to high school or college just by watching a bunch of DVD’s is not equivalent to being enrolled in a real school with real classrooms, but I digress.)

Sometimes the best teachers are people who are less interested in the one true path, but recognize there are many individual ways to get to the same goal.  They are good mentors, guides and parents.  They are interested in someone else’s success, and they get joy in seeing others succeed, and don’t worry that someone else may be smarter than they are- in fact, the best teachers are often looking for those smarter than themselves, so they can continue learning and growing themselves.

The essence of a great teacher involves being passionate about your subject area, and being a fantastic communicator, who can turn that love of knowledge into a spark of inspiration and curiosity in others.  It’s the reason why I think all teachers should learn a bit about marketing and the way people turn commercial ideas into what Seth Godin would call “an idea virus” that spreads on its own.  Using the tools the Heath Brothers talk about in Made to Stick, for example, can help anybody make their ideas and communications more effective and more memorable, by essentially hacking what our brain natively finds most interesting.  This can help business people end “death by powerpoint” presentations, but it can just as easily make you a better writer, a better teacher, and a better communicator across the board.

In the end, good teaching requires that people are personally invested in the process and look on it as mentoring as well as a delivery of knowledge vehicle.  The teacher might be driving the bus, but the bus can be an old school bus, a greyhound, a tricked out  tour bus, a local or express.  The bus comes in many sizes, varieties and with different amenities.  But unless the bus is responsive to the needs of the passengers, and can get them to where they need to be, it’s not very useful.  The driver, like a good teacher, needs to be aware of the road, the path, and the needs of the passengers in order to do the best job possible.

We need to make sure all of our teachers- at every level, from elementary through graduate school, training and beyond- understand not only how to make lesson plans, but how to meet the needs of kids in their classrooms.  And sometimes, it’s going to require “marketing” that science lesson, history or math to a group of reluctant learners, to get them on the right road in the long run.

Are you a good teacher?  What makes a good teacher to you?  Is it a skill or an art or a mixture of both?

Tags: education, heath brothers, made to stick, mentors, seth godin, teaching

How We Pay Matters

I’m starting to think how we pay people for work done matters.

Cash feels like we’re handing something tangible to another person.  It’s real.  It’s limited in our pockets and wallets, even if we can go to an ATM and replenish our supply.  Psychologically, I treat cash in my wallet differently than I treat plastic, even when I use my debit card, and as a result, I tend to make more careful and considered choices.

Checks are the next level of payment.  They require us to write out the number, consider the balance in our account, and otherwise take stock of what the numbers and payment mean in a larger context.  While it separates us a degree from the cash transaction, it still requires a more intensive action than other forms of payment.

Payments by debit and credit card are more elusive.  We can get stuff by flashing this little piece of plastic for goods, but the day of reckoning is not immediate.  We can easily overextend the amount we intended to spend, and even exceed our limit, with little or no consequences until some point in the future. (Unless of course, you are in enough debt to warrant a phone call about exceeding your limit while in the store.)  This postponing of accountability for money spent tends to make the expenditure itself feel somewhat artificial, and the bill at the end of the month has caught more than one consumer by surprise.

Banks know this, of course.  The more people that spend through plastic and the fewer that pay through cash, the more they are likely to spend and the more fees and interest are generated for the company.  This is why people are given debit cards almost automatically for every bank account, with the hopes that you will spend your money, rather than make the bank hold on to it for you.  Your deposit is an asset for you, but a liability in the big picture to the bank, who then “owes” you that money on demand.

It’s also why new forms of transactions- electronic, the wave of a pass at a gas station or card machine, or payment through a cell phone or text message are equally attractive to people wanting your money, but more dangerous for you, as the exchange seems less and less real, less memorable, and the only reminder is the bill at the end of the month.  Even that ugly physical reminder of your spending and psychological prompt to be more judicious in your spending is becoming removed to the digital realm, where every company is encouraging you to pay bills electronically, saving them the cost of mail and of processing your check.  It also removes any and all excuses for “But the check’s in the mail” or “I never got my statement”.

As this recession drags on and people continue to have money troubles of one form or another, maybe one place to consider making changes is in the form of payment you choose.  Cash will keep you more accountable by far.

However, even I succumb to the lure of electronic payment of debt.  I put my kids on a plan where I direct deposit their allowances into their account, eliminating every debate about allowance, but likewise complicating and making the threat of suspending allowance all the more distant and vague.  They love feeling like grownups and having more control over how they spend their allowance, including using a debit card.  I’m hoping this will teach them how to manage money, even virtually, while they’re young, rather than having their first credit and debit experience closer to college.

Virtual payments and management of money and credit are skills we all need to have.  Build these skills into your kids as soon as you can, because these payments are not just in the future, but they are the now.  And the more divorced we becoming from the tangible forms of payment, the less direct accountability and more mistakes we’re all prone to make.

Tags: economics, money, social media