Bill Bolmeier

Finding Inspiration - What Can a Power Company Do During a Power Outage to Better Inform Their Customers?

Recently a power outage happened in my home town.  The power company has an online presence with a website.

I've browsed to their website in the past to check the status of an outage but I think there might be an opportunity to provide more timely information in the event of an outage.

The sooner you have some good information about the power outage, the better you can start planing on what you're going to do.

In this case, browsing to the power company's website on my mobile phone (estremely small font, very hard to read) allowed me to click on a link that showed the affected areas and how many people were in those areas.

That's pretty much it for the information that comes from the power company's website.

Social Media to the Rescue: Email, Facebook, Twitter, Texts

Since the power company is already online and you can access your account online, they also have your email address.  You could opt-in to be notified by email of status updates during the outage.

They would also have a link to their Facebook page, their Twitter account and the number to call to opt-in for text messages.

The company could provide the least amount of information to get started.  Defined by them.  However, timed updates via email would be the best.

Although a crew is deployed to find out what is going on, certainly something like the following updates could be sent via email:

1. Crew deployed to station 20 which handles the areas surrounding <fill in the blank>.
2. Crew arrived at station 20 and has started troubleshooting.
3. Troubleshooting typically takes x miniutes based on historical data.
4. Crew has determined corrective course of action and is estimating power will be back online in approximately x minutes/hours/days, etc.

This would take internal coordination on how something like this would work, but it would make a huge difference and impact on how people prepare for the events in their lives during a power outage.

If a power outage is longer than 3-4 hours and projected to be up to 8, 12, 24 hours, then hourly or every 90 minutes of updates would be incredible news to people.  Messages that include what stage or phase they are in out of x phases (or stages).

That's just a start.  There are so many things that could be done for free with social media.  Providing information by one or two internal social media support persons during a power outage would be a great way to better inform customers of what's happening, what to expect and how they can plan for the coming hours or days.

Photo Credit: Power by Peter Kaminski

Finding Inspiration - Billboards

So I'm driving down the interstate and I decided to take the time to look over at the billboards lined up on a popular stretch of the city interstate.

As I approached and passed each billboard, only one of them out of five made an impression that stuck.

The first four billboards were all very pretty.  There was a nice big logo, a large slogan, and then a small brand name.  Memorable?  No.

If the purpose of billboards are to remind us of a product or service then the first four failed.  You would've had to know what their logo stood for since it was the first thing I noticed.  Then, you'd have to know what the slogan meant and what product or service it represented.

Finally, the brand name was so small, it was very difficult to read it as I drove by the billboard.  Luckily I had a passenger who could tell me what brand name was on the billboard as we got close enough to read it.  I didn't want to take the chance and look over in the middle of fast and congestined interstate traffic.

The fifth and final billboard before my exit was made up of a huge orange background and huge black lettering.  It posed a one word question which read, "SINGLE?" with the website address underneath.  "<insert name of city here in caps>LOVE.COM".  So if you were in a city named Fargo, it would have read FARGOLOVE.COM.  That's it.  Memorable.

The ugly orange caught my eye and the big, bold and black capitalized letters made it memorable.

I can hear it now, "But Bill, our we suppose to litter the interstate system with ugly orange and black billboards?"  To which I say, "Yes, if you must, to shout and be heard above the rest."

Play with the colors though.  I'm sure there are other combinations that will work just as well.  Also, I don't intend to put graphic designers out of work either but I'm sure there's something better and still creative than some of the billboards I saw.

Photo Credit: kevin1024

Finding Inspiration - Pancakes

I love Mickey D's and BK's pancakes.  But, do you expect 2 butters and 1 syrup to cover 3 pancakes?

Considering those pancakes could soak up a minor rainfall, the new standard should be: 3 butters and 2 syrups.  Please implement this new standard and make a ton of people happy, returning customers.

And no, don't make me ask for extra butter and syrup when I get to the cashier.

Thank You.

Photo Credit: love♡janine

Finding Inspiration - Labor Day

Observed on the first Monday of September, the first Labor Day was celebrated in 1882.  President Grover Cleveland (above) made Labor Day a federal holiday in 1894.

Here are a few articles on Labor.

In his article Whatever happened to labor?, Seth Godin talks about how doing exactly what the boss says and wanting to do exactly what the boss says, devalues labor.  Here's a quote I like from the article:

The future of labor isn't in less education, less OSHA and more power to the boss. The future of labor belongs to enlightened, passionate people on both sides of the plant, people who want to do work that matters.

With those words in mind, take a look at a couple presentations on labor from the CBS News Sunday Morning show.  How BMW Deals With an Aging Workforce where BMW came up with solutions to keep a talented aging workforce and lowered costs.

From the same show, an article on an artist who captures vanishing jobs in Preserving on Canvas a Vanishing Way of Life.

Photo Credit: leeuwen_1

Finding Inspiration - Teaching Beginners

How do you teach what you're a master of or extremely proficient at?  When a beginner comes along and asks you for guidance or any insight on how you did what you did, how do you respond?

Do you gladly, with an incredible attitude, offer a ton of information to the person coming up in your field, asking questions about where they're at so you can give some guidance?  Knowing that they have to start and do all the work themselves anyway.  Do you make an impression that could last a lifetime?

Or...

Do you take the stance that you've spent tons of money on education and gained tons of experience through time and hard work, and you're not going to give that information away for free?  Taking the breath out of the person asking, making another impression that will last a lifetime.

Photo Credit: Wonderlane

Finding Inspiration - Refunds

If you have a business and someone buys something from you, and then they try to return it after your designated refund period, what would you do and why?

Stand outside yourself and give your business a rating on your refund policy.  How would you do as far as what customers would experience if they tried to return something based on your refund policy?  Would you be able to keep that customer?  What would the customers tell others?

Finding Inspiration - Printing Web Pages

Need to print unruly webpages without all the clutter?  There are two tools I use that help print just the text you need from web pages.

They are Readability and Printliminator.  Both tools are bookmarklets or badges if you like, that you drag to your toolbar and use when you want to print something from the web without all the stuff that is on a web page.

Both tools are excellent at what they do but they both need an option called "Blog Express".  This would strip everything from a blog article like Readability does but keep the comments.  Readability is an excellent tool because it allows you to keep the print nicely formatted..

Right now Readability only prints the text of the blog article and not the comments.  That's why I use both.  And that's why I think they both should have a "Blog Express" options.  Strip everything from the page except the article and the comments, then print.  "Walla!"

When I want to print a blog article including the comments, I use Readability to print the blog article, click Readability's refresh button to bring back all the junk on the web page and then click on The Printliminator tool to tweak down the page to just the comments.  That way the article prints and then the comments print right after that. "Walla!", again.

Want to print the entire webpage with all the clutter?  I used to use Snagit 8 for that because they had an option you could print the entire web page.  It would automatically scroll the page for you and capture it as an image.  Pretty cool.  However, it doesn't work anymore.  I've tested on 3 different PCs with 5 different browsers.  Oh well.  There's one more solution for that issue - Firefox's add-on called Screengrab!

As you can see there are many solutions to one problem, it's just finding the right ONE to do what you need it to do.

Photo Credit: Horia Varlan

Finding Inspiration - Registering For Online Seminars

If I'm on your email list, then don't make me sign up again for one of your online seminars.  You have my email address which means I've voluntarily opted in for what you're sending me via your list.

If you hold an online seminar, use a tool like WebEx or a similar service that is super easy to join an online seminar.  To hold a seminar using Webex, invite the people on your email list.  All they have to do is click the link in an email to the session and their in.

Go an extra mile: If people on your list miss the online seminar, record it and offer a link the next day or soon after that to your subscribers.  Make sure you provide a link for the video and the mp3 audio file.  That way I can listen to the mp3 if I don't have video support on my mp3 player.  Oh yea, tell them you're going to do that before the seminar so they know they'll be able to get it shortly after the seminar.

Another mile: If your online seminar features some great speaker, you don't have to sell me by telling me how much the speaker normally charges for doing one of these events.  This type of information can lead to too much hype which could lead to making your attendees feel stupid or tricked.  Make sure the speaker has valuable information to show and share with us, and then everyone can decide if the speaker is great.

Another mile: Tell people what stuff they need to attend the seminar and provide a link to it.  In other words, if the person attending your online seminar needs Java, make sure you give them a URL they can go to now to test whether they have Java installed and working.  Make sure the link is bold.  This will reduce frustration when folks attend the online seminar.

Photo Credit: CarbonNYC

Finding Inspiration - Web Articles Spread Over Multiple Web Pages

While reading the web, I run into too many articles that are spread over multiple web pages.  When this happens, the publisher of that article has spread the article over more than one web page so you have to press a "next" link button to read the next page, and the next, and the next.

I usually don't read these articles because of that and they seem to come from bigger publishers. I just ran into one of these articles and it was less than 1,000 words.  Just Stop It!!  Even if the article is 5,000 words, put the article on one whole web page.

Finding Inspiration - Project Closure

Project Closure

Are you a project manager?  Have you ever closed a project by just killing it.  And I mean killing it in a good way, in a freaking incredible way.  What does closing a project by killing it mean to me?

The answer: You proactively address every issue that is hanging out there at the end of the project.

Sounds easy but it's really hard to do.

Issue List
Make a list of every issue during the project that the customer mentions.  Additionally, go around and gather every issue from the people that are affected by the outcome of the project.  Focus on owning the list.  You know every issue on the list and you know how to resolve every issue.

Review The Issues List
Go over the issues list with your client's project manager.  Set dates and times on when they'll be resolved.  Don't expect the customer to be responsible for reminding you.  Somehow make it so you are the one doing the work to resolve issues and not you making the client resolve the issue and report back to you.

Follow Up
Call the customer every month for 3-6 months after the project, making sure every issue is accounted for and resolved.  You're not asking if everything's resolved on the issues list you're telling what's been done and what you and your company are doing to resolve every issue on the issues list.  Find out if there's any new issues that need to be addressed - by you.

Additional Project Meetings
Put together additional project meetings at the end especially if unresolved issues affect multiple people.  During those meetings make sure I don't have anything to do that I need to get back to you about before you make it better for me.

"Killing It"

• Do not walk away from the table "assigning" tasks to your customer.
• Surprise me by knowing the issues I don't even know about and the steps you've taken to resolve them.

Photo Credit: jayneandd