qotd agust 03

qotd agust 03. William Gibson: “The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.” [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

Identity Theft Is Big Business

Identity Theft Is Big Business. “ID theft has become the all-American crime of the information age. The crime is thriving in cities and suburbs, and in all regions of the nation,” accordingn to Alan Westin, professor emeritus of public law and government at Columbia University. The New York Times reports that a survey by Harris Interactive concludes that… Continue reading Identity Theft Is Big Business

XPrize craft

Rutan's XPrize craft (thanks Ole) called SpaceShipOne.  Totally remakes the idea of a spacecraft.  Nice!  Some more pics: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14. A visit to Rutan's company site, Scaled Composites, shows how dangerous this business can be. [John Robb's Weblog]

Video extraction and TiVo

Video extraction and TiVo. Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research recently raved about Windows Media Center XP over TiVo mainly due to the ability to transfer recorded shows to his laptop. Even though Media Center XP has felt a little buggy to me and I've enjoyed years of TiVo, I would agree with Gartenberg that watching… Continue reading Video extraction and TiVo

Tinderbox 2.0

Tinderbox 2.0. The major new Tinderbox release is out at last. Tinderbox 2 is even faster than before, has lots of new features for better export and smarter agents, and talks to lots of weblog tools. [Mark Bernstein]

Customer Service and K-Logs.  What customer activities have shifted to the Web (based on a Forrester study on the sales of complex goods):
  1. Researching product information (90%)
  2. Comparing product features and prices (58%)
  3. Contacting customer service (56%)
  4. Locating a store or distributor (42%)
  5. Checking product availability (36%)

Which of these activities could be enhanced by corporate use of weblogging?

  1. A weblog, built and maintained by a product manager, could provide customers with an active resource on the products they are deciding to buy. 
  2. This could be accomplished by building a spreadsheet comparing (feature by feature) several different products, and publishing to a weblog as an additional page accessed by the navigation system.  Additional comparison info could be presented in a weblog format for easy consumption.
  3. Contacting customer service on most sites is painful.  Additionally, the FAQs and resource databases seem put together by monkeys (albeit highly paid ones).  A simple way to generate an extremely valuable and organic customer service data is to have each rep publish a weblog.  The question, including keywords, is the title of the post.  The answer is the response. 
  4. Not really applicable, but for many companies the local outlet doesn't have an effective Web presence (not even for coupons, specials, etc.).  A simple weblog with a corporate template would suffice.
  5. New poducts should be hyped via a weblog.  Features, improvements, etc would all factor into the weblog's posts.  A simple countdown clock would track the days or hours to availability.
[John Robb's Weblog

Customer Service and K-Logs.  What customer activities have shifted to the Web (based on a Forrester study on the sales of complex goods): Researching product information (90%) Comparing product features and prices (58%) Contacting customer service (56%) Locating a store or distributor (42%) Checking product availability (36%) Which of these activities could be enhanced by corporate… Continue reading Customer Service and K-Logs.  What customer activities have shifted to the Web (based on a Forrester study on the sales of complex goods):

  1. Researching product information (90%)
  2. Comparing product features and prices (58%)
  3. Contacting customer service (56%)
  4. Locating a store or distributor (42%)
  5. Checking product availability (36%)

Which of these activities could be enhanced by corporate use of weblogging?

  1. A weblog, built and maintained by a product manager, could provide customers with an active resource on the products they are deciding to buy. 
  2. This could be accomplished by building a spreadsheet comparing (feature by feature) several different products, and publishing to a weblog as an additional page accessed by the navigation system.  Additional comparison info could be presented in a weblog format for easy consumption.
  3. Contacting customer service on most sites is painful.  Additionally, the FAQs and resource databases seem put together by monkeys (albeit highly paid ones).  A simple way to generate an extremely valuable and organic customer service data is to have each rep publish a weblog.  The question, including keywords, is the title of the post.  The answer is the response. 
  4. Not really applicable, but for many companies the local outlet doesn't have an effective Web presence (not even for coupons, specials, etc.).  A simple weblog with a corporate template would suffice.
  5. New poducts should be hyped via a weblog.  Features, improvements, etc would all factor into the weblog's posts.  A simple countdown clock would track the days or hours to availability.

[John Robb's Weblog

K-Log Productivity

K-Log Productivity Measurement:  Time to find and availability. [John Robb's Weblog]

Business Week

Business Week:  Verizon's big bet.  Fiber to the home. NICE!  Amazing, it looks like it is finally on its way.  With fiber connections in place, the technological advances in optical technology that are rapidly reducing price/performance ratios of bandwidth at the core of the Internet, will be extended to individual users (starting with connections at 10… Continue reading Business Week

KMWorld magazine

From KMWorld magazine:  How to measure the bottom line performance of KM systems. Trotta provides some examples of how those seemingly “soft” benefits (of KM systems) can be linked to the bottom line.  Employee satisfaction can mean less turnover, which in turn reduces the costs involved in recruiting and training new employees.  Improved workflow can mean… Continue reading KMWorld magazine