Where good ideas come from

(a book by Steven Johnson)

With this new book, Steven Johnson re-connects with his previous bestseller: "Everything Bad is Good for You" and the more recent: "The Invention of Air" which we liked so much, and posted about quite a bit here and there.

We also love the way Riverhead Books is sharing this ...amazing visualization.

Coolest teacher ever... yep

Imagine this setting and such a cool learning environment to study maths... or whatever?

Social Media ROI

... notice the credit for the music at the end and the reference to iTunes... other than the fact that I don't particularly like hamburgers... it seems to me it's pretty cool (I'd recommend you use pause a lot, to follow the text, check on the data... it does go too fast! - they could improve that with just a twitch).

Direct link to the Socialnomics09 channel in YouTube - This was posted on Nov. 12, 2009.

Customer Creative Complaint

Via YouTube: link to the video

It seems they finally got the company's attention... See: Link to Dave Carroll's "statement" thanking the supporters and United ...

Of course you need the talent and the creativity, not to mention the production resources of these guys... read Dave Carroll sharing the whole story. Way to go to respond to customer service lousy service and lack of attention.

A mere discount offer not made effective, can't even begin to compare with the above story... still, the lousy service frames are similar: can someone please think of a creative way to educate Vodafone that it's NOT cool to have to spend 1 hour & circa 8 calls throughout the day -their service went down as informed by their call center- talking to different people (did I say talking? think tough negotiation...) to "make them aware" that they did offer a 6 months 30% discount effective "immediately". It's now July, and my invoice has reflected the discount only one month after many calls. Yesterday once more they "confirmed" they'll do something about it... subject "to approval by the finance department! Achievement: finally got a claim ref. number.

Students report most teleco's locally play this game and other tricks "normally". It's easy to verify that it takes at least 3 calls resulting in a catch 22 situation if you want to report this to the authorities:

The Telecommunications Customer Service Office, www.usuariosteleco.es (or call 901 336 699 which is a paid call via Teleco's) won't speak to you unless you give them a written proof by the teleco (which they know you won't get because it's all done via call centers...) They inform you should go to the Oficina Municipal de Consumo, or call @ 012 and pay the teleco's again to learn that Consumer's Official Rep. for the County wont speak to you if it's about teleco's..., they say you "can go" to the Dirección General de Telecomunicación... in person, 9.00 - 12.00 hrs. This a Gila joke?(*) You need an electronic signature to do any on-line... for which you need to get in touch with the local council... here we go again: no good if you're not using windows...etc.

From a customer's perspective, the so called protocol via numberless call center transfers keeps you "entertained" by operators who will ask for same data again and again during the same call, ID, address in full and you name it... me guesses: betting you'll eventually give up the discount. What have they gained? You stay hooked maybe for another 3-4 months... eventually confirming your desire to cancel the contract. That smart? Not for Telefonica de España (is it's true they want to improve customer loyalty?), lost me as a customer after numberless "calls" to report lousy service regarding my associated domain name and related mail ops., which was hosted via one of their companies. I did achieve several claim ref. nbrs. ... to no avail.

(*) Link to video clip of the artist.

Note: Observing Gila in the social & historical context it belongs... many years have gone past and still, we find some of those cultural trait's alive and kicking today, many years later. (social semiosis informing). If you want to learn more, there's an entry in Wikipedia but in Spanish only. What's even better it the debate on given information reflected here.

(!) edited to include updates: July 14, seems the story now has landed in CNN, Huffingtonpost, boingboing, nbcchicago, wikipedia.org, Fox News, amongst others... and last but not least for they published first on July 8th, (clip went up on the 6th) CBCnews.ca

(!) the count on YouTube today July 14th: 2,716,092 views and some nice replies via Twitter.com/UnitedAirlines

The Computer HIstory Museum

Amazing trip through time and evolving "Thinking Tools" visiting The Computer History Museum, courtesy of Rocktboom: daily internet culture Blog and YouTube Channel.

Ellie Roundtree from Rocketboom visits the Computer History Museum.

What a wonderful museum... See the Exhibit:

Internet History to learn more about the transformation and timeline of what we now know as "the internet", which became part of the infrastructure we can't go without. So much so, that we now take the internet and access to web content, to be a human right. Author Nicholas Carr explored a historical analogy with electrical utilities replacing in-house generators in his book: The Big Switch. Rewiring the world, from Edison to Google. (We read excerpts of it in class with adult English students and they loved the stories it brings forth).

Pity that Carr prefers to support Encyclopaedia Britannica, by hitting on Wikipedia and cricizing the quality of volunteer Web 2.0 information, and the blogosphere... Reading the Wikipedia page on Nicholas Carr, it informs that Carr became a member of the Editorial Board of Advisors of Encycloaedia Britannica in 2008. In any case, his critique was dealt with constructively by Wikipedia's leaders, and has therefore contributed to some quality improvements. Proof that: debating different perspectives in civilized ways can pave the way to new findings and improvements.

Wikipedia also leads us to another interesting debate, that of Nicholas Carr and author Yochai Benkler: well... more like a bet really. So far blogging has proved not to be "a fad", quoting The Guardian: "So the wager is half-on. Bookmark Carr's site for 2011. If, of course, blogging proves not just to be a fad." 2011 is not too far away. What do you think about this: will peer production processes or will price-incentivized systems... lead the majority of the contents on the web? in any case... "does it matter"?