It Shouldn't Be That Hard

Over the past many months I've been making changes to the way I do things here at Dan Pelley Educational Services. I've discontinued my rarely used in-bound toll free number and expanded my on line presence. I parted company with my primary e-mail provider and added a more user friendly one. I've begun to accept ACH transfers as payments from customers. I'm also re-evaluating our use of fax, email and other tools as well.

Because of this, I found myself needing new business cards. Ordinarily I would go to Image Printing, a company I have been pleased to work with for many years. However, since I've already changed my primary email address twice in the last three months, and because I'm still not convinced which email system is best suited to my primary email needs, I didn't want the expense of professional printing for cards that may become obsolete very soon.

After seeing business card blank forms in a catalog, I decided to try them. They are made by an office supply company that is well recognized. I've used many of their other products over the years. They offered free on line templates compatible with my word processor, plus three other ways to design and print business cards. So I bought a pack of 200 cards to try it.

I then spent many, many miserable hours trying to do a simple layout and print job that ended up ranking among the top ten aggravating frustrating computer experiences I've had over the years (and I've had a lot of them). I should have known I was in for trouble when most user evaluations of the template I needed were 1 star or less. "Trash, junk, garbage, useless" is what most of them said. Except for one who talked about successfully using the tools and conventions for tables.

Okay. That made sense. After all I thought, five rows and two columns of business cards is most likely organized as a table. Besides, I've successfully used this company's templates for mailing labels in the past, how hard can this be? I downloaded the template. The download process wasn't seamless, but it wasn't all that bad to get through. And of course it included the obligatory collection of my email address as well as a routing through a page of other products, just in case I wanted to buy more things while I was in the process of learning how to use what I just bought.

Yes, I got a table. And a very strange one indeed. When I clicked on select table I got one cell. Some table functions seemed to work. Other table functions did not. Adding graphics was extremely difficult (but I find adding graphics in my word processor often tends to be difficult). Cut and paste gave me very strange results. Hours had gone by. I actually had one cell complete with a business card the way I wanted it (including my logo graphics), but just couldn't get all 10 cells of the table to replicate perfectly.

In frustration I went back to the company website from whence the template came. A second option was to use their "wizard" which (they said) would work with all their products and would be compatible with my word processor as well as several other programs. I could easily add logos and graphics to all their products. Download was free. So I did it. More routing through pages where I could get distracted by other offerings. the obligatory email address again, another not quite seamless download and nearly 100 Mb later, there I was .

And there I dropped. Turns out their easy-to-use system was a stripped down version of my word processor that lacked such tools as edit text box or edit picture. Complete waste of time.

Well, I then reasoned, I think I can just use my word processor tools to create a table to the specifications I needed. And I did. With much frustration and aggravation due to the exactness I needed and the tendency of software systems do things (by default) that that you really didn't want. But I did it. I printed the first sheet of business cards six hours after throwing away the "wizard" and going it alone.

My friends it just shouldn't be that hard to create a business card.

One last thought here. This situation is an example of how a good brand name gets tarnished. I have known and trusted this brand name for years. In the past I would purchase their products without question. I trusted them on the quality of their products and services. Today I look at them somewhat differently. And that's the lesson for today. Too many companies are so busy gathering your email address, routing you through product offerings, and trying so hard to get you to buy more that they fail to properly deliver the product or service you paid them for. ( Click here to see a related post).

About Pelleyblog. This blog covers topics of interest to managers, particularly those at the first-line supervisor level. Occasionally we include topics of general interest, topics about Dan Pelley's background and experiences, and a rare occasional rant. We welcome your comments on this or any other post.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.

One Bite at a Time

I don't know about you, but I think our government's approach to health care reform is asinine. Trying to change one-sixth of our economy in 1000 pages or more of government gobbledy gook that has so tight a deadline that very few of our esteemed "leaders" have read it and fewer still understand it. Our "leaders" tell us that "doing nothing is not acceptable." I would tell you that putting water on burning magnesium the worst thing you can do.

I know, I know. Water on a fire is generally good. But did you know that water has an explosive effect on burning magnesium? People who don't know what they are doing shouldn't be in a big rush to do it. As one newspaper columnist put it the other day, "our government believes that doing nothing is worse than doing it wrong. They fail to remember that haste does make waste."

I agree that we do need health care reform. My biggest objection to the current process is the apparent desire to tackle everything at once. It's like trying to swallow the elephant whole. Yet the old saying that applies here is "The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time."

Those of you who have studied project planning with me know that I am a big proponent of comprehensive project plans that are thorough and detailed. You know that I believe in thorough planning to eliminate as many unforeseen situations and unintended consequences (oops) as possible. You also know that I believe that project plans should be "written in pencil" and we should "carry a big eraser" so we can quickly modify the plan as our project experience unfolds. You also know that it's best to have contingency plans in place so to be prepared to handle the unexpected in a professional way.

There have been, however, situations in my career where I have been given "hot" projects that didn't lend themselves to lots of planning. Often times these projects involved taking over one sort of disaster or another; disasters that were often caused by a lack of proper planning in the first place. My approach to those "hot" projects (where doing nothing was unacceptable) was to (quickly) take one bite at a time. Find one element and nail it in. One. Use that as a basis and nail in a second. If the second doesn't fit without adjusting the first, then adjust the first and re-nail it. Next nail in the third, adjusting one and two as necessary. Keep nailing things and at some point you'll have enough solid framework to allow more thorough and comprehensive planning for further steps.

Not so different from the medical world when it has an emergency that must be dealt with now. They know they can't do everything at once. That's what triage is all about. Or the ABCDE (airway, breathing, circulation, disability,exposure) of severe multiple injury (trauma) treatment. Shouldn't our government take a more structured approach to health care as well?

About me: Dan Pelley teaches project planning as part of his "Managing for Results" program, one of five programs leading to a Certificate in Supervisory Management. He welcomes your comments on this post. Was it useful for you? You can easily respond via the comments link below.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.

Hit Any Key to Continue

Have you seen that cartoon? The version I saw had a duck standing in front of a computer with a grimace on his face and a rather large mallet raised over his head. The tag line said "Hit any key to continue." That's how I felt yesterday and why I am way behind today.

Saturday night I got a message from Microsoft asking me to download their newest version of Explorer. Seems like I get these update notices at least two or three times a week from this software company or that. Some companies have very smooth updates, such as Avast anti-virus. Others are a horror show. Take Adobe Software for example. I try not to update their programs as I generally find substantial problems afterward. With Microsoft it's a mixed bag. Sometimes good. Sometimes not so good.

Because updates often require a restart, I try to do them during off hours. Saturday night seemed to be a good time to get the Explorer 8 update done. Since then I've had a devil of a time using the copy and paste function in Blogger. When I am in Blogger using Explorer 8 I can't copy any text within the blog post using the blog editor, nor can I copy and paste anything from my Microsoft word files to blog posts. Since I started blogging, I've never had a problem with this although I've read many complaints from people who have had the problem in the past. Looking at some of the solutions given for past complaints, some people suggest using a plain text editor. So I copied from Word to Notepad, then from Notepad to Blogger; no luck.

I wasted hours on this yesterday. It's frustrating and time consuming. Worse, I have reprint permission for several posts written by others that I want to scan in to Word, edit them, and copy and paste to the blog. Obviously all of this is on hold. And, with me in a very busy month program-wise, time is limited.

Using both Google and Microsoft products extensively, I get the very real impression they don't like each other and work very hard to avoid cooperating. When people send me Word attachments in gmail, Google suggests I open them with Google docs. Yet Google docs has very little by way of capabilities. When I try to open them in Word, Microsoft tells me it can't deal with them without an upgrade? How come I don't have that problem with other email providers.

So why do I think the problem is Explorer 8? Because I write this post today using Mozilla Firefox instead of Explorer 8. And I can copy and paste back and forth between Blogger and Word quite nicely. Ah ha, you say. Problem solved. Unfortunately not. When I try to publish a post with copy and paste, I get all kinds of errors. I finally found a crude way around them so I can use copy and paste but at the moment it's difficult and time-consuming.

So here's today's post to let you know why you don't have a good solid business issue or interesting article from me. I don't usually rant here, but I had to vent somewhere. Now I've got to get going on other things.

Oh ya, my wife doesn't like my ranting either. As this process worsened yesterday she disappeared to somewhere quiet. Later I discovered she locked up all my hammers and mallets.

About me: Dan Pelley's career experiences range from the shipping room to the boardroom and the college classroom. He has worked in companies as diverse as metal stamping, foundries, pharmaceuticals, computers and electronic components, hospitals, nursing homes, motor carriers, distribution, retailers, social services, government, quasi-government agencies, a major art museum and an airline. He shares his experiences through programs and seminars for companies in New England and through this blog.

The above was a copy and paste. I had to edit out a lot Html stuff to get it work using Firefox.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.

A Tale of Two Suppliers

The nature of my business has changed somewhat over the years and recently I’ve been busy making some long overdue changes. One change was to eliminate my toll-free number as it was rarely used. I was however always pleased with the cost, functionality and service of that supplier, formerly called GOTVMAIL and now called Grasshopper. Best of all, when it came time to part they were most helpful. Termination was quick, easy to do and acknowledged by e-mail along with, surprise, an unexpected refund for unused time. Even though I left just before it became Grasshopper, I expect that the same fine level of service I enjoyed for many years will continue. I recommend them.

Another change I must sadly make is to part ways with my long time primary e-mail provider, NetZero. Even though they do offer a very limited free service, I’ve always paid for a better level of service and was reasonably pleased for many years. Sadly things are quite different now. I use three other services for e-mail, all of which are free. The paid version of NetZero has far more advertising associated with it than any of the free ones. Until I discovered it and found out how to stop it, NetZero was attaching advertisements to my e-mails without my knowledge. Replying to some e-mails became tedious as some are placed into attached files (limiting your ability to read what you are replying to). The service has a low limit on attached file size that has prevented me from sending some attachments. Even though I paid for the service and didn’t like any of the above issues, I tended to live with it. With the most recent change, I no longer can.

NetZero now places ads in the area where you compose your e-mail. Most are animated. Some are obnoxious. Have you ever tried to compose an e-mail with a red background ad blinking away next to your text? I found that I couldn’t think straight. I started to use other services to answer e-mails received from NetZero. I contacted their customer service group to complain that the service was “unusable.” The response is that they are working on a way to eliminate such ads for paying customers. Working on it? Would any programmer out there disagree when I say it shouldn’t take a day to make that change?

The came the biggest frustration of all. Trying to copy my address files to the other services. Do think NetZero makes that easy for you to do? Do you think NetZero even talks about it? Guess again. And while Gmail recently announced an ability to help you copy your contact files from selected other services, NetZero wasn’t one of them.

So goodbye NetZero. You’ve already become secondary to other services. I’ll continue to pay for your useless service as I get the word out to everyone. But unlike Grasshopper, which I wouldn’t hesitate to use again, my termination will be permanent. And obviously I can’t recommend you.

For those who would like my new primary e-mail address, click here.

About me: Before becoming a full time educator, my career experiences included being vice president of a consulting firm, vice president - finance of a publishing company, vice president - sales support services for a manufacturing company and vice president - operations for a distribution company. As a full time educator working principally in Rhode Island (RI), Connecticut (CT) and Massachusetts (MA). I am pleased to share my experiences and business philosophies through this blog, along with an occasional rant such as today.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.

Hard to Believe

Here's another article on "dumb things companies do to really screw up their training efforts" or "DUTHCODO TRESUTTE."

It always amazes me how companies that consider themselves to be training leaders can be so lacking when it comes to the little details. Like hot, crowded rooms. Or no "break-out" areas for classes that are case-study and discussion-group based. Or held in an area prone to outside noises or distractions. No white board. Flip chart. Markers.

Over the years I've adjusted to many of these conditions. I always bring markers and board erasers. I have a portable podium. Two portable white boards and a flip chart if needed. A complete PowerPoint presentation system. You'd be surprised at how much is lacking sometimes.

The best example was a company that had several seminar rooms. I did several programs there. Never without a hitch or a glitch. Last minute room changes without telling participants or instructor. Wrong room set-up (even though I tended to use a consistent setup). Deficient food service. Broken A-V equipment.

The clincher was a seminar that met once a week in the same room for four weeks. It had a white board covered by two doors. When you opened the doors, they would slowly swing shut. Each week I suggested they have maintenance correct the problem. Never happened. Each week the board was dirty. Each week I used my markers and eraser because they didn't have any. Each week I complained.

By now you are probably thinking "Oh, c'mon Dan. Get over it. Everyone has little problems. Everyone makes mistakes. Is this really worth a blog post?"

Yes, I think it is. You see, the participants were managers of a prestigious hotel, including the managers in charge of maintenance, food service, seminars and conferences. The seminars were held in their facilities. My complaints were addressed to the seminar participants, the managers responsible for the facilities. I often wonder how many other people paid to use that room with the swinging doors, dirty white board, no markers or erasers during the time we spent a few hours a week there.

About me: Before becoming a full time educator, my career experiences included being vice president of a consulting firm, vice president - finance of a publishing company, vice president - sales support services for a manufacturing company and vice president - operations for a distribution company. As a full time educator working principally in Rhode Island (RI), Connecticut (CT) and Massachusetts (MA). I am pleased to share my experiences and business philosophies with managers at all levels.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.

Dumb Things Companies Do

I've been working in education for over 25 years (first part time, later full time). I've had the pleasure of seeing how education can make a significant contribution to organizational efforts. Unfortunately, I've also seen some of the dumb things that organizations do with the end result that their educational efforts are reduced, become less than effective, and at the extreme even become a waste of time and money.

I want to include some of these things in the blog as examples of what not to do. It's my hope that presenting these examples will give people an opportunity to reflect on how their organization approaches training and education.

The danger, of course, is that I may become too negative or get too carried away. So I ask you to give me a good swift verbal kick in the pants if I do by commenting on these posts.

The first example will be posted tomorrow. It represents a significant and substantial failure. But as I write this I also realize that many of the dumb things companies do to reduce educational effectiveness are not done intentionally and often are not substantial. But they are significant from the point of view that they diminish the educational experience. I also realized that it was hard to create a succinct label for these posts. I wanted to create a category called "dumb things companies do to really screw up their training efforts" or "DUTHCODO TRESUTTE." Now is that ridiculous or what? I also realized that I was starting to rant. So I slapped my fingers and created the category: education.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.