“Mongo is but a pawn in Game of Life;” , or Why ‘Blazing Systems?’

Shortly after we launched Blazing Systems, one of my friends–a colleague in the IT industry –asked me how we came to choose the name of our new company.   He chuckled when he asked me, which is part of the answer to his question.
In this age of taking yourself too seriously, as in “Web Technology Solutions’,  we wanted to show our sense of humor, our human side, and show that we don’t take ourselves too seriously.  We wanted to present a friendly image for customers. Many customers we encounter have been taken advantage of by technology companies who act like they are smart and the customer is not, like technology is some sort of mysterious stuff that only they can understand.  (This is a posture which positions the company to over-charge and under-deliver.)
Technology, as practiced by those companies, can be impersonal and even threatening; so we wanted to project the opposite.

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Technology doesn’t have to be painful, like the dentist–It can be fun and human -scale, like the movie.  The name Blazing Systems starts things out on a friendly note. “What about people who don’t get it?”  my friend asked.  “What if they don’t appreciate the humor, and they decide not to do business with you?  What if they do get it, but have no sense of humor, and don’t think it’s funny, or if they think it’s stupid?  My answer  was , “Fine.We probably wouldn’t want to work with them , anyway.

 Bill Patch

01/10/12

Poor Service

We continue to hear of instances and policies of shoddy customer service from technology companies, even though the industry has just completed a two-decade- long era of service development. Last week we heard of one non-profit organization whose donation processing application went down —and THEY COULDN’T EVEN GET THEIR WEBSITE PROVIDER TO RETURN THEIR CALLS!   For non-profits, the last weeks of the calendar year are critical for donation revenue. Losing your donation processing capability at the end of the year is like Wal-Mart losing a point-of-sale device and shutting down a check-out line on Black Friday.   Ignoring a service need by the non-profit customer this time of the year was especially poor service performance by the website company.

 

Service Used to be Low Priority

 

In the early years of the computer technology industry customer service was regarded as nothing more than a necessary evil within many product manufacturers.Those companies were reluctant to commit funding or investment for service.  Product development and manufacturing got all the attention and dollars.  This was because most of those companies viewed themselves strategically and operationally as product-driven.  They made big margins on the sale of the products, not services.   This product-driven model started to change in the mid-80s, as independent service companies brought competition to the post-sale service and support market. In 1987 IBM declared “The
Year of the Customer,”and launched aggressive marketing campaigns into the customer base for services.  Today, software and hardware provider Oracle is even trying to control product sales in enduser accounts by using service as leverage.

 

Readiness to Serve

So, while most technology companies have been developing their service delivery and improving the level of service provided to customers, some companies–like the one cited above —are a going in the opposite direction, still treating service as a low priority.     Examples of this are “Call Avoidance” strategies and  “Resource Optimization ” programs.    If you have given up, and hung up the phone after being bounced around by a call-router (“dial 3 if you want pay your bill, dial 4 if you are reporting a technical problem”), and then listening to 35 minutes of elevator music—if you have given up,  and hung up, then you have just participated in a successful “call avoidance” incident with the service organization,—  and yes, they measure “abandonment rate”—how many people give up.   You have saved them some money, because they didn’t have to have somebody on duty available to talk with you about your problem.   And they don’t care—they already got your  money when you bought the product—it’s the old product view again.

So–Why do some technology companies provide poor customer service ?    Same old, same old—MONEY.

 

It costs money to sustain readiness to serve–to have the right person with the right skill set  available at the right time  (when you need them); and companies who are locked in the old ‘we make the money when we sell the product’ mentality tend not to spend the money to have sufficient resources available —readiness to serve.   These same companies willingly hire extra developers to help complete the initial work needed for a new customer, but they tend not to commit any cost to being ready to support the product they’ve built and installed.

 

The Service Mentality

 

Technology companies who have sustained growth an d achieved high levels of customer satisfaction have adopted a service, rather than product-driven model.  They  build infrastructure to provide ongoing service delivery to the customers–every day, not just the day they sell the first application.   They commit themselves to operating at a state of readiness to serve their customers’ needs; and –oh, yes, they answer the phone when the customer calls.

Bill Patch

01/10/12

 

 

 

 

Spirit of the Season

This year, with so many American families in dire need, is it just my imagination–or perhaps wishful thinking –that the crass commercialism seems to be down a notch?

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The endless TV ads are there—-give a give a give a garmin—-ruining traditional holiday songs by turning them into sales jingles, and  garish red and gold decorations bedeck even the humblest of retail establishments, but there is data pointing to a different approach this year:

 

Reuters reports:

“Several recent surveys indicate that charities and nonprofits can expect giving to be more bountiful at the end of 2011, particularly compared to the last two years. Moreover, donors seem to be taking into account current economic challenges and government cutbacks when deciding where to give: A recent poll by the website Charity Navigator (see link.reuters.com/nyk45s), for instance, found human-service groups, such as food banks and homeless shelters, top the list of where respondents plan to g(http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/06/us-usa-charity-donatinos).

At Blazing Systems, we’re doing our part.  One of our long-time clients,RE/MAX Achievers of Collegeville-Pottstown-Boyertown(see http://www.achieverspa.com)is conducting a Food Drive for the 9th year,accepting donations at three office locations.We donated cases of canned goods to this worthy cause, where they seek to  “Make a difference….One household at a time.”

We are also dog lovers, and we’re donating dog food to our local SPCA.This bad economy has taken its toll on our furry friends as well, as people have abandoned pets at an alarming rate.

 

So…maybe it’s not just wishful thinking…Maybe there IS a renewed spirit of giving out there this year, and maybe we ARE acting more like the Americans in a Frank Capra movie—-in the true spirit of the season.  I hope so!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Word Press Works

At Blazing Systems we recommend and deploy Word Press software for websites.  WordPress can be used for an entire site, or parts of a site.  We use Word Press for the blog feature on our own site, and we have deployed it for these client sites: http://www.nakedphilly.co//www.achieverspa.com, http://www.chestercounty1.com, andhttp://www.devonjohn.com/wp.Word Press is a dependable website  framework partly because it’s built on stable, proven, pervasive technologies, including MYSQL andPHP.  We deploy it as a LAMP(  Linux, Apache, MYSqL., and PHP)As  you will see when you visit any of the sites listed, the framework produces appealing and effective sites that are easy to understand and navigate, and they are also highly functional with robust applications.  Word my canadian pharmacy online Press is Open Souce, and over 17,000applications have been developed for it.  We have recently developed and deployed applications specifically for realtors.     We enjoy working with Word Press technology, and our clients are also pleased with the results.  Please call us to discuss how an affordable upgrade to a Word Press site would create an advantage for your web marketing program.

 

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Penn State Pervert

Glad to see the Penn State undergrads were able to get enough control over their grief for their grandfather figure/football coach, “Joe Pa,” to organize an observation in honor of the victims.  Restores my faith in the undergrads, but the whole sordid affair reinforces the perception of academia as being populated by ineffective CYA-ing administrators who live in the world inside their own heads.This guy Sandusky was allowed –wink/wink—to “horse around “(their words) (see the grand jury report at wwww.abclocal.go.com/wpvi/feature?section=news&id=8421115) with young boys in the shower in spite of suspicious behavior observed by many and horrific behavior observed and reported by a few.

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Trusted Institutions

 

In  our society, some institutions are trusted with our well-being.  This includes places where we work, and most particularly places where our children are educated.  Mr. Sandusky abused the trust given him as a member of the hallowed PSU football coaching staff, covering that position with the do-gooder cloak of a charitable group helping  boys, in order to sodomize the very same boys.  When it comes to such abhorrent behavior, the people in charge need to do more than the  minimum and to attempt to “protect the brand.”  They have to act to protect the next victim.

 

Protecting the Next Victim

Several years ago, an employee came to me with a complaint of sexual harrassment..  The employee was an attractive female, and a male employee had Xeroxed his genitals and written a note on the page next to the picture, promising to do things with the pictured member. She was frightened.

He had slipped the note into the lap drawer in her desk. (Today, he would probably send her a picture taken with his smart phone, but in those days, the Xerox machine was the pervert’s media of choice.)  I contemplated various courses of action to deal with the complaint, and eventually decided to report the incident to the local police, against the wishes of the company president and other officers, who were concerned about “corporate image.”  My rationale was based on  the threatening nature of the  promise of action in his note.  I was worried that he  would act out on his desires, either with the employee to whom he had written, or another female.  Several days later, he was identified by matching the handwriting in the note with the handwriting on his employment application, with the expert help of the police.  He was not arrested, nor did the complaint go on his record with the police….I had a counseling session with him, as did a couple members of the vice squad, and there were no further incidents from him.  Several weeks later, I terminated his employment.  As managers and executives responsible for the well-being of people in our organizations, I hope we are always able to place a higher value on protecting the next victim, and never on “protecting the brand.”

 

 

 

Marketing in Tough Times

“I could chop down more trees in a day, if my ax was sharper, “said the logger, “But I can’t take the time to sharpen my ax because I’m so far behind  my daily quota for trees.” Many small businesses are falling for this twisted logic when it comes to making investments in marketing in today’s tough environment.The result is easily-predictable—-Less marketing leads to fewer sales and less revenue, which just makes matters worse, and things continue to  spiral down.

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In the real estate industry, for example, where buyers are increasingly using the Internet to shop for homes, Realtors who have learned how to tap into that stream of potential clients are benefiting.  They are creating interesting, attractive websites that give potential buyers the information they seek and need.  This translates to leads and revenue.  A great example of an attractive, interesting realtor site is www.nakedphilly.com, which features a great blog and the Blazing Systems IDX search of available properties, presented in a user-friendly map format showing the neighborhoods of Philadelphia.

Check it out–Even if you’re not in the market for Philly property, you’ll find it interesting, and you’ll probably learn  something along the way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OPEN is Best for Clients

Blazing Systems is an Open Source development  company. We use tools such as PHP, Python,SQL, and Javascript, to build applications  and websites for our customers.

 

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Closed& Proprietary benefits only the software provider

 

In the early stages of the industry, and continuing still today, some software providers were closed, and proprietary. This was –and is–primarily a method to exert and maintain account control, by making customers dependent upon the software company . If you have an Open Source website, you can make changes to it yourself with a web editor program.

Closed is More Expensive

Today, there are some website providers who still control accounts by forcing customers to come to them to perform any changes or updates to the site.  They use proprietary Content Management Systems (CMS) to control access to the site .  This way, they get to charge fees to clients who need to make any changes. Given the fast pace of business these days, most organizations need to relatively frequently update their sites.  If they have a closed site, making changes becomes very expensive and time-consuming.

Organizations that are being victimized by closed, proprietary websites can save money and increase the effectiveness of their web sites by switching to Open Source technology.  While it may seem difficult to walk away from a site into which money has been invested, the future savings available and the advantage of controlling your own destiny make the change worthwhile–the sooner, the better, in fact.  You deserve to work with a technology partner that values your interest, rather than seeks to trap and control you.

Homes, Colleges, and Hospitals

President Obama has decided to “fix ” the college loan mess..  What do homes, hospitals, and colleges have in common?  The government has been getting involved, trying to “fix”them. Our system is set up for organizations–both for-profit and non-profit–to provide goods and services in exchange for money.  The costs of college and hospital (and housing) have become so onerous that no individual citizens can afford to pay them, so insurance companies have become the real “customers” of health care providers, and various banks and the federal gov’t have become the paying customers of higher education (and housing).   When there  is a disconnect between the provider and the receiver of the goods and services, the economics become distorted and unreal.

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Bureaucracies are high-cost operations

 

Colleges and universities and hospitals also share other characteristics, most of which serve to drive up costs:  Both higher ed institutions and health care institutions are bureaucracies, managed by highly educated people who tend to believe they are on a mission–a “higher calling”than us mere mortals who toil in mundane jobs.  In academia, tenure protects even the most ineffective practicioners, folks tend to seek to avoid taking on responsibility, and much time is spent on inter-departmental spats and CYA.  Medical institution bureaucracies are also marked by departmentalism and ‘It’s not my job’ kind of stuff.

 

Big Benefits from Higher Ed and Health Care

 

Many people–myself included–have benefited from the services of both types of institutions.  Perhaps that is why costs have been allowed to spiral in such an out-of control fashion.We need the benefits more than we need to be able to afford them.Until that changes, and the providers are more accountable to customers who have to pay their bills , the government will continue to have to intercede to cover the costs.

CLOUDY DAZE

The CLOUD has captured the attention of the IT industry.  The CEOs of Oracle and Salesforce,com are having an all-too-public spat over who is more purely a Cloud Company, and traditional equipment manufacturers are scrambling to replace enduser sales lost to the cloud. Misunderstanding and misconceptions abound…  Business as usual, in other words, for what used to be called the computer industry.  In the good old days, hardware product companies made luxuriuous margins on selling and leasing processors and peripherals to endusers.  The model was that each enduser needed to own the means of production for its data processing requirements.  Large endusers created huge data centers with staffs of programmers and operators.  Product companies were happy to sell them the equipment they needed to do their own data processing.  Very large endusers became very profitable legacy accounts for companies like IBM, DEC.Compaq, H-P, and Dell. The problem with this model for the endusers  was the cost of all that hardware, software, and staff.  Endusers began to realize that doing your own data processing in the basement was not cost-effective, and they started to demand  a more effective model.  The IT industry has never changed on its own—Change has always been driven by customer demand, including especially the Open Systems movement led by Sun in the 80s and 90s. With hardware and software freed from proprietary constraints, customers could now begin receiving “computing on demand,”and IT companies raced to develop the best model to provide computing “by the drink.”  IBM developed “Grid Computing, “and others followed suit.  The breakthrough to “Cloud Computing”  was made possible by the acceptance in all customer segments  of the Internet as a trusted medium.  (Remember–not too long ago  , we were still debating if customers would actually be willing to trust the Internet to do commercial transactions.)

 

Now, endusers don’t need anything more sophisticated than what Scott McNealy originally called a “network computer, ” a device just to access software that was running somewhere else.  (These used to be called “dumb terminals.”)

In the Cloud, Everything’s A Service
Now, all the processing AND storage can be done by an entity other than the end user.  All the hardware,software, and staff needed to keep it running, can be owned and operated by someone else; and endusers can be free  to use the infrastructructure and/or apllications and platforms they need, when–and only when– they need them. Everything can nowbe consumed by endusers as a service.  We have IaaS, SaaS, and
PaaS in the Cloud(Infrastructure as a service, Software as a Service, and Platform as a Service).

Sophisticated services require SLAs

ServiceLevel Agreements (SLAs)need to be developed to define service delivery from the Cloud,,  If not controlled by SLAs, endusers will have difficulty measuring services provided and establishing accountability. Pricing will be murky.If Cloud services are hard to measure and account for, then endusers may be forced to reverse course and begin to hire talent and buy products again, an outcome that some IT products companies would welcome.

Brain Cells Aren’t that Great

All the texts on the subject sing the praises of the wonderful brain and how it works.  For example,here’s  an excerpt from Living with Stroke, by RichardC. Senelick, MD:  “The brain is bursting with energy.  It consists of billions of nerve cells called neurons.  Despite its lumpy appearance, the brain is very active and very well organized –and in touch with all its “employees.”

 

Brain cells are control freaks

–Nothing happens until they say so.  You don’t blink, or scratch, or wave, without the brain cells responsible for blinking, scratching , and waving , saying so.  Specific instruction has to come from the brain cells, or nothing will happen. There is no auto pilot or default.

Brain Cells are always hungry

 

Brain cells, like vampires, have an insatiable appetite for rich, red blood. They need the oxygen and nutrients that come with blood pumped fresh from the lungs.They use about 20″% of the total blood supply in the body.  If something interrupts the supply of fresh blood to these brain cells–which is what happens during a stroke—they just stop sending any electronic messages, and then just give up and die!  ‘OH, boo-hoo, lunch is late,so let’s just paralyze his arm and leg,and then go dark forever.’  Not very effective behavior  for such high-powered , supposedly smart cells.     If this is how our best and brightest behave, it’s no wonder so many guys get themselves in trouble when they start listening to the cells in that other “brain.