n-judah love song

community, communicating, and connecting.

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Demand Satisfaction! » Community Management & The Service Industry

A post I wrote for the Get Satisfaction blog on the parallels between restaurant life and community management.

There’s a great article from the New York Times that describes the “100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do“. Reading it, I wholeheartedly agreed, and  a lot of these things apply to anyone who deals with customers on a regular basis. I worked for a long time in the service industry, and I went through a few of the highlights of the article to draw some correlaries.

Take a walk with me through the restaurant, will you?

Do not let anyone enter the restaurant without a warm greeting.

Never let the first interaction you have with a customer in your community be silence. We recommend in all of our webcasts to get some content pre-populated into your community to get things going. No one likes an empty restaurant, and we even start you out with a welcome post to help you get started. Need some ideas? Check out some real-life examples, like Mint.com or Nike.

via Demand Satisfaction!

don't mess with Texas

I'm going to South By Southwest for the first time. I've never been to Austin. In fact, in all of Texas, I've only been to the Dallas airport, which is weird, considering the number of states I've been to.

How is it that I've never been? Either I was broke, or going to Winter Music Conference instead, or both. I'm mostly packed, with the new Four Tet and old Biggie rocking in my ears.

I'm looking forward to seeing some of "my tribe" of nerds and other fun people. Anyplace that supports me eating something with hot sauce on it at every single meal is okay by me. Cowboygirl boots are packed. Yall ready?

 

It's official....

Satisfactioneer!
Originally uploaded by miz_ginevra

I'm the new Community & Account Manager for Get Satisfaction! I'm so psyched to be joining the team.

Here's the full post where you find out about how I started in community management, what I'm planning to do at Get Satisfaction, and my sordid past as the Pink Power Ranger.

favrd: my 5 minutes in daily LOL'ing

I'm a lot like Amy Winehouse. But a boy. And with less makeup. And tonedeaf. Hair's smaller. Okay, listen, I just fell off my bar stool.

phyllisstein

Daniel Shannon

via twitter.com

Favrd is my little daily dose of hilarity. When the going gets tough, the tough remember that  the best part of Twitter is who can come up with the most awesome one-liner.

(posting with our new and improved insta-bloggity "Blog It" - I love it more than any other feature, like, ever.)

Jonathan would be happy to neglect the use of pronouns for the duration of this conversation.

This is a hysterical thread from the Zappo's live chat. I agree that Zappo's customer service is superior. Being yourself - I can tell ya - is the only way to stay engaged and delighted in a job that's people-facing.

–
You are now chatting with Jonathan
Jonathan: Hello Timmy. How can I help you?
Timmy: do you know how wide the G-Shock Atomic Solar - AWG101 SKU #7403774 is?
Timmy: i mean, how big a wrist it would fit?
Timmy: Timmy has a big fat wrist
Timmy: Timmy need watch grande
Jonathan: I’ll see what I can find out for Timmy.
Timmy: awesome. and can we please continue to talk about Timmy in the 3rd person? Timmy likes to boost Timmy’s ego by talking about Timmy that way
Jonathan: Jonathan would be happy to neglect the use of pronouns for the duration of this conversation.
Timmy: Jonathan and Timmy shall get along just fine
Jonathan: Will Timmy be able to measure Timmy’s wrist?
Timmy: Timmy’s wrist is big, but not Biggie-Smalls big. Timmy doesn’t have the required measurement instruments.

Read the whole thing.

Andy is awesome

Help for Hurricane Gustav

If you've got a blog - TypePad, Movable Type, or otherwise, you can add a widget like the one you see in my sidebar to alert people about the latest hurricane information/how to get help/how to find family.

The information and widget come straight from FEMA/DHS, which is a huge improvement from the last time we went through all this.

I've done a quick scan of my friends in the Gulf, and everyone seems ok. I'm crossing my fingers still that the next three storms pass us all by with minimal damage. Hanna makes me feel a little nervous, so keep safe out there, yall.

get into the groove

One of my favorite things about my job is finding new blogs to read. Here are some of my favorites from the amazing women of the web.

A dinner menu from a TypePad blog, My Marrakesh, which is a constant source of beautiful colors and inspiring loveliness.

Another great blog that I love to love is Fly, which is a mishmash of awesome, a collage of fashion and feeling.

Kindnessgirl is another great inspiration - how I WISH I could write with her honesty and evocativeness. In that same line is Mackin Ink, the personal blog of one of the Kirtsy editors living abroad with her family in Jordan, each post illustrated with fantastic images from around the web.

Do you have a favorite little corner of the web, a place you want to sit down with a cup of tea and talk in?

security detail

Miss Ginevra's security detail
Originally uploaded by Erika Hall

99% of my favorite people are all in San Francisco, even when they don't live here. Love it.