Nov/090
Better AP/AR System
I’ve been unsatisfied with my time tracking, invoicing, and accounting process for some time. Throw in project tracking and it’s been a real mess. Everything worked well. It’s just that it was too manual. Too many separate systems and too much time for what seemed like simple tasks.
I did some business thinking and identified my key problems:
- I had selected the systems I liked best and wished they were integrated.
- I kept putting off other approaches waiting for the perfect integration (that would only come if I built it myself).
- I let the idea of a better system keep me from improving the current one.
I’ve reviewed my primary needs and tested several different products and product combinations. I’m pretty happy with what I’ve arrived at but I’ll have to let it run for a few more weeks before feeling totally satisfied. If it proves to be what I’m hoping it is, I’ll post the full structure as my own best practice review.
Nov/090
Trillions of Computers – The Future
I should insert some valuable insight here but until then, just watch the video.
Oct/090
Helping Your Visitors Visualize
I just came across this cell size scale created by the University of Utah. It’s an awesome way to represent the sizes of different cells. The interface is very simple, the presentation is clear and easy to understand. I’ll remember this the next time we’re trying to represent something that’s not easy to comprehend.
Sep/091
DFW WordPress Technical Meetup
On October 7th, Michael Johnstone is hosting a meetup for WordPress developers and the WordPress community at eLocomotive’s office in Richardson.
We’ll have several case studies and a technical Q & A session
- How to use a plugin and a custom template file to provide clients or other non-technical users a way to edit featured snippets. - Randy Hoyt, amesburyweb.com
- Using Template Tags / Query posts to control which posts show up in the loop. - Matt Simo
- A Q & A session
This event is being sponsored by eLocomotive and Amesbury Web.
Based in Richardson’s Telecom Corridor, eLocomotive provides a range of web design and custom programming services for small and medium business.
Jul/090
4 Ways Twitter Makes Customer Service Better
Twitter definitely changes the customer service equation but while most people are talking about the end results, I think it’s the format that makes a difference. It’s not that my cable box gets fixed, it’s that my vendors can hear me.
People have been voicing their opinions on blogs for years now but Twitter already seems to have more traction in customer service. Why is that?
The length of comments on Twitter are succinct. It takes much less effort to read them and triage quickly. Don’t underestimate the impact of this. It may be the best part of Twitter for customer service. You can skim 5-6 tweets in the same amount of time it takes to read a single web page. The length also means that tweets are always to the point. They have to be.
The customers are centralized in one place that is easily searched. Really, providing customer service by tracking customers across the entire web is pretty daunting. Twitter gives companies something open that they can focus on. Hashtags make it even easier to filter the noise and people use them naturally so companies don’t have to train their customers.
There is a simple, standard way to send your response. Replying in Twitter is much easier than contacting each blog owner/writer which is a manual process, where the contact forms are frequently designed to foil automation or don’t even exist.
Customer Service Tools are already being built around Twitter. I’ve thought for a few years that companies need a good workflow for information on the web. Good tools were few and far between. Twitter already has companies racing to provide corporate customers the tools they need. Salesforce.com, for example, never did much to address the web but has already started incorporating Twitter for clients. Even the basic desktop and mobile clients for Twitter offer the basic tools needed to track and deal with requests.
As the old GI Joe cartoon used to say, knowing is half the battle. Taking action is always critical but the effort required to listen to customers is getting much easier with Twitter.