Blogs

by Jeremy Fishman

Have you ever been stuck in a quagmire of bumper to bumper traffic only to  ask yourself where did all these cars come from? Have you ever been outside on a clear, sunny day, and within five minutes wonder why you are soaked from head to toe?

These phenomena may seem like bad luck, or random chance, but Malcolm Gladwell, sociologist and author, insists otherwise. His first novel The Tipping Point, published in 2000, explores the sudden, drastic change that transforms unknown fashion statements, music styles, technological innovations, you-name-it into full blown social sensations. 

 

Gladwell approaches social or natural change with the model of an "epidemic." He examines three factors that underly social epidemics: "The Law of the Few", where he examines outstanding individuals who 'promote' the spread of information; "The Stickiness Factor", or the durability of the message; and "The Power of Context", or the ability of the surrounding environment to affect the explosion of a social "virus." All of these factors interact until the trend reaches a "tipping point" and the epidemic skyrockets.

 

Gladwell's style is simple and straightforward, lending to an easy and insightful read. His theory, when applied to such examples as the drastic, unprecedented decrease in crime in New York City in the late 1980s or the fashion craze of Hush Puppies, is convincing. He masterfully draws from psychological, economic, and social research gathered from professionals and case studies to support his approaches. Despite the avalanching pace of the novel, he often repeats conclusions established in earlier chapters in order to make sure that the information is fresh in his reader's minds, and though this may get tiresome, by the end of the chapter the reader gains a true understanding of the described situation.

 

When reading this book, I felt intrigued, but also skeptical. When Gladwell stated at the beginning of the novel that his theory may seem to go against human rationale, I took that as a "cover" on why his theory may be implausible. Gladwell's main point is that crucial change does not occur gradually, but from "little things", such as the placement of letters in a marketing campaign, or cleaning subway trains of graffiti. However, his explanations seem over-simplified. He only supplies information that support his theory, not facts that negate his ideas. This is an example of a "confirmation bias", that Gladwell-the-psychologist clearly demonstrates.

 

Overall, the novel shows fascinating examples of the evolution of social behavior. Readers can not only absorb the information, but apply certain behaviors to their own lives: such as that of Connecting, Persuading, or Gathering Knowledge. Gladwell's language and examples are proud disciples of the Information Age. He is an intelligent observer who sees the overarching picture, who wants to show that even the most miniscule factor influences change, and that "change is possible." This read is highly entertaining and will lend itself to hours of discussion among peers, but in the end is a collection of mostly unpractical "the-more-you-know" tidbits. 

 

Malcolm Gladwell has written three other novels: Blink, Outliers, and What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures. For other novels similar to The Tipping Point, check out Freakonomics.

Okay, it's 2009.  Message-On-Hold has been around for a quarter of a century.  Your competitors have been using it for years and you've been using it for a few less or a few more years than them depending on whether you're more of a leader (willing to take a chance and risk failure) or a follower (like to let others take the fall first and bet on sure things).  Either way you now know that it works, it helps your business grow, it really does promote your products, it really does cross sell your products and/or services, and it really does provide information to your callers/customers that can alternately save your staff time or generate interest in your business and more and more.

A quick note or blog entry to unceremoniously introduce our new blog format.  We previously used blogger via Google at http://holdcomglobal.blogspot.com/ but now with the launch of our new content management software that will allow us to be quick and nimble in all areas of web content, here is where and how you will find us.

Our new blog will allow all our team members to post blogs of interest quickly and efficiently and it will allow our blog audience (not to mention our Newsletter audience, our Press Release audience, etc.) to enter Comments with or without creating a User ID.

Lots more to follow so keep in touch and let us hear from you.

As a communication company, HOLDCOM continues to look for new and innovative ways to serve our clients. We are happy to announce we have begun creating video content to further assist our clients. These short informative and hands on videos feature live action and close views of our equipment, installation, troubleshooting and more. It's also a great way for you to get to know our staff better. Check out the sample below.



Visit www.holdcom.com/videos for new and updated videos. If you want to learn more about how you can use video to promote your brand or business, come join us at this month's social media mixer here at our HOLDCOM offices. For complete details or to RSVP for this free Social Media event go to http://bit.ly/16wihl

If you're not one of the 6.5 million to date who have seen the now famous YouTube video of the wedding ceremony that had the entrances of all the participants including the bride and groom choreographed (loosely) to the song, Forever, you might want to check it out before reading further. Even if you don't read further you might want to check it out, for a number of reasons:

It's fun to watch and there is a joy in the ceremony that is clearly infectious.

It's a great example of the viral nature of the Internet and YouTube.

And it's also a great example of what can come of something genuine, apparently without an ulterior motive or long range objective (except for some local exhibitionism). The bride was a dancer or had an interest in dancing, so for her wedding, she wanted everyone to dance into the ceremony. She wanted her wedding to be unique, memorable, to entertain her guests. And it did all that.

But like the best marketing campaigns (which it wasn't) it took on a life of itself. After the wedding, the guests wanted to tell others about it, so someone posted the video on YouTube and sent the link to the guests. The rest is history. It was so unique, that the guests had to share it with their friends and the friends with their friends and so on.

The bride and groom and the entire wedding party were invited on network TV shows. They recreated the opening entrances. And they weren't even selling anything (so far), but they could. Anyway, I digress. What's the point? What's the secret?

It was genuine. It was real. In life and in business, keeping it real is a reward unto itself and may bring other rewards, often unimagined.

Now that cassette tapes have fallen out of fashion, some clients are asking us what they can do with their old tapes now that they’ve upgraded to new digital equipment. Flickr artist iri5 is turning tape into art!  Check out more photos from this artist at http://www.flickr.com/photos/iri5/

Here at HOLDCOM, we’ve always embraced new digital technologies while also being sensitive to our end-user’s technology comfort level. Although these units are still functioning and working fine, the digital conversion that’s sweeping the country has forced the cassette tape into extinction rendering them obsolete. If you’re still using cassette based Message-On-Hold equipment, now’s the time to upgrade.

Unlike the firm date of June 12th for your television system, we don’t have a specific date that cassette tapes will cease being available. With analog cassette tapes in short supply they will soon be obsolete! Since your Message-On-Hold Autoloader system relies upon cassette tapes for program loading, it is now in jeopardy. Now is the time to protect your program and keep it running before cassette tapes become unavailable. To help you make this equipment transition, HOLDCOM has an exclusive offer for our clients still utilizing Cassette Tape load equipment. Join the digital conversion and upgrade your Message-On-Hold equipment. Contact your Client Relations representative at cr@holdcom.com or call us at 800-666-6465 to learn more.

Can't remember who said it or sang it, but there's a line, "I can't wait until tomorrow, because I get better looking every day." Well that's the way I feel about my business. As a service oriented company, we've always done a good job at a good price with responsive quality service, and we've been rewarded in kind. But now with things getting tougher and more competitive, we need to keep striving to keep service up and costs down. It's a challenge but an exciting challenge, especially with all the ideas and solutions available to consider and implement.

In the past couple of months alone we've launched a robust company-wide wiki and an esign solution for our customers, which promise to streamline our internal operations and our sales initiatives respectively.

Our wiki contains or will contain the entire known knowledge of our business universe (I'm feeling like Superman's dad, Jor-El), searchable by a few keystrokes by anyone in our organization who has a question or needs to respond to a question about anything we do. No longer will we need to meet in office doorways for impromptu trips down memory lane to remember "What do we do when this happens?" "Where do I find this?" "What's our policy on that?" I suppose I'll miss some of those doorway meetings, but hey, there's always the water cooler.

Our esign capability will not only fulfill a request from some of our more forward thinking clients for virtual signing capability, it will open up everyone's eyes to the efficiencies and productivity of sending and tracking Orders via a web solution. It will allow all of our Reps to individually track the status of their submitted Orders for viewing, authorization, and response. It provides reminders and alerts to their customers, themselves, and each other. Even for those customers stuck in the fax world, it will allow our Reps to monitor the submission, receipt, and response of those Orders.

There are definitely deeper challenges out there now than ever before, but more possibilities than we ever imagined, with new ones every day. So yeah, I can't wait until tomorrow, because my business is definitely getting better looking every day!

I went to an old favorite restaurant the other night that I hadn't been to in a couple of years. Like most every other restaurant around, they were probably feeling the economic squeeze a bit and had probably cut back where they could. The night we arrived, however, the place was hopping, almost packed dining room, private party in a side room, and a line at the door. A line we waited in for too long. Management had decided to save money by eliminating the matre' d and the bartender, so you had to wait too long in a cramped space before being led to your table, and if you decided to wait at the bar, you waited for a bartender that never appeared.

Waiters were making drinks and paying scarce attention to customers at the bar, and making drinks themselves, they were constantly behind taking care of their customers at the tables. The result was a lot of unhappy patrons throughout the restaurant. Not exactly what you want to do when you're trying to generate business. And get customers to return.

It was a fine example of boneheaded, short term thinking. If you're going to run a service business, provide service. If you're going to manufacture or distribute products, do it right. If you can't afford to do it right, get a loan, or close your doors. Everyone will be better off in the long run. When the economy recovers, this particular restaurant owner will wonder why his customers didn't return. At a time when money was tight, and people looked for value on their hard earned or saved money like never before, he had let his most valuable asset, his customers, down.