What's Seth's free prize this time?

If you are like me and pre-purchased Seth Godin's new book, you may have taken the time to follow the instructions and become a member of Triiibes (if you haven't done it yet, don't bother as Triiibes goes public soon and the offer was only good for a limited time). And, if you are like me and completed your Triiibes registration, you may have received an e-mail asking for your home address so that Seth could send you a small gift.

I received my gift yesterday and it turned out to be a pre-release copy of Seth's new book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. Pretty cool. What Seth asks is that in the next couple of weeks when the pre-ordered copy arrives that I give it to someone to read to spread the word. Brilliant.

I'll actually be giving both of my copies away and also purchasing the Kindle edition, so you never know, you might be receiving a copy of Tribes from me to read and share. Believe me when I say, with what I've read so far, once you read it, you're going to want to own your own copy.

PS -- you'll know if you get the pre-production version from me if it has dog-ears all over the pages.

Invest $0.99 for landscape e-mail on your iPhone

Yup, it just works -- enough said.

Link (straight to the Apple Store to buy TouchType)

Is there any company that is not experiencing "extraordinary call volume"?

Have you called any large corporation's customer service phone number and not heard some version of "We are currently experiencing heavy call volume"? Do you realistically not expect a call to customer service to not be a 15-30 minute experience?

There are companies out there that make it a goal to never send their customers into an IVR system and to allow them to always speak with a human. Some companies even have benchmarks of how many times a phone will ring before it has to be answered by an actual person. My guess is that these companies don't really incrementally spend that much more on call center operations and that the incremental revenue far outweighs the incremental cost.

I will note that you always seem to get a human when you call to cancel services and generally that human will make you some sort of offer to stay with that company. Here's the other part to this equation: if you can offer me 3 free months after I've been a customer for 3 years, why not just offer it to me before I decide to leave? By the time I get to the human in retentions, I've already fired you as my provider.

Image from lawgeek

Aren't we done with comment spam in blogs yet?

I'm guessing that there are still some percentage of blogs out there that don't moderate their comments, but I have to imagine that there's a pretty low percentage in effective comment spam these days. With that said, I've been getting blasted for the past few days by someone with a Blogger username of "hjk" and last night he posted a comment that actually contained an e-mail address, so, without further ado, here it is:

janifar.lopez7@gmail.com

Stop spamming my blog, dude.

Image from david ॐ

Closing time

Up!
Originally uploaded by ellectric

Let's try to stop lying to our customers.

I went to Home Depot last night -- the hours on their recording state that they are open from 8AM-9PM; I got to the doors at 8:54PM and they were locked. Here's the thing: if you're open until 9PM, then you need to stay open until 9PM. I know it sucks when that last guy wanders in right at 9PM and delays everyone from leaving until 9:30PM. But if that's the case, then just list the store hours as 8AM-8:30PM so that you've got that 1/2 hour buffer built in and everyone can get out by 9PM without pissing any of your customers off.

We recently faced this issue with accepting applications: our application and screening process takes about 1.5 hours and we stated our hours as 9AM-5PM. Inevitably we would have someone show up at 5PM and need to go through the process; we always did our best to accommodated them, but it was painful for our administrative employees and there were times that we couldn't. To fix it, we did some backwards math: if it takes 30 minutes to shut the office down and that normally takes place at 5PM, then the last time we should accept an applicant is 3:30PM; adding a little buffer, we choose 3PM. Now we advertise that we are open from 9AM-5PM, but that applications are only accepted from 9AM-3PM.

This seems like pretty simple stuff and it is pretty simple stuff, so why is it so hard to pull off?

Why the Kindle truly changes the game

So, I've had my Kindle now for 2 or 3 weeks and it's pretty incredible: it does truly change the way that I read. Example 1: I was in an airport looking at hardback books that cost about $26 in the airport bookstore, so I turned on the Kindle, turned on the wireless, went to the online store, found the same books for $9.99, and purchased and downloaded the one I wanted in less than 1 minute. Example 2: I was at the gym this morning on the stair climber when I finished my book, so I hopped on to the Kindle store, found a book I wanted to read for $6.99, downloaded it, and continued my workout with a new book to read.

It's easy to compare the Kindle to the first gen iPod: lots of feature requests, some design issues, some kludgy software issues -- make no mistake that this is an early adopter piece of hardware. However, consider how far and how quickly the first gen iPod has changed into the iPhone and iPod Touch. It's not hard ot image the next generation Kindles with bigger screens, smaller frames (maybe even flexible or foldable), expanded document type handling (i.e., PDF, Office XML, etc.), built-in wifi and Bluetooth. I wonder if Kindles could even be subsidized by publishers in some sort of subscription model (i.e., subscribe to receive 5 Penguin books per month delivered via Whispernet for 2 years and receive a Kindle for $99).

One of the things that sucks about the Kindle as compared to the iPod is that all of the boxes of books in my basement cannot easily be loaded into my Kindle like ripping a CD. Presumably Amazon has a record of every book I've purchased through them -- maybe they could be some sort of verification clearinghouse for me to get digital versions? Even if Amazon played that role, I still have tons of books that I did not purchase from them. Just like the CD manufacturers, book publishers never conceived of, or at least never implemented, a unique serial number system for each book produced, so there's no way for me to verifiably claim a copy as my own.

More to come I'm sure.

Link -- Amazon Kindle

The Blending Cellar in Boulder

I was up in Boulder this past Saturday walking around on Pearl Street and happened across what I thought was a wine tasting room that had a happy hour special, so I went in -- $2 off a glass caught my attention. It wasn't until after I had consumed a couple of glasses of wine (the chardonnay was pretty good, but the Cab Franc was excellent) and was in the bathroom that I realized why the name of the place sounded so familiar and why the wine menu was quite limited for a wine bar.

The Blending Cellar, aside from providing a cool atmosphere, good music, and reasonably priced, solid wines by the glass is notable for it's namesake: allowing you to blend your own wine. If you opt for the blending session, it's $15 and you receive blending bases and personalized instructions that will allow you to create Cab, Merlot, or Cab Franc. Should you like your wine, you can purchase bottles for $25 per bottle (3 bottle minimum) and even design your own label.

I know what I'll be doing for Christmas presents this year.

p.s. -- if you go to their site, click the "About us" link, and give them some pretty basic information, you can become part of "The Blending Cellar Pearl Street Club," which provides some discounts.

Link -- The Blending Cellar

Ross on Twitter

After signing up for this and not really doing anything with it, I'm making a renewed effort to try and use Twitter.

So, without further ado, feel free to follow me below:

Ross on Twitter

Content Rich Review

FULL DISCLOSURE: a copy of this book was provided to me free of charge to review.

If you are looking to get results from the internet by simply managing the content the you publish and the places that you publish the content, then Content Rich is a worthwhile (and quick) read. From the content perspective: the book takes you through processes and procedures for producing content that is appealing not only to the people reading it, but also to search engines (read "search engine optimization"). And from the placement perspective: the book provides tactics and strategies in where to publish your content.

You might be unlikely to pick up this book without some sort of existing web presence or some desire to create one, but the writing style is not too technical. I think that the author could have spent some more time on blogs as I would make the argument that a blog with well-written and optimized content can make up your entire web presence if done correctly. However, for anyone engaged in or getting started in creating internet content, the book is a worthwhile read.

The book is currently available in hardback, audio, and e-book formats. Interestingly, the e-book format is only available via the book's website and is not available in a version for the Kindle -- perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the e-book version from the book's site is $14.95 (only $5 less than the hardback version) as opposed to the normal price of $9.99 for the Kindle.

Link -- Content Rich

iPhone 2.1

Downloaded it and installed it a few hours ago -- here are my impressions:

• 3G signal strength is dramatically and noticably better. I used to maybe get a bar or 2 in my office and it's up to 5 bars.
• 3G voice calls are not dropping. Areas where I was dropping calls from the day I got the iPhone no longer drop.
• The 3G and Edge icons changed on the screen. I'm sure this is totally cosmetic, but I noticed it.
• The whole system seems snappier -- there've been times in the past weeks where the phone has been so bogged down that I can type an entire sentence on the keyboard and it takes 4-5 seconds for it to actually show up on the screen.

I'm leaving the 3G on all day today to judge battery endurance with the new update.

Billion Dollar Lessons

FULL DISCLOSURE: a copy of this book was provided to me free of charge for review.

I had a chance to read Billion Dollar Lessons, which will be publicly available on September 11, 2008 and I found it to be a worthwhile read. The book essentially extracts failures that very large corporations have made and performs a failure analysis to provide readers with the ability to (hopefully) learn from those failures without having to actually having to fail themselves.

Some of the stories have been told before in other business books, but I did like the level of depth that the authors put into many of the stories; I especially enjoyed the story about the Motorola Iridium project and the amount of detail surrounding the failure of that project. I actually thought, and still do think, that a satellite-based voice and data network has a place and can be profitable, but it was very interesting to read about how not to go about launching one.

The underlying theme of the book is that failures in large-scale corporations result from overall strategic failure and poor implementation of the strategic process. There are many examples within the book about how the flat out ego-based decisions of upper management flew baldly in the face of what, in retrospect, appears to be common sense and/or researched conclusions. Although the authors do not try to pin everything on an ego vs. common sense argument, as many good business decisions involve a healthy amount of ego-based thinking, they do suggest the use of someone within the strategic decision process playing the role of advocatus diaboli (devil's advocate) -- read Chapter 10 about this as it's a very worthwhile takeaway from the book and immediately applicable to businesses of all sizes.

Some of the chapters are really only applicable to very large businesses and could probably be skipped unless you work in one.

Overall I found the book to be a worthwhile read.

Link -- Amazon

Television service

So I've looked at what I'm spending on television service and TiVo and it's quite insane. I called my current provider, DirecTV, over the weekend after looking at offerings from various providers, including Comcast, Dish, and DirecTV. Like most companies, these companies are focused on getting new customers and offering insane deals for becoming a customer rather than making offers to existing customers to keep them around. Case-in-point: I've been a DirecTV customer for almost 8 years (through 3 moves), and they've never offered me a thing.

Here's what I did and what I got:

• I called DirecTV customer service and asked for retentions. The customer service rep tried to field the call, but based on the fact that I was asking for upgraded equipment, he had to transfer me to retentions.
• Once retentions got on the phone, I explianed that I had been a customer for almost 8 years, that my payment history was perfect, and that I had also moved with them 3 times -- she acknowledged all of that.
• I told retentions that I wanted the DirecTV Plus HD DVR for one tv and didn't want to pay for it and I wanted the basic HD receiver for the other tv and didn't want to pay for it. Furthermore, I requested that she change my programming package to the promotional price advertised on their website for new customers.
• Retentions did this for me: Plus HD DVR normally $199 with a $100 instant rebate and $19 handling for $0.00; they charged my card for the $118 and immediately refunded my account $118. HD receiver normally $99 for $19 handling. Promotional price of half what I'm paying now good for the next 12 months. Free installation.

So with all of that, I'm paying $19 in equipment, which is pretty negligble, my monthly service charges drop by about 50%, I can cancel my TiVo description because the DVR service and equipment is included, and I get HD service to boot. Granted, the DirecTV DVR is not as feature-rish as TiVo, but based on what I'm using TiVo for now and what it's costing me, it's good enough.

Sometimes all you have to do is ask in order to get companies to stand up and take notice. It would sure be nice if there were more structured programs around upgrades for existing customers -- I would be happy to execute agreement extensions if companies were willing to manage the upgrade schedule for me and do it in such a way that it felt good.

Moral of the story: if you're going to play this game, be sure to stick to your guns until you talk to the right person and be sure that you know exactly what you want before you start the conversation. (you might also want to be really willing to switch if you can't get what you want)

Picture from thebeev

How to get content on to your Kindle with OS X

I can't believe how hard this was to find, but I'll share it with you now in 8 easy steps at zero cost:

1. Go download Stanza (this is through VersionTracker and has a direct download link).
2. Mount the disk image and drag Stanza to your Applications folder.
3. Open Stanza.
4. Open any PDF or Word or supported text document with Stanza.
5. Choose "Export Book As" and select "Amazon Kindle"
6. Plug your Kindle into your Mac with a USB cable -- it will show up as a USB drive.
   
7. Drag the exported book/document (*.aws) into the "Document" folder on the Kindle.
8. Read it on your Kindle.

It doesn't seem to get much easier than that.

Tags: Kindle, PDF, e-book, Amazon, conversion, Strategize, Ross Hollman

2008 Democratic National Convention

Argus Event Staffing successfully provided access control, credential verification, physical security, and customer service for the 2008 Democratic National Convention at the Pepsi Center and at INVESCO Field at Mile High. Additionally, Argus provided services for affiliated at events at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, the Denver Coliseum, the Colorado Convention Center, the Denver Performing Arts Complex, and for other private parties and venues throughout the Denver metropolitan area. We worked directly with the United States Secret Service, the Democratic National Convention Committee security and operations departments, and numerous local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to coordinate efforts and produce the results that all of you may have seen on television.

Due to the sensitivity of the security surrounding the event, I did not post any information or pictures leading up to or during the event, but now that the event has come to a close, I wanted to at least share some pictures. Please note that I will not respond to requests for any information that may reveal anything related to the security of the event. All of the pictures were taken on my iPhone.

Here's a shot of the podium inside Pepsi Center:

Here's a shot of INVESCO Field at Mile High before we opened doors:

Here's one shot of Obama on stage with INVESCO Field at Mile High full:

Here's another shot of Obama on stage at INVESCO Field at Mile High:

The Democratic National Convention is a National Special Security Event (NSSE) -- you can read more about it in the Wikipedia article here.

Tags: Democratic National Convention, DNC, security, Strategize, Ross Hollman

Airlines cut fuel costs by eliminating life vests

Not to be cynical, but: realistically, aren't the vests used to locate the wreckage after a crash? I think the chances of being in a physical state to actually use a vest are pretty low.

Link -- CNN article

Photo by rk.bala

Tags: life+vest, airlines, cost+savings, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Where is Citrix for the iPhone?

I could seriously ditch my laptop if this would come out.

Tags: iphone, Citrix, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Took the iPhone plunge

Finally got the iPhone 3G. As you may remember, I had the first gen and took it back for a multitude of reasons. Here are my impressions and things I'm doing with it:

• I don't use Visual Voicemail. I'm continuing to use CallWave, which I like because it sends me a text message with a quick gist of the voicemail and forwards the recording as WAV file to my e-mail.
• The Google iPhone application rocks (and, like most Google products, it is free). I don't event use the built-in contact manager as I can search all of my contacts and recent calls through the Google interface.
• I'm using NuevaSync to spoof an Exchange server and push my Google Calendar to my phone over the air; I'll likely enable the over-the-air contact push as well, using Plaxo as my sync point. A few things to note: it's not 2-way, so you need to decide if that's important to you. I use Jott or access Gcal over the web to add appointments -- the free Jott app for the iPhone is pretty click for this provided you set up the relationship between Jott and Gcal. Note that once you set up an over-the-air sync relationship, your phone deletes all of the data in the affected relationship (i.e., calendar data) and disables the ability to manually sync through iTunes.
  
• 3G and wifi stay off unless I absolutely need them for something -- it's a battery life thing.
• I leave the location-based services on because right now it's interesting to see how different applications interact with that data -- I'll probably shift that to an as-needed thing as well.
• Creating ringtones is not that hard. I take a MP3 file into Audactiy, chop it, increase the basis volume, export the chopped version as a MP3, import the MP3 into GarageBand, export the file to disk (exports as a M4A), change the extension to M4R, drag it into iTunes, and sync the iPhone. Sounds a lot harder than it actually is.
• The GrandCentral GranDialer application is pretty cool (and free) -- let's you make outbound calls through your Grand Central number, which makes that number show up on the receiving caller's caller ID.
• I've got links on the home screen to Gmail, Gcal, and my work e-mail through Google Apps. Unfortunately the actual GrandCentral site requires Flash -- hopefully GrandCentral will build a mobile site similar to the one they built for BlackBerrys.
  
• I have the AIM app, but it's actually more effective to simply use AOL's AIM forwarding that uses the text messaging interface.

A few things to note on the purchase:

• AT&T stores are starting to get their direct fulfillment orders in, but do not seem to have any actually in-stock for direct purchase yet.
• Apple Stores (at least the one at Park Meadows in Colorado) are flush with phones -- I just walked in and bought mine.
• Apple Stores have an ok, but not great, selection of cases.
• Very important for existing AT&T customers: you have to be the authorized person on your account, FAN (discount) on your account has to be removed in order for Apple Store personnel to activate -- AT&T customer support can remove this prior to the purchase and add it back when the purchase is complete, you should research your upgrade eligibility on the AT&T site before you go to know what you are spending and speed the process along.

I'm sure I'll have more as time goes on.

Watch the growth of Walmart

Looks like a cellular provider coverage map by the end.

Link

What's wrong with writetomyblog?

Writetomyblog is one of my favorite blog posting services -- create your post on their website, post it to your blog, and our done; hey, and it's free!

So, here's the problem: it hasn't been working for me at all lately. When I publish, I get this:

Post Entry Successfully Published (Post Entry as Draft, has no URL).

What the hell does that mean? It thinks that it's posting to Blogger, but by not getting a URL, there is no unique blog entry and, despite what it says above, the post doesn't go into my drafts folder on Blogger.

I have not idea if this is a Firefox 3 issue, some sort of permission issue with the Google API, some issue with the new version of Blogger, or something I haven't thought of, but I miss using the service and hope they fix it soon.

Do you need your own personal domain?

I don't know, do you have an extra $0.83 per month? It's not really a matter of affording it anymore -- you can probably find offers that will get you domain hosting for free; I reference the cost of registering through Google Apps and using Google Pages.

If you want people to be able to find you, it seems like a good idea. If you want an e-mail address that you'll keep forever, it seems like a better idea.

As the cost approaches zero, I think the better question is: Why wouldn't you have a personal domain?

Link -- here's mine (took about 5 minutes with Google Page Creator)

Kinetic phone cahrgers . . . about time

Ok, it's big and ugly and not built into the phone, but Orange is testing this out:

Named as the "Orange Dance Charge," it's similar to the sort of strap you might use for an iPod when you're working out. A series of magnets and weights very similar to the systems used in kinetic watches is used to generate electricity.

I want to see this built into the phones, but it's a step in the right direction.

Link

Tights are not pants

This kind of stuff cracks me up:



Imagine how hard this would have been just 5 years ago . . . and how expensive it would have been.

Go read the manifesto.

Link

Tags: tights+are+not+pants, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

BlackBerry Flickr App

Not sure what more I can tell you about it as it does exactly what the title suggests: provides you with a native BlackBerry application to upload pictures to your Flickr account.

Download here

Wine

Lots of people that know me think that I know a lot about wine and I guess that spending a lot of time in the Napa Valley while growing up and being acquainted with family and friends that greatly enjoy wine helps a lot. However, I'm going to share my advice about wine with everyone:

• Drink what tastes good to you at the time. Sure, there are all kinds of "rules" about what to drink with what, but if you really want a glass of white wine with your steak, by all means drink a glass of white wine.
• Don't care about what others think. This is especially true if you're ordering bottles based on price -- the only person in a restaurant that is likely to care about how much you spend on a bottle is the waiter that's watching his tip go up geometrically.
• Hold a sip of wine on your tongue and taste the flavors, but don't announce them. If you think your wine is earthy and peaty and has notes of currant, keep that stuff to yourself -- think in terms of it being undrinkable, crap, ok, good, or awesome.
• Don't be intimidated. If you find yourself in situations where you are frequently choosing wines, go spend an afternoon at a good wine bar with a wide selection and make friends with the bartender. Find a couple of mainstream whites and reds that you like that are likely to be on most wine menus and find a couple of lower production whites and reds that are less likely to be on most menus, but will seem impressive if you dig them out of a menu.
• Don't get upsold. If you get the sense that a waiter, sommelier, dude at a liquor store, etc. is trying to upsell you into expensive bottles, go somewhere else or order a beer. Knowledgeable waiters, sommeliers, etc. know that if they find you a solid bottle at a reasonable price, you are likely to drink more than one and you are likely to come back to their establishment.
• High price is not always directly related to good taste. I once was able to view one of the oldest bottles of wine in the world at the Graycliff restaurant in the Bahamas from 1726 that sells for $200K -- I have to imagine that stuff probably tastes like straight vinegar at this point.

Let me share this quote from Richard Betts, Master Somelier of the Little Nell in Aspen (this is from a recently published article in 5280 Magazine):

"My philosophy? Wine should be fun. People get all freaked out about ordering the right wine, but there is not such thing. The right wine is the wine you like. That's it. So find what you like and go for it."

Easy enough.

Picture from glovsky225

Cisco holographic videoconferencing

You've just got to watch the video to believe it.

Link

Tags: video+conferencing, holographics, Cisco, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Do you still have a landline phone?

I haven't had a traditional landline phone since I left college; in college is was provided for free where I was living, but I think the only people that called me on it were my parents. For a few years I had a phone from Vonage that was $15 per month for 500 minutes of long distance and everything else, but after reviewing the usage, the $15 was a better incremental spend for more minutes on the cell phone.

What's the value proposition in having a landline anymore? If you still have one and swear by it, let me know why.

Picture from Darwin Bell.

Tags: landline+phone, phone, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

In memorium

So, I had to put one of my dogs down last night, which is a totally miserable experience if you've never been through it. The temptation in these situations is to think about all the things that you didn't do, focus on all of the bad stuff, all the times you didn't take them for walks, etc., so I'd like to remember a few of the good things:

• He was never left alone overnight. Any time that everyone was out of town, there always was someone that stayed at the house with him.
• He got to come to more concerts than many of you have probably been to -- I used to bring him to work at the amphitheatre with me. For that matter, he's probably met more artists than many of you have.
• He got to play in deep snow.
• He got to live in Venice, CA 8 blocks away from the beach and walk on the strand and play in the Pacific Ocean.
• He got to watch my daughter grow through her first 2.5 years and to be her protector.
• He got to lay on the couch (frequently) even though he wasn't supposed to.
• He got to sleep on the bed (frequently) even though he wasn't supposed to.
  
• He was fiercly loyal and protective and absolutely hated mailmen and trash collectors with a passion.

I found this great excerpt from "The Best Place to Bury a Dog" by Ben Hur Lampman:

The one best place to bury a dog is in the heart of its master.

It was my great pleasure that he was my friend for 8 years -- I can count on 1 hand the number of real friends I've had for that long.

I'll miss you.

HBO hits iTunes, if they get Food Network, I'm cancelling my tv service

So, it's official, iTunes is now carrying HBO series programs. I would say that about 95% of my television viewing is HBO and the Food Network, so I'll cross my fingers that Food Network shows are coming (or that Food Network just starts streaming online) and that I can cancel my television service.

Link -- press release

Tags: HBO, iTunes, HBO+on+iTunes, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Keep Moving Forward

Quote by Walt Disney the ending of Meet the Robinsons:

"Around Here, However, We Don't Look Backwards Very Long,
We Keep Moving Forward, Opening Up New Doors And
Doing New Things, Because We're Curious...
And Curiosity Keeps Leading Us Down New Paths."

Actual quote from Walt Disney's 1965 presentation, "Total Image":

There s really no secret about our approach. We keep movingforward opening up new doors and doing new things because we recurious. And curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. We re alwaysexploring and experimenting. At WED, we call it Imagineering theblending of creative imagination with technical know-how.

Tags: keep+moving+forward, Walt+Disney, quotes, Meet+the+Robinsons, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Why I want a Kindle, but maybe not this Kindle

As I was looking at the boxes of books in my basement that I haven't cracked in the last 3+ years, I realized that while there were some books in there that I like, I'm really unlikely to keep carting the boxes of books around for the rest of my life. Furthermore, I started thinking about how cool it would be if, instead of looking at boxes full of books, I was just looking at folders on my hard drive (I used to feel this way about CDs and I imagine lots of people did before the iPod came around). Carrying around boxes of heavy books is a pain, while carrying around a hard drive is very easy.

The Kindle would seem to be the solution for me: simply draw a line in the sand as of the day I receive the Kindle and never buy another paper book again. I could talk myself into that kind of strategy, but I'm not sure that the Kindle is the perfect device yet for the following reasons:

• It uses a pretty proprietary data network to download stuff from Amazon. Although I'm not a world traveler, I'd like to be able to buy books when on vacation if I run out.
• It doesn't seem beefy enough for general use. I take books to the gym, to the beach, read them by the pool, etc., so I want my ebook reader to work in all those places without getting damaged.
• You have to turn it off during takeoff and landing. This rule applies to all electronics, but I think about how much time I have to leave my electronics off on a plane, and I'm usually reading during that time, so that's frustrating (and applies to any ebook reader, not just the Kindle).

Anyone have a Kindle that wants to convince me otherwise?

Link -- Amazon Kindle

Tags: Kindle, ebook+reader, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Slim down your wallet -- fat wallet 2

If your wallet is big enough to affect the geometry off your butt when you sit in a chair, it's time to go to work on slimming it down. My first suggestion is to read my post about consolidating all of your club cards. Next, check out this article from Real Simple, which has some great ideas about receipts, ID cards, etc.

Please fix your big, fat wallet.

Image from mikeying88.

Tags: wallet, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

The final solution in getting mail out of Outlook and into Gmail/Google Apps

If you use Google Apps and Outlook 2003 or later (this also works for a multitude of other desktop mail programs), simply download the newly-released Google E-Mail Uploader.  It's not clear if this works for regular Gmail accounts, but it definitely works for Google Apps accounts.

If you use Gmail or Google Apps, simply turn on IMAP access, configure your desktop client appropriately to access your account via IMAP, and drag and drop your e-mail into the Google IMAP folders.

Both of these methods preserve all of the original e-mail information, including the correct dates.

Thanks to everyone that worked with me in the past to come up with workarounds to make the upload of e-mail to Gmail easier; it's now so easy that it fits into this small of a post.

Tags: Google+e-mail+uploader, Gmail, Google+Apps, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Don't park like an asshole

If you park like an asshole, I think you should be sited for it.  Luckily, youparklikeanasshole.com exists with not only some notices that can be printed out and put on cars, but also with a gallery of people that park like assholes.  There's a guy in my building with a relatively nice car that blocks 2 spaces every morning and there's not a lot of parking in our lot -- there are people in my building with $100K cars that manage to fit in one space.  This weekend some jerk parked so close to my driver door that I had to climb in the passenger side and there were 3 empty spaces on each side.

Feel free to print out some of the notices and keep them in your car -- I like Notice 1.

Link -- youparklikeanasshole.com

Tags: youparklikeanasshole.com, parking, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Why Firefox 3 is super-cool and why you might want to wait

I've been a Firefox fan for years -- I load it on every machine that I sue, regardless of operating system (and usually regardless of whose machine it is).  Generally I don't get into playing with the beta versions of Firefox, but due to the amount of buzz around Firefox 3 beta 4, I went ahead and installed it.

First things first, and this may be the reason you don't want to install the beta: most of the add-ons that I use were disabled as they are incompatible.  Luckily Greasemonkey is compatible and most of the Greasemonkey scripts are compatible, but things like Google Toolbar and the del.icio.us toolbar haven't been updated; while I don't mind some of the things not working, the del.icio.us toolbar is what I miss the most.  (P.S. -- I did install the nightly tester tools to override and enable all the extension, which was a totally bad idea as Firefox got into an infinite loop where it wouldn't boot -- luckily I found out how to launch it in safe mode from the Terminal in OS X and disable all the add-ons).

Here's what's cool about Firefox 3: it is really fast.  You can search around for benchmarking and read all the reviews, but the simple fact of the matter is that I can observe it rendering and loading pages faster.  Further, it seems to interact in a more snappy manner with my heavy-use Google services such as Gmail and Reader.  I also like the history that comes up as I'm typing in a site.

Interestingly the search box did not install by default and I never realized how much I used the search from the toolbar until it wasn't there.  Luckily that was easily fixed by simply dragging and dropping it on the toolbar.  I'm guessing that if the Google toolbar was installed, that would have been automagically taken care of.

The Firefox 3 interface is cleaner and tighter and the buttons more closely resemble the OSX interface, which is quite nice.

Bottom line:

• If you are a user dependent on your add-ons, wait for the actual release, which is supposed to be June some time.


• If you are nervous about being bleeding edge and beta scares you, then wait for the full release.


• If you are like me and get along without most of your add-ons and love relatively stable bleeding edge stuff, then download it by all means.

Linik

Tags: Firefox+3, Firefox+3+beta+4, Firefox, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Lots of subscribers

Wow, I haven't checked Feedburner for a while, but I now have 600+ subscribers to this blog.  I remember when I first started playing around with blogging that I could hardly break 100 people, so I want to take the opportunity to thank all of you that currently subscribe and to offer the opportunity to subscribe to all of you that don't by simply clicking the icon above.

Again, I certainly appreciate your readership.

Thanks,


Ross

Tags: RSS, blog, subscribers, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Why we're using GoogleApps (and why you should think about it too)

I recently moved the company that I work for from e-mail being provided for free by our hosting provider to Google Apps Standard Edition -- here's why:

• Better reliability.  The e-mail service we were getting from our web host was horribly unreliable.  Even worse, the IMAP support was shoddy at best and we kept getting SSL certificate errors when trying to encrypt connections.  Although we're not getting the guaranteed uptime that we would with Google Apps Premium, Standard seems to be about as good as what we had before.


• Centralized, sophisticated management.  User creation, account lockout, password reset, distribution lists, etc. -- basically all we could do with the e-mail from our host was create addresses and reset passwords.


• Calendars.  Shared calendar functionality is key in organizations and we got nothing from our web host.  Now, with Google Apps, people can share calendars and with the Google Calendar Sync, they  can get 2-way sync between Outlook and Google Calendar.


• True web-based e-mail.  Our host offered it, but you had to choose between SquirrelMail and Horde and it was totally confusing.  The Google Apps interface is the same as the Gmail interface and is very easy to use.


• Google sites.  We were able to create a universally accessible intranet site without having to host it on our server. 


• Mobile access.  True IMAP support makes the BlackBerrys work like BlackBerrys are supposed to.  Google Sync for BlackBerry allows the BlackBerry to sync in real-time with the Google Calendar, which, if you use Google Calendar Sync, also means that Outlook is in syn -- all over-the-air and in real-time without having to plug the BlackBerry in.  Google Mail for Mobile allows full access to the Gmail interface so that users can perform searches on all of their archived e-mail.


• IMAP.  Just set up IMAP on Outlook, then drag all the mail from your PST files into the IMAP folders.  Once everything's uploaded, it can be searched using Gmail and all header information is preserved -- probably the easiest way to get e-mails out of Outlook and into Gmail.

We're not currently using Docs & Spreads, and I'm not sure that we will in the near-short term.  There are a number of employees that have actually abandoned Outlook in favor of Gmail, which is compelling as we look at future software upgrade paths.

Rumor has it that Google may be quickly releasing offline access to Gmail through Gears, which will likely speed adoption of Gmail and cause more people to leave Outlook.  There are further rumors that Google may develop and extremely low-cost server option that will compete directly with Exchange, which would evaluate.

Finally, it's nice to know that we have the ability to upgrade to Apps Premium at any time.  The mailbox sizes and the features offered by Postini as part of the package with an annual recurring cost of only $50 per user are quite compelling.

Here's the bottom line: if you have a business with a domain, go activate Google Apps and start looking more professional; nothing looks worse than someone using an "@yahoo.com" address as their business e-mail address.  If you're not comfortable doing this stuff yourself, find someone like me to help you out -- it's a worthwhile investment.

Link -- Google Apps 

Tags: Google+Apps, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Beyond Booked Solid

I frequently receive books to review on my blog and always disclose when they have been provided to me, so here's my disclosure that I received Beyond Booked Solid (in this post I'm going to refer to the book as "BBS" to make the writing easier) from the author's assistant free of charge for my review. Please note that I only will actually review books that I enjoy reading, so maybe 1 out of 10 actually gets any sort of mention.

When I received the book in the mail, I was immediately concerned that I had not read the preceding book, Book Yourself Solid (and this one is going to be "BYS," again for the ease of writing), but once I got in to the first few pages of BBS, I realized that reading BYS was not a requirement and that BBS stands just fine on its own. However, here's some quick background: BYS is about how to market and sell even if you don't like to market and sell, and how to fill up your time with business prospects to increase your revenue; BBS is about moving into building a bigger and better business by focusing on processes, systems, measurement, leadership, and other core functions.

The book is a good read for several reasons, not the least of which is that you get the feeling that Michael Port, the author, writes as he talks -- even though I've never seen his presentations or spoken to him directly, I can as easily envision him speaking in exactly the same way the words are set forth on the page. I like that Port ties in ideas from some of my other favorite authors such as Seth Godin and Timothy Ferriss and shows how those ideas apply to his core ideas (as a side note, if you read The Four Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss right before you read this book, you may tend to see a lot of parallels, which leads me to believe that great minds think alike).

Here's the core theme of the book is simply this: You need to work on your business, while working in your business, while working on yourself. Port not only details how to work through designing effective systems, leadership, project management, and other core business functions, but he also spends an appropriate amount of time reminding the reader that work is not the only thing in life; he provides the framework and the tools to ensure that your business can run effectively and efficiently and profitably, and still leave you time to spend on personal endeavors.

One thing that I truly enjoyed about BBS was the real-life examples spread throughout the book, and specifically the last chapter of the book that profiled several companies that used the techniques throughout the book to build and maintain successful businesses. Too often business writers expouse about theory and technique, but are unable to provide concrete examples of application; Port succeeds in providing very concrete examples of techniques in practice by successful businesses.

Release date for the book is April 18, 2008.  To those of you at the 24 Hour Fitness in Centennial that watched me read this early in the morning asked me about borrowing the book, you have my sincerest apologies, but I do hope that you will purchase a copy when it comes out and that my descriptions of the content along with this blog post were enough to whet your appetite. 

Link -- BBS website

PS -- as with many of the books that I review, I received a pre-production copy. The copy of BBS I reviewed was actually a simply bound 8.5x11 document . . . it was perfect to be able to read on the treadmill and stair machine at the gym. I thought about 2 things in that regard were I to publish a book:

• Size can matter. If books were available in a simple 8.5x11 edition by themselves or as part of an upsell with the hardback, I would buy it just to be able to read it at the gym.


• There's a marketing opportunity here. How easy would it be to walk into your local gym with a 8.5x11 copy of your yet-to-be-published book and put it on every machine with a magazine/book holder? You could ask people to read it, send feedback via e-mail, and leave it on the machine for the next person to read when they were done.

Tags: Beyond+Booked+Solid, Michael+Port, book+review, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Here's what my iPod should do

I was thinking this morning as I was pulling into my office parking lot that the iPod I was listening to in my car should some how be able to automagically tell my computer exactly what song I was listening to, exactly where I stopped in that song, and start playing that song when I walked in the door.   Is that realistic?

Let me answer that in a few ways:

• Basic iPod -- seems like I should be able to take a basic iPod in with me and the very first thing it should transmit is the data I described above and my computer should start right where I left off.  Low tech, but functional and seemingly achievable.


• iPod Touch -- if I were in range of my work wifi network and I turned off the car, the iPod should wirelessly transmit that data to my computer; if there's no wifi network, then it should work the same as the basic iPod.


• iPhone (I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this) -- should use wifi or the data network to notify my computer.

Are there potential problems with this?  Sure, especially if the computer it's trying to notify doesn't have the music on it, but that's a pretty simple test.  In thinking more about it, my guess would be that it would probably be easiest to implement this in an iPhone if someone could figure out how to have the iPhone auto-trigger an e-mail that then triggered an automator response once received by the machine.  That's kind of kludgy though, and it would be much cooler if iTunes was the black box for this process. 

Tags: iTunes, iPod, iPhone, music, Ross+Hollman, Strategize

Add browser shortcuts to your applications on your BlackBerry

Yup, pretty much just like the iPhone, but a little bit more complex.

Here's how:

1. Go to this site


2. Either type the over-the-air URL into your BlackBerry browser, use the Google Send to Phone site to SMS the OTA URL to yourself and copy and paste it into your BlackBerry browser, or download the installer to use with Desktop Manager (super-lame choice).


3. Using the OTA method: download the "Shortcut Hub Utility" and at least "web shortcut 1"


4. Open the Shortcut Hub Utility


5. Define the URL and image URL -- images must be 32 pixel by 32 pixel PNG files (leave the background blank for best display) and here's an example that I made for Grand Central.

A few notes:

• The default for the image is "http://", so if you don't change this, it goes into an infinite loop looking for the logo to download.  I believe if you blank this out, it should work


• This would probably be very useful for deploying corporate websites as applications and there are instructions on the site about how to do this. 

Tags: BlackBerry, iPhone, BlackBerry+application, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

The "friendly skies" become a little less friendly for tickets purchased after Feb 4 for travel on or after May 5

Here's the meat of the e-mail I got from United:

As of February 4, 2008, United has a new checked baggage
policy. Non-elite Mileage Plus^® members and non-members
traveling on non-refundable Economy tickets within the
United States, Canada and U.S. territories, may check one
bag for free and a second for a $25 fee. The new policy
applies to tickets purchased beginning February 4, 2008 for
travel on or after May 5, 2008. 

Wow!  I haven't gotten this notice from any other airlines -- is this becoming a new standard or is United hoping to lead the way on this one?  I guess you can look at this is an extra benefit to being a premium member, but most will probably look at it as another reason not to fly United.  I would be surprised to see Frontier, Jet Blue, or Southwest implement this policy.

Tags: United, baggage+policy, air+travel, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Differentiate your business with free wireless internet

If you own a business where people have to wait, don't you think it's worth the $50 to provide free wireless internet?  If you own a restaurant with a bar area or a bar, isn't it worth the $50 to differentiate yourself from the competition?  On the waiting side of things, time goes faster if you can get some work done or browse the internet; on the revenue side of things, people will spend more time in your establishment if they can work while the eat and drink.

 

Let me focus on the bar/restaurant scenario: unless you are a large chain and have strictly controlled IT policies, chances are good that you have a DSL line or T1 coming into your building.  For about $50, you can add a wireless router into the mix and keep your internal data easily segmented from the open internet access. 

 

So let's say that I own Joe's bar in the Tech Center -- it's nothing special, but I serve alcohol and typical bar food.  I add in wireless internet access for $50, spend $100 printing a sign to advertise it, put it on my website at no cost, and update my CitySearch profile to include those details at no cost [bonus points if I write a blog and announce it].  Now I attract people to come in a little earlier in the afternoon because they can make it seem like they are still at work.  To be conservative, let's say an extra 5 people come in every Friday for an extra hour; let's say that each person incrementally drinks one more beer at $5 per beer for a total of $25; let's say that I incrementally keep those people most of the year, so about 50 Fridays or a total of $1250 per year -- deduct the initial startup of $150 and I net $1100.  What's great about it is that I rarely, if ever, have to make any sort of investment again -- most people would love to get an $1100 return in year one on an investment of $150.

 

Now let me focus on the waiting scenario and apply it to a doctor's office: again, unless you're some sort of chain, you likely control your own IT policy, so you make the same investment of $50 and maybe $100 in some sort of advertising.  Most people assume that their doctor will be late and most of the time the doctor will be significantly late, so if they know that they can get work done in the waiting room, they are more likely to use the doctor with the free wireless internet than another doctor.

 

So let's say that I, Doctor Hollman, invest $150 in wireless and word gets around and I get 15 new patients over the course of the first year.  Now I've seen what a normal visit gets billed at, but let's just estimate a normal check-up at $100 -- I just made $1500 for a $150 investment for a net of $1350.  Again, the investment does not need to be made again, so that's a huge return in year 1 and an even bigger return in year 2.

 

Believe me, as iPhones and iPod Touches and MacBook Airs and all of the copies of those devices become more prevalent, offering free wireless will become less of a differentiator and more of a strategic imperative, but why not take advantage of it now while it still can differentiate you?

 

By the way: this is really easy for your competition to copy, but only if they can figure it out.

 

By the way number 2: if you need someone to help you pull this off in Colorado, shoot me an e-mail. 

Tags: wireless+internet, wifi, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

So, ad-supported music downloads arrive at midnight EST (if you use Windows)

The proposition with Qtrax is that you download their Mozilla-based music browser application, watch a bunch of ads to generate revenue for artists and record companies, and download from a library of 25 million music tracks.  Interestingly, the President of Qtrax had this to say about iPod compatibility:

"We've had a technical breakthrough, which enables us to put songs on an iPod without and interference from Fairplay . . . and Apple has nothing to do with it."

Let me make a few assumptions/observations:

1. Qtrax will be using some sort of digital rights management on the music.  I wouldn't have necessarily jumped to this conclusion without the President's comment about Fairplay (Apple's proprietary DRM), but the fact that he mentioned a work-around leads me to believe that a DRM scheme is definitely in use.


2. Qtrax wants you to use its branded, custom browser all the time.  I would read the privacy policy pretty carefully before actually using the browser -- worry about what kind of data Qtrax collects, if such data is shared with the RIAA, etc.  Further, I wonder if they've built in intelligence to redirect you to their site when searching for music torrent downloads, etc.


3. The Qtrax browser becomes your music listening application (i.e., tries to take the place of iTunes, etc.).  This is a logical assumption based on the DRM assumption in number 1 above and make sense with the browsing functionality described in number 2 above.


4. Qtrax is trying to control your connection to an artist.  There's a lot of sites doing this, namely MusicToday, but the fact the Qtrax is displaying artist information, real-time updates, presumably links through to ticket sales, etc., it certainly appears that they're taking a run at being the connector between the fan and the artist.

The Mac version will be released on March 18th, so it's likely I'll probably forget to go into Parallels and download this to try it when it's released, but I'm sure there will be lots of coverage this evening.

 

Link  

Tags: Qtrax, music, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

So what’s the problem? As the late Doctor Deming told us again and again, screwed-up management.

The quote that is the title of this post is from Tom Peters.  I thought about it when I read this excerpt on Bob Sutton's blog:

My own research has found that people with power tend to behave like
patients who have damaged their brain's orbitofrontal lobes (the region
of the frontal lobes right behind the eye sockets), a condition that
seems to cause overly impulsive and insensitive behavior. Thus the
experience of power might be thought of as having someone open up your
skull and take out that part of your brain so critical to empathy and
socially-appropriate behavior.

The context of the excerpt is applied to people that are put into powerful positions and is easily applied to those that are placed into management positions with little to no training and/or preparation, no mentoring or leadership, no clear definition of what success actually is.

Is this you?

Link -- Bob Sutton

Tags: Deming, management, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

My complicated calendar sync

In my quest to synchronize all of my calendars, I've finally come up with the perfect solution:

1. Blackberry -- use the Gcal Sync client.  This allows my to synchronize my Google Calendars and my Blackberry calendar in real time provided I have data coverage.  I can select what calendars I want to show up and the effect on battery life is not noticeable -- this gives me BES-like synchronization.


2. OSX & Gcal -- use Plaxo.  I use the Plaxo client for iCal to synchronize my calendar data from my Mac to Gcal and back.  Due to the fact that I'm using Gcal Sync on my Blackberry, provided I have data coverage on my computer, I get pretty real-time updates on my Mac and pretty real-time sync from my Mac to Gcal to my Blackberry.

Logo love fest diagram:

<=> <=> <=> +

Tags: Blackberry, Google+Sync, Google+Calendar, iCal, Plaxo, calendar+sync, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Turn your Blogger account into an OpenID even if you don't use Blogspot

Here's how to essentially make Google your OpenID provider if you use Blogger:

*    Go to http://draft.blogger.com (this doesn't work through the regualr Dashboard) 

*    Click "Edit Profile" in the upper right

*    Check the box that says "Enable OpenID for Blogs"

*    Scroll down and click "Save Profile"

That's it.  I tested it using my blog.rosshollman.com to ensure that it worked for custom domains, and it works just fine.  Also, you can use any blog associated with your Blogger account as your OpenID.

Presumably Google will role this out at some point to anyone with a Google account, but if you want it now, this is how you get it. 

Tags: Blogger, Blogger+OpenID, OpenID, Google.+Strategize, Ross+Hollman

LeopardMOD

LeopardMOD allows you to easily tweak a bunch of hidden settings in OSX Leopard using a GUI and it's free, which makes it even better.

I'm not a big command line guy if I can avoid it, so I'm always into stuff like this.

Link  

Tags: LeopardMOD, OS+X, Leopard, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Permission to text/SMS

My dentist office texted me a few days ago about their ability to send me appointment reminders by text -- I'm sure they thought that was a cool upgrade/feature.  Here's the thing: if you don't have a bucket of text messages or some sort of plan, incoming texts (even those that you don't want) cost you around $0.15 per message; currently there is no mechanism in place to charge the text message sender.

A software provider for our company talked about adding similar functionality in a new software service pack and I asked about permission; he didn't understand right away because he was focused on the fact that it was a new/cool/better feature.  I asked him to consider being an employee for us that had to pay $0.15 per message that started receiving just 10 messages a month from us: it just cost you $1.50 to be an employee for us, which doesn't seem like a lot unless you're a person that counts every dollar.  Once we got through the example, he backpedaled and said that they were just a software maker providing functionality and that it would be up to us to handle permissions, and he suggested that we develop some sort of opt-in form.  Still haven't decided if we're going to make use of this functionality, but I can guarantee that we won't be sending text messages to anyone that doesn't opt-in if we do start using it.

So back to my dentist: if they knew that each message that they sent cost me $0.15, would it be worth it to her if the tables were turned and it cost her $0.15 per text message?  I'm guessing that they will likely see higher return rates on appointments and less time for the front office staff making outbound calls to remind people of and to confirm appointments.  However, I would also guess that she would take pause if she knew that $0.15 went out the door every time the system sent out a text.  Figure it this way: each patient has at least 2 appointments for cleanings a year, so the system punches out 4 text messages per year per patient at a cost of $0.60 per year -- for 1000 patients that's $600, which is real money.

Here's another thing I worry about when someone like a dentist opens up a direct line of communication to me for which I have to pay: what happens if she tries to monetize it?  What if the software manufacturer sells a client list to Sonicare of dentists that use the text messaging function?  Maybe Sonicare reaches out to the dentists and makes a deal whereby the dentist sends out a text about a new Sonicare product and the dentists make a big commission on every Sonicare sale.  It's any easy call for the dentists because it doesn't incrementally cost them any money, but it does cost the receiver that essentially just paid $0.15 to receive targeted advertising.

Text message permission marketing/communication will only become a bigger issue in the next couple of years.

PS -- try to get your wireless carrier to turn off text messaging on your phone; it's near impossible because of the way the revenue model is built. 

Photo from JaseMan  

Tags: permission+marketing, text+messaging, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

Permission to call

Requiring me to input a phone number when I book a room at your hotel does not give you permission to market to me on my phone.

Tonight at 8:30PM I got a call from Wyndham Hotels.  The person calling referenced a stay I made a few months ago and proceeded to launch into a promotional rate deal for next month.  As soon as I could get a word in edgewise, I asked the person what time it was where she was calling from -- she responded that she showed me as being in the mountain time zone (I'm assuming the system generates this information from my area code or billing zip or something).  She then informed me that state law allowed her to call up until 9PM at which point I responded with: "I'm going to allow you to stop bugging me now."

Here's the thing: if you require me to input information (i.e., I can't complete a reservation without giving you my phone number) that you are going to to turn around and use to market to me, you have to give me the ability to opt out or, even better, default to assuming that I opt out and allow me to opt in.  We're all used to this with entering our e-mail addresses, but are companies so desperate that they are now mining other required information because interruption e-mails aren't working (or are easy to opt out of by unsubscribing or ignoring)?  That's a pretty scary trend if true.

If you're a company, you can't force your consumers to engage with you by taking advantage of information that you require them to provide to you.  The end result is that you break the consumers' trust: at the least they stop patronizing your business and at most they may try to form class-action lawsuits.

Although I've had a GrandCentral account since they started handing out beta invites and I don't regularly use it.  However, if direct contact via phone by companies becomes the norm, you can bet that I will start using more frequently if for no other reason but to prevent those that I don't want to be able to reach me without a filter from reaching me. 

Picture from Balakov  

Tags: permission+marketing, marketing+calls, Strategize, Ross+Hollman

CF Frost

You've noticed the name on the AmEx card commercials like have, right?  Ever wondered who CF Frost is?  The answer is not too exciting, but here it is courtesy of The Straight Dope :

Charles Frost--or Chuck, as we like to call him--is
a real person. He was an account executive for
the advertising firm of Ogilvy & Mather, which put together the
original "Do you know me?" ads for American Express.

I wonder if American Express could have capitalized on this somehow; I bet that they could have.  Why is it that the first answer isn't on their site?  They could have built a legend, built a story, built a contest around eagle-eyed people that noticed the name on the card.

Tags: CF+Frost, American+Express, Strategize, Ross+Hollman