If you follow me on Twitter, you know I’ve not completely disappeared. But if we only connect through this blog, well, I might have led you to believe I’ve deserted and am hiding away . So I thought it was high time for a quick update on what yours truly has been doing lately.

• Working, of course. Both with my existing clients on some amazingly cool projects and with new ones I’ll tell you more in a short bit. It’s been fun and challenging, but is also took a lot of my time, including weekends The situation won’t change, but I’m learning to better adapt to it.
• Reading and listening to music – these have been my favorite ways of relaxing. I’ve finished the first three books of the Twilight series (the fourth will only be published in Romania this autumn, so I’m getting it from Amazon). As for music, I finally reconnected with my old habit of listening to music while working. I draw a lot of inspiration from it.
• Looking into buying a house. Actually, rent it first, then buy it, as this is not the best moment ever to get a loan. So, thank God for smart companies, they’ve invented this Rent-2-Buy program, where you pay rent for a couple of years and after that, when you buy the house, all your rent is deducted from the price. So it appears I’ll soon have my own little house, with a little garden, a terrace and a huge kitchen
• Writing! I can’t really explain when exactly I’m doing this, but I’ve started writing a novel. It’s been a while since I last considered writing fiction again! But it’s a great opportunity to use my English vocabulary for something more than business writing. I can tell you it will be a vampire story. Simply because after dozens of books, movies and TV series, I still fee I haven’t been told the story I always wanted to hear. So I’m writing it

I’ve missed being here, reading blogs and connecting with you all! But I bet my break from my online home is over! See you around

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I know a lot about the pressure in a customer support department! I know about the large number of emails, chats and phones an engineer needs to handle! I know how vague customer requests can be. But under all that stress and all that pressure and in that awful race against time, one rule still needs to be complied with: before starting to write the reply to an email inquiry, stop and read the initial message and make sure you understand it.

If it’s vague, ask for details. If you don’t get it, ask a colleague for help (support teams are usually quite tight and help each other a lot). Whatever you do, do not reply to the email when you don’t fully understand it. Don’t rush into sending a reply, just to tick another email off the target when you think you know what the customer is asking.

Continue reading

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It seems like Tuesdays have been the days for most posts related to the WoBM Anniversary Contest, the Blogging and Relationships – Write about the wonderful people you’ve met Group Writing Project. So it’s no wonder you get to meet the winners on a Tuesday

As I’ve kept you waiting for too long, here’s who won and a list of all entries:

The first place and first prize, a copy of IttyBiz’ SEO School, go to Andrew for his wonderful entry Three Special Bloggers.

The second place and prize, a collection of Depeche Mode – The Singles 86-98 in mp3 format, go to Joanna Young for her inspirational piece on microblogging and relationships, Why it’s worth sticking with Twitter.

For the third place, we had a tie. So we’ve decided on having to amazing bloggers awarded: Brad Shorr for the Blogging Relationships are Gold for the Soul post, who will be receiving a copy of Lillie Ammann’s “Dream or Destiny”, and Lillie Ammann with the entry Blogging Friends, but as she cannot win her own book, she will be also receiving the Depeche Mode – The Singles 86-98 in mp3 format collection.

All four of them will also get 2 hours of free PR consulting, but I’ll send all the details about their prizes in an email.

Thank you and congratulations again to everyone who’s been part of this group writing project:

Brad Shorr – Blogging Relationships are Gold for the Soul

Sarah Welstead – 7 Rules for Effective Relationship Blogging

Andrew of Good Honest Dollar – Three Special Bloggers

Joanna Young – Why it’s worth sticking with Twitter

CV Harquail – Tweet yourself like the person you want to be

Jacquelyn – How I started the WParent blog

Lillie Ammann – Blogging Friends

Nithya – Building Strength through Support

Alina Popescu – Investing in relationships has excellent ROI

Important Update

As Brad already has a copy of “Dream or Destiny”, he’s donnated his to a random participant. He’ll be enjoying a Depeche Mode collection instead. We played with some numbers and the lucky winner is CV Harquail – Tweet yourself like the person you want to be. Congratsulations!

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What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

Welcome to a new and sunny edition of our Monday reading list. I’ll start with something a little differnent today, an entry for this month “What I learned from” group writing project, lessons from a sidewalk. And it’s Brad Shorr’s entry, talking about sales lessons learned while pounding the pavement, it’s downsides and the many pluses of newer technologies.

Jonathan Fields has some adivice for you if you want to be a better speaker – go commando! What does that mean? It meand improvising, creating on the fly and coming up with a very real speech.

Jean Murray of Home Biz Notes talks about a rather sensitive issue: what to do when your spouse doesn’t support your work? Read her article for some great tips on how to get them on your side.

John Bell of the Digital Influence Mapping Project talked explained the difference between paid media, earned media and word of mouth, in the context of what brands want.

Shirazz Data thinks social networking has really nailed customer satisfaction. The next task on its to do list? Customer loyalty. Read his entry to get an idea of how to make the transition.

And to chear you up for this week, here’s an amazingly funny entry from Jaffe Juice: click to see how Michelangelo’s David would look after spending too much time in the US . And Ian Lurie’s explanation of why SEO is just like bacon!

The internet is a really dizzingly large place, I’m sure I’ve missed a couple of great articles. Let’s share them in the comment box!

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Daniel Secareanu has tagged me with a wonderful meme that definitely suits a Sunday evening. A random artist is created using random creativity, and here’s what band I’d be in and the name of our very first album!

Do you want to play? Here’s how to decide on your band name, your album name and the artwork to be used on the cover. If you like it too much, well, you can actually use it and start writing songs

1. Go to Wikipedia. Use the “random” search option or click here. The name of the first article you find will be your band’s name.
2. Next, go to “Random quotations” or click this link. The last three-four words of the last quote on the page will be your album’s name.
3. Then, go to Flicker and access the photos posted in the last seven days, or click here. The third photo displayed, no matter what it is, will be your album’s cover. As my friend Loredana noticed, you should also check if there’s any copyright or creative commons for that photo and make sure you can a. use it and b. modify it. You should keep going from one photo to the next till you reach you can use. In my case, it took checking out the entire first page, reloading and then checking a few more. Original photo here.
4. Lastly, use your preferred photo editing software or online tool to put everything together.

If you read this and you’re inspired to see what your first album would look and sound like, consider yourself tagged!

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