So if you decide your support team should have a Twitter account to monitor issues reported by customers on Twitter because you want to make sure their problems are solved and they’re still happy with your product or service, I’d call that a good plan. It’s not the same thing as tweeting back a link to your knowledge base or saying the same thing the email reply asking for more info said, is it?  If your support guy playing with Twitter is nice, knowledgeable and doesn’t mind providing support for something that’s not really caused by your product/service, I call that brilliant

I also have an example: when I switched to GoDaddy, I ran into some issues and had to talk to the support team. I also sent out  tweet saying my travel blog is not working, but GoDaddy support was helping me with it. The tweetsupport of GoDaddy offered to help, even with Wordpress and database issues if I needed it. I didn’t, but knowing they were there for me for something that wasn’t their fault when they could have said it wasn’t a GoDaddy related issue made me love them forever.

In conclusion, Twitter i as good of a medium as any to broadcast. But actually connecting with people, listeining to them, understanding their problems and helping them solve those problems is the right way to go if you want to take your microblogging efforts to a higher level.

I remember the concert in Bucharest, my friends crying because we were too young to go. I remember watching it on TV and enjoying every second of it.

I remember wearing a glove and trying to dance like him. Some moves I got right and I was in the center of attention for it!

I remember reading the first song lyrics in a book of a girl who was the president of the Michael Jackson Fan Club in Romania. I remember it was the first time I read every line in “Will you be there”. And although I love Billie Jean, Black or White, Bad, Dirty Diana, and almost every song he ever released, although I listen to Thriller twice a day driving to and from Bucharest, “Will you be there” is my absolute favorite Michael Jackson song.

As I was blipping and tweeting earlier, thank you Jacko, thank you for the music, for the lyrics and the wonderful, wonderful dancing!

Hold Me
Like The River Jordan
And I Will Then Say To Thee
You Are My Friend

Carry Me
Like You Are My Brother
Love Me Like A Mother
Will You Be There?

Weary
Tell Me Will You Hold Me
When Wrong, Will You Skold Me
When Lost Will You Find Me?

But They Told Me
A Man Should Be Faithful
And Walk When Not Able
And Fight Till The End
But I’m Only Human

Everyone’s Taking Control Of Me
Seems That The World’s
Got A Role For Me
I’m So Confused
Will You Show To Me
You’ll Be There For Me
And Care Enough To Bear Me

(Hold Me)
(Lay Your Head Lowly)
(Softly Then Boldly)
(Carry Me There)

(Lead Me)
(Love Me And Feed Me)
(Kiss Me And Free Me)
(I Will Feel Blessed)

(Carry)
(Carry Me Boldly)
(Lift Me Up Slowly)
(Carry Me There)

(Save Me)
(Heal Me And Bathe Me)
(Softly You Say To Me)
(I Will Be There)

(Lift Me)
(Lift Me Up Slowly)
(Carry Me Boldly)
(Show Me You Care)

(Hold Me)
(Lay Your Head Lowly)
(Softly Then Boldly)
(Carry Me There)

(Need Me)
(Love Me And Feed Me)
(Kiss Me And Free Me)
(I Will Feel Blessed)

[Spoken]
In Our Darkest Hour
In My Deepest Despair
Will You Still Care?
Will You Be There?
In My Trials
And My Tripulations
Through Our Doubts
And Frustrations
In My Violence
In My Turbulence
Through My Fear
And My Confessions
In My Anguish And My Pain
Through My Joy And My Sorrow
In The Promise Of Another Tomorrow
I’ll Never Let You Part
For You’re Always In My Heart.

Rest in peace, Michael, rest in peace!

The process of developing one’s communication skills must currently take into consideration a wide range of books, articles, conferences, tips and tricks etc., all of which are based on things written or discussed years ago.

As a retrospective insight, the ’80s have put the spotlight on “body language”, “powerful presentations”, overall “behavioral communication” for those demanding economic business growth. Then in the ’90s, we clearly saw a revolution in all that is visual: from graphic design to subliminal messages that get stuck in our minds.

Early ’00s came up to show the World Wide Web potential: ease of access to more information, different resources, new kinds of media and so on. Nevertheless, it was impossible to predict such a high expansion in such short time, as in 2009 we now have Wikipedia, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, newsletters, virals, tons of websites, gigabytes of information and don’t forget about Google which seems to be doing everything for you.

And we’re only a click away!

I believe it’s becoming more and more difficult to address these major players on our global society with “old-school methods” only. Nowadays, communication has reached a sustained and well known rhythm of specificity and thinking “out of the box” or brainstorming your team ’till 2 AM just doesn’t seem to be as productive and efficient as it was 15 years ago.

Why does this happen? To put it simply: because human nature has a constant need for diversity - just think about the first time we found fire: we made a steak on a stick :-). This diversification usually ends in a discovery which, furthermore, implies a certain process of creativity.

When LinkedIn came into sight, who thought that it is going to be one of the most useful and used business platforms (from contacts to closing a deal)? What about Wikipedia, when we all had some sort of encyclopedia on our shells?

Communication is on the edge of being something different.

Most of us now pay attention to the other person’s body language; clearly, it’s easier to see whether or not he / she is a liar just by watching his / her eyes; any inflexion in the voice exposes a certain level of nervousness, while mirroring will help you in having a more relaxed and detached conversation. And you know all these, because you’ve read it in some magazines or a trainer told you so, or you’ve watched some movies or listened to some audio books about them. And the person next to you knows these as well!

We prefer to write a short email or send an SMS, just because there isn’t time to meet with that person - you’re busy running to get a seat in the metro-train; it’s so much easier to buzz them on Yahoo Messenger, while you have in mind that old “Keep it short and simple!” marketing principle - and you don’t seem to ask yourself anymore “When was the last time I saw him / her?” We tweet about what we just did or what we’re gonna do or what someone else has done, at least 3 / 4 times a day - and you do get that nice feel you’ve “spread the word around”, right?

Basically, we’ve switched from face-to-face communications to an indirect chat over an internet connection. And when we finally realized that, we had already had 5 email accounts created, 2 or 3 social networking profiles, more than 10 blog-posts per week (or per day, in some cases), wasted hours on messengers, precious time given away because we are “too tired” to do something else.

And we seem to adapt to this as it would (or must or has to) be “natural”. But I’m 24. For me, normality has that old-school feeling in its definition, I still prefer to meet with somebody for a cup of coffee (or a beer, depends) and have a nice conversation about everything and nothing at the same time. I’d rather call them, than buzz ‘em over messenger, if these were the only communication ways I had. I love to read a good book and have it in my hands, rather than on my Blackberry and I most certainly believe that the friends I have can tell more about me than a public social network profile. Yes, I do use them, but I do not want to make them the biggest part of who I am!

And now I think about 5 to 10 years old kids… who were born in this internet era… They are all logged in - multitasking - results oriented - highly capable - bla-bla-painful-bla. For what, really?

Alin Ivenţa is a poet, a sales specialist and an amateur actor, all uniquely mixed, stirred and served. He currently manages the South Asian and Pacific sales accounts at Gecad Technologies, developer of the Axigen Mail Server. He also runs a very interesting blog, Reality 2.0 - in Romanian - and I invite you to visit it to find out more about him.

Or it would seem the book is about all of the above. Nick Hornby actually tells the story of a failing relationship between “the Angriest Man in Holloway” and his wife, Katie Carr. Tired of his anger, sarcasm and general dislike and dismissal of everything around him, Katie has an affair. They talk divorce and just when you think their relationship is over, David’s anger gets miraculously cured by a certain DJ GoodNews, who later comes to live with the couple and their two children. David and GoodNews start to work on their mastermind plan to end homelessness in their neighborhood and then make the world a better place, and they do have some luck with it.

The cured anger, although it gives the couple a second chance, is diminished by the ever present GoodNews, whose powerful powers to ‘heal’ came from substance abuse, and David’s strict views on how they should all live their lives. During all this, Katie is the only one working and supporting the family and GoodNews, handling the problems her son and daughter are having. She’s also constantly concerned about her not being a good person, although she’s a doctor and she helps people, and about how exactly to make it work with David. Should she move away, should she ask a vicar about what to do? I invite you all to find out for yourselves.

And here are two quotes from the book that I find very interesting. I’ve finished the book a couple of weeks ago, and I still think about them quite a lot.

“Sometimes we have to be judged by our one-offs.”

“Love, it turns out, is as undemocratic as money, so it accumulates around people who have plenty of it already.”

As for the very copy I’ve read, well, there’s a story of a traveling book to it

The ad is meant to emphasize how a company can simply not worry about thieves coming in and trying to steal their sensitive data. More on data loss and theft, how to prevent it and how serious it can be here.

Hope you enjoy the ad! Oh, and I challenge you to find me in the ad

The significance of a unique logo for the purpose of marketing and branding of a company or its product is not hidden from anyone. Having a perfect logo could be the ultimate wish of any business owner who knows the real importance of visual identity. However, many a time, due to lack of knowledge or some other factors, business owners do some common logo design mistakes while building their business brand. These mistakes eventually develop a wrong brand image, and then a business has to face decline even when all other branding elements are fine. In this article, we have pointed out 5 common logo design mistakes most commonly made by business owners.

Not hiring a professional designer to do the job

On the surface you might think that designing a logo is not a complicated task. You may assume that nearly anyone with some taste and artistic inclinations can design a logo for you. However, reality is quite different. Designing a business logo is not a work of new or pastime amateurs.

While seeking a logo designer, you need to understand that getting a logo designed by a professional and experienced logo designer does matter. Logos which are designed by non-professionals are usually unable to portray the right message. Therefore, hiring a professional is fundamental when it comes to ensuring that you obtain the most attractive and the most effective logo for your business.

Failing to describe the purpose of the business

Many businesses struggle in building a unique brand identity with a weak or vague logo that portrays a different image than what the company is actually about. When it comes to the relationship issue between your logo and your business, you need to pay attention to target marketing. Not only does your logo need to illustrate what your business is all about it also needs to be designed in a manner to attract the attention of the niche market that contains those consumers who will be most interested in what your business offers.

Over-crowding the logo with too many design elements

Logos with a simple design never go out of fashion. Whereas, complexity in your logo kills your brand image. Too many colors, complicated images and unreadable fonts make your logo hard to process and visually unattractive.

Hence, when selecting a logo design for your business, keep in mind that a clean, simple, and uncluttered look normally is the best selection and the best choice for your business operation.

With a simple and uncluttered logo you will find that consumers will more readily connect with your business. A quicker, sounder connection will increase the number of customers or clients that your firm or company will do business with both in the short and the long term.

Failing to provide resizable formats for different media

Resizability or scalability refers to the manner in which your logo can be effectively resized for all the available marketing and advertising media. If you are like most business owners, you will use your logo in a number of different ways. As a consequence, you need to have a logo that can be utilized in a variety of different sizes.

Unfortunately, not all logos are scalable in an appropriate manner.  Certain logos simply do not look good when they are shifted into different sizes for different purposes.  Therefore, while designing it, make sure it will look great in all sizes wherever you will use it.

Having poor black & white logo versions

Beyond attractiveness of the color scheme that you will use in your logo, you will also want to consider the black and white aspect for using your logo on the media where you cannot use it in full colors. For example, when you need to send a letterhead to your client.

You logo should have an ability to grab the viewer’s attention even in black and white. Therefore, with other tasks of defining colors, fonts and design, you should also focus on the black and white version of your logo.

Conclusion

Because your logo is such an integral part of the marketing, advertising and promoting of your business, you need to undertake a research about your logo to make sure it will be as effective and as appropriate as possible. By taking care of these mistakes that I’ve pointed out, you will be able to make the most appropriate decision as to what you should avoid in your approach of choice to designing a logo.

Customers aren’t always looking for the perfect product or service. They’ve been around long enough to know that problems arising or not is a matter of luck. Smart customers will always prefer the company that makes them feel that if they ever have a problem, it will be solved fast and without them jumping through hoops for it.

Customer service means everything from technical support, to payment and invoicing support, to a good communication between the company and its customers.So don’t think that making sure your solution works is enough to keep customers happy. Cause if they can’t buy it in the first place, it won’t do much.

To make it all clearer, I’ll give you an example. There this bank that has amazing products. When it comes to SMBs, they simply rock; they have great consumer products as well. When you read about their products and services, you just want to sing that contract! And I for one did, on quite a few of their offerings.

But! They have email support that is useless. I’ve been in tech support, so when I have technical issues, I usually send out an email with screen shots, all the solutions I’ve tried, reference to their knowledge base articles I’ve tried, etc. I know lack of information delays the solution, so I’m willing to help get it over with. The lady I was talking to asked me to call their support, as she wasn’t able to help me. What happened to forwarding my email to someone who’s able to? I would have called if I wanted phone support.

They have misplaced a contract I’ve signed and I never got my copy! They promised to call when they found it, but never did. And I can tell you a lot about tired, annoyed and bored employees. Unfortunately, I’m not the only one, a lot of friends who work with this specific bank have had similar issues.

Right now, they handle my business account, I have a credit card from them and a savings account, plus a lot of associated services. Would I recommend them to anyone else? Sure! But I’m a special case: I work with 4 different banks on a monthly basis, I stay informed and I know that their competitors either don’t offer the services I need, or their support is just as bad. So I would recommend them, but I’d also warn everybody that customer service sucks. And that if they’re not willing to put up with it, they might as well go some place else. And trust me, the moment I find out some other bank offers better customer care for similar services, I’ll be running out the door!

The conclusion? If you want to outplay your competitors, make sure your customer service is top notch. It won’t compensate for a bad product or faulty service, nor will it help with the fact no one has ever heard of your product, but it will turn your customers into enthusiastic supporters, you’ll get plenty of word of mouth recommendation and you won’t worry about losing half of your business over simple issues that could have been solved, should you have taked the time to treat your customers as they deserve to be treated.

Want to hear it? Then get closer! I’ll share a major secret with you. Stars and VIPs are the worst teachers you could ever get if you want to learn some valuable social media skills. And here’s why!

1. They are oblivious of conversations

Yes, they are! They simply broadcast. And they seem unable to join a conversation or start one with their followers. Take Oprah for example. Do you see any replies, retweets or anything there? If you look really hard, you’ll see some replies to Demi Moore.

2. They really are royalty

That means they are exclusive. They only talk to their own, see the above example. Should you hold it against them? Well, let’s say you have 1 million followers. Say a big chunk of them are spammers. Say 30% reply to something you said. How long will it take to reply to them? How much time that’s better invested somewhere else? Sure, they could hire someone, but we’re all here to see them!

But if you’re looking to reach out to people, build relationships with them that are valuable and rewarding for both parties, you won’t have the “I’m busy” excuse.

In all fairness, it seems the longer they are on Twitter, the more they seem to get the dialogue part of it. Check out the Kutcher couple! They actually reply and retweet a lot! Different story from when I first saw their profiles.

3. There was an important rule about giving…

Oh, true, there is! The first rule of social media is to first give and then ask for something. Well, they only had to show up to get thousands of raving fans follow their every online move. Even when they were making no moves to begin with. Do you really think that would work in your case? I dare you to try! See if you can get anything valuable out of it! Yes, I’ve seen the profiles with no updates and hundreds of followers. But I could point to the fact there’s a quality of followers to think of. And if you started posting spammy tweets, I can guarantee those followers won’t stick around for too long.

4. They’re online for different reasons

Yes, they’re there because it’s trendy. Because it’s another means to plug their projects and brag about them. They’re not there to meet interesting people, develop business opportunities or get back in touch with old friends. Remember reason number 1? They’re on social media sites to broadcast. Just as they will never reply all fan emails, while you simply have to reply all your work emails, friends’ emails and family messages.

5. Really, it’s not feasible

Tweeting twice a day, following almost no one, not joining any conversations, do you really see yourself doing that and reaching your goals? I very much doubt it.

Remember! There are exceptions and there are things to be learned while following the stars on their journey through the social world. But if you’re looking for highly effective, genuine and real social media lessons, there are so many other people you should pick as role models. Maybe learning from the best will change the general view on Twitter (and sometimes the entire social space), that it’s a place for attention whores and people who are already famous.

The golden rule to follow? Join, listen, connect, add value to ongoing conversations, start your own dialogues. That’s what I do and that’s why I am on Twitter. And I get friends, knowledge, inspiration, fun and also business out of it!

And I really am! I’ve traveled enough to know I’d have no problem changing countries for a while. Actually, I’d love to move to a new country every six months. Hard to earn a living like that? Not really! I am a PR and Marketing strategist. My clients rarely need my physical presence; they just need my ideas, my written words, my advice. As long as I have an internet connection and my laptop, I can do my thing.

I will probably not move anytime soon. But I could. And that sense of freedom is most precious to me. Just like the sense I could just go out for a walk if I wanted to and postpone work a little. Running your own business gives you that freedom. Or a quick glance at it. Because let’s face it, maybe I’ve postponed work a few times since I’ve started managing my own company. It’s a rare event, but it’s a very real possibility.

The Internet has become my extended home. I have friends and family online. My homeland is slowly moving online. That’s where 50% of it is right now. The rest is the palpable world, which might be a city or another in Romania, the so-called suburbs (the nearby villages where new houses are built), a different country, an isolated island in the country of no one. It’s our relationships that give us the feeling of belonging, not the place where we live. And moving around will not make me less of what I am now, I won’t stop being Romanian just because I live abroad.

Patria ubi bene. The pragmatic approach. Your heart tells you where your home is. The sentimental approach. Your office is where you plug in and start working. The “someone needs to pay for all the fun” approach. But the main idea behind all these approaches is pretty much the same: if we’re happy, we can adapt to anything, new places, and new people. Just as long as we stay connected to all those who are important to us. And given today’s technology, it’s hard not to.

In this day and age, we’re all living a Location Independent Life. And if we’re not, we can easily start living it.

This is my contribution to the Location Independent Group Writing Project. If you want to join it, the deadline is May 27, so hurry up!

My first decision after Sardinia was that I was indeed a writer. I left for the retreat thinking that no matter what, I couldn’t fail. Failure was not an option. Worst case scenario: I’d discover my fiction writing wasn’t as good as I thought. But complete failure was out of the question, as writing represents an important part of what I do.

Yet I had stopped thinking of myself as a writer a long time ago. When I finished high-school, started Journalism school and stopped writing fiction. Now I know that I am a writer, a pretty good PR specialist, a photographer, a quite proud Romanian, a friend, a child (son and daughter alike) and anything else I want to be. I could very well feel that there is no one, unique part of us that defines us. It’s everything we are.

I decided my vampire story kind of rocks and I’m going to finish writing it, then go through editing, and then publish it. And I’m pretty much going to take the DIY approach to it. My story, although referred to as being a vampire story, is really a love story, a story of acceptance, of learning how to see people as a whole, rather than focusing on bits and pieces of their being. The big, shiny plan is to have it ready for you sometime in September.

I decided I should write everyday. Business writing, blog writing, fiction writing, diary writing, it does not matter, as long as I keep writing. I also discovered exercises are a big part of it, and if you don’t believe me, ask Joanna. I also discovered writing all your ideas down is helpful.

I also figured out being fluent in English and understanding (with some feeble attempts at conversations) another few languages wasn’t enough anymore. So I’ll work hard on reviving forgotten language skills and acquiring some new ones.

To sum up, it will be an extremely busy summer!