What I have in common with Eddie O’Sullivan
October 31, 2007 at 5:15 pm
A shared hatred of apple. A feeling that we’ve been ‘had’ by Mr Jobs. A bitter taste of loss - in fairness Eddie has that in spades, I’m only experiencing that in relation to my business and my music files.
Both Eddie O’Sullivan and I suffered from Mac Book Pro failure on the same day. I wonder if Mr O’S is getting a better customer service than I am?
Background to this tragic tale … ie. I am not a total thicko running a business with no back up system.
- Six weeks ago, I contacted Apple because I was unable to restore my backed up data files. I have a dot mac account for automatically backing up important business files. This updates important files daily, less important weekly, etc. Apple don’t do phone support on dot mac accounts, so I waited and waited for a reply and got nothing.
- Two weeks ago, I contacted Apple again to learn how to restore my backed up files. I know the importance of testing your back up system and I had diarised a note to myself to see whether I heard back from them. That was on the 17 October.
- On 19 October I left my Mac Book Pro in to be serviced. It’s just over a year old and as it’s my primary business tool, I like to make sure everything’s working as it should be. Imagine how I felt when I returned after the weekend to find out that the hard drive had failed. When the ‘apple doctors’ were running the utilities it gave up the ghost and went into the hard drive equivalent of a coma. It shut itself away from the world - which is what I felt like doing when I got the news last Tuesday.
That’s bad but guess what? The mac book pro was 37 days out of warranty. So Apple won’t stand over it. When I was on to one of the many customer service people dotted around the globe they told me that they treat all their customers the same - so whether you’ve bought a piece of tiny plastic (ipod shuffle) or a top of the range laptop they don’t care, they make no distinction and just read a script that’s designed to get you to go away.
Then I thought - huh - I bought an ipod shuffle and the piece of s**t died after about 18 months. It was only a cheap purchase so I let it go.
My Powerbook died after 3 years - it was a working piece of kit, so 3 years isn’t bad is it?
But now I just feel stupid and duped by clever marketing and nice design - this is my 3rd piece of Apple kit to fail in 2 years. You kind of got to think that Apple are churning out cruddy products now wouldn’t you?
The iPhone? Forget it. I’d rather hook myself up with a pair of old Bachelors beans cans and some string than use the iPhone.
And you know what? Everyone has their story - the ones who this has happened to really empathise and almost relish sharing. Other people nod sagely and say ‘yeah well everyone knows automated back-up is bad’. And still others remind me of the episode in Sex & The City where Carrie’s work get lossed because she didn’t know what back up was….
I am not that lady. I had a system in place and because Apple didn’t get back to me, I have lost everything.
[the list of condolences is now open....add your comment below]
Data Commissioners Are A Waste Of Time
October 18, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Remember my problem with the Golden Spiders and being spammed a little while ago? I took the time out to report it to the Data Commissioners in the hope that they would actually do something. This is what I heard back:
On 10 October, I received an email back from Edel Carty the investigating officer (I’m seeing visions of CSI with an Irish flavour here!). Guess what the Data Commissioners did? They contacted the Golden Spiders people and you know what? The Golden Spiders people fobbed them off with this : “What happened was we had multiple subscriber
groups and we sent the newsletter to all of these groups. When someone nsubscribed they only unsubscribed from one group and therefore still eceived the newsletter. So once she contacted us we removed her from one ubscriber group but she was still getting email through another subscriber roup. We have gone though all our data bases now and made sure she and a small number of other duplications have been removed.”
They should have done that when I first unsubscribed.
Furthermore. “Our sincerest apologies on this, we weren’t aware of the situation until now.”
That’s a lie as I telephoned them to get off their list. And I told their damned telesales girls too.
And to add insult to injury, they wish to contact me directly - to apologise.
NO WAY.
I have been waiting a week now to hear from Edel Carty because I emailed her back on 10 October to tell her that this reply was not acceptable. I do not accept their crap excuses and I’d like to know specifically how many times an offender has to spam and to how many people in order to get more than just a caution from the Data Commissioners.
She hasn’t replied to date. So for anyone involved in marketing, the message is clear: spam all you like, the legless powerless data commissioners office is only there to create a few more public sector jobs and to do nothing.
It’s still going on - NTL is busy spamming people today. And what can we do about it? Don’t bother reporting it because you’re just wasting your time.
This kind of thing makes me mad.
Important News re. Webbys
October 18, 2007 at 8:51 am
Some feedback you’ve passed on to me concerning the Webbys has been that the entry fee is too much for struggling small dynamic companies. It’s not the lack of confidence in our work. Nothing cultural. No, we’ve left all that ‘who me sir?’ attitude behind in the last century. What it comes down to is cold and hard money. Right?
I understand. When you’re running a business you have so many demands on your resources. An entry fee to a prestigious global awards ceremony may be just too much.
I listen. So with that in mind I set off to talk to a big strong cash flow positive company and asked them if they’d like to get involved in sending Irish companies to the Webbys.
They agreed. They can see the potential in setting some Irish web, mobile, video, advertising companies on the global map. They believe in the talent that exists in ‘this little country’ and they want to get involved in spreading that word outside of Europe and on to the global stage.
So what I can say now is watch this space. Start thinking about who should represent in the following categories. Is it you? Your company? Or maybe you’re just really clued in to what’s hot and out there. Whatever the case, we’ll be wanting to hear from you. Who do you think should get their entry paid to enter the Webbys?
[More next week after I've returned from Paris!]
Are Gadgets Your Thing?
October 17, 2007 at 10:13 am
Are you a gadget man? Or woman? Look around you - is there a profusion of apple product lying close by? Are you addicted to the Crack Berry (blackberry)? Maybe you’ve got a fetish for games and your living room has been re-named the Games Area? Do you buy non-fashion, non-celebrity magazines?
If so, then Adrian Weckler would like to hear from you. He’s the Tech guy from the Sunday Business Post and he’s got a call out for addicts to write 300 words for the My Gadget Life column. As he says himself, the more passionate you are about them the better. So if you want to show the world how much you love your ipod/laptop/digital camera/diving watch/whatever send in your 300 words and you could be in print in the Sunday Business Post.
Sick of being spammed by the Golden Spiders?
October 4, 2007 at 11:03 am
It’s ridiculous - I’ve received about 8 emails since unsubscribing, an annoying phone call asking me why I haven’t nominated anyone this year, and it’s annoying. It’s distracting me from my work, wasting my time, and is in blatant disregard of the law on spamming.
UPDATE ON FRIDAY 5 OCT: I have just got another phone call from Jenny at the Golden Spiders. These people are driving me demented.
We have a data commissioners who are responsible for following up complaints on spamming. So if you actually want to do something about this, simply click this link and fill in the form.The address you need to fill in for the Golden Spiders on the form is: c/o Business & Finance, 1-4 Swift’s Alley,Francis Street, Dublin 8.
Update 1: Brian Greene forwarded on an email which he received from Don Farrell at Circulator. It was obviously in response to Brian’s own request to get off the lists. Circulator’s response it to absolve themselves of all reponsiblity - “The issue here is that you are in two subscriber groups and our client sent the newsletter to both groups. As Circulator is a self service application, we don’t get involved with each clients subscription list / distribution.”
That is not acceptable. I manage email campaigns on behalf of clients and it is my job to ensure that the unsubscribe process works. And if someone unsubscribes, no matter how many lists, that their name is removed. This spamming by the Golden Spiders is taking place on such a large scale that it is clearly not just 1 or 2 names that are appearing on multiple lists - it looks to me like there is flagrant ignoring of people’s requests to get off their lists.
Entry levels must be pretty low if they are so desperately calling people to enter.
Update 2: I have just fired off a volley of emails to Edel Carty at the Data Commissioners Office. I received an email from Edel, the Senior Investigating Officer, requesting copies of the emails received from Golden Spiders. Happily I fired all of them over to her. Let’s see what happens now….
Great Fun Over Here!
October 2, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Gather round and watch as one idiot spammer from recruitment company Monster no less is making a fool of himself, but more seriously breaking the law. This is not going to go away. I’ve already posted my views about the ineffective Data Commissioners office, but if ever they wanted to make a name for themselves and actually enforce their own legislation, now’s the time.
Read all about it over on Michele’s blog - but make sure you read the comments, they are hysterical. Thanks “Pedro” for giving us all a good laugh!
Updated Clients Section
October 2, 2007 at 3:09 pm
We’ve been busy. Behind the scenes, there has been lots of soul searching as to which sites to display on the newly updated Clients Section. Now it’s live and ready for your viewing pleasure. So if you want to see what Brightspark has been up to in the last wee while, skip on over and have a look.
It’s been broken down into the following sections:
- Blogs and Social Networking Sites - these are blogs that look and feel like sites, an effective and free method of content management (read more about that) and also sites we’ve created that encourage social networking and feature some of the hallmarks of Web 2.0
- Ecommerce and Content Managed - sites that sell stuff and sites that are maintained by our very own content management system, Sitespark!
- Corporate Style - a small handful of the sites we’ve completed for corporations; unifying factor here is freshness! We deliver to please corporate clients, but we still push it in terms of tone of voice and visual style! We also look after the e-marketing for many of these businesses.
- Designers & Software - I love the fact that designers turn to us for design! And similarly, I like it that we are the web partner for many software companies.
- Email Marketing -warrants its own section because it’s a different type of animal to a website, requires a different design style and much tighter content.
- Search Engine Marketing - it’s hard to show off your work in this sector. Client confidentiality means you can’t show your organic search engine results for specific keywords, because then you’re giving away the keywords you’re going after! The good thing is that search engine optimisation results are cut and dried - you either get the results or not. Happy clients with high search engine rankings means we are!
Webbys & IIA
October 1, 2007 at 11:39 am
I think it might be a good idea to clarify the IIA position re. the Webbys. Last year I met with Fergal O’Byrne, Managing Director of the IIA, and told him all about my new involvement with the Webbys. He agreed that they are the one truly global web awards and was rather enthusiastic about putting some more Irish sites on the global scale. An internet marketer by background, he recognised immediately the potential for huge increases in business amongst those who make it to the shortlist, let alone those who win their category. He spoke about realigning the categories of the Net Visionary awards to match those of the Webbys so that Net Visionary nominees might go on to enter the Webbys. We tossed about the idea of possibly getting category sponsors to cover the entry fee for the Webbys. It was all good.
Fast forward to summer. I made many attempts to reach Fergal to bring up the subject of the Webbys again. Fainlly I received an email that stated that the IIA was not going to have anything to do with the Webbys. “We are trying very hard to build the Net Visionary Awards to be the biggest Irish Internet Awards and so I don’t want to dilute the brand itself.”
So the IIA is more interested in trying to get bums on seats at its awards ceremony? It can’t risk ‘diluting its brand’ by bringing forward some of the stronger Irish contenders to take part in a global recognition contest that could bring huge amounts of business to those very memebers? This all sounds very commercial to me and not like the words of the non profit association which it is supposed to be. Yes - the IIA is a not for profit that is supposed to represent the views of those ‘conducting business via the internet in Ireland.’ In this case, it has simply overlooked the greater good in favour of the ‘greasy till’.
Thanks to WB Yeats for that last quote!
