Random roundup

First, Todd is hosting a group of postings next week on customer service.  It’s a great idea for exposing an audience to a number of different viewpoints and voices on one page.  I expect there will be some really interesting reading over there next week, since he’s asked Jon, Dave, Rosa and Terry.  And me, not that I’ll have anything particularly groundbreaking to say.  Actually, I’ve been working on my post for about a week, and it’s been a huge challenge for me.  It’s not quite finished, but when it is I expect I won’t be satisfied with it.  For me, it brings up more questions that it answers…maybe it’ll be fuel for more posts in a similar vein in the future.  Curious yet?  You’ll have to wait, I guess.

Next, I ran across this interesting essay on "How To Lose Your Job, Part I" which is right on.  Don’t miss the comments there…even more great thought fodder.  The post is about a month old, and  I’d not run across Rands In Repose before, but it looks like great reading and I’ve added it to the sidebar.  Looking forward to part II!

Next, a commenter on the gmail invite post put in a bad email address, I think.  "Mike Collins" are you out there?  If so, I’ve got a gmail invite for you so send me a note, or drop in a comment with your correct email addy and I’ll send you a full cup of gmail KoolAid.

Last bit, on which I’ll post more fully in the future.  I finally installed ActiveWords on Thursday, about halfway through the day.  On Friday I had to go offsite all day, so I really only had about 4 hours to diddle around with the application.  That was enough.  This is my public announcement about how embarrased I am by how long it took me to try ActiveWords.  The learning curve was short and not very steep and the application is just stunning in it’s simplicity and utility.  I understand now why they’re offering a full 60 day trial period.  If you use ActiveWords for 60 days, your choices are simple: you must either buy it, or allow your productivity and efficiency to noticably degrade to previous levels.  Like I said, I’ll do a full review later, but for now, if you haven’t tried ActiveWords yet,  you’re missing out big time.  (Note to self: pay more attention when Marc Orchant mentions something so many times)