iPad Insanity

photo by Neato Coolville

I am not happy with my recent iPad experience.

Self Serve is Not for the Faint of Heart

I am trying to enter my credit card information so that my data plan can renew automatically every month but I keep getting an error message asking me to validate my billing address.  No matter what I do, AT & T will not accept where I live.  They have cut off my service and everyone I have spoken to over the past few days cannot help me.  They cannot even take my information over the phone because this is a “self serve account”.

When I am in the supermarket with Seth, we like to go through the Self Check-Out line where we scan, bag and pay ourselves.

Sweet!

I think the idea is great but I wonder if the cashiers will become as scarce as toll booth collectors since the rise of EZ Pass.  However, you will always need to have a person standing by to help you out when something doesn’t scan properly, or if the machine cannot read the barcode.

To help you out.

So, imagine my shock when AT & T shut off my data plan because they needed 72 hours to find somebody to resolve on the problem.

Somebody?

I thought “self serve”  means that iPad users manage their own accounts.  That’s why the very nice people answering the phones could not fix the problem.  Then who is the somebody who is going to fix it?

“I cannot take your information over the phone but I would be glad to walk through the self serve process with you again.”  said the pleasant but useless AT & T service person on the phone with me.

Are you kidding?

Where is the person that fixes self serve problems?  They always have one at the ready in the supermarkets.

Why doesn’t AT & T?

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

Ask the Universe

here’s a sunrise on the beach for you

I always imagine things can be better.

I am constantly trying to lose those elusive ten pounds.

I want to be self improved, streamlined, and sexy would be nice, too.

Today, in all of its punishing heat and humidity, I dragged myself out of bed before the moon had a chance to escape and ran five miles along the beach in Rockaway to have a conversation with the universe.  Standing by the water’s edge, I take a deep breath and start talking:

Hi, its me again!  Wow, you’re up early.  Just kidding, you are eternally up.  Me, I am only here physically waiting for the rest of me to wake up and catch up with the rest of the world.  Hey listen, before I get going I just want to say – thank you thank you thank you for everything.

I love being here to see the sun come up, I love standing on this morning beach, I love breathing in ocean scented breezes.  I love feeling so alive.

OK, I have some questions for you about stuff that I could use your help with:

• Should I be a creative or a reactive?
• What does success look like for me?
• What am I going to be write about this week?
• Is what I do meaningful to anyone?
• Are you listening to me?

I could go on but this is typical of what I ask about.  Most of the time I just listen.  And run.

If we have a big discussion or a lot of stuff to figure out, I set my sights on  the light house at the tip of Breezy Point and put in thirteen miles.  In this distance there are lovely long spaces for me to ask these questions, close my eyes and run guided by the sound of the waves until I begin to get answers.

What does the universe say

It feels good to let the universe know what I am wondering about.  I imagine myself shining a flashlight into the night sky, but instead of light, I am shooting my inquiries into the far far away.  My questions are now a part of an immenseness that is at once inspiring and inconceivable.

Sometimes the answers come to me with a clarity that is embarrassing.  How could I have not known?

Sometimes it feels good just to be out there with unanswered questions.  Do I really want to know?

Opening your soul like that has unexpected benefits like the sudden realization that perhaps you already possess the answers to questions that have yet to be asked.

What is life without a little mystery?

Do you have something to ask the universe?

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

What If?

photo by rexguo

In a year or two, all the computers in our office will splutter and shudder into obsolescence.

Quite frankly, I am a little tired of sitting next to this huge server and worrying about it losing all of our data when it starts gasping through its death throes.

What if?

I am sure things get invented because aggravated people like me start wondering about ways to improve our lives and ask, “What if?”  And me, I detest being surrounded by stupidity and poor design.  How can I make the workflow in my office Wow?

What I want less of

No paper. No big things sitting on my desk and on the floor holding stuff that can be sent cloudward.  Why do we need forms to contain the formless?  Who needs to be dusting all of that?

Our financials live in QuickBooks, our database is in Raiser’s Edge, our grant applications go through CueRate, and we communicate through email, e-newsletters, blogs and our website.  Every morning I see an average of 50 -60 emails in my inbox, 1or 2 voice mail messages.  All of this stuff lives somewhere in space.  Why can’t we access this from iPads and laptops in spaces of our choosing?

What if we got rid of this big noisy server?  Would we need to physically gather around a 9-5 schedule?

Is it possible for us, an arts service organization to:

• Work remotely, connect digitally
• Meet as needed, preferably in cool places with great food
• Produce independently
• Skype, conference call

What if we became officeless?

People need to connect.  Nothing can replace a face to face meeting in building relationships.  Gatherings  generate social capital and are crucial in creating friends, supporters, audiences, fan bases, clients, inner circles.  But working?  Especially in these times when so many institutions are sinking into obsolescence, I can’t help but wonder if the way we work is a vestige of a manufacturing mindset that has been rendered outdated and out of touch with the potential that technology offers.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

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A Twelve Step Plan for Restless Creatives #2

I am perfectly serious about this.

All of you amazingly busy and creative people out there – stop what you are doing and relax, for crying out loud!  It is summer in the city of your soul and time to take a much deserved vacation.

In a recent post, I introduced the first step of  my Twelve Step Plan for everyone like me who needs to be accomplishing things all the time and asked you to help me create this.   Thanks to everyone who responded with great ideas for the Plan!

I always believed that one of us can be so much smarter with all of us.

OK everyone, the first step to get you in the right frame of mind is:

1. Get over yourself

Here is the next step

2. Get off the grid

This is really scary.

It works better if you accidentally jump in the pool with your phone in your pocket, but for the rest of us who lobsterclaw our phones in our sleep it may be more difficult to let go.  If you must must must have your phone with you, shut your ringers and alerts off and try getting used to the silence.  After a while you will start to feel disconnected, a little bubble drifting above the rest of us.  Suspended.

Like floating on your back in the ocean, suspended between sea and sky.  A sunrise, a fading moon.

Have a conversation with the universe.  No data plan required.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

The Network Ninja of Rockaway Beach

photo byLilley1

The Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Allison Fine is a must read for all of you passionate people who want to change the world.

If you are like me and wear a lot of black, you will go one step further and want to be a Network Ninja.  One who is agile and nimble in a highly connected world.  One who can fearlessly stare down the challenges and trends facing nonprofits – high turnover and burnout rates of executive directors (Gulp!), the rise of Millennials who are cut from a different ideological cloth than the Boomers who preceded them, free agents who work in, around and out of traditional models.  And this is just in Chapter 2.

Another intriguing persona described in the book is the Network Weaver.  Personally, I prefer Network Knitter but I digress.

Wouldn’t this be a great skill set to include in a job description?  Check this out.

The Network Knitter must be adept at:

• Connecting people
• Facilitating meaningful conversations
• Sharing resources
• Building network relationships
• Working across digital platforms and dinner tables
• Respecting every voice, every opinion
• Inspiring people to change the world

Ours is a networked world.  As nonprofits, we have no choice but to transform ourselves into more effective, transparent, connected Network Ninjas.

Get your hands on a copy and start your journey.

Get more Wow, Grasshopper!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?