Online frustration

I signed up for an intriguing web-conference call on the 'Future of Behavior Marketing'. Since I believe in relationship building to convert prospects to clients, I am interested where this is going.
The web application sent me through hoops and back to where I started; had me request information about purchasing their product just to register for the teleconference again; told me to enroll, only to tell me I was already enrolled; etc. I've been on the phone three times with very energetic responsive customer service people. But in the end, they want me to disable the Google toolbar I have in my browser or go through another series of steps to work around it, to get in to their now recorded session.
But, if this is a service and the free conference call is a promotion of the service, why would I want to go through this rigamarole one more time? never mind sign up to host a conference call that is so difficult to access? The pain of access was greater than the potential gain from a free session.

My past life caught up to me

When you are networking, you never know who you will run into! Last night I met an old colleague I hadn't seen in almost 20 years by coincidence. Back then, we both had contracts at a software company where we were technical writing consultants. Surprised to see me, she asked me what I was doing now across the table of 8 people. It was a very nice invitation to share my parable (posted at my website with everyone. Her comment at the end was that I looked so much happier doing this.

When I asked what she was up to now, she made a big face, a big shrug and rolled her eyes and told me she was still doing the same thing - 'technical writing - nothing great'.

For the last 15 years I've been more focused on people rather than paper and process. This chance meeting was a nice opportunity to see through someone else's eyes, how far I've come.

Opening Day

We're half way through the year and it's only now my blog debuts. I'm intrigued how this will unfold.

The blog title "Vision" is a direct reference to the definition: of intelligent foresight, as much as it refers to the primary strategy of the year-long Breakthrough Business School program; Build a powerful three year vision. See http://www.breakthrough-business-school.com/program.shtml.

I started thinking in terms of vision meaning and legacy back in 1999 when a British friend gave me a little book called Vision, a Personal call to Create a New World, by Ken Carey - as Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (author of On Death and Dying) said: " A survival guide for the twenty-first century - profound, prophetic, and practical."

Today, I heard about a small piece of free software Skype (www.skype.com) that will make it very cost effective to serve clients around the world. It offers a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to make telephone calls anywhere over the net. And it's free to any other skype user. I want to check performance. But what if it is really good? I can see many benefits for me and clients, immediately. Tools like this will help me to continue to expand my vision all the time.