Some more content

In this day an age it is a must that you know how to complain when you are not happy with something, especially when companies do you wrong.   This best time to complain is when you know you are in the right and you have facts to prove this. 

I find that first of all phoning up to complain is the best thing to do.   Seeing if they can resolve your issue there and then, there is not point getting all snotty / writing letters at this junction as it probably wont help or get you a solution any quicker. 

When I phone up to complain I always tend to start with the line, “You have the chance to be a hero and solve my problem”, then go on to explain the issue.  You will of course get their side of the story  etc.  but don’t take any nonsense here.  Just as they are getting through their argue pull out your killer fact.  At this point you will probably hear nothing – just silence. (I love that part)  This is when you know you have them, they are in the position of realising they are in the wrong.  You can now get what you want, if you want discounts / more of your service etc.  you will get it.  If the silence doesn’t happen they don’t understand the size of the problem and then ask for a supervisor – if they dont then you have real trouble.  Is you killer facts correct at this point?

Of course you might not always get what you want at this point, especially if you are being unreasonable.  For example, you want everything for free for the next six months – this wont happen.  Be realistic in what you want.

Remember always keep calm, getting emotional will not help – state the facts, how they have screwed up.  If it is a monthly subscription service, i.e. mobile phone, TV etc.  gently remind them how much you pay to them and how long you have been with them and what other deals are available else were. Always be polite, never swear (as you will be cut off at this point) and thank them when they have solved your complaint.
If you still are not happy write an official letter of complaint, they are always fun.  Always follow up letters of complaint.

Cheers,

Peesea

The strangest thing though I saw we the different colour snow, yes we have all seen the white stuff, that falls from the sky.   I have seen yellow (ewww), brown (ewwwwer) and then pink – fucking pink snow what is all that about? 

Only short and sweet tonight – we shall have a chat about music tomorrow!

It is time to look after what is most important to each one of us and fuck the rest, no one else is going to look out for you.   To this end I declare 2010 to be the year of breaking free by the end we will be soaring, flying there wont be a star that we cannot reach.  

I am going to try to do something everyday to make sure that I am flying high by the end of the year.  Todays task is a bit of networking – something that it is not my best skill I must admin.   Just making contact will people after Christmas.   Also doing the deed of chasing invoices (which I hate), especially ones that have been outstanding for about 4 months – might just be time to let this client go!  I prefer just getting on with development, designing stuff – but in this day and age you have to be more than just good technically at what you.  You have to be a project manager, a negotiator, tea boy and occasionally take one for the team. 

Sorry about the cheesey networking image, I couldn’t find an image of someone juggling seventeen balls whilst sweeping the floor!

Take it easy

The premise of a win win situation is that no parties feel like they have lost something from a relationship and that they have gained something.   How many times have we felt like we have been screwed over by a deal – buying windows or a used car, they feel so wrong?   When you are working with other people you need to have the win win situation, otherwise it just will not work in the long run.  Yes – there may be short term games, but long term it isn’t going to work.   I work with a lot of small companies and you need to have a good working relationship, these are always based upon trust and when this breaks down on either side of the equation and the situation turns into a win lose for one of the parties then it can be very difficult for this to be repaired.   This takes time and effort, if you are a small business then is this worth it?  Spending alot of time trying to build something that is ultimately flawed – if there is no trust in the first place?

Lately, I have been thinking about relationships I have with my clients, current, old and potential.  I have decided that if there are no obvious win win situations then is there a point to having the work?  Will be better to have fewer clients and get better service to feed any current win win situations to make sure they come back for more.   Then agree to set the win lose relationships free, I have recently moved a number of clients away from my hosting service because it is not in either of our best interests to work together in the future, yes the money will always come in handy with cash flow but the win win deal is just not there anymore.  Business is about making and building relationships not just about the cold hard cash, although it helps!

I have read a number of articles online recently about bad relationships, see http://speckyboy.com/2009/10/02/a-collection-of-web-design-horror-stories-and-quotes-from-bad-clients/  for just some of them.  I can recognise this in a number of the relationships I have had over the years and you can waste a number of weeks or even months trying to make them work.   How many of your clients can you recognise?

What do you think?

You could value the codebase based upon the number of man days / hours have be spent on the site, i.e. 100 man days @ £500 per day etc.  But I know of codebases that have had over 3000 man days spent on them but is it worth £1.5 million.   A codebase changes over time, especially on big projects the technical debt becomes larger and even small maintenance tasks can take a lot of time, therefore it is not a true reflection of the value.

The codebase though I think all depends on its usage.

A windows app I would probably find easier to value, as this can be based upon the number of direct sales / downloads etc of your application.  Though how do you value a free application, for example 7-zip this is a free application but yet would this codebase be less valuable than winzip?

If it is a website then the value of a web site codebase because very tricky to value.   Would it be down to the number of hits / popularity of the site.   As you couldn’t value a website on the number of days effort, twitter is a good example of this – as it is very simple and a good developer would be able to do a twitter copy in very little time.  Does this devalue the codebase?

I haven’t even touched on other popular web codebases, wordpress, drupal,  Joomla or any other CMS system – how would you start to put a value on this?  How about putting a value on a blog?  This is not the codebase that is valuable but the content!

There is no easy way to do this and each situation should be evaluated separately.  How would you value your codebase?

In todays digital TV age I would like a button on my set-top box to not allow me to watch certain programs.  A bit like series records – it would be series avoid.   If I then switch on this program the TV would automatically put something else on – even if this was friggin Nick Jr (you gotta love Handy Manny and his tools).   

I urge the makers of the UKs digital platform to introduce the series avoid button, come on SKY, Virgin and Freeview surely this isn’t difficult?

Rant over – normal service will resume tomorrow.  Which I will discuss how you can value a codebase?  Wow exciting I know.

It is 1st January 2010, new years day.  I dont get a medal for pointing out the obvious though.  It has been pretty uneventful, besides we have a new Doctor, welcome Matt Smith.  The trailer for the new series looks good, Alex Kingston is back so it should be interesting.   But he does look about 12 – I am sure he used to work in our local cost cutter! 

Its this time of year where everyones thoughts try to set goals and resolutions for the coming year.  I am not doing resolutions this year there is no point unless you tell everyone what they are and how they can help, I am not going to do that so why bother?   I have though set some goals for the coming year, this is to be able to be free of the constraints of the two things, working for someone else and debt.  These of course go hand in hand, by this I mean I will be doing more of my own work this year, doing things that I want to do rather than working for a company, then by the end of the year to go fully self employeed.  I need the cash from the other work leading up the end of the year to pay off debt / build up a cash reserve to get ready for going it on my own.   I would rather by in charge of my own destiy rather than follow someone I dont believe in.  

I have also setup this blog! whooo hooo.  Yes the theme is currently boring but it will change, I only had the idea for this at about 7:30 this evening – so I am not doing to badly to have it setup this quickly.

This is me done for tonight.

Laters,

Peesea