New Startup Aims at Ad-Supported Fuel Consumption

Doesn’t it make you sick every time you pull the receipt out of the gas pump after filling up? Mile after mile you drive! To and from work, school, running errands, meeting with friends, how about everyday LIFE!!! Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a way of compensating YOURSELF for all that driving?

So begins the pitch to drivers for a new venture Gas for Free, which pays drivers up to $299 each month to place advertising on their cars.

I can’t decide what I think about this from a business perspective. It’s entirely possible — although I hope not — that Gas for Free’s founders have hit on the next big trend in advertising and are going to make a mint. It’s also possible that their target driver audience — people who are so attached to their cars that even $4.35/gallon gas won’t make them take the bus — will not be willing to deface their precious shiny automobiles with crass slogans.

From an environmental perspective, this makes me utterly sick. It’s bad enough that this venture aims to artificially support the completely unsustainable practice of driving fossil fuel-powered vehicles everywhere rather than taking public transit. (I love that they call themselves “eco-ethical.”) But on top of it, it further clutters the already overwhelming mental and emotional experience of driving. Billboards are bad enough. Now I have to stare at advertising on someone’s car as well?

This kind of reminds me of the GOP’s ham-handed attempts to reduce gas prices which includes:

1. A gas tax holiday.
2. Releasing oil from the strategic petroleum reserves.

and last but not least…

3. The supply-and-demand-defying Find More, Use Less campaign, which asserts that if we excavate for more fossil fuel resources at the same time that we all voluntarily work together to conserve them, we can keep the price of gas low.

All in all, it’s ludicrous. We’re all grasping at straws trying to fix a system whose time is beginning to pass. Let’s pull out our thinking caps and use some of that innovative brain power to actually solve our energy crisis, rather than putting yet another band-aid over a gaping wound.

[Via Mashable.]

A Horrible Customer Service Experience, Courtesy of the Chelsea Savoy Hotel

I was in Manhattan last week for business and stayed at a lovely hotel in Chelsea that I won’t mention here because I want to stay there again and I don’t want any trolls to show up when I do. This post isn’t about the hotel I stayed in, anyway. It’s about the hotel I almost stayed in.

I had to stay in New York a night longer than I’d originally planned and the hotel I was staying at didn’t have a room available. They recommended that I check out the Chelsea Savoy Hotel, which was close by.

I was wowed by the reasonable prices and rave reviews on Yelp and decided to book a room. Just to be safe, I also asked my current hotel to get me a room if they should happen to have a cancellation.

Less than 24 hours later, that’s exactly what happened. A colleague of mine decided to head home a night early and cancelled his room, giving me another night in the same hotel as my team. In turn, I gave the Chelsea Savoy more than 48 hours notice that I wouldn’t need the room. When I called back later that day to confirm that my reservation had indeed been cancelled, I was told that it was no longer in the system.

That was the last I thought of the Chelsea Savoy until I saw the $235 charge from the Chelsea Savoy on my online bank statement this morning. Convinced I’d been the victim of an honest mistake, I called the hotel and asked to speak to the billing department. That’s when it became clear that they were trying to fleece me.

The woman in billing was rude and combative. She practically accused me of lying about canceling my room and told me that she “wasn’t going to take sides” in the matter. Furious, I told her that I planned to dispute the charges with my bank, which is exactly what I’ve done.

Bottom Line: The Chelsea Savoy may be inexpensive, but fraudulent credit card charges are never cheap.

Leadership at the Turn of the Millennium: Bush, Clinton and Obama

My new boss recently asked me to read Warren Bennis’ classic On Becoming a Leader. Call me a teacher’s pet, but I love it when bosses assign reading. So far, I’m particularly pleased with this recommendation because it provides a lot of key insights and it’s written in lucid, engaging prose. I’d recommend it to anyone.

One of my favorite quotes comes from the introduction, in which Bennis points out that:

Leaders have no interest in proving themselves, but an abiding interest in expressing themselves. The difference is crucial, for it’s the difference between being driven, as too many people are today, and leading, as too few people do…Those who are skilled at achieving prominence are not necessarily those who are ready to lead once they arrive…At bottom, becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself.

This statement elucidated a profound contrast that I’ve sensed for some time but haven’t had the context to adequately describe. The contrast has to do with three central figures in our political life as a nation: George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. All three have risen to prominence, but only one has traveled down the path of self-discovery necessary for true leadership.

Last September, President Bush addressed the nation on the occupation of Iraq. Of the speech, Andrew Sullivan wrote:

He seemed almost broken to me. His voice raspy, his eyes watery, his affect exhausted, his facial expression almost bewildered. I thought I would feel angry; but I found myself verging toward pity. The case was so weak, the argument so thin, the evidence for optimism so obviously strained that one wondered whom he thought he was persuading.

Indeed, the presidency appears not to have agreed with George W. Bush’s constitution. It has aged him terribly. He has coped with its pressures and oversimplified its complexities by being by turns high-handed, doctrinaire, bellicose, delusional, and intransigent. He has employed political tactics that denigrate and deem traitorous any political opposition. Would you expect such behavior from someone who has dedicated any portion of his life to self-discovery? How about from someone prepared — in any sense of the word — to lead the free world?

In Bush on the Couch, noted psychiatrist Justin A. Frank set out to explain the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush through applied psychoanalysis. From Bush’s earliest life experiences, Frank paints the pitiable image of a man whose inability to manage anxiety has lead to a lifetime of unfulfilled intellectual and emotional promise. That Bush made Iraq so central to his presidency while failing to plan for the occupation is no surprise when viewed in the context of his failings as a human being.

Nobody I know of has done an applied psychoanalysis of Senator Clinton, but I wonder how many parallels we would find between her story and Bush’s in such a text. The ferocity with which she clings to denial in the face of defeat is good evidence that Clinton is just as divorced from reality as the man she once hoped to succeed in the the presidency.

Contrast these two figures with Barack Obama who expresses himself beautifully for the sake of lifting those around him. Obama admits his imperfections and youthful indiscretions freely. He is not a saint, he is merely a great leader — or at least a young leader so far along in his self-making that he needs only a great opportunity in order to become a great leader. His rise represents the rare confluence of leadership, political acumen, and times that demand both. I will remember his victory today as long as I live.

If reading Bennis has taught me anything, it is that leadership is the pinnacle of self-actualization. It requires a lifelong dedication to learning and self-discovery. It requires intellectual curiosity precise enough to ask the right questions at the right times and the emotional and intellectual fortitude to make good use of the answers.

In these trying times, our nation and our world deserve nothing less.

Watch the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs & Executives Event on Ustream

I’ll be speaking along with a lot of amazing people at the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs & Executives: Business Applications of Social Networking event this morning. If you’re interested in watching, join us via Ustream.

Update:

Here are the video embeds from the event itself. It was a privilege to be included.

Free Money!!!

Oh my god, I am so excited. George W. Bush has just announced that he and the Democratically-controlled Congress are going to work together to give me a tax-rebate check of $800 dollars*!! Hooray!

I am totally going to go out and spend it on a new flat screen 36-inch HDTV from Bestbuy! Not only will I get a sweet new TV to replace my crappy three year-old 28-inch TV (what is this, Somalia?) but my purchase will help stimulate the economy and prevent a recession. Oh what a glorious day!

*800 dollar checks will be paid for by China and Saudi Arabia. We will not only owe $145 billion dollars, but the interest as well.

Facebook Launches Controversial Beacon

Facebook’s new program, Beacon, is receiving a lot of negative buzz.

The new program shows users online purchases in their news feed. Personally, I don’t want my online purchases shown in my news feed. Not only could it ruin my Christmas presents, it could potentially get me fired.

MoveOn.org has suggested that is in invasion of privacy, and launched an ad campaign against the service. What do you think?

Futureland Advertising Will Be Targeted, Heat Seeking

My boss and I had dinner and drinks with Buzz Bruggeman and Robert Scoble when he was in town for Gnomedex the week before last.

Robert and I got to talking about extremely targeted advertising. Some people might think it’s Orwellian, I told him, but I think it’s a good thing. “In a perfect world, advertising would connect us only with products and services that will work well for us and add meaning to our lives.”

In this world, marketing would always be welcome. The revenue would power web properties that add value for us.

Of course, we don’t live in a perfect world, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think Facebook’s decision to target ad content by mining profile data is a step in the right direction.

Targeted advertising simply adds more value than the old shotgun strategy. And I’m all for advertising that adds value to my life by informing me about things I will actually want to spend my money on, rather than trying to make me spend my money on things I don’t really want.

Do you trust marketers to make the most of this? Would you rather be the recipient of big, anonymous ad campaigns or small, targeted, personal ones?

Credit Scores, Collections Calls, Reputation Management and My Home Phone Number

Andy and I moved into our new place in late May and got our new home number from Comcast. Unfortunately, it looks like our number used to belong to a couple of women — Janice, and before her, Shaniquah — each of whom has made some poor financial decisions.

Now we’re getting collections calls — at least two a week — from people looking for Janice or Shaniquah. Evidently, both of them are trying to escape the bill collectors by getting rid of their phone numbers. In some cases, they’ve left even their friends in the dark. I’ve heard from worried-sounding people who can’t seem to track down these irresponsible women.

I call them irresponsible because we all know that this tactic has no chance of working. Bill collectors have the most important number they’ll ever need: your Social Security Number. They’ll find you eventually, and there will be hell to pay when they do.

Equally irresponsible is your willingness to inflict your collections calls on the complete stranger who was lucky enough to draw your old number out of the hat.

All of this got me thinking about how a phone number is very different from your web-based reputation. Your credit rating is one of the most consistent of all reputations. But it’s not easily attached to a permanent places where you can be found: the Web.

As we move closer to an open standard for indicating relationships between people. Perhaps we will also move closer to an open reputation-management platform. Perhaps our credit scores will become a part of that reputation. Perhaps there will be no avoiding your financial obligations — or passing your number off to a hapless stranger — in the future.

I also wonder if collections agencies shouldn’t invest some serious time in finding the contact information that people are loath to give up: their MySpace and Facebook profiles.

—————-
Now playing: Train - Shelter Me
via FoxyTunes

How to Speak to a Human Being at Washington Mutual

I called Washington Mutual’s 1-800 customer service number today to get the name of my branch so that I can get direct deposit set up. It took me a full 10 minutes to get through their menu to speak to a human. Pressing “0″ didn’t help.

Whenever you have a phone system that obfuscates how to speak to a human, your clients will lose patience with you. That means that when they do finally get to your customer service representatives, they’ll have less patience with them. That puts your customer service people in a bad mood and makes it more likely that they’ll provide shoddy service to the next customer. It’s a vicious cycle.

Putting up more walls in an era where all the good businesses are tearing them down is a terrible idea. I hope Wamu returns the old system.

In the meantime, the telephone banker I spoke to told me that customers can get to a human from the main menu by pressing 1 (pause) 1 (pause) 2.

Gnomedex, Dave Winer, Jason Calacanis and the Definition of Spam

Yesterday, Jason Calacanis was giving his talk at Gnomedex about his new project Mahalo. Jason was talking about how SEO is turning search results into spam and how the Mahalo wiki with its human volunteers is going to help things.

That’s when Dave Winer yelled from the back row that Jason was “spamming” us by promoting his own project. [Jason's response.]
Read more

Why I’m Not in Line for the iPhone

I’ve slept in line for a good many things I really, really wanted: tickets to Star Trek: Generations for example. But I decided that perhaps I would skip the madness and mayhem surrounding the iPhone.

Why? Because I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to get one relatively soon regardless of whether I sleep in line. It seems like despite the hype, Apple has stepped up to meet demand for this thing. This isn’t like the Nintendo Wii, where the company didn’t understand the demand for the product until long after it was too late. Apple knows this is a hot item and they’re not going to let it die on the vine by keeping people waiting.

I could be wrong, but I’ll swing by the Apple Store at University Village this afternoon to say hello to my good friends Andru Edwards and Nate True of GearLive Media. I won’t be cutting in line of course. I’ll actually be there to take my girlfriend Megan to a pedicure and lunch for her birthday. But I will check out the situation and report back. And of course, I’ll give Andru a big hero hug. Cuz he’s my hero.

ACT For Change is Stupid, Mistakes Apple for a Democracy, Demands iPhone Be Unlocked

I got an e-mail yesterday from Act for Change, encouraging me to “Tell Steve Jobs: Unlock the iPhone!” They have a petition for me to sign and everything. But they’ve forgotten one teensy thing: Apple is not a democracy. It’s a dictatorship ruled with an iron fist by Steve Jobs. And he’s not going to unlock anything.

If they were sending out an appeal to Apple shareholders, their actions would make a bit more sense. But Apple’s shareholders are likely to hold the line with Jobs because it’s in our best financial interest to do so. And American consumers at large are in no position to make demands when it comes to Apple and the iPhone because it’s quite simply the most revolutionary product to hit the market in a very long time. It’s so in demand that even Walt Mossberg likes it and he’s a tough customer.

But even if Apple were a democracy, they still wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. AT&T built a special voicemail infrastructure just for the iPhone. Visual voicemail won’t work on any other network, and that’s one of the iPhone’s coolest features. Plus, Apple has a contract with AT&T that it can’t back out of without facing a lawsuit. The shareholders will never stand for that.

If the hippies over at ACT for Change really want to do something productive with their time, they should be asking people to tell Congress to hold Bush accountable for his lack of regard for the Constitution or even tell Dick Cheney that he’s actually a part of the government.

If I were one of their contributors, I would be pretty pissed that they were spending my money on a meaningless, hopeless campaign to unlock the iPhone.

T-Mobile Getting Desperate to Keep Customers Amid iPhone Frenzy

Update: It has been brought to my attention that it’s not fair to an organization to draw attention to the one so-so customer service experience I had with them without mentioning all the good ones. I’d like to state publicly and for the record that aside from this issue and some spotty coverage in rural New York, my experience as a T-Mobile customer was overwhelmingly a positive one.

I’ve been anxiously awaiting the June 29th debut date for the first-generation iPhone. After great consideration, I’ve decided that I’ll be camping out in line to get one of the first phones available.

Today, I called T-Mobile to ask about the process of canceling my service so that I can switch to Cingular. They immediately transferred me to a manager. Here’s a rough transcript of our conversation:

Him: What is so attractive to you about the iPhone?
Me: Well, Steve Jobs invented it, and it has an Apple on it. Also, it’s gorgeous and has an touch-senstive interface and it looks like something out of Star Trek.
Him: Because, you know, we offer .mp3 playing phones.
Me: Will any of them play music downloaded from the iTunes store?
Him: They play .mp3s ma’am, so I would assume so.
Me: iTunes store songs are .m4p files with DRM, and they won’t play on anything but Apple players
Him: Well, you could burn the songs to a CD and then rip them back into your computer.
Me: Why the hell would I waste my time doing that? I really just want to cancel my service. Can you tell me how to do that?
Him: You’re under contract still. You signed a contract. We’ll be charging you $200 to get out of your contract.
Me: Yes, I know that.
Him: So you’re willing to spend almost $800 on a phone that hasn’t even been tested yet.
Me: Not just any phone. It’s a phone Steve Jobs invented. I’m sure it’s going to be wonderful. Now, how do I cancel my service?
Him: When you transfer your phone number over, we’ll automatically cancel your service and send you a final bill.
Me: You could have told me that at the beginning.

It sounds like they’re getting really desperate to keep subscribers in the face of the iPhone offering. And no wonder, as they stand the most to use. In a recent poll, 12.5% of its subscriber base expressed a strong interest in the iPhone.

I wish I’d recorded the conversation. It was pretty ridiculous.

Being Aware of the Credit Trap

Chris Pirillo has been blogging about credit a lot recently, and his most recent post got me really riled up. Because America has a serious credit problem.

I spent $180 at Target the other day on stuff for the new apartment. As I was checking out, the woman scanning my purchases offered me $15 off to sign up for an in-store credit card.

“No thanks,” I said. “Fifteen dollars now, hundreds in interest payments later.”

She was flabbergasted. I don’t think she’d been turned down on the card offer very frequently. And that’s not the only indication I’ve seen that credit is rapidly becoming a real problem in America. It seems like every commercial break on the radio or television, there’s a commercial for consumer debt counseling. It’s starting to seem as if everywhere we turn, Americans are grabbing more and more credit in order to purchase a lifestyle they want but cannot afford.

I hear commercials every day offering Americans the opportunity to finance everything from televisions to cars to furniture. But as far as I’m concerned, the only two things you should ever finance long-term are a house and an education. If you can’t afford a nice new car out of pocket, maybe you should get a nice used one instead. If you can’t afford a nice, new television maybe you should stick with your old set or buy one used on Craigslist.

Financing seems easy, and it’s very easy to get into the habit of using in-store credit to buy things. But imagine the absolute hell of getting used to a fabulous lifestyle and then having it ripped away from you because you can’t pay your bills. There’s nothing worse than having something you love and not being able to keep it. It’s better to not even start the cycle.

Canceling Verizon is a Pain in the Ass

I’ve been sitting on hold for nearly an hour waiting to cancel my home phone and DSL service. Our new complex has a special deal with Comcast, so we decided to use them for our phone and broadband in addition to television. Verizon doesn’t seem too happy about that, so they’re taking it out on me by making me wait on hold.

I know they don’t want me to leave, but do they honestly think I’m just going to hang up and keep paying my bill because it’s easier than getting through to someone who will help me cancel my service?

I wish just one of these companies would make it easy to cancel service. I would take that into account when selecting a provider.

Next up: Canceling 24-hour fitness because our new building has an on-site fitness center. Anyone want to bet how long that will take?

Update: I finally got through to a customer care specialist and, from there, my cancellation experience was surprisingly streamlined. She apologized for the wait time and promised to call me back if we got disconnected. She also canceled my service promptly and without a load of hassle.

The Queen, the Demolition of the Barrier Between Public and Private, and The New Web

Andy and I watched Helen Mirren’s impeccable performance in The Queen (iTunes) this evening. He wasn’t as enthusiastic to see the film as I was, but we both wound up enjoying it.

The film got me thinking about issues of transparency and how far our culture has moved from Her Majesty’s heyday. Technology — first the television, now the “personal” Web — has brought human flaws and struggles to the forefront and pushed institutions into the background. Corporations whose goal was once to preserve brands now use new media to humanize themselves. The same must be true of the monarchy if it is to survive in Britain.

Never was this gap in the generational understanding of the public/private divide made more clear than in the days after Princess Diana’s death. As the movie illustrates, Her Majesty was never brought up to wear her heart on her sleeve. “Duty first, self second,” she states primly to Prime Minister Tony Blair as the film nears its end.

What she didn’t understand was that her duty changed as technology changed her people. Diana was so beloved in England because she put a human face on an institution that has sought to submerge humanity beneath layers of protocol since its inception. Her great physical beauty and poise, and her compassion for ordinary people only made her foibles more endearing. She was photographed — quite literally — to death. The exposure of her every move cemented her role as “the people’s princess.”

The newest phenomenon of people using the Web — it has been variously styled as “Web 2.0,” “emerging media,” “new media,” and “consumer generated content” — to tell their personal stories is a natural extension of the global culture that lauded Princess Diana and decried the Queen for her lack of public empathy with the people. Companies, and corporate communicators in particular need to understand that.

I’m in Business Week!!!

I never stop getting a kick out of being considered an expert on this business blogging stuff.

I love my job.

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