Scott Spiro Blog

Well, for those of you who know me you already, you know how much I enjoy my Scottevests!  In this video (shot in freezing temperatures while in England), I take a closer look at the new Soft Shell jacket, the Fleece 5.0, a Microfleece Pullover, and a Q-zip. What’s nice about the Scottevests is that they are modular; they work great together to give you more protection against the elements, as well as more pockets as you need them. I must admit however, there were times when I lost items simply because I couldn’t remember what pocket I had put things in! Aside from this however, the soft shell did a great job protecting me against wind and rain while visiting the UK. Additionally, the Fleece 5.0 is not only comfortable, but also very warm and a perfect companion for the Soft Shell.

Customer Service

I also have to speak highly about Scottevest customer service. When my Soft Shell arrived in the mail, one of the magnets in the pockets seemed to be non-functional. I sent an e-mail to the Scottevest support team explaining that I was leaving for England and would not have time to get a new Soft Shell before my departure. I received a quick response telling me it was no problem, that a new one would be shipped to me and to simply return my Soft Shell when I got home. Great support.

Also, Scott Jordan the CEO of Scottevest knows how to use social media to engage with his customers. What other company can you contact the CEO so easily in regards to positive or negative feedback about the products? There are many companies out there that can take a lesson from Scott and his team on how to run a customer service department from the top down.

Travel

With some of the recent travel developments, security is tight. My flight back from Heathrow was delayed by over 2 hours while each passenger was searched along with their individual carry on bags. While this is certainly welcomed, be sure to empty everything out of your Scottevest as they will be searched thoroughly.

Suggestions

These are well made products and highly recommended. I do have a few suggestions for the Scottevest team that I outline in the video (though these are minor and far between). For example, It would be great if the headphone cable could be routed within the lining of the Microfleece Pullover as is done with the Soft Shell or Fleece 5.0. (currently the cables just run inside the jacket which can result in some tangles). There are also no headphone baskets in the Microfleece which it definitely needs.

What say you? Let me know how you’ve enjoyed your Scottevests and if you have any comments post them here.

Thanks go out to Autotask CEO Bob Godgart for asking me to say a few words about Autotask here at CompTIA BreakAway, 2009.

I enjoyed sharing (with the 300+ in attendance at the session) how Autotask has helped CSG move our business into the “cloud” while automating our workflow. Using this PSA tool has helped CSG increase our service capabilities resulting in higher quality service for our customers.

Ok, so I’m going to deviate from the usual “tech” talk with this post and instead focus on local marine life. Yes, you read that correctly: marine life! There’s so much to see here on the Southern California Coast. There are literally millions of Pacific Sand Crabs (otherwise known as mole crabs) that inhabit these beaches during the summer. Enjoy the video!

In this video, I describe two brand spanking new features in iPhone 3.0. These are Microsoft Exchange features that Apple is not putting on their front page or really talking about at all. And yes, I do recognize that for many people MS Exchange integration with their iphone is probably not that big of a deal.

For many companies however, (including CSG) Microsoft Exchange is the central hub of their unified messaging system. It has always been agreed that if Apple is to move into the corporate space, Exchange would need to be fully supported. More and more of our customers have moved to iPhones to connect to our Harmony hosted Exchange Service, which provides unlimited data storage on an Exchange 2007 platform without the necessity to spend thousands on an in-house system.

The features I speak of on this video mean a lot to me because I didn’t even expect to be in OS 3.0, and they make my life measurably easier! There are a couple of honorable mentions however; like the ability to finally search e-mail messages by subject, from, or all. You can even search the server if you can’t find what you are looking for on your device. You can also utilize contact cards that are sent to you by others (adding them instantly to your contacts) and you can “share” contacts directly from the contact view.

Enjoy the video! Let me know what your thoughts are on these new iphone 3.0 features.

As millions of people mourn the loss of Michael Jackson, I wanted to share some personal stories. I had the chance to spend a few days with Michael at the height of Thriller. I can remember his amazing positive energy that’s honestly hard to describe; almost addicting really. You just wanted to be around him. He seemed to embody love for everyone, not just publicly but privately as well.

I especially appreciated his fun quirkiness.

For example, he would wear his socks inside out and he loved grapefruit juice (more than Pepsi). He loved tap dancing. He loved playing hide and seek. He loved video games. He told me he would sometimes go to the local 7-11, but folks thought he was a look alike. He spoke to my sister once on the phone, but she couldn’t speak due to the shock alone.

I asked him once, “Why do you enjoy spending time with kids?” He answered, “because I don’t trust adults. They are always trying to get something from me.”

Ok folks, so here’s the big question: Should you install Office 2007 SP2? Will it make your Office run better, or will it in fact bring your Windows machine to a screeching halt? Honestly, I don’t want to scare you. SP2 should not break down your machine, nor result in a terrible loss of data. Far from it. After testing the update for the past week, I can tell you that overall there are some noticeable improvements: My most used office program, Outlook, opens more quickly and seems to process my thousands of e-mails with a veritable speed I had not seen before.

According to Microsoft, that’s the idea. Most users spend the majority of their time in Outlook, and so the official word from Redmond is that Outlook 2007 SP2 is 26% faster than its predecessor (e-mail tasks are 35% percent faster). After installing SP2 users should indeed notice this improved speed and stability of Outlook, better charting functionality in Excel and more control over the appearance of SmartArt graphics.

Have I experienced any problems running SP2? Yes. I hate to say this, but I have been noticing that Outlook freezes from time to time. However, I’m a bit of a power user. I have Windows XP running in Parallels that’s sucking 2GB from my 4GB iMac. I probably have 20 windows open on each operating system at any given moment. I would just as well attribute my freezing Outlook to a Parallels memory glitch or a recent LA Earthquake than to SP2 (and we did receive a 4.0 aftershock today).

The SP2 update is a manual update. Meaning you’ll need to go to Microsoft Update in your control panel to find it. Alternatively, you can also visit the Microsoft Office Download Site and grab the update. If you are a CSG TotalCare or Managed Services customer, we’ll take care of installing the SP2 update across your network automatically.

For a complete and detailed listing of what SP2 has to offer click here to read the Micrsoft Support Article. If you have any additional questions regarding the update, feel free to post your comments below.

From a Sustainable/Green IT perspective, or even from a general environmental standpoint, the Kindle makes sense.

For example, it costs the New York Times about twice the amount of money to print and deliver its paper than it costs to deliver to the Kindle. According to the Times’ Q308 10-Q, the company spends $63 million on raw materials and $148 million on salaries and benefits. Wages and benefits for just the newsroom run about $200 million.  Now, multiply the quarterly costs by four, then subtract 200 million. A rough estimate puts the Times’ annual delivery costs at $644 million per year. If the subscriber base of 803,000 loyal readers switched to a Kindle, their delivery costs should drop to $297 million according to the Business Insider.

And I’m not going to even speculate in regards to the number of trees saved if an electronic delivery method was implemented by every major newspaper in the US alone.

It’s ironic then that Amazon releases the Kindle DX the day after my informal sit down chat with Ingram Micro’s own Jason Beal.  Now, the DX offers a larger screen, and allows for automatic landscape viewing (similar to an iPhone) for reading newspapers and books. With a $489 price tag, I have to ask myself, “who is going to buy this new device?” (we’ll get to the DX in another blog post).

Jason is the Director of Sales for the Seismic Services division at Ingram Micro. As with most folks who own a kindle, he is a “big fan” of the device. And he’s busy. Really busy. I caught up with him in Dallas on the last day of the Ingram Micro Seismic Partner Conference. Putting Jason’s schedule aside for a moment, I recognize that everyone is different; however I’ve noticed that Kindle users are what I’d call “intelligent purveyors of knowledge”. That is, they typically are success driven people and they see the Kindle as a tool that allows them to harness and scale the power of reading to new levels of efficiency and convenience (for example being able to carry many, many books with them at any time, or download books on the fly).

I scheduled 10 minutes with Jason to discuss the changes in the Kindle 2, as well as how he uses his Kindle for business and personal use. Jason explained that he’d received the Kindle as a gift and was hooked.  Not only does Jason use the device for reading books, but he also enjoys magazines and even a journey onto the internet utilizing its built in browser.

If don’t have a Kindle you may not be aware of the web portal that Amazon provides to manage single or multiple Kindle’s (and iphones). Your books are backed up and ready to be sent to your device of choice. Magazines and newspapers work in the same way, however they are delivered daily, weekly, or monthly to your device automatically; ready to read. You can also send your own documents (Word, PDF, etc.) to the device via e-mail for later viewing. In fact, I am working on a method to have our CSG Reports as well as our free monthly technology newsletter delivered directly to Kindle! (wouldn’t that be neat!)

Go ahead and check out the HD video above for some “real world” commentary on Amazon’s “WhisperNet’, the Kindle 2 re-design as well as Jason’s recommended reading list. If you have any questions regarding the Kindle, go ahead and post them here.