Lee.org

The Box Shop, the space SWARM and the Flaming Lotus Girls work out of, has a new pretty website. :-)

http://boxshopsf.org/

If you need space in San Francisco to make large metal art, consider the Box Shop :-)

• @ShamelessHeatha my favorite! in reply to ShamelessHeatha #
• in your polls working ur election #

I am seriously skeptical about this whole 140 character revolution. That said, my friend  Marah is going to be a presenter  at the  140 Characters Conference in New York City June 16 and 17.

I just got done with another Etherpad collaboration. Gosh darn, Etherpad works well.

Marnia and I were making a shopping list for some robots we are building this weekend. She’s in San Mateo, I’m in San Francisco. Over the phone (with headsets) and with Etherpad, we hacked out a list, exchanged links to websites we were considering shopping, and had a finished shopping list in a few minutes. Since we each had our own computer to work on, the collaboration may have taken a tiny bit LESS time than if we had done it in person. That’s weird.

Primer at the recomendation of Warren Lynch (film maker). It was really good and entertaining.

X Men 2 and X Men 3 – Jeez, they are scary violent. I mean, when you go up against Wolverine, he doesn’t knock you out or paralyse you or anything; he puts 6 long metal blades into you and moves them in opposing directions with superhuman strength. He kills you. And the ending of X Men 3… yow, Jean Grey uses telekinesis to tear everyone in a 100 yard radius into what look like 1/4″ blobs of flesh.

Star Trek. Saw it at the Metreon on the IMAX screen last night with Brenden, Charlotte, Jon F and Rick T. Wow. This is the summer’s blockbuster. Very heavy on the attitude, energy, emotion and visuals. A couple plot holes but that’s not what the movie was about. It was more about getting kick-ass backstories for the ST:TOS characters that we thought we already knew and loved.  This morning I was exhausted; I think it was because the movie took it out of me. Phew!

Play some games.

Relax

http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/

Our very nice server at… argh, I don’t remember the name! it’s 1/2 north of  Javalencia on Valencia… she made these for us. I requested a unicorn with a rainbow and Michael Shiloh requested a dog :-)

She was cool.

Charlotte and I had a bad pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream a little while back. From my letter:

On about 4-15-09 my girlfriend and I bought a pint of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough at the convenience store at…

We found that it had less chocolate chips and cookie dough than we’ve had in the past. We weren’t very happy with it.

We know that you make a fine product and this was probably an anomaly but we thought you should know.

Thank you…

I included a photo of the ice cream we ate.

Last week I got back this letter.

…and Annie (from the letter) included 2 coupons a free pint of Ben and Jerry’s and a $0.55 coupon off any Ben and Jerry’s product.

This is a fabulous letter. Why? Because it turns a problem into an opportunity for them to make me into a customer for life.

Let me count the ways:

1. The letter is signed, in ink, from a real person. That makes everything personal.
2. The first thing Annie did was acknowledge the problem. (I might have opened with a brief apology but their approach works too)
3. It looks like Annie actually read my letter. She mentioned my problem directly. This wasn’t a form letter.
4. They made amends, not just with a replacement but a second coupon to ease me back into paying money for ice cream. It’s a  110% guarantee. Nice!
5. The letterhead shows their excellent branding, the design all the way around the edge of the sheet is fun and welcoming.
6. She told me that my information was being forwarded to Quality Assurance. This makes me feel like my letter will actually be productive and help them make a better product. Since I obviously care enough to write a letter, I appreciate helping to make the thing I love better.
7. They put their phone number, web site and mailing address at the bottom. They obviously don’t mind if I call again… the communication channel is open. They like me. They really like me.

This is the kind of stuff I have read about in Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point”.

Ben and Jerry’s has great customer service. I should remind you, the reader that Ben and Jerry’s is owned by Unilever, a multi-national conglomerate with 174,000 employees. They are, by some accounts “a big evil corporation”. Well darn it if we don’t need more of them!

Laughing Squid recently had an article highlighting San Francisco Street Art & Graffiti Photographer Steve Rotman.

Here are some large excerpts and then my comment:

Continue reading ‘San Francisco Graffiti’ »

This is a followup to my first post: Nonyx Nail Gel. It’s gotten so many comments that it’s hard to sort through them.

Please make followup comments here.

And don’t forget to read the original post and other related posts including Fungal Nail Infection Treatment and Zetaclear.

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There are many discussions about nail fungus going on on my blog. Search my blog for the word “fungus” for more.