Comcast the Free Router and the Monthly Fee: a Story of Thanks
Have I been helped or did I run up against a new marketing ploy? You tell me.
In conversation with Comcast after my router stopped working, they said,
“Hey, we’ll give you a free router. It’s part of our service to you!”
Cheery words! But wait—what’s the catch?
“No catch,” said the Comcast representative. “Look, I’ve already put in an order for you.”
Cool! Of course I want a free router! It would take five days via UPS—is it possible I could pick up an old router from the local Comcast store while I’m waiting? Just to keep the signal moving through my home?
“Certainly.”
So I did and the old router worked mostly well, though it drops the signal for about 30 seconds every hour or so. But I could live with that while waiting for this new Netgear router. The new Netgear router came: easy instructions, which I followed. No signal. Called Comcast:
“Sorry for your troubles. You’ll need to order our Xfinity service plan. It’s only XX per month. But what I can do is walk you through turning your router on and off.”
OK. Hmm. No service plan for me, thanks. Yeah—sometimes turning everything off and on helps. I’ve done it half a dozen times, but maybe I got the order wrong. I’ll try that. Didn’t work. Called Netgear. After an hour with a kindly gentleman from India, he concluded my router had been loaded with special Comcast software that would not bend to the will of his computer screen directions and superior knowledge.
Called Comcast. My router doesn’t work. Can you send me a working router?
“Sure. I’ll order one right away. And thanks for being a Comcast customer!”
I reinstalled the older Comcast router and it worked, though with the peculiar dropping of signals once an hour. And I anticipated the new Netgear router making it’s way across the land on a brown UPS truck. New Netgear router #2 came: same easy instructions. Same result. No signal. Called Comcast:
“Sorry for your troubles. You’ll need to order our Xfinity service plan. It’s only XX per month. But what I can do is walk you through turning your router on and off.”
No Xfinity plan, thanks. And actually, I’m now pretty good at turning it on and off, but thanks. Called my Netgear friends from India:
“I don’t understand why Comcast tells you to call us when they install special software on the routers. You’ll have to call Comcast. Here’s the special Comcast Router help numbers.”
What’s that? Special numbers for router support? That smells suspiciously like real help! I call both numbers—excited to encounter experienced talkers. How’s that? One number is out of service? What? The other number connects me to an Xfinity service plan automatic ordering line and I can be connected right now. No thanks. Back to installing the old router that drops signals. Still, it works. And for that I am grateful. I could just go buy a router and probably will. They get cheaper every week.
So—was I helped or was this just an elaborate ploy to get me to start another monthly fee to support the free Comcast hardware? I’m still not sure. But I’m thankful for the free old router that drops the signal with military precision once per hour.
Happy Thanksgiving to all and especially to Comcast and my Netgear friends in India!
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Image credit: Via We Love Typography, Good Deeds by jon contino
Fear as a Communication Tool: Hearty and Cruel Visuals
The Truth in Consequences
Ouch.
Today in class we talk about visuals and how to use them. Graphs, charts, line drawings, photographs—all the stuff we see every day in our media excursions. As a copywriter I am very fond of visuals: I love the way they succinctly tell the story I labor to explain with words.
But there is a genre of images we shy away from—images entirely out of sync with the pleasant, positive, climate-controlled and safe communication we aim for. These images follow the shock and awe tactics of the Brothers Grimm: show what happens when you don’t follow our rules. Things just may not turn out so well, Mister.
Bam!
You don’t need to know Russian to see that you really should be careful around turning axles, backing train cars and the odd drill press. And it was not so long ago in our country that we showed our youngsters exactly what might happen with their lively hijinks.
Pow!
But maybe we’ve gone too far with our de-linking of action and consequence. When writing copy I rarely name the negative side of things. Instead, I always build on the positive. Maybe we could all use a bit of that Russian backbone.
Not again!
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Image Credit: Soviet Posters via Copyranter. Vintage safety manual via Retronaut.
Dummy’s Guide to Conversation #5: Sit With It
Go trolling with your decision.
Despite the passive image, it’s an active decision-making strategy powered by talk. And it has everything to do with the people you mix with every day.
Here’s how it works: You are vexed by some perplexing question. Some potential fork in the road. Let’s say the stakes are high so the choice is even harder. This question takes up residence in your mind. You don’t know what to do or which direction to take. With no decision forthcoming, you watch pieces of your life go on hold, each waiting for the choice.
So you force a choice. You make your best guess, but you leave time—if possible—to rethink your choice. You shoulder the mantle of owning the decision and taking it with you out into your work and your relationships and even into the casual acquaintances that pop up. And you just watch and see how it feels. This is how you sit with a decision.
Sit with it and watch. You are making a choice and trying it on for size. This is not done in isolation. It happens in conversation. With our words we explain what we’ve chosen to do. Amazingly, it is as we form words and explain what we’ve chosen that we come to grips with the full dimensions of this choice. People respond: “Yes. That’s perfect for you.” Or “Hmmm. That doesn’t seem like you.” Casual acquaintances hear the slimmest snippet of the choice in story form and ask a question that reinforces the decision. Or not.
It’s as if we need to listen to our own words to see how we feel about something. Sitting with a decision means hearing yourself form and reform the story in ways unique to each audience you encounter.
This strategy works for all sorts of things—not just decisions. Relationships. New ways of looking at things. Learning. Sitting with a notion is a way of collecting wisdom from others as you make life choices.
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Image Credit: leonid tishkov via 2headedsnake
Extreme Listening in a Congregation: Framing a Question and Listening for the Reply
and yet, sometimes it does work
Once upon a time a church had outgrown their facility and the leaders wanted to raise money to build. So they thought of a campaign and called it “Hearing from God.” In the campaign they asked members to pray about how they should give and then pledge toward the amount they heard. After several months of praying, along with weekly stories from the pulpit of people who prayed, heard and decided to give generously, the final day came when all the pledges were in. But the pledges did not cover the costs of the new building—not even close.
Did the “Hearing from God” campaign succeed as a marketing tool? Yes. The campaign focused congregational interest by tying growth plans with the expectation that this was God’s vision and God’s work. This tactic is nothing new to the human condition, whether we’re talking about starting a war, running for office, providing jet fuel for the pastor’s personal jet or gassing-up any other part of the church growth business The campaign worked exactly as planned: it helped elicit pledges from the congregation, pledges over and above typical giving.
Did the “Hearing from God” campaign succeed as a moment of corporate listening? No. And massively so. The congregation was asking “Should we?” while the leaders were asking “How much?” The end of the campaign revealed how different the two questions were, as leaders refused to revisit the what they actually heard from God. Instead they pushed the project forward, despite the seemingly obvious conclusions.
The multi-million dollar project moved ahead, but the twist on hearing and resultant lack of listening initiated a corrosive set of questions about leadership. Subsequent decisions about firing and hiring supported the growing congregational awareness that the entire church entity had been hijacked by a set of leaders pursuing private dreams. “Hearing from God” became a shorthand joke among the congregation for whatever current project leadership was pursuing. Over the course of the next two years, thirty-three to fifty percent of the long-term members leaked out the back door.
What does it cost to avoid hearing?
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Image credit: x-planes
Dummy’s Guide to Conversation #4: Define Stuff
Definition is a dance.
There is a story of a young man and a young woman. They had dated for some time and things were moving along comfortably. Together they decided to move to a new city, where they each took new jobs and explored the area. All while they continued their relationship.
One day, after a weekend lunch together at the young man’s apartment, the young woman said, “Where do you see our relationship going?”
A simple question. Directional. Easy to answer. Innocuous!
But the young man had not tracked along that line of thought.
The question swung like a searchlight through the great, dark, yawning chasm of circumstances and trajectories he had not begun to consider. The question spun like a mad top through his brain, touching area after area that needed direction, uncorking whirling speculation and emotion and fears and opportunity. Yes, where was this going?
“I have to sit down for a moment,” he said.
“I guess that’s my answer,” she said.
Definition can work powerfully in a life. Definition can suddenly show how one person’s thinking is so very, very different from another’s. We often say definition “gets people on the same page,” which is a way of saying we’ve come to an understanding. And that understanding lets us move forward. Or not.
In class our text read “Definitions explain terms or concepts that are specialized and may be unfamiliar to people who don’t have expertise in a particular field.” (Gurak and Lannon, 2010) But the more we talked about it, the more we realized that definition of “definition” did not take into account the powerful leveling ability definition can serve with those who think they already know something—those who feel too familiar with the topic at hand.
Whether in relationships, business meetings, board meetings or a casual encounter in the street, defining what you are talking about is a powerful conversational tool.
Postscript: The young man did eventually begin to define things, area by area. The young woman stuck around. They married and a quarter of a century later they still work together on defining the circumstances and trajectories of life.
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Image Credit: Via thisisnthappiness
The Best of Us are Still only Serial-Doers
It’s about running. But it’s also about what she is not doing. And It’s kind of about doing more than one thing at once. We are all are simply serial do-ers: We always do one thing at a time. We may think we’re multi-tasking, but we focus only on one thing and then another. The best of us fool ourselves by switching gears faster.
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Abilify Commercial: Now with Extra True-ishness
The genre of pharmaceutical commercials tend to show happy-faced users with their lives coming together after having taken the chemical compound. Happy faces also take center-stage while the disclaimers and side-effects roll on the screen and in the background voice-over. What I like about this commercial is that the dark shadow never goes away—which is more true to what I understand about clinical depression.
That the shadow remains in the animation is a powerful credibility-booster in my mind. I’m guessing the product manager and agency had strenuous talks about whether to keep the shadow in and what that shadow does to the brand promise.
This is something we’ve been talking about over at Details Have a Public Face.
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Occupy Everything: Every Group Forms Around a Promise
Anarchists organize for anarchy while pacifists plot their war on war. A church may promise a club-like space where everyone knows your name or it may work out the day-to-day look of those ancient texts that call for justice, mercy and rightness with the Creator.
Optimist/Activist Professor Reich
At the moment, Occupy Wall Street is a BYOP (Bring Your Own Promise) event. But commentators and talking heads are showing up to frame up their version of the promise. Also showing up: opportunists, would-be pornographers, and anybody with a beef. Robert Reich took to the bullhorn Wednesday at Occupy San Francisco with his version of the promise: “I really do believe we are on the cusp of a fundamental change,” Reich said.
Maybe so.
Maybe Occupy [whatever] is this generation’s 1968 moment. Maybe the greedy will be shamed into… what? Backing away from the system that hands out checks for the way they risk other people’s money? Maybe we are simply shining light on the scurrying rats of a corrupt and corrupting financial system. We also shine the light on our own culpability in a corrupt and corrupting system
The single, binding promise has yet to emerge. But certainly our conversation is different today. And that feels like progress.
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Image Credit: SF Examiner
Snag An Audience
“…when advertising talks about the audience, it doesn’t mean its audience, it means somebody else’s, gathered there to watch or read something else. Advertising hopes to snag this audience as it flips through the pages or watches or listens its way through a show.”
Howard Gossage, The Big Book of Gossage
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Image: Lee Friedlander
conversation is an engine 