What Would Google Do? - WWGD

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This week it has once again become quite clear to me, that things can turn out quite strangely. Merely nine months ago I enthusiastically started the adventure of “De Digitale Academie” (the digital academy). In those nine months a whole lot of things have happened concerning this adventure. Great things, but most certainly a few nasty things as well – about which I cannot say a word because of possible legal implications. Yet again, to me it's very obvious that I've gotten out stronger than before and stronger than I would have ever thought.

After a period of non-stop working, working and more working I am now spending a week in Malta. What a beautiful island! Here I find my rest and I actually get around to reading a book. And what kind of book!? WWGD or What Would Google Do? A book written by Internet-journalist and professor Jeff Jarvis.

I actually bought the book in a rush at Schiphol Airport (Amsterdam) just before getting on the plane to Malta. In the airplane I started reading because I had nothing else to do. Later on this reading was occasionally interrupted by a very friendly Maltese lady who was able to tell me and my wife everything there is to know about Malta and its rich history.

However, outside of our conversation I kept reading this exceptionally interesting book by Jarvis. Every page made me more curious as to what he was going to write next. While reading I started to realise, that many of the thing I read could quite directly be applied to my own company (Zoccolo / De Digitale Academie) and services, but in quite a few cases also to my clients and relations. Let me give you an example; the book is quite clear about how newspapers in their current form are marked for death. And coincidentally a close relative of mine has recently graduated in the field of traditional journalism. This relative asked me for advice just a week or two ago, because he has been running into these dead trees (newspapers) lately. We decided to dive into this matter after our holidays, but I am most definitely going to let him read this book WWGD?

Publishers and libraries are also getting a beating in this book and let me tell you that these branches too belong to my group of clients. Off course I took quite a few notes on my iPhone to send to my clients after my holiday. I've even come to the point where I think that every company that's having difficulties (economically) at the moment (or is going to have difficulties in the upcoming years) should keep this book on his or her night-stand and consume it.

For me the book is a continuous stimulant to think like google (googlethink) and create googlejuice. But most of all it's a great book that puts all these theories on paper in a very readable manner. And even better, it gives me lots of inspirations and ideas. The hardest part is to choose a starting point. But hey, that we'll see after my holiday. Anyway, it just comes to show what an impulse-acquisition can be good for!

Customer service? Yes please...

Today we went on a mini cruise to the small Maltese island of Comino, to check out the beautiful beach of The Blue Lagoon and to swim with the fishes up at Chrystal Lagoon. But before seeing any see at all, we had to go through quite a bit of travelling and walking. We left our own hotel, The Palace, at around 8.00 am. We had to take a bus to St. Julian's to look for the "Corinthia Hotel, St. George's Bay". The bus however, didn't stop close to the hotel, so we had to walk about 20 minutes. Eventhough the trip shouldn't have taken so long, we did arive only 5 minutes to 9.00. Only to find out we were 35 minutes early instead of just 5.

A very friendly employee (I'll keep the name private) of the Corinthia St. George's hotel, took us to the harbour and showed us the pools of the hotel. Though we're very happy with our hotel, The Palace, I must say the pools of this hotel did make us drool a little. After telling us where to wait the employee told us to come by the desk on our way back so we could be given some brochures of the hotel.

After having a great time in Comino, at the Blue Lagoon and Chrystal Lagoon, we took the powerboat back to the hotel and met the employee again. We were then shown what customer service is all about, eventhough we weren't actually customers yet, we had only taken a boat trip from their hotel. The employee asked us to wait a couple of minutes to be shown the hotel (450+ rooms) and the facilities. We were amazed by the splendor of the hotel and definitely know where to go next time we visit Malta (hopefully next year?).

At the end of the tour, we were shown how real customer service (with a smile) works. Some Russian dude, about 30 years of age, came towards us at the end of the tour and started a tirade about how the employee should be at the front desk. He continued saying "open this door for me". Aparently the Homo Neanderthalensis had forgotten his key. The employee excused himself to us and helped the rude Russian after which we were accompanied to the hall again.

We were amazed by the grace and friendlyness of the employee after having been treated like dog droppings. Lots of respect for this kind of attitude. Something we can all learn a lot of in the sense of customer service!

Oh no, another bloody Joomla! update (1.5.13)

This morning while swiftly going through my e-mail – yeahyeah, people are in line to be able to use the Internet here – I was unpleasantly surprised by another Joomla! update release last night. After having already been surprised by 1.5.11 and 1.5.12 being release so shortly after their predesessors.

Because I'm on a holiday, I'm not constantly hooked to the Internet – though some people might think differently. All the same later today I wanted to check my iPhone Tweetie for stuff I might have missed out on. Imagine my surprise when I found out that there had already been discovered quite a large bug in 1.5.13.

Some time ago (about a month) something similar happened. An update had just been released and quite a number of people had already updated many of their websites, when a bug turned out to have been overlooked. The problem was fortunately tackled instantly, but still...

Minutes after the discovery of the bug, discussions unfolded on Twitter on wether or not this was acceptable or not. Some people thought it was, other didn't. My opinion at that time was, that one cannot complain about free software, but can't they?

I myself – as have many co-Joomla!-builders – have invested a lot of time in Joomla!. The knowledge I gained, I try to pass on in both my own projects as well as other Joomla-enthousiasts in the spirit of “spread the word”. The question however is, how well this word can be spread if developments on the stable version go as they have been going lately. To me it's all bad PR.

What I mean by that? Well, you do the math; since january 2008 there have been 13 Joomla! Updates. That's 13 updates in 19 months. About 1.5 update a month that is. If however, we look at the last 4 months, we notice 4 updates since March 28th 2009. Which is actually 1 update per month. And it's not even 28th July yet! What I'm trying to say is that it seems that people are too eager to come up with fixes lately. This rush doesn't do any good for the quality of the product. Shouldn't things releases be tested more thoroughly and can we not complain if this doesn't happen?

I'm very curious as to what others in “the world of Joomla!” have to say about this subject. And before you go berserk on me realise this: “I'm very happy with Joomla! And all the effort that's being put in to it by both developers and us as a community (mind you: I've done my share of contributing to the dutch community), but this I had to get off my chest!”