Directory Services: THE - not "e" - SERVICE Foundation
One of the more empowering realities that begins to face people who communicate more openly is that our mission to be of service to others becomes more interactive, intuitive, natural, fluid, ironic and excitingly serendipitous.
The way the vast majority of traditional companies offer service is the direct opposite of this experience. In fact when you really boil what's out there down to its core, most of what's offered represents defensive, reactive, restrictive, compartmentalized, controlling and limited approaches to helping others.
I'm convinced that going forward the ONLY prime differentiator left in the world will be one thing: SERVICE. Forget about products. Anyone can sell a product. Forget about technology. We're buried in technology. Better yet, venture capital's quest to use technology to create DOT.COM marketshare is running scared as it desperately tries to chase and claim customers through this shortsighted, misguiding targeted and controlled advertising spending gusher going on right now.
Forget about advertising. This completely misses the central point. Forget about BUSINESS: SERVICE is what people want. They want to feel like they are special, welcome and appreciated when they enter into a relationship with a person, community or network.
The realtime, fluid, intelligent targeted articulation of SERVICE and all it's related offshoot follow-up energies and components and channels will be the next frontier on the Internet.
What we are seeing on the net today is the same ole, same ole. DOT.COM platforms and portals screaming for our attention as if we were all part of some at a crazy carny section of an amusement park. Coupons, credit, referrals and freebies flying at us in the air from every which way direction: cable, radio, TV, billboards, print, magazines, etc. The din, confusion, noise, fuzziness and fogginess grows with each passing day.
But you know what?
It a necessary transformative part of this transition to the new networked, community-driven and individually empowered world. For each of us are learning all the necessary new bits and pieces of threaded information, services and energies which heretofore used to be controlled, bundled and restricted inside the bowels of traditional companies.
Companies are gradually being "communitized" - hey, there's a new one for you - through the power and energy of FREE choice. Communities are forming right now beneath our noses, away from AOL/TimeWarner, away from Yahoo and definitely away from traditional companies. Targeting, mentoring, empowering, helping and serving the individuals inside these emerging communities will become the path of ALL future growth on the net and in the world going forward.
We are entering a MasterMind zone beyond technology for technology is fast becoming more and more transparent. The end purpose of all this is SERVICE: i.e. we freely and fluidly architect, organize, channel, plan, empower and excite the passions and energies of human capital as it layers out into all the many colors and dimensions of skillsets, ideas, resources and relationships.
In a quite funny way the piece below should give you a compellingly concrete sense of how disjointed and out of touch traditional methods of delivering service have become in this world.
Example: menu-driven voicemail. Ever get that strange feeling that as you menu your way through the numbered choices you are climbing further - downward - inside this deep dark cave - waiting.....waiting - pressing buttons as if you were somehow inconveniencing all the people at surface - ie. in the light - who have more important things to do. It's very dis-empowering, distastefully rude and arrogant. If I want SERVICE I should be able to click on some icon on the net and have the right person with the right question at the right time CALL ME!!! Traditional menu-driven voicemail epitomizes the extreme out-of-touch and distastefully arrogant respect which most traditional businesses relegate to the delivery of THE most important aspect of our lives: helping and serving others through humble acts of service.
Even though we are still at the early stages of SERVICE - as opposed to "BUSINESS" - history, I really believe one of the first proud icons to fall will be this whole notion of menu-driven voicemail. Coming to a Service theater near you will be this new fun movie: i.e. menu-driven voicemail will be blasted to smithereens by the open, objectified, individually focused raw power of the net.
As far as I'm concerned, just having a separate Customer Service department proves this point. For there should be this resounding agreement that we should ALL be guided, first and foremost, by the values and qualities and truths behind the requirement to help and serve others. Labeling a department Customer Service is about as foolish as saying to the world, "Call 800--CUS-TOME....R there's where you get service.....every other place or person you call is NOT responsible nor required to offer Customer Service, etc. - that's right, just cuss all you want to these, them there poor little folks who are paid by the hour to handle your problems, however unimportant, insignificant and inconsequential they may remotely happen to be, etc., etc., etc."
NOT!!!
EVERYONE has a mandate in this world to help and SERVE others. SERVICE, not BUSINESS, is the only thing that matters, period, end, nuf said.
Again, read the piece below - sent along by Doug and Sally, some good virtual friends.
Peace.
GO!!
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Fred,
Really appreciate your last forward - here is one for you:
-Doug & Sally
Spectra Group
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GOD'S VOICE MAIL
We have all learned to live with "voice mail" as a necessary part of modern life. But have you wondered, what if God decided to install voice mail?"
Imagine praying and hearing this: Thank you for calling My Father's
House.
Please select one of the following options:
* Press 1 for Requests
* Press 2 for Thanksgiving
* Press 3 for Complaints
* Press 4 for All Other Inquiries.
What if God used the familiar excuse..."I'm sorry, all of our angels
are busy helping other sinners right now. However, your prayer is important
to us and will be answered in the order it was received, so please stay
on the line".
Can you imagine getting these kinds of responses as you call
God in Prayer:
If you would like to speak to:
* Gabriel, Press 1
* For Michael, Press 2
* For a directory of other Angels, Press 3
* If you would like to hear King David sing a Psalm while you are
holding please press 4.
* To find out if a loved one has been assigned to Heaven, Press 5, enter
his or her Social Security number, then press the pound key. (If you
get a negative response, try area code 666.)
* For reservations at "My Father's House" please enter J-O-H-N followed
by 3-1-6.
* For answers to nagging questions about dinosaurs, the age of the earth
and where Noah's Ark is, please wait until you arrive here.
* Our computers show that you have already prayed once today.Please
hang up and try again tomorrow.
* This office is closed for the weekend to observe a religious holiday.
Please pray again Monday after 9:30 AM.If you need emergency
assistance when this office is closed, contact your local pastor. |
