Recently, I had reason to complain about some poor customer service I received from a rep at a call center for Network Solutions.  I had two client  accounts that needed to merge in order to setup some E-commerce functions, but not only was the fellow I spoke to not helpful at all, I could barely understand his accent.

So what did I do?  I vented on Twitter about it.  Even with the recent bad luck they've had with downtime and unreliable service, I've not quite decided to be a Twitter Quitter either. For a while I was close to it, but I've decided to stay and post maybe 3 - 4 times a day.

I'm glad I stuck around, actually.  What happened after I vented was quite interesting.  After figuring out the problem myself, I went to my Twitter page and I had a direct message from @netsolcares, a Network Solutions customer assistance rep on Twitter itself.  And this wasn't the first time he's contacted me on there!

Yep, I actually meant to blog about this the first time @netsolcares contacted me about mentioning Network Solutions on Twitter.  I got into a discussion with him, not about the issue, but about how he was using Twitter and how he found my message.  He used Summize, a search engine for conversations going on at Twitter and found my message within hours of posting and contacted me directly to see if he could help at all.

Now that is proactive customer support!

How can other people use this as an example?  If you have a product or business that people use, try finding out where and what they are saying about it online.  You'd be surprised at what you find, both positive and negative.  Seek the positive remarks and chime in to say thanks.  Find the negative comments and poke your head in to see if you can change their minds.  That is the future of customer service online.

Do not wait for problems to come to you because they can boil up beyond your control, which would be a shame if a single proactive approach and a "sorry" could have kept the issue small.

The Bouv has been asked to answer 3 questions about his day-to-day life at CurrentMarketing.

The Bouv Abides.

1: What's the most interesting tool you use to do your job?

This may seem funny at first, but as Geek In Charge around here, I'm not going to say the programming editor I use or my favorite browser. I'm not going to say it's the command line of the nice UNIX soul behind my Mac OS X workstation.

No, the most interesting and useful tool I use is Mac OS X's Spaces program. Not all you Macheads even know about this feature of OS X 10.5, but it is the application that I most often use throughout the day. Spaces allows you to have multiple desktops to help organize your other applications into functional groups.

For instance, I have one area for browsers, mail and instant messaging. I have another for my programming tools (editors, terminals and sftp windows) and a third desktop for iTunes or other multimedia apps. And the coolest one is Desktop 4 where I can run Windows Vista full screen.

Just take a look:

I can push Control + 1 thru 4 on my keyboard to cycle through my desktops to get to any area I need. If I click on an app on my dock that is already open in one of those desktops, it automatically moves me over to that area. Spaces really is the most interesting and useful tool I use to keep productive daily.

2: What website do you visit most often?

Why, UnderCurrent of course! I mean it's the blog of Louisville's Leading Interactive Marketing Agency!

3: What website do you REALLY visit most often?

Google without a doubt. I have a customized Google home page that feeds in my personal Google mail account, my Google Reader list, and my Remember The Milk todo list. 3 websites for the price of 1. I could put more on there but I don't want it to be cluttered.

Well, Hulu officially launched yesterday after many months in beta. Better late than never? The "video online" market is fairly crowded right now, but Hulu does bring the powerhouses of NBC and Fox under one umbrella, not to mention many other smaller channels as well (like Bravo, Fuel TV, FX, Sci Fi, Style, Sundance, and Oxygen). In the last year and a half all the broadcast networks have really ramped up their online video presence.

The Wall Street Journal posits that Hulu is coming out as a competitor to YouTube. Does anyone else out there have an issue with this? The bread and butter of YouTube is not shows (though they are pirated on there, or show up in snippets only), but UGC -- User Generated Content! Hell, its one of the biggest successes of the Web 2.0 "amateur created" internet fad we're all wrapped up in. YouTube is popular because it shows cats tackling babies, old ladies punching other old ladies in the face and of course The Evolution of Dance video.

Now, Hulu does have a good shot at doing this better than its competitors. Its archives are ripe with much wanted older episodes of popular shows (*cough* Simpsons *cough). And the ads that it is serving can be targeted towards the end-user (I get to choose what type of ads I see) and big companies are going to eat that up. Especially since ads in video is still experimental for marketers and there is a lot of drool over the expected ROI.

That is until someone makes a site that rips the content, strips the ads and reposts everything free of annoyance. The legality of this is of course obvious, but that hasn't exactly stopped people from posting shows online already, has it? If anything Hulu might be making it easier. Now all a site needs to do take the videos and keep the ads there, but put in "jump points" to allow the user to choose to skip the ads. They're there, but the user decides to skip them and jump to the next point in the real show -- definitely doable.

HuluDVR.com upcoming? Totally predicting that.

Yesterday morning Gary Gygax passed away, so I'm a bit nerd-sad at the moment. Like many other computer geeks, growing up I was into roleplaying games and Gary Gygax was an icon as the Father of Dungeons & Dragons. Though it was in person, sitting around with some pencils, paper and dice was our social networking back then. Later when the internet was picking up, but before the label of "Web 2.0" was slapped on it, to have "online friends" was still seen as anti-social.

And now everyone and their mom has a Facebook or MySpace page. If you don't, you're the odd one out now. The irony is particularly interesting because the nerds, geeks and dweebs of 15-25 years ago are now leading the technology behind Web 2.0, social media and all things "hip" about the Internet right now.

If anything, I'm more anti-social now than I used to be -- except for the fact that I interact with more people online now than I ever do in person. I've put down the d20s (those are twenty sided dice for you non-initiated) for now, but I'll always be a roleplaying nerd at heart.

LifeHacker is one of my favorite sites to visit (or peruse via Google Reader that is) and yesterday they started a Coolest Cubicle Contest. One of the nice things about CurrentMarketing is the great, open air offices we try to maintain. No one is closed in by a cubicle and though some people have their own offices, most of us share areas. We know that it is more warm and friendly, not only for our employees but also for guests. No one wants to walk in and see a cubicle maze.

In LifeHacker's contest page above they show a few examples, but I'm fond of the Tiki/Bamboo pictures. Perhaps a bit too busy, but definitely thematic and not as over the top as some shown here from last year. There is such a thing as "too much".

I share a divided office (big opening between the two) with the other "geeks" here. I have a huge desk that is usually cluttered with tasks lists, notes and most of all at the moment: computer parts. On the fun side of things I have about a dozen glow-in-the-dark zombies, 5 statues of Buddha, one statue of Kuan Yin, a little metal dragon that can open up to put stuff in, a Rubik's Cube and a toy version of myself in a miniature cubicle surrounded by geek stuff.

Two of my favorite things together: scary movies and advertising. Well, one thing at least.

But you just can't get any better than Annie Wilkes as a spokesperson in my humble opinion. Take one of the most memorable scenes in modern thriller cinema and have her pitch your satellite television service. I think that's totally brilliant, but maybe more applicable if she was a spokesperson for Home Depot. You know .. sledgehammers?

If I could post a thought bubble, you'd see a pic of me looking into the air contemplatively about:

Freddy Kreuger selling Lunesta.

Jason Vorhees selling Ginsu.

Lionel Cosgrove selling lawnmowers.

Okay, okay, so I the last one is more esoteric than the first ones, but this is my thought bubble, I'll think about what I want!

Mac Tricks and Tips recently came out with a list of the Top 100 Essential Mac Applications, so I think I'll list my own essential apps (but not 100, sheesh!) that I use as Geek in Charge at CurrentMarketing.

1. Komodo Edit : If I'm not using vi as my text editor, I'm using this app. I could use any old plain text editor, but I'm addicted to syntax highlighting for code and hate working without it.
2. Fetch : I think the list from Mac Tricks and Tips is wrong about Cyberduck. I've had nothing but issues with it, and that's why I love Fetch as my FTP client.
3. Parallels : When needing to check a site across multiple browsers and multiple platforms, Parallels sure beats the pants off of a desk full of hardware. Gone are the days of 3-4 computers on or around my desk. Well, working ones that is -- I have a graveyard of dead towers behind me right now.
4. Spaces : Every Leopard install already has this, but if you don't have it enabled you should! I simply couldn't work as effeciently without it. I normally have my editors, terminals, Parallels, Photoshop, iTunes and numerous browsers all open at the same time. Without Spaces, I'd go mad (even before Leopard I used 3rd party apps to perform similar desktop magic).
5. iTunes : Okay, so this is a given. Every Mac-head out there has this favorite app, but as a developer it is very important to my work. How else could I stand banging out line after line of code if I couldn't fire up iTunes and listen to Green Day, Miles Davis, Led Zeppelin and Lady Sovereign (or a mix thereof) to blast in the background?

Well, those are the applications I wouldn't want to function without daily on my Mac. Now I'm going to go check out a lot of the apps mentioned in the Top 100. Which, by the way, is only a Top 99 -- Wallsaver is listed twice (47 and 58). It must be that good!