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I’d Like to Introduce Where’s Your Heart? Foundation

David Bressler

Posted on February 16, 2010

Where’s Your Heart? Foun­da­tion is a US non-profit orga­ni­za­tion I founded to improve people’s lives through altru­is­tic living.

Big words, but what’s it mean?

You know that feel­ing you get when you do some­thing good (some­thing altru­is­tic)? At Where’s Your Heart? we believe that feel­ing is impor­tant. It turns a bad day into a good one, or at least makes a tough day a lit­tle eas­ier. We’ve all felt it, right?

Well, a prob­lem is that the feel­ing is fleet­ing. No, not the right word. It’s not the feel­ing that’s fleet­ing, but the expe­ri­ence. There are a bunch of rea­sons this hap­pens, but we can summarize:

  1. Char­i­ties don’t focus on the expe­ri­ence of their donors, they right­fully focus on their char­i­ta­ble missions;
  2. That feel­ing is pretty hard to mea­sure, and so the ben­e­fits we get from that feel­ing are even fur­ther “out-there”.

So, what are we going to do? We’re going to focus on that feel­ing. Then, we’re going to use social media to nur­ture and share it. In short…

Where’s Your Heart? will cre­ate, nur­ture, and share that feeling ™

Why?

Well, to improve people’s lives (weren’t you pay­ing atten­tion in para­graph 1?!?). In fact, I think it might do more. A lot more.

Why now?

I believe there is an inter­est­ing con­flu­ence of social media, char­i­ta­ble aware­ness, and a valu­ing of the “group expe­ri­ence”. Con­sider Where’s Your Heart? my con­tri­bu­tion to this new cul­ture. A cul­ture that could elect Barack Obama pres­i­dent, and make peo­ple (at least for one day) feel like they changed the world. A cul­ture that is turn­ing away from the 9–5 mate­ri­al­is­tic lifestyle, and look­ing for some­thing dif­fer­ent. A cul­ture where we can break down global bor­ders and come together around some­thing big­ger. Pick your favorite dis­as­ter. Kat­rina. Haiti. Indonesia’s tsunami. Peo­ple ral­lied, and for a moment we were con­nected around com­ing together. And we felt bet­ter for it. We’re learn­ing to have a dif­fer­ent impact on the world around us, and Where’s Your Heart? is going to be a part of it.

I want to keep this short and read­able. So, I’m going to stop here for now with one request. If I’ve caught your atten­tion please become a fan on Face­book. Face­book is going to be our pri­mary web site and media out­let for the time being.

I’m sure you’re dying to know “how” we’ll do this. Stay tuned. That’s the next post.

Categories: WYH?

6 Comments

Need Some Help — International Prepaid Experiences?

David Bressler

Posted on February 12, 2010

Here’s the deal. I’m so over T-Mobile. Done.

I also don’t believe that Ver­i­zon will get an iPhone this year. Wish­ful think­ing, sure. But, tech­ni­cally, I’m not sure I believe Apple will make a CDMA phone, when they can milk AT&T for a lit­tle while longer, and be in a bet­ter posi­tion with Ver­i­zon (4G) next year.

Any­ways, I also don’t like my RIM browser. It’s crap. And, while the Storm 2 would be some­thing I could live with… I’d pre­fer a dif­fer­ent phone (right now think­ing Palm Pre, but lean­ing more towards Droid). And, here’s the catch.

I’m a glo­be­trot­ter. Verizon’s inter­na­tional story is one that con­tin­ues to baf­fle me. Their “world phones” suck. Well, except the Storm 2. And, prob­a­bly the other RIM phones they have depend­ing on your per­sonal pref­er­ence. Except the RIM browsers stink in com­par­i­son (and I want them to pay for that over­sight… bastards).

Seri­ously. Put the Storm 2 next to the Droid, and you’ll for­get how bad Motorola sucks pretty quickly.

[Total side­bar… remem­ber AT&T’s ads “fewest dropped calls”? I always thought their mar­ket­ing mes­sage on that ad was “we suck least” until some­one pointed out that they prob­a­bly just “have the fewest cus­tomers” for whom to drop calls.]

So, if I go to Ver­i­zon and pick a cool CDMA phone (with inno­v­a­tive fea­tures like “no call drop­ping”), I’m left with­out an inter­na­tional solu­tion. And, that’s just not possible.

I went to a Ver­i­zon store today and went all log­i­cal on the guy, see­ing if I could get a Ver­i­zon SIM for an unlocked GSM phone, pre­tend it was in a Ver­i­zon global phone, and then let me use a non global phone with the same para­me­ters as a global phone on my account (so I don’t have to pay for a sec­ond line, etc.). Prob­lem is, no way to get a Ver­i­zon SIM with­out hav­ing an active Ver­i­zon Global Phone on the account.

Long and short of it is, we came up with a solu­tion of using another vendor’s pre-paid wire­less GSM phone, and for­ward­ing my num­ber to that when I travel. This way, I pay as I go (which I essen­tially have to when trav­el­ing any­ways), I still have my num­ber, and so on. It’s only voice when I travel, but I’m OK with that, as except on T-Mobile, inter­na­tional data is quite expen­sive any­ways so I hes­i­tate to use it.

After doing some quick research, I found out that the US GSM car­ri­ers don’t pro­vide pre-paid ser­vices that roam inter­na­tion­ally (unless you count Mex­ico and Canada as inter­na­tional). A lit­tle more research found a pos­si­ble solu­tion, and here’s where I need help.

There are a few com­pa­nies who pro­vide SIMs for use in unlocked GSM phones specif­i­cally for US trav­el­ers abroad. The gen­eral rule is… buy a local pre-paid SIM if you’re going to be in a spe­cific coun­try, buy one where you can roam around oth­er­wise. You’ll pay more for the lat­ter, but it’s more con­ve­nient. There are 3 com­pa­nies that give me a com­fort­ing feel online… Sim­Card Global which gives you both US and UK local num­bers, Call In Europe — a French oper­a­tor, and National Geo­graphic Cel­lu­larAbroad (OK, National Geo­graphic gives you UK and US num­bers too). There’s some other advice worth read­ing (more here too) that’s helped me under­stand these options as well.

  1. Any­one have any expe­ri­ence with any of these com­pa­nies that they can share? Keep it con­struc­tive but pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive is equally welcome.
  2. Any­one have any expe­ri­ence using Ver­i­zon and for­ward­ing their num­ber else­where? If I have unlim­ited min­utes, I should be able to for­ward my phone to another NY # with­out any charges (except per­haps a monthly charge to turn on the abil­ity to for­ward)… but I want to make sure there won’t be any per-minute charges. Their web site and the sales guy I spoke to both said there wouldn’t be any addi­tional charges, but…
  3. Any­one have another solu­tion they’ve come up with (work­ing on Ver­i­zon but need­ing a con­ve­nient inter­na­tional mobile phone solu­tion) that they care to share?

Please use the com­ments below for con­ver­sa­tion, or link to your blog with a response.

Thanks in advance.

Categories: Technology

5 Comments

What I’m Doing Wrong

David Bressler

Posted on February 6, 2010

Yah. I said it. I’m doing some­thing very wrong. In fact, with respect to blog­ging and social media, it relates to one of the biggest pieces of advice I’d give other peo­ple. Not that I’m such a big advi­sor, I just have a big mouth and am “a lit­tle” opinionated.

That advice is “par­tic­i­pate” in the con­ver­sa­tion. It’s very obvi­ous when you run across a blog where the per­son just talks. They don’t usu­ally ref­er­ence other con­ver­sa­tions or ideas. They also don’t refer to com­ments they’ve made, and impor­tantly, they don’t link to other articles/posts/items.

I did this when I first started blog­ging over at Progress, and it was a suc­cess­ful way to get my voice added to the sym­phony. I’ve let that prac­tice slip over the last 6 months, and that’s a shame.

So, here’s some advice you’ve prob­a­bly heard a mil­lion times before. This makes it a mil­lion and one.

  1. Spend more time com­ment­ing on other people’s blogs than writ­ing your own. It’s being a good cit­i­zen, but also helps to estab­lish cred­i­bil­ity. And, we all like read­ers to our blogs, and are more likely to read a blog for some­one who reg­u­larly par­tic­i­pates on our own. (duh) 
  2. Link to other arti­cles. It makes your writ­ing more valu­able to a reader who may not know your topic well enough to find the “good” writ­ing, but also improves our blog’s search ranking. 
  3. Being open to other people’s ideas (in my case, prod­uct and mar­ket strate­gies) helps you grow pro­fes­sion­ally. I read a lot. I often bring what I read into my work (and frankly, into my train­ing… but that’s another story). Some­times I bring it in suc­cess­fully, some­times, not so much. Either way, it keeps my brain from get­ting too set in a par­tic­u­lar way of think­ing or approach­ing problems.

One of the most prac­ti­cal and use­ful books I’ve ever read on a topic was Naked Con­ver­sa­tions: How Blogs are Chang­ing the Way Busi­nesses Talk with Cus­tomers. I highly rec­om­mend it still as a must-read guide for peo­ple who want blog successfully.

So, that said…

I’m off to Peru in about 3 weeks. When I return, I’m going to make more of an effort to read and com­ment more, and involve myself in the con­ver­sa­tion more than I have been. I’m going to track my read­er­ship more closely, and see if I can be more con­sis­tent and use my own advice to grow my readership.

This, by the way, also ties in nicely to my new role here at Progress. Appar­ently, I’m on an org chart some­where, but my role is not yet announced, so I’m going to keep my mouth shut for the time being. I will say, I’m work­ing on a cou­ple of inter­est­ing projects, and am enjoy­ing the change.

My col­league Julianna Cam­marano has started blog­ging about Actional. Check out her first post. It’s about rodents (and she’s not talk­ing about the com­pe­ti­tion). Julianna’s respon­si­ble for Actional’s prod­uct mar­ket­ing, and I’ve learned a lot about how mar­ket­ing can con­tribute from her, so I’m look­ing for­ward to her future posts.

Categories: Community

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First, Demonstrate Value

David Bressler

Posted on February 3, 2010

Here’s a tip for pre­sales engi­neers sell­ing com­plex technology.

There we go, I’m already off on a tan­gent. My poor brain.

You see, I said “…engi­neers sell­ing…” Yep, that’s the job of the sales engi­neer. Don’t fool your­selves. You get paid to sell. You’re the peo­ple with the cred­i­bil­ity. Where the sales per­son man­ages the mechan­ics of the sales process, it’s the sales engi­neer that estab­lishes cred­i­bil­ity and demon­strates value.

I was once ques­tioned by a cus­tomer about a higher price than a com­peti­tor (a dis­trib­u­tor who took my design and priced it). My response… “you pay more because you get me.” It’s a funny story, but suf­fice it to say that I was lucky my sales guy was on vaca­tion that day. He would have had heart fail­ure at my response, and he would have just matched the distributor’s price. I sold the value (along with a lit­tle humor) and the cus­tomer agreed. They pur­chased at our higher price.

Any­ways, back on track.

I’m often asked about sup­port for a par­tic­u­lar plat­form. “How can we sell Actional if there isn’t sup­port for plat­form XYZ?!?!?!?” peo­ple scream/beg/plead.

Sim­ple. Demon­strate value first. Worry the details second.

Sure, if we don’t sup­port any of a prospect’s plat­forms, it’s not a good oppor­tu­nity (duh). But, that’s not going to hap­pen. We sup­port all major pro­to­cols and plat­forms. Some­times, there’s an obscure (or not so obscure) com­po­nent of the over­all solu­tion that’s missing.

Well, get in there and work with what you’ve got. Get the prospect to agree that there’s value in our solu­tion. Once value is estab­lished, the tech­ni­cal details are just that. Details. Impor­tant ones, but not dif­fi­cult ones.

Let me share an example.

A large CORBA cus­tomer was strug­gling with spo­radic fail­ures. Unable to pin-point the root cause, they’ reboot “quad­rants” of their data cen­ter and the prob­lem would go away. Dur­ing the 30–45 minute “reboot” they’d have major capac­ity prob­lems, but… it was the fastest way to make sure their busi­ness kept up and run­ning. (Of course, this really just fixed the symp­toms, so they never actu­ally solved the prob­lem… which would just keep recurring.)

So, we demon­strated the value in their CORBA envi­ron­ment, and quickly had “men with suits and ties” in the room look­ing at the solu­tion. They were so pleased, they brought a few new prob­lems too. Of course, these prob­lems involved a cus­tom writ­ten high-speed mes­sag­ing protocol.

Value was estab­lished and trust was there. The new pro­to­col was just a bump in the road. A detail. In a cou­ple of days, we instru­mented their pro­to­col, and the rest is history.

Any­ways, if you want to read a great e-book on sales enable­ment for other ideas on how to improve your game, check out Jeff Ernst’s e-book “The New Rules of Sales Enable­ment.” It’s a favorite.

Categories: Enterprise Software Sales

0 Comments

Every Time a Baby Walks, the Universe Cheers

David Bressler

Posted on February 2, 2010

Was talk­ing to a friend the other day, and a great metaphor popped into my head. It was a metaphor appro­pri­ate to what she was expe­ri­enc­ing, but also to what we’re doing here at Where’s Your Heart?.

Where’s Your Heart? is about the change occur­ring in our cul­ture. About our pri­or­i­ties, our rela­tion­ships, and impor­tantly how we relate to the world around us. You might say, it’s more of a fem­i­nine energy. You might be right. It’s actu­ally more about the shared expe­ri­ence of life and the energy it man­i­fests. Once you con­nect to this energy, you real­ize it con­spires for us. It sup­ports us, and it’s right there where we need it to be. All we need to do is trust it.

I say “all we need to do” like it’s easy or something!

Bot­tom line is, the game’s rigged… in our favor. As I was talk­ing with this friend, a great anal­ogy popped into my head. I want to share it.

Have you ever watched a new baby learn to walk? Your first reac­tion is to cheer them on. No one ever wants the baby to fall. Or worse, to never be able to walk. I sus­pect, you can’t even imag­ine a per­son who might think jeer a baby who takes their first step, right?

We know we can’t just walk for the baby. And, there’s not a lot we can do to ease the pain that comes with the process of learn­ing to walk; the con­stant falling, men­tally expe­ri­enc­ing the 100% fail­ure rate RIGHT UP UNTIL THEY LEARN TO WALK.

Even as I write this, I’m a bit over­whelmed with how per­fect this anal­ogy is to any of us who are try­ing to get more out of life than a big­ger pay­check. I find myself falling time and again, and to the point of not want­ing to even face the next item on my todo list with Where’s Your Heart?. But, I know, I trust that in spite of my best efforts to fall, the uni­verse is cheer­ing me on. Things lead to things. And, right now, things are con­spir­ing to help us along the way as defin­i­tively as any adult would do any­thing to be there when a baby takes their first steps.

Last bit of sagely advice before I head back up my moun­tain for the day.

When you’re hav­ing a hard one, think about that baby when they fall. Look up, look around. Find a friend, and they’ll be sure to cheer you on. And, like a par­ent for their child, they’ll totally get when you’ve had enough falling for the day and just want to eat and sleep until try­ing again tomorrow.

Categories: WYH?

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