Teddy Burriss

Are you Listening to me

Designed with WordPress

Category: Technology

  • Social Media Privacy – NOT

    by

    , , , , ,

    I have no concern for or expectation of Social Media privacy.

    Why:

    Because Social Media sites are intended to be Social and IMHO intended to share publicly consumable content.

    Being social includes engaging and sharing with others.

    When you engage with others hopefully you would never stand naked in public, spouting foul words and doing nasty, disgusting things. Similarly, when you engage with others in Social Media, you should never post anything that you would not say in public.

    Also, you would never stand on a street corner and hand out a list of your business and  private, confidential information. Therefore, don’t post any confidential or private information on any social media site.

    Therefore, take the concept and expectation of privacy, security or confidentiality out of every conversation regarding Social Media.

    We need to consider Social Media as public content sites and that we are all contributors. Our role is to provide relevant, interesting and useful information for others to consume.

    Additionally, yes, I know that there are many security and privacy features built into Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, WordPress, etc. These features provide some level of general security that can prohibit users from hacking our accounts and in some cases seeing our content. However beyond getting my account hacked, I do not want or need to trust the other security features.

    I want my content to be accessible by anyone who desires to come looking for it.

    Because I treat these systems as public sites and because I want to publicly contribute and collaborate with others. There is no need for anyone to ask for my Facebook password. All of my content is publicly accessible. Every post, picture, comment, tweet, discussion, connection, friend and fan are public content. Pure & simple to me.

    Just to be clear, I expect my bank, financial institutions, credit cards, email messages, voice mail messages, private conversations and even thoughts to be private and confidential. If these systems get compromised in any way I will not be happy.

    In conclusion I suggest you accept that there is no privacy using Social Media, just as there is no privacy standing on a street corner.

    It’s more enjoyable, rewarding, engaging and beneficial if you set yourself free to share openly with no expectations of privacy.

  • The angst of Daylight Savings Time

    by

    , , ,

    Twice a year most of us have to change our clocks.

    Does everyone know this little poem

    “Spring forward, Fall backwards”?

    In 2007 we began Springing Forward on the Second Sunday in March and Falling back on the First Sunday of November.

    We are supposed to do this at 2 a.m., yet I am sure very few people stay up that late to change their clocks.

    Most of us are happy to move the clocks back in the Fall because we get one of two benefits:

    1. We get an extra hour of sleep that night
    2. We get to stay up an extra hour and then turn the clocks back

    It’s a different issue in the Spring. Most of us are not happy to move the clocks forward because:

    1. We have to go to bed an hour earlier
    2. We lose an hour of sleep

    The other pain with the clock change, is the actual clock changes.

    I am sure I’m not unusual in this regard. I have to change the time on my:

    1. Kitchen Clock
    2. Stove Clock
    3. Automatic Coffee Pot (Yeah, screw this up and the morning sucks)
    4. Living room clock
    5. the clock in my Car
    6. the clock in my wife’s car
    7. the timer on my irrigation system
    8. the timer on our yard lights

    Fortunately our computers, Ipads and Iphones do this on their own – thank goodness for small things

    So, in case you forgot – change the time on your coffee pot, else the morning will SUCK

  • My First E-commerce purchase

    by

    , , , ,

    Ecommerce thru the Internet started somewhere back in 1994, at least as far as I was involved.

    I have four daughters and in 1994 one of them was twelve years old. She wanted to purchase an item from JC Penny.  My wife and her went to the local JC Penny and it was not in stock.  For reasons beyond my feeble understanding, she wanted the item that JC Penny had and no other store would do.

    When they got back home, empty handed, you could see they were disappointed. “Why don’t you try their website,” I suggested.

    Off they went to the only computer we owned, mine. I had hoped to do some work, but as a wise man once said, “Never get in between a woman and her ability to buy stuff.” I learn this years ago.

    They searched the JC Penny site for the item my daughter wanted. It was available online. YEAH. However, they had no idea how to buy it. So you know what happened next. Yep – My daughter calls out – “Dad, can you help us please?”

    Now, I admit, I had never purchased anything online before. But, being a little bit of a computer and software expert, I scanned the page and found  the Add to Cart Button, so I clicked on it and then noticed another icon change showing that I now had one item in my Shopping cart. That was cool and pretty easy.  I looked around the page hoping for that next set of instructions. There were lots of instructions for searching for more items and even some suggestions for relevant items.  None of these ideas appealed to me.

    Then I found in the upper right side of the page the Check out button. So I clicked on it. This brought up another page where I entered in the shipping address and selected the least expensive shipping method, UPS Ground. Pretty cool

    Scanning the page for more instructions, the next button I considered was Continue

    – So I clicked on it.

    This opened up the Credit Card information screen.  This was the page my wife worried about the most. She brought up credit card fraud risk – how could we be sure that our credit card info was going to be safe.  We pondered on this page for a few minutes before we all felt safe to enter my credit card info. When we all felt good, away I went, account number, expiration, name on card and my address. Interestingly there was no place to enter an email address. (Note – I got a letter in the mail about a week later confirming my order.)

    The last button I chose to click on was the Confirm Order Button

    – Clicking on this brought up a JCPenny page thanking me for my order and assuring me it would be shipped soon. The message also said if there were any problems with the order they would call me.

    All in all, my first experience with ordering online went very well.  It took about two weeks for the item to arrive.  That was a happy day for my daughter.

    I was thrilled that the process worked.  I proudly told anyone who asked me, that online purchases worked. Later on I learned more about purchase history and marketing based on your purchases.  This worried me a little, but, heck, it’s not like I ordered anything that I am embarrassed about.

    My daughter loved it.  And, JCPenny never marketed training bras to me. They missed out on that one.  I had three other daughters.

  • It stings to lose a great candidate

    by

    , ,

    My $100 per Hour contractor did not show up

    Back in 2007 I worked for an IT consulting and staffing company.  I did staffing work with some high profile companies.

    One of my clients asked me to find a candidate for a very high profile IT position within their organization. If I found the right person and filled this position, I would be able to bill over $150 per hour, for a 6 month contract.  Good money. The candidate was going to be able to make as much as $100 per hour.  Equally good money for the right contractor.

    I put a lot of work into this staffing project and found the right guy.

    I got the candidate approved by the client.  I sent them the contract and they sent it back signed.

    I worked with the candidate and got a signed agreement from him as well.

    Everything was in place, except the last 2 steps.

    I sent the candidate an email scheduling the background check and drug test.  No response.

    I called his cell phone and left a voice mail message.  No call back.

    I repeatedly called him the next day.  Again, voice mail and no call back.

    I emailed him numerous times during the next few days – no reply at all.

    One of my business contacts threw up the, “he must not be able to pass the drug test” statement.

    I responded, “no, I think something else happened, just not sure what.”

    I heard nothing for over a week. During this time the client checked with me to see if everything was in order.  I had to break the news to him that the candidate disappeared.  I offered to find another candidate but he said, “I already have a #2 candidate lined up. No need.”

    I lost the contract.

    The earlier mentioned business contact said, “I told you, he couldn’t pass the drug test or background check. Too bad.”

    Again, I held true to my original thought, “no something else must have happened.”

    About 3 weeks later I got a late night email from the candidate.  It said something like, “Hello Teddy. I am sorry I had a family emergency and had to leave town.  I’ll explain when I get back in town.”

    Another few weeks went by. My phone rang one afternoon. I answered it and discover it was my lost candidate.  He started the conversation with an honest apology before he explained what happened.  He got a middle of the night phone call that his Dad passed away. He flew out that next morning to spend the next month with his family.  Dealing with the loss of his Dad, handling the family estate arrangements, preparing the family home for sale and helping his younger family members to deal with the pain. While dealing with his family emergency he purposely dropped all work related activity.

    He asked me what happened to the position and I told him I lost it to another staffing company.  He apologized again and asked me if it would help if he apologized to my client.  I told him that was not necessary. I had already told them that he had to leave town for a family emergency.

    We shook hands and parted hoping that we would be able to work again one day.

    Fast forward 1 year.

    I got a call from the candidate.  He now had a high profile job with a local high profile company. He invited me in to meet.

    When we got together he told me that he was appreciative that I had not spoken ill of him even though he caused me some problems.  He wanted to make it up to me some how.  In his new position he was responsible for hiring IT contractors and wanted to give me the first opportunity to fill the positions he had open.

    Now I was the one being thankful.

    The point of this story is quite simple.

    I had no idea why my candidate disappeared.  For this reason I did not publicly speculate that the candidate had an employment problem.  I decided to stay professional and not “burn” my candidate.  I have always believed hat this is how you should treat people.

    Treat people with respect and don’t assume the worst.  You never know what may happen in the future.

  • My First Converge South Event

    by

    , ,

    I spent yesterday (10/6/2011) and today at Converge South.

    ConvergeSouth is the annual Web/Social Media/Mobile App conference held in Greensboro, NC. This year it was held at North Carolina A&T University. The conference is organized completely by volunteers and this year is it’s 7th year. Originally based on the “blogger-con” concept, ConvergeSouth has grown as technology has developed and has tried to meet new needs of it’s community via Social Networking, Social Media, App Development and more without ignoring new users’ needs – that’s why there will always be a “101″ or Beginners Track at ConvergeSouth.

    This year’s agenda was packed full with lots of good information. Here is the Agenda.

    I got to hear presentations from lots of well informed and experienced people including:

    Mark Schaefer, Executive Director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions and world renown blogger @ {grow}.

    Duane Forrester, Senior Product Manager at Bing, SEO guru and author.

    Tom Webster, Vice President, Strategy, for Edison Research, most widely-known as the sole provider of U.S. Election exit polling data to all major media outlets.

    I enjoyed and learned from the presentations delivered by numerous local specialists including:

    Hey – It’s a Social Media event – Here are the good people’s twitter handles.

    @_DavidHorne_
    @1918
    @brandonburke
    @EFadiman
    @iamjohnford
    @JeffSanGeorge
    @KateMorris
    @kevinbriody
    @KristenDaukas
    @laurenpolinsky
    @marktzk
    @rickamme
    @SuePolinsky

    and many others whose name’s & twitter handles escape me

    Beyond the great conversations by the presenters, I also benefited from the informal and enjoyable conversations with dozens of participants in the hallways, restaurants and even bars.

    I am now following a new group of tweeps who I hope to continue learning from and I added a bunch of new followers to my own twitter stream.

    The cost to me for this event was a whopping $75 plus travel (only 60 miles from my home in Davie County). The education I received and the people I got to know during this day and a half event is well worth this small cost.

    The entire event was put together by a volunteer committee, the logistics, scheduling and materials put together by volunteers. Thank you very much to everyone who helped make this event both enjoyable and a success for myself and my fellow attendees.

    I look forward to attending next years event.

  • Always cool to my first touches

    by

    , ,

    At first, it is always cool to my touch. I know this each time I walk up to it.

    Regardless of where I touch it, it will always be cool to my first touches. I used to wonder if it is cool to another’s touch. I believe that it could be, but I know that no one else touches it as I do. This is forbidden.

    It’s frame is cold to touch, yet a little caressing can warm it in the areas that it lets me lay my hands on. It’s sides are the coldest at first. I slide my hands up and down it’s sides and with each stroke it begins to warm.

    The back feels as if it is frozen, and each morning I know to expect extreme coldness. I spread my hand wide and gently rub it’s back with soft, smooth strokes in a circular motion. I know this is appreciated because in just a few motions I can feel the warmth surfacing on it’s back. I am pleased to know my touch has this affect.

    I lay my finger tips on it’s body and the coolness is abrupt. Yet with each touch of my finger tips it warms slowly. I have learned that the faster I move my fingers over it’s body and more areas I touch, the warmer it gets in the least amount of time. As my rapidly moving finger tips caress, it begins to respond quickly and eloquently. This makes me happy.

    When I lay the back of my fingers gently across it’s face, I can recoil from the chilliness. Fortunately, like the rest of it’s body, the more I touch it’s face with soft gentle strokes, the chilliness diminishes and the warmth envelopes it’s face. The glow is welcoming.

    In time the entire body is warm and the relationship is good.

    By this time, no longer am I focused on it’s temperature. I am only interested in completing my task at hand. Finish a blog post, the Facebook post, LinkedIn update or review of my calendar.

    Once the chilliness diminishes completely, I am usually done and ready to put the MacBook Pro down and go back to my hot bold Venti Bean. I will return to the laptop soon knowing that if I left it running, it will still be warm and inviting for the next task to be completed.

    Author’s note. – I did not refer to the Macbook Pro as she, only because there is a story to be shared later about my first motorcycle that I referred to as she and the harassment I received from my family was severe.

  • ALERT – Your LinkedIn Profile may Go Poof?

    by

    I moved this blog to – http://wp.me/p1tUmp-R. Sorry for the shuffle

  • Blocking SPAM Text Messages on an Iphone

    by

    Today (03/22/11) I got another unsolicited text message to my Verizon IPhone.

    The message was from phone number “(786) 353-4199” and included the following text: +14242647221 – Need a quick and easy payday loan up to $1500? Visit
    www.iamastupidmarketor.com for INSTANT approval, get money in minutes!(2optout rply stop)

    Note – I changed the URL so that you don’t end up supporting them with even a single click thru.

    I called the 786 phone number and then the 424 phone number. They both rang directly into the same voice mail greeting (unanswered) and the mail box was “full”.

    This was exactly as I expected. They did not want to talk to anyone or solicit via the telephone. They want me to click on the URL which I refuse to do.

    I did not reply back with “Stop” as instructed if I want to optout, because I am not sure of the result that will create. Will they honestly opt me out, or will this just validate my phone number for future text messages from other hidden and secretive organizations who want to Spam my cell phone with waste of time text messages.

    I decided to try to find a way to block them without contacting them.

    Verizon Wireless has a way to do this for any phone except the IPhone.

    What’s up with this – The IPhone is the only real smart phone that Verizon has, in my humble opinion.

    Non IPhone users can go to MyServices once you login to your account on the Verizon Wireless website and block unwanted calls & text messages from specific phone numbers.

    Again – Except for the IPhone.

    I talked with a very nice lady named Tammy in Technical support. She was very aware of what I was asking, but had no solution to the problem.

    Here are the two options she offered for blocking unwanted Text Messages:

    1 – Reply back to the text with STOP and hope they adhere to the rules of OptOut. I did this just to see what would happen.

    2 – Disable Text Messaging on my phone. And we all know I am not going to do this – I need my text messaging. While I wrote this blog I got 3 text messages that I am glad to receive.

    Anyway – Let’s see if the reply of STOP will work. Hopefully it will.

    Otherwise I may have to revert back to faxes and the US Postal Service.

    Teddy

    Update – as of 3/1/2012 I have not had any new SPAM text messages to my Iphone on Verizon.  All looks good now.

  • How to Remove Rogue Apps from your Facebook Profile

    by

    ,

    Do you think your Facebook Account has been Hacked?
    Are your friends getting stuff on their walls from you and you swear it was not you? Is there stuff on your wall you did not put there or want?

    Usually this happens when you click on a cute or otherwise interesting picture or video on the wall, usually from on of your friends.

    One rule of thumb that I follow is this: I point at items on my wall (with my mouse) and look at the URL before I click on it. If the URL starts with http://apps….., I will not click on it. I have yet to see any of these apps be something that I want to use, see or spend time trying to get out of.

    Time to do a little Facebook Profile Maintenance by checking your Apps & Wall Settings. It’s easy to do.

    Here is how you do this.

    Open Facebook in your web browser
    Login to your account
    Click on “Account” in the upper right corner of the page
    Click on “Privacy Settings”
    Scroll down to the bottom left of the screen
    Click on “Edit your settings” below Apps and Websites

    You’ll see a list of Apps, Games and Websites that you are currently using, or are using your profile.

    Click on “Edit settings” to the right of the list to show the entire list

    With the full list displayed you can click on “Edit Settings” for an item and see the details of how it can access or post to your wall / profile.

    If there are any items in the list that you know you do not want, click on the “x” to the far right of the item and answer the confirmation dialogue message either “Remove” of “Cancel“.

    Note – if you remove an App from Facebook that you need for another application, you’ll get an error in that app and you should get prompted to make the Facebook connection again.

    Remove all of the apps, games and websites you want to get rid of.
    Then just click on “Facebook” in the upper left corner of the screen and go back to playing.

    This profile management task will help to reduce the garbage that the rogue Apps post on your wall and your friends walls.

    I hope this helps folks.

    Teddy

  • Communicating Course #202 – Part 2 of 3

    by

    ,

    As discussed in Part 1 of 3 –http://tlburriss.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/communication-course-202-part-1-the-real-story/, a lot had to come together for us to be where we are today with the wide variety of communication systems.

    In the mid 1980’s when I first joined the business world, there were 4 primary ways to get in touch with a business associate:

    – Call them on the phone. We have (or had) home phones and office phones. I have a home in NC that actually has a phone jack in the bath room, right next to the “throne”. Phone calls generally resulted in a direct conversation or a pink piece of paper with your name, phone number and a few words of the message hand written by a receptionist. I did not have a receptionist in my bathroom.

    – Paper letter, stuffed in an envelope, licked shut, with a licked stamp and dropped in a big blue mail box to be delivered to the other person in a few days or weeks. The slowest way to get someone a message and eventually we started calling this “Snail Mail”

    – Faxed letter. This used to be for urgent or immediate messaging, became a great way to share good jokes. (I deny faxing a fellow office worker a joke.) How many of us have dropped fax phone numbers from our business cards now?

    – IRL (in real life) Walk down the hall or drive to their office and meet face-face. Sucked when you forgot to bring the newest fax joke, but this has always been a good way to get a message to someone because it allows for instant reply and discussion, when needed.

    We had teletype machines as well, but these were on the way out by the mid 1980’s.

    Over the years we added lots of new communicating & message paths:
    Instant Messaging
    Cell Phones with Voice Mail, Text & Picture Messaging
    Email thru computers, cell phones and tablet Devices
    E-cards from the old paper greeting card companies
    FedEx letters
    Singing Telegrams
    And, the newest messaging systems provided by LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter, as well as other Social Media platforms, less used in business.

    The Social Media channels are creating so many different paths for communicating, it can be overwhelming. LinkedIn (LI) statuses, discussions, comments, direct messages. Add Facebook status updates, comments, direct messages, online chat and Events. Then throw in Twitter streams, RTs, replies and direct messages. Lots of options create lots of choices and benefits as well as potential problems.

    Please, don’t misconstrue this expanding list of communication options as a replacement for IRL! In Real Life communicating is still the best option when an exchange is required.

    In my next blog I’ll bring some ideas about how to use the new communications systems we have.

    Teddy

  • I built and destroyed a Server system all by myself.

    by

    , , ,

    Way back in the early 1990’s I went to work for a Computer VAR franchise in Gaithersburg Md. I quickly got involved in all kinds of computer systems. We sold accounting systems and AT&T Xenix systems. I also got involved in developing what were referred to as 4GL (Fourth Generation Language) applications.

    One of our customers was the Administrative offices of Chevy Chase Village. This was a high end community outside of Washington DC.

    They purchased from us an AT&T Xenix Server, about 15 big ugly green terminals, 3 or 4 giant tractor-feed printers and a program call Smartware that I used to write an application to track a very unique inventory – the trees in the community.

    This community tracked every tree. Probably a couple thousand trees back then. They wanted a database system where they could enter each tree id (they had a serial # tag on each tree) and they wanted to print a report on tree damage and any tree work that needed to be done.

    Please don’t ask me why, but believe it or not, in 2009 they still have a Tree Committee, chaired by a guy named Robert Elliott.

    Back to my story.

    I put together the AT&T hardware, installed the Operating System, installed the application software, built the termcap files for the terminals, setup the users, file permissions, and brought all of it out to the client’s office and set it all up.

    Everybody loved what I put together, until – I went to do the next step. I had to setup the Tape Drive to automate the nightly backups.

    Everything back then was done on a command line. And, most commands were about getting input from one device and sending it out to another.

    I typed in a command thinking it was going to read the hard drive and write the data to the tape. But, instead the command I typed in actually started to write “null” or nothing to the hard drive.

    Don’t misunderstand this – writing nothing meant when the program ends, there should be nothing there – sort of like DELETE!!!

    When the program started I turned my head to talk to someone standing near me. In less than 1 minute people started calling me to say that their terminals were acting strange or showing lots of weird errors.

    I looked at the terminal I was working on and instantly saw what I had done. Sweat appeared instantly on my head and I actually started to shake. I knew I had just trashed everything I had just spent weeks putting together.

    I took the high road. I walked into the office of the Village Manager, pulled a gun out of my pocket and blew a hole in my head.

    Actually, I walked into his office and he asked me why his terminal had errors all over it. I told him that I had just discovered a serious flaw with the operating system and unfortunately because I had not been able to make a backup, I would have to fix it manually. I explained to him that this could take another 3 or 4 days, because fixing it would mean reloading the operating system. I assured him that I would put the time in necessary to fix the problem.

    I called AT&T technical support, quietly told them what had happened and begged them to stick with me while I reloaded everything.

    Fortunately I found a very compassionate engineer and he walked me thru some short cuts for reloading everything.

    I spent at least three or four 15+ hour days redoing everything that I had previously spent weeks doing.

    When I got done, I stopped, drank a glass of water and wrote down on paper the backup command that I wanted to use previously. I looked at it for at least 5 minutes before I typed it in on the keyboard. I looked at it for another 4 or 5 minutes before I pressed the enter key.

    Almost instantly I heard the whirl of the tape drive and then saw the program response saying that it was writing files to the tape.

    Once the backup was complete I walked around the office and turned all of the printers and terminals on. The users started to log back in and again, everyone was happy.

    I went to the Village Manager and told him that thanks to AT&T we were able to get it all back up and running. He thanked me for all of my dedication to fixing the problem. “Exactly, what went wrong?” he asked me.

    “I’m not really sure.” I told him. “I think it was something to do with the backup commands. Since we reloaded it all, we can’t tell. But I’m sure that once I leave, you will not have this problem again.”

    This is yet another story from Teddy Burriss – maybe, just maybe you will laugh with me.

    Thanks for taking time to read my blog.

  • Quote of the Day – Technology

    by

    As the world changes, flattens and tightens up, the best thing you can do is do it different and faster.

    The right technology can help you make this happen.

    The wrong technology will bury you.

    Teddy Burriss – 3/5/09

    Thanks for taking time to read my blog feeds – Let me know what you want to hear about and I will do my best to provide even better content.

  • Civil War Emails

    by

    ,

    During the Civil War, President Lincoln used the Telegraph to stay in constant contact with his Generals and keep his finger on the pulse of the war.

    Both the Union and Confederate armies used the telegraph for the same purpose.

    They both used the Telegraph to “Spam” each other with false information. Misleading each other as to the progress or frailties so as to cause chaos in their opponent’s armies.

    They also tapped each other’s Telegraph lines to obtain strategic information that they hoped would provide their armies an advantage over their opponent.

    According to Tom Wheeler, the author of Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mail – the Telegraph was one of the tools that helped the Union win the Civil War.

    Based on the amount of telegrams that President Lincoln handled in his in & out box, he was quite the Early Adopter of this technology.

    President Lincoln used telegrams much as we use our Email today. Overcoming distance and time while obtaining instant information and delegating authority while maintaining over-site and ultimate authority.

    Here are two examples:

    After his great victory at Vicksburg in 1863, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s thoughts turned toward Mobile, Ala. But then he got a telegram from President Lincoln.

    Lincoln’s Telegram read – “I see by a telegram of yours that you are inclined quite strongly towards an expedition against Mobile. … This would appear tempting to me also, were it not that in view of recent events in Mexico, I am greatly impressed with the importance of re-establishing the national authority in Western Texas as soon as possible.”

    You see, Lincoln had already been informed by another telegram that Napoleon III had invaded Mexico, defeated the Mexican armies and set up a pro-Confederate “puppet” government in Mexico City. President Lincoln wanted a stronger Union presence in the Lone Star State to discourage the French from turning their eyes upon Texas.

    President Lincoln did not send an order to Grant by telegram. Micromanaging was not his style for dealing with Grant. He did not have to, as Grant caught his drift.

    Another example of President Lincoln’s use of the telegraph was the many messages between the President and General George McClellan.

    A brilliant engineer and highly capable organizer, George B. McClellan just wasn’t an army commander.

    He survived a Confederate counterattack at Seven Pines, principally because of confusion in the Confederate army and the gallant actions of his own subordinates.

    When General Robert E. Lee attacked him in the Seven Days in late June he made numerous mistakes, panicked and ordered dangerous movements of the troops. Most of the battles that McClellan fought here were Union successes but the overall outcome of the campaign was negative as a result of McClellan’s weaknesses.

    Once safely entrenched away from the Confederate armies he began sending telegrams to the War Department and President Lincoln, blaming them for the defeat.

    President Lincoln sent McClellan numerous telegrams asking him to take responsibility for his army, to respond faster, more precise and more deliberate.

    Finally it was decided in Washington to abandon the campaign and transfer most of McClellan’s men to John Pope’s army in northern Virginia.

    McClellan was restored to active duty when Pope was defeated at the 2nd Bull Run. He was reunited with his army and welcomed by his men who affectionately called him “Little Mac”, while the press called him “Mac the Unready” and “The Little Corporal of Unsought Fields”

    In the Maryland Campaign he advanced to confront Lee in the western part of the state and moved uncharacteristically fast when some of his command found a copy of Lee’s orders for the movement of his troops. Lee fought several delaying actions along South Mountain in order to re-concentrate his army.

    His caution returning, McClellan slowed down, and Lee was able to get most of his men in line at Antietam.

    McClellan attacked piecemeal and his attacks failed to crush Lee who was heavily outnumbered with his back to the Potomac River.

    Continuing his dilatory tactics, McClellan began sending telegrams to the War Department and President Lincoln making demands for more men, vast amounts of equipment and fresh mounts for his cavalry.

    President Lincoln continued to challenge McClellan’s demands via telegram.

    McClellan continued to delay attacking Lee with any significant force. He blamed the delay on the need for more training. President Lincoln sent telegrams challenging the need for training for an army that has been in place and succeeded in other battles.
    McClellan continued to delay, sending telegrams declaring the need for fresh mounts for his cavalry as the reason for the delay.

    Finally it was too late. JEB Stuart’s cavalry rode completely around the Union Army of the Potomac.

    President Lincoln ended his telegram conversations with McClellan with this final telegram.

    “Since you are not willing to use my Army, may I borrow it?”

    This was the telegraph message that spurred the War Department in 1862 to relinquish McClellan’s command and have him sent home in Trenton NJ to await a telegram statement for his next assignment, which never came.

    President Lincoln’s T-Mail was instrumental in the decisions made during the Civil War and the final outcomes that shaped the United States, as we know it today.

    This is yet another posting from Teddy Burriss – maybe, just maybe you will enjoy it.

    Thanks for taking time to read my blog feeds – Let me know what you want to hear about and I will do my best to provide even better content.

  • New Technology

    by

    Back in the mid 1980’s my Grandpa worked day & night farming his 1100 Acre Farm using the old FarmAll M Tractor he bought 25 years ago.
    Grandma always complained that he came home way too late every night.
    Grandpa grumbled back at Grandma – “Back off old woman – it’s a big farm and the Old FarmAll M can only go so fast”
    Now this slick young tractor salesman told Grandpa to buy a new fancy-dan tractor
    Grandpa kept saying – “This old FarmAll M is running fine. It hasn’t missed a beat ever in the past 25 years, I don’t need to replace it.”
    The Tractor salesman kept after my Grandpa to buy the new tractor.
    “Old Man Smith bought one a few months ago and he loves it. He’s off his farm every night long time before you get done. He keeps telling me it has changed his life. He says he is having a blast every afternoon now.”
    One day Grandpa gave in and decided that it was time to retire the old tractor in the barn with the old Sickles, Pitch-Forks and Milk Jugs. “Yep – I need to retire her before she stops working. I’ll buy your Fancy-Dan Tractor now.”
    It took just a few hours for my Grandpa to get used to the new Fancy-Dan Tractor. He was hooked.
    It was faster, and pulled larger plows across the big old Fields.
    What used to take 12 hours to get done before with the FarmAll Tractor – he got done in 8 hours.

    Now – let me offer you two possible endings to this story. One being fully fictional, the other being the truth.

    Here is one of the possible endings:

    The first day that my Grandpa got done early he decided to go home early and surprise my Grandma.
    He drove up to the farm house and saw an unfamiliar pickup truck in the driveway.
    My Grandpa turned off the engine and coasted up close to the house and walked into the house.
    There in the living room was my Grandma and Old Man Smith – fooling around on the sofa.It seems that Old Man Smith figured out a way to get value out of the New Fancy-Dan equipment long before my Grandpa did.
    I’m not going to tell you any more about this ending – it did not end well at all for Old Man Smith, my Grandpa or my Grandma.

    Or another possible ending:

    The first day that my Grandpa got done early he decided to go home early and surprise my Grandma.
    There on the front porch was Grandma, snapping beans and preparing a full supper for Grandpa.
    She was so surprised to see him early that she was overcome with excitement.
    Grandpa told her to go get her “going out into public dress” on and he took her out to dinner and a picture show at the movie house.
    All because Grandpa decided to upgrade to new technology and get value out of new equipment that his old equipment could not provide.
    I’m not going to tell you any more about that evening other than to share with you that Grandpa & GrandMa had a great time from then on, snapping beans together.

    The moral of this story is really quite simple.

    Just because it still runs doesn’t mean you should keep using it.
    If you can buy a new tractor and get the work done faster and better – do it.

    I told this speech at a business event and related it to othe business I work for. I ended my speech with the following comments:

    You should always consider upgrading to new technology because of the potential for real meaningful value in efficiency, new processes & performance.
    And, it’s important to make sure that you use the efficiency, new processes and performance to improve other areas of your business so that you continue to get more value.

    And – Don’t waste away the value new technology can provide your business on frivolous benefits like Old Man Smith did – Use the added value to continue improving your business.

    Thanks for taking time to read my blog feeds – Let me know what you want to hear about and I will do my best to provide even better content.

  • The Saga of AT&T/Cingular/SunCom Wireless

    by

    ,

    I originally wrote this story in May 2005:

    How often do you need help and you call for it and lo & behold – it’s not there?

    I have been an AT&T cell phone client since early in 1998. I started using AT&T when I started working in Las Vegas for a public grass seed company. (Yeah go ahead and laugh – grass seed generally refers to green grass and Las Vegas is synonymous with brown dry hot sand.)

    I setup an enterprise account with AT&T and rolled out over 150 cell phones to every mobile employee we had in our company. I was proud of the project and excited that AT&T was the key to our quickly growing and powerful cell phone program.

    I loved my AT&T phone. It worked well and was not expensive to own. I was a proud user of the AT&T One-Rate Plan. This plan allowed me to use my cell phone anywhere in the United States for no extra fees. No roaming, no LD and no extra fees.

    I learned how to text message to it and eventually figured out how to send text messages from it. I never went anywhere without my phone and everyone I worked with and my entire family knew that if they needed to get a hold of me, I would answer my cell phone any time of the day or night.

    My cell phone number became a part of my identity. When leaving a message for someone or when sending an email message, I would proudly introduce myself as Teddy Burriss 336-918-5526. This became my call letters. I proudly told everyone that they could reach me anytime they needed me by just calling my cell.

    I had a great relationship with AT&T. They knew me by name because of the amount of business that I was doing with them. I could call them 24X7 to get help from any of the polite and professional customer support representatives. I learned the lingo and how the system work so that I could quickly get to the best support group no matter what the problem was.

    AT&T Wireless was my hero!

    In late 2000 I transferred back to Winston-Salem and started working for a smaller company again. I transferred my AT&T wireless cell phone number to my new company. I was still proud of AT&T wireless and my cell phone.

    I added another 8 or 10 new cell phones to my account and made more of my fellow employees happy to have AT&T Wireless cell phones.

    My cell phone continued to be a part of my identity.

    I wore out a few telephones but the service continued to grow and serve my needs as I expected.

    AT&T Wireless continued to roll out new cell towers and better and better coverage. They continued to partner with other cell phone companies to improve the coverage around the US.

    In late 2003 I jumped into another area of wireless services – Data. I bought my first Blackberry cell phone. This wireless device cost a little bit more than a phone and the rate plans were more expensive, but I got email on my hip.

    Now for those of you who do not know me – the communications method of choice for me is email every time. I tell all of my fellow employees and my family that if they want me to know about something and if they expect me to take care of it – I need to have it in email.

    The Blackberry also gave me calendar, contacts, notes and tasks. For the most part my cell phone had turned into my computer on my hip. Life is good!

    AT&T Wireless did a great job of transitioning me into a Blackberry user. Many Blackberry users refer to them as Crackberries.

    Life was good.

    Then all of a sudden (not really), life changed. The wireless world was merging rapidly. Cingular Wireless purchased AT&T wireless. Now on the surface this could have been a great thing. Cingular and AT&T Wireless are both great companies with fabulous strengths and resources. However; the FCC told Cingular that they could not own the AT&T Wireless accounts in North Carolina. They were told to sell these accounts off to SunCom Wireless, a small regional wireless company.

    This as well by itself should have been OK.

    But it all was horrible.

    The service started to degrade and during the transition, calling 611 on the cell phone would connect me to Cingular Wireless where the customer service reps had my account. But they wanted to transfer me to another customer service department responsible for the AT&T Wireless accounts that were being sold off to SunCom Wireless.

    My Blackberry started to disconnect from the data network regularly. I had to constantly reboot (OK, here is another word I never thought I would use with cell phones) the phone.
    Email started showing up sporadically. Sometimes hours would go by and then I would get dozens of messages at once.

    I kept calling 611 and then I started calling the 866 number that routed me directly to the customer service department that the agents at 611 said I had to talk to.
    I spent nearly a week working on trying to get my blackberry to work. I commute about 1 hour to and from work each day. On two different days I remember talking to multiple customer service agents all the way home.

    Every time I called the 866 number I got the displeasure of listening to Harry Conick Jr. spouting marketing noise about how great SunCom is. I heard this phrase well over 100 times. It quickly became sickening.

    One day I called the 611 number and after being routed to a live Cingular Wireless person, they transferred me to the SunCom Wireless agent. As soon as I said AT&T, this new agent transferred me back to the Cingular Wireless agent. Each time I nearly begged them not to bounce me back and forth. My cries for better customer service fell on deaf ears.

    Periodically I would get in contact with someone who would make attempts to solve my problem. One agent said that she was sending out a new “service book” to my device. She thought that his could solve my problem. It didn’t.

    Each time I talked to a Customer Service Rep (I’m laughing at the definition of this phrase now) I asked them to record my problems in my customer file. Each person I talked to said that they did not have access to my records. I knew this would cause problems in the future. No record of my activities.

    Finally I gave up. I called Verizon Wireless and had my treasured cell phone number ported to a new blackberry with them.

    Now here is when the real lunacy started.

    AT&T wireless called my house and informed me that since I switched to a new cell phone carrier that I would have to pay the $150 early termination fee.

    Go figure – I have had this account since 1998 and 7 years later I was being charged an early termination fee.

    Now I know that when I got the account in 1998 there was a 1 year commitment. And I know that every time I modified my account they told me that I was required to commit to another 1 year agreement. I was OK with this as long as my wireless carrier (Partner) kept up their end of the agreement to provide quality service.

    They failed to keep up their end of the relationship.

    When I tried to inform the AT&T Wireless rep calling me what the problem was he told me, “You should have talked to an AT&T Wireless rep before you cancelled your account”.

    I tried to explain that I expected calling 611 or any of the numbers that the 611 Customer Service Reps told me to call would direct me to the right people to help me. I was only following the directions given to me.
    I tried to explain to this person all of the problems that I have been dealing with for the past week.

    This guy stuck to his script and never once offered that my problems were unacceptable and justification for me to terminate my relationship with AT&T Wireless (or Cingular or SunCom, who ever it was at that point)

    I repeated my story at least 3-4 times to this guy and he never falter with his position. I was proud of myself because even though I was quite “torked” I also never lost my cool.

    Finally I told him that I would not pay the $150 early termination fee and that we were wasting each other’s time.

    He then asked if there was anything else he could do to help me and then said goodbye.

    The next day I got a call on my house phone from another AT&T Wireless support person telling me that they had looked into my problem and had determined that my problem was with my Blackberry Device – not AT&T Wireless.

    I’m a proud Verizon Wireless customer today. Today, April 2011, I still have 336-918-5526 as my only phone number and my entire family (10+ phones) are all Verizon customers.

    I have a new wireless carrier of choice. I hope the relationship lasts as long as my AT&T relationship lasted.

    Teddy