2011 March 20 | Mapsys.info (2) Mapsys.info

Young on Burning Bright

“It’s better to burn out
than it is to rust.”

–Neil Young (1945 – )

Canadian music artist

Beginning on Monday (or you could start today too), challenge yourself (and your team) for 48 hours…

When you begin a discussion with a customer, prospect, or colleague give that individual your complete attention until the issue at hand has been fully addressed.

Every single discussion. Every single interaction. The entire 48-hour period.

Don’t let a phone call interrupt an in-person conversation. Don’t let your email distract you from a phone call. Don’t let a passerby, instant messenger, berry, or iThing take your attention away from someone standing right in front of you (or on the phone).

Remember… Sales is an interpersonal profession (and you’re a grown-up).

(Dig deeper and get 5 tips to giving better attention.)

Graphic: How an SMB Solves a Problem in Google Places

As I read of Google’s newly stated public commitment to better customer service in Google Places, thoughts of a myriad of current issues swirled through my head. After mentally struggling through 10 or so current Places problems, the miasma settled around this one issue that I thought I could use to illustrate what an SMB confronts with the current “customer support” system.

The following is an actual example of a how a business affects a solution to the situation of their name triggering the “Term not Allowed” filter in Google Places. Any similarity to these drawings (of Rube Goldberg) is strictly coincidental.

(Click to view your very own printable, full size, Ed Reese Style, infographic of the current process)

While it might have its own uniques twists and turns, this chart is typical of the current methods available to an SMB to solve the dozen or so problems that can crop up in Places. As many of you know some of the solutions are actually more complex. One has to wonder just how many SMBs give up prior to solving their specific difficulty.

Google is staffed with lots of smart people who understand how to solve these types of problems. Usually, I refrain from making suggestions about specific fixes but I just couldn’t resist given that the iron might now be hot.

Here is a second chart that offers a suggested alternative flow that automates a fair bit of the solution. However the SMB might actually come away thinking that Google had provided “good customer service”:

(Click to view full size infographic of proposed process flow)

More resources for Earthquake in Japan

Over the past week, we’ve worked hard to bring you the latest imagery and applications related to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Last week we showed you a list of various resources, then some fresh imagery that was released on Saturday, and then another update earlier this week with even more useful resources. Today we have a few new ones that you may find to be valuable.

The best use of imagery is probably ABC News and their impressive before and after maps. Just slide your mouse across a map to see the before/after shots compared, and you’ll be stunned by the differences.

Next we have a useful map that is powered by the Google Earth Plug-in to show available roads in Japan, along with other information about flooded regions, power plant locations, etc. Data comes from HONDA, GeoEye and other sources.

Google Maps Mania points us to the Japan Quake Map, which shows a timeline of the earthquakes around the country. This is by Paul Nicholls, who also brought us the Christchurch Quake Map back in February after the major earthquake in New Zealand.

For a bit more imagery, NASA has released some fresh images of Ishinomaki, which you can view here or see in Google Earth using this KML file.

They also released a nice before/after view of Rikuzentakata, which you can view here.

GeoEye, in addition to releasing a ton of imagery as we’ve already seen, also released a stunning photo of Ishinomaki yesterday, which you can find here in their gallery.

Last fall, we showed you the cool “AnotherEarth” site that allows you to view two Google Earth plug-in windows side-by-side to compare various features as you zoom around, and the windows stay in sync with each other. Now John has created a new version of the system that has the base (pre-earthquake) Japan imagery on one side, and the fresh imagery from various sources on the other side, giving you a great tool to see the before/after differences for much of the country.

The digital resources regarding Japan are pouring in, so hopefully the financial resources are as well. Many ways to give are listed on the Google Crisis Response page and we encourage you to consider donating to the cause. You can also view this post on the Official Google Blog for additional resources.