3 years ago I, out of no where, decided to go to a small SEO conference in Ft. Lauderdale Flordia. Scary SEO was actually one of the best conferences and networking environments I have ever been to. The best thing was that I had made an impression on Loren, Dave and Jordan in the short time I had there. These three guys are probably the best, most active, intelligent professionals I’ve met in the 10 years in my field. They were the Search & Social crew and now they are a part of a bigger alliance of web companies known as BlueGlass.

What seems like ages ago Loren came to me and asked me to redesign and develop their blog http://searchenginejournal.com/ or SEJ as we tend to call it. It was an absolute pleasure working with these guys and I’m proud to say the redesign was a huge success.

Today everything seems to be going so right for these web pioneers. I just found out that they are joining forces with 10e20 and Brent Csutoras to form Voltron, eh.., I mean BlueGlass. (The Voltron joke was all Loren. It made me spit water all over the screen, so I use it now.)

“So what does this all mean? For our clients, we can now offer our clients better return on their investments, greater options and ultimately – the ability to have one company manage all of their Internet marketing needs under one roof. – http://www.blueglass.com/news/blueglass-has-formed/

I just wanted to take this opportunity to publicly congratulate Loren, Dave and Jordan. I wish my friends the best in all future endeavours and am sure they are going to kick some serious A$$.

Read more at on the New York Times blog: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/agencies-roll-up-to-form-blueglass/

I’m a huge fan of Verizon Products but their customer service is terrible.  I have Verizon FioS Tv, Internet, and Phone.  The services are amazing. Lightning fast internet, great HD channels and twitter on my tv and phone works

However, their billing and customer service sucks!

The Story

2 years ago I signed up with Verizon for services in my home. They offered me a free 20″ LCD HD Tv.  Two weeks after signing up they tell me it’s not availble so they offer me $10 off my bill each month for 24 months, and two $100 Amex gift cards. I took it with a smile.

What I didn’t know was the $10 wasn’t able to just come off my bill, infact it had to be manually applied each month. After a lot of phone calls and customer support I actually found out that a customer service rep had a post-it note on her computer monitor reminder herself to apply my $10 refund each month.

I’m sure you can imagine with turn over, general forgetfullness and a lack of concern with my problem how many times I had to get on the phone and make sure that $10 was applied.

Now for some reason I can’t see my bill online. I try to pay my bill but when I sign in it tells me to call them. So a I did several times. Each time they take my payment over the phone and tell me the problem will be fixed for the following month.

Tonight at 8:45pm (my 2 year old son is sleeping) the house phone rings from an “Unknown Number” and it’s Verizon telling me that they are going to turn off my service if I don’t pay.  I attempt to go online and make my payment where it again tells me to call Verizon.  I call Verizon back not 5 min after they called me and guess what it says “I’d normally transfer you to a customer service representative but currently our call centers are closed, you can however make your payments online.”

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

This enough to drive someone mad.  Verizon if you want to keep your customers happy DO NOT MAKE IT DIFFICULT FOR THEM TO PAY YOU, DUH!!!

Good night.

Chad Foster, the Art Director at Neal Advertising and I, are competing for “Best Home Office”.  Both Chad and I renovated our home offices, all the of the renovations were done by us (no professionals).  We put a lot of sweat, creativity and money into them. Now we are asking your help to settle the debate for us.

Who Has The Better Home Office?

Take a look at the tours of our offices below.  Then vote for who you think has the better home office. Use any factors you want to choose, creativity, best use of space, most Star Wars stuff (wink), etc…  Then comment below with a quick note stating who you think should win.

What’s At Stake?

Since Chad and I are both pretty creative people and we love to torture each other, the winner gets to create something for the loser.  The winner will paint, draw, or somehow create something on a canvas no larger than 24″ x 36″. No matter how grotesque, immature or inappropriate the loser must hang the art on a wall in their office for a period of 1 year.

Jesse’s Office

Notice the 6′ x 7′ white board, social media and web dev curtain, stunning brick wall, star wars memorabilia and excellent book collection (including “The Whuffie Factor” by Tara Hunt, a fantastic book).

Chad’s Office

Flashback to Aug, 2008

I’m standing in an AT&T Wireless store, purchasing my first iPhone and signing up for a 2 year contract. A few months later my 2G iPhone is stolen out of my gym locker. Now because there is no insurance on iPhones and the 2G was discontinued in that short period of time I have a choice; buy a 2G from eBay or other site or upgrade to the 3G. Upgrading to the 3G requires a new 2 year activation and an increase in my monthly costs. In November of 2008 I renewed my contract and bought the 3G iPhone.

Today

I still have that same 3G iPhone but it’s all beat to hell. Only one speaker works, the “vibrate” button fell off and the battery life is poor. So now I’m looking at either purchasing the 3GS (which I’m sure will be discontinued this summer) or get a new phone and plan with Verizon.

Well What About The Warranty?

When I bought the first phone I bought the extra “Apple Care” warranty plan. When the phone was stolen I was told I can rollover the warranty to the new phone or get a refund on the original warranty. I chose to roll it over. Today Apple tells me that wasn’t an option and the Apple Care Rep I spoke to was misinformed. I’m still trying to get my refund on the warranty but it’s slow going. (more…)