Mar 27

The two most inspirational speeches of the decade

Uncategorized 3 Comments »

Two forces of nature give talks that are a must-watch for anyone who is looking to change the world:

Steve Jobs’ commencement address at Stanford:


Randy Pausch’s farewell speech at Carnegie Mellon:

If you ever have an either/or choice of gaining all the knowledge or all the motivation to do something hard, choose the latter because it ensures you will find the former. Both talks put the daily minutiae of stuff like the post below in perspective and replenish the spirit that they sap. Do yourself a favor and take the next 2hrs of free time that you have and watch both talks. Whatever you’re working towards I cannot think of a more productive way to spend that time. Be warned- you will have a tear by the end of Pausch’s talk.

BONUS: The minute you finish the video, when you have the most possible wind in your sails, take another five to open source your goals.

Mar 26

AuthorizeNet support is decrepit

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Ahhh just need to vent here- does anyone using AuthorizeNet share an utter frustration with their support? This is a chat transcript after waiting on hold on their support line for over 2hrs and finally getting through only to be disconnected with a “your call cannot be completed as dialed.” I tried their live help system yesterday leaving a chat window open (of course needed to use a different browser because it continuously popped over what I was trying to do to tell me i was #53 in the support queue). Both times their support rep terminated the session due to inactivity when I finally got through because the window was in the background. Today this lovely exchange – and all I want to do is activate AMEX by giving them our AMEX merchant ID:

Matthew B: Hello Sean! How can I help you today?
Sean Tierney: hi Matt, we need to implement AMEX on our acct. i have a merch 
id from them but your knowledgebase says to contact you guys to set it up
Matthew B: Right however,
Matthew B: you would have to call us so we can verify secure information to do that.
Sean Tierney: hehehehh your call queue is even longer than the 30min wait time on 
your live help. can you call me at 480.967.5897 and we'll do it now?
Matthew B: Unfortunately I can't call you sorry I wish it was possible.
Sean Tierney: wow. okay. will get in line and wait on hold for an hour again- 
hopefully it doesn't disconnect again at the end like it did last time. Sorry to 
rant but you guys have some major support issues. should focus less on bringing 
in business and more on delivering reasonable support... thanks for your help
Matthew B: You are welcome I apologize for the inconvienience.

I don’t blame Matt but I don’t buy the “I can’t call you” line either- that would have been the fastest way to resolve the issue and me calling them is less authenticated than them calling the number on the account. Would take all of one minute to resolve in that situation. If anyone at AuthNet is listening- your support is very frustrating. Seriously consider halting all new business until you can figure out how to deliver a reasonable support experience to your paying customers.

Thus concludes my rant.

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Mar 08

Our bankruptcy panel at SXSW (and yes we had a unicorn)

Speaking 3 Comments »

Wired picked it up as well as this guy’s blog. And my favorite, the audio interview with the unicorn afterwards. I’m peeing myself listening to this. “As a virtually extinct animal, what do you see the future of web 2.0- do you see it going the way of the unicorn?” Incredible. We’ve only been at SXSW for 12 hrs and this has been the best conference ever. Follow the unicorn on Twitter.

I’ll post more press links here as they filter in.

Mar 06

Future of mobile phone browsing

Apple, Ponderings No Comments »

I was featured today in an interview on Letstalk.com on the topic of web browsing for mobile phones. We cover questions of how mobile phone browsers will evolve, the relevance of the browser in the purchasing decision for a cell phone, the viability of various business models for mobile browsers and the apps we can expect to see over the next few years. Quick read- check it out.

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