Creative Mind Consulting

How Exceptional Customer Service Can Be Your Competitive Edge

The start of a new year is such a great time to review your files and clean out old items. In doing so, I discovered two customer service articles that I wrote for an international moving industry magazine a few years ago.

They are just as relevant today, so I post them for your reading pleasure.

How Exceptional Customer Service Can Be Your Competitive Edge - Part 1:

Download Mobility customer service article 1

How Exceptional Customer Service Can Be Your Competitive Edge - Part 2:

Download Mobility customer service article 2

Incredibly Useful Free Tools to Maximize Your Training Mission

My presentation last week to the American Society for Training and Development, Twin Cities chapter (ASTD-TCC) is uploaded for your viewing pleasure (SlideShare made it extremely easy to post):

Two Exciting Presentations Upcoming....

Just finished preparing presentations for two upcoming conferences -

"Lessons from History: Ethical Leadership" for the

American Institute of Architects 2009 Minnesota Convention

and

"Using Incredibly Useful Free Web Tools to Maximize Your Training Mission" for the

the American Society for Training and Development 2009 Regional Conference

Really looking forward to both. Here's the text of the workshop bulletin for the architect's conference:

Just as ancient structures or historical buildings inspire current design trends and architectural constructions, historical characters have much to tell us about modern leadership and ethical behavior under difficult circumstances. By looking at several key Revolutionary War leaders and the challenges they faced, we take away insights that inform our relationships with colleagues, building partners and clients. This program will emphasize four key concepts underlying ethical leadership development: casting a vision, character formation, overcoming adversity, and continuous learning.

The intersection of leadership, history, technology, social media and democracy is a fascinating, and I hope to do more exploring in this area.

Twittering the (job) interview

One of the people that I'm following on Twitter apparently was interviewing a series of job applicants last week.

I say "apparently" because he was twittering all of the interviews. He let us know when the person arrived, some notes on attire (appropriate or not), and how the interview went overall.

Fascinating.

I'll bet the person who arrived 10 minutes late, with no apology, might be interested to learn that several hundred people now know about that fact! Now, the person I'm following did not disclose any names or other identifying aspects of the applicants - but you can see where this is leading, right?

On one hand, it would be great to have some form of immediate feedback (he likes me, he likes me not)...on the other, it could be pretty brutal (she likes me, she really likes me NOT).

Are you prepared to have your job, or consulting/freelance gig interview broadcast to the world? We live in interesting times!

Director of Interactive Communications

I'm honored to have been asked to join our local chapter of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD-TCC) in the newly created position of Director of Interactive Communications. This is a great opportunity to give back to an association that has done so much to help me personally and professionally.

I originally joined way back in 1990 when I lived in San Antonio and was just getting into the training biz as a Total Quality Management (TQM) consultant for the Air Force. I'm still friends with one of the people I met in that chapter and she's one of the most outgoing and dynamic presenters that I know.

The people in the Minneapolis-St. Paul chapter are equally professional. While I haven't been a member the last couple of years, it's great to see that much of the hard work undertaken by past presidents and board of directors continues today. This is a productive, polished team and I'm really looking forward to working with everyone.