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I use Bloglines to keep up with the many blogs and other stuff I scan every day, and one of the nice features is the ability to “clip” something into a clip file for later use. I’m always stuffing things in there when I find even so much as a link to a blog-able idea. But alas, sometimes I never really get around to actually writing about it, so once a month or so I dump out the file in the recurring feature called “File Cabinet”.

Every now and then I’ll keep an article for quite a while because sometimes it just takes a while to finally crystallize a few thoughts on it. What with vacation, the move, an unusually heavy work load, etc. I never got around to actually writing about it. Or, maybe I’m just a slow thinker.

Hence today’s post.

An Oct. 24th post written by Shawn on Anecdote called “What I believe about learning” has finally percolated enough in the ol’ gray matter to generate a thought or two. It’s not one of those earth-moving subjects, or even filled with radical thinking for that matter, but just the same it struck a chord with me.

Please read the article – it’s short and sweet – but his points I’ll list here, along with my thoughts and additional comments, if any.

People don’t think they’ve learned anything until they reflect on what happened. The goal for any teacher is to get their students to think about (reflect) on what they’ve learned. Otherwise it just goes in one ear and out the other. That’s why immersive learning (OJT and other hands-on learning techniques) result in so much better knowledge retention. (It’s sortof like being a Borg: it must be assimilated.) Where learning is the process of gaining knowledge, assimilation is the process of making it real. (No offense, Shawn – perhaps just I’m splitting hairs with word definitions? Not that there’s many hairs left, you understand.)

Learning is social – it benefits from conversations. It’s very well to learn on your own, but sometimes a person can make astonishing leaps from focusing on a challenge or thought-problem. But what if that person has made a false assumption somewhere, and everything that follows is built on it? That’s where social interaction can make the difference. It’s a check-and-balance system that can lend valuable aid in the learning/assimilation process.

We learn through experience, and experience is shared through stories. Backing up my thoughts on point one, assimilation is facilitated through stories and personal experience. I remember a medical-student friend telling me it was a great shock to discover upon viewing a real human body that the organs weren’t colored like in the illustrations!

We learn best when there is a reason to learn… This one is, IMHO, the best point of the lot, which I can illustrate from my own experience.

While in high school, everyone, including myself, simply assumed I would go to college. I applied to Texas A&M University (gig ‘em, Aggies! – whatever that means) and was accepted, completing most of two years easily. But then it came time to pick a major, and here’s where I floundered badly. The problem was, as I discovered later, I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I grew up. It’s not that I was unintelligent (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!), but that I was never really motivated to learn. My motivation was severely hampered because I didn’t know what I was learning for.

So after a short holding pattern doing odd jobs (while in school I was blessed with my parents’ resources, but on my own it was a shock to encounter the real world of living expenses and food costs), I went to work for an engineering firm as a draftsman and to my surprise discovered that I had an interest and knack for mechanical design. Twenty years later I went back to school, but this time I knew what I wanted: an engineering degree.

Over the next ten years, I not only completed my Bachelor of Science in Engineering, by then I was so in love with learning I went on to complete a Master’s in Engineering Management and a Doctorate in Business Administration. All of which I completed while married and working full time (and with Mrs. MZM’s full encouragement and support, God bless her)!

Having a reason to learn made all the difference.

A message for all you speakers/teachers/sharers of knowledge: If you can instill your students/listeners with that kind of passion and love of learning, they will never look back. Who knows, you may have just done your part to change the world!

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

During our recent move we had to deal with a multitude of vendors and contractors, with varying degrees of satisfaction and/or success. From this experience, both Mrs. MZM and I had an amazing range of customer relations experiences, but today I’ll share just a couple of stories. Perhaps we can all learn something.

All you sales and marketing folks out there take note! In spite of the best-laid plans and the best of intentions, always remember the Golden Rule of Project Management: Sometimes Things Just Happen (STJH). The key thought is that when they do (anyone remember Murphy?), your customer’s service experience becomes a true defining moment. We, your customers, can be convinced to forgive and forget, but it’s up to you to make the experience a positive one.

Kitchen Cabinets

The kitchen cabinets were improperly finished (unless you call “sandpaper” a finish) and needed to be resurfaced. This was brought to the builder’s attention, but one day when visiting the house during construction we encountered the local regional manager for the cabinet manufacturer, who was also inspecting them. He was appalled at the workmanship (I’m shocked, just shocked!) and promised to make it right by sending several of the worst cabinet doors back to the shop, and then within the week, bringing in his “best man” to refinish the cabinets on the spot.

True to his promise, the cabinets were all refinished and several doors replaced, all within the promised timeframe. Our dealings with the company were pleasant, productive, and they did what they promised. In the midst of the moving madness, this was one of the things that ended well. (Of course, it would have been nice if they were done right the first time, but as previously observed, STJH.)

Sofa and Chair

As a rule, we never buy anything we can’t see, touch or feel before bringing it home. The only exception in recent years was our new sofa and chair, since we had to select the fabric for each. This is always something of a risk because from past experience getting refunds for broken or poorly made “custom” (meaning we ordered it with a particular fabric, not had it custom-made; I’m not made of money!) furniture can be a real pain in the tookus. (For some strange reason, when a vendor puts fabric on your furniture, they think you ought to take it no matter what the quality. I have never understood this attitude.)

Well, unfortunately, neither sofa nor chair are acceptable. Regarding the sofa, although we like firm cushions, these are so firm that when we sit on them, they don’t squish down like normal cushions; in fact, our feet don’t even touch the floor! On a firmness scale of 1 to 10, I would rank these about 15. And the chair… well, it’s no good either, but for different reasons.

So now begins the process. We had to visit the local store and demonstrate the, ahem, firm cushion. First problem was our salesperson wasn’t in, so we had to ask for a higher-up. Well her attitude was there “might be a problem”. Hmmph. We compared the cushion with one that it was supposed to feel like, and I practically had to push her down to make her sit on it. Then she grudgingly admitted “there might be an issue here.” We’re to call this number and they’ll “see if there’s anything that can be done.” We got the distinct impression that since we weren’t her customers, she couldn’t have cared less.

It’s stuff like this that makes the blood pressure rise. Who do they think they are? Once again, a blown customer service opportunity.

So Mrs. MZM, God bless her, calls the number and asks for the guy, but he’s out. But… she ended up talking to the Service Manager for the entire chain of stores. So she unloaded on him. Amazingly, he took every detail down, agreed we were treated poorly, and promised a response right away. Within the hour, the co-owner of the chain caller her back and solved the problem to our satisfaction. He was also appalled at the treatment we had received and promised to “take care of it”.

We’ll see how quickly they resolve this one, so the jury’s still out.

Fast Food

Naturally during this time there was no time to cook (or even a place for food until the refrigerator was delivered), so we became quite familiar with the local fast-food eateries. Mrs. MZM stopped at a Chick Fil-A near us to order lunch, and after placing her order stepped aside to wait. While waiting, at least three other employees stopped what they were doing and asked her: “Can I help you with anything?”, “Is there anything you need?”, and “I’m glad you came by today. Won’t you come back again?”. And they weren’t even behind the counter!

Now that’s a positive customer service experience we’ll remember!

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

Howdy, everyone! I’m back!

Alas, moving day is over and it’s back to the saddle again. I’ll tell ya, though; I think I need a vacation from my vacation! What a wild two weeks! And by “wild”, I don’t mean wild in a fun way…

Oh, sure, everyone knows moving can be a traumatic experience. Everything from furniture deliveries, pre-closing construction details, the delivery of those 5000 boxes of belongings from storage, etc. contributes to acceleration of the few hairs left from black to grey. Even returning to work to answer those 135 emails added a little spice to the pie (yeah, I know – some of you think 135 emails in two weeks is nothin’ – if that’s the case, then eat your heart out).

But rather than try to tell it all at once, today I’ll just share this little anecdote.

A few nights ago Mrs. MZM woke me up at 2 am because she was hearing a strange noise in our bathroom.

Now, we all understand that moving into a new place to live is bound to involve a veritable plethora of new and unusual sounds. The thermostat clicks, the new refrigerator’s ice maker clunks, the neighbor’s dog barks, etc., etc., etc. The most dramatic difference is that our former home (condo) was on a major freeway in Houston and was therefore quite noisy, while our new home is comfortably far from all major roads; it’s so quiet you can almost hear your hair grow.

Anyway, there was this weird, distant, extremely high-pitched tone coming from the bathroom, and she couldn’t figure it out, so of course she woke me up. I walked all over the house, trying to pinpoint it, including pressing my ear against walls and windows to see if it made it louder. It didn’t. I went outside – nope. I checked the A/C unit – nope. Television, phones, cell phones – nope, nope, nope.

Finally in desperation I tried flipping every electrical circuit off and on back at the breaker box in the garage to see if one of them had any effect. Wrong again. Sheesh, this was getting really frustrating. I’ve been living in our old condo for fifteen years, and up until now, when something like this happened, we knew who to call. Now, the guy to call is me, and I had no clue!

As usual, Mrs. MZM figured it out first.

Sitting on her vanity is an old radio/cassette player we bought at a garage sale many years ago (I think we paid a buck for it) and she listens to it every morning while putting on makeup. It’s the kind where the TAPE setting also functions as an off switch when there’s no tape in it. Well, since the tape player failed long ago we never put a tape in it. In fact, I had even verified during my search that the switch was on the TAPE/OFF setting.

What I missed was the Fast Forward button had been pushed (probably while in the moving box). This was enough to eventually cause the motor circuit to produce the wayward high-pitched tone that has so thoroughly mystified us for over an hour. As soon as she pushed the STOP button on the tape player, the noise was gone! Relief at last!

I’m reminded of that little cartoon, “Hit any key”. Somebody hand me a hammer.

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!