April 19, 2008

We had the netball semi final Tuesday night, and was it a cracker or what? we got started 3 points down because.. the refs are basically idiots with no reasoning skills…

Ben my bro filled in because of a cracked rib for Darren John (who is a good, athletic player.) His normal replacement has a busted ankle. Ben’s done a very good job the past couple of weeks and kept it up last night. What a find.

We brought it back to 3-2 but the lead blew out several times. Once we were down by 5 goals but brought it back to 2 goals down. Then in the 2nd half, the lead freakin blew out again to 4 goals and we had trouble bringing it back because our shooters went cold. Then they went hot, which was good. Overall I was having a good match, but was getting really angry cos there’s this ref that SUCKS.. she hardly refs but on this night she turns up. So yeh, we gradually brought it back to level pegging and with 2:30 in the last quarter left we went one goal up. Awesome.

Then the crucial moment. Their offence had the ball but it popped out and 4 people were converging on it - me and 3 of their players. The game needed courage! The game needed a hero! That hero was me! Hehe. I grabbed the ball and instantly got taken out by two of their players.. We scored from the resulting free and won 24-21. That was the most satisfying win ever. I’m still pumped. Grand Final next week.

MaraStar Communications is a website that is geared towards customer service employee training - using cartoons!

Do you ever hear an idea and think “wow, that was so obvious, why didn’t I think of that?” Well this website is basically that for me.

The intention is to make training of staff more entertaining and more memorable using animated cartoons to push the point across. New employees will have much more interest watching a cartoon than having the typical overly dry subject matter dumped all over them as is so typically the case, and as has happened to me so many times.

In the end to deliver a large amount of material, you’ll have to wade through some of the ‘boring stuff’. But cartoons like that which Marastar provides can really be something that people are looking forward to and not only this, it serves to perfectly illustrate exactly what the trainer means. It recreates the environment which helps the person being trained truly understand the situation and be able to empathise with the customer they are being trained to serve.

I watched one video on their website. It’s quite funny and really serves to ram the point home as well!

The founders of MaraStar really know their stuff because they successfully built one of the largest teleservice firms in the country, RMH Teleservices. Obviously they had been through the experience themselves of having to give dull training to people who can sometimes be - frankly - disinterested.

Another thing is this - new employees at call centers will often say yes yes I will be a great customer service rep but they can lose the enthusiasm quickly without a good empathy and understanding of the person who they are trying to serve. These videos will stay with them perpetually and remind them why excellence is important.

I personally think the website could have more clarity in the color scheme, to make it look more fun and also to instantly grab the interest of the person visiting. Other than that they have done a pretty good job according to me.

Since I got back from Mongolia, I have had a bit of difficulty reining in the amount of money that I spent. Books, movies, speeding fines, whatever.

Now that Spain is 4 months away from today I’m finding that I have to really knuckle down big time because I’m having a lot of trouble building up the sorts of savings one would need to go on this sort of trip!

I’m beginning to realise that I’ll have to skip basically all the social outings that I get invited on if I want to have a great time over there.

Not only that I’ll have to keep on working on my websites. SvCamp.com is the latest website getting developed. It’s a PR5 domain so I have set up a blog called The Southern Vibrations Camp on it. It may sound a little kitsch but what can you do.