While I wouldn’t have put it quite the same way, Mark, I agree with the sentiment.
Maybe he didn’t respond until the 8th page because he was busy on the phone trying to calm down all the people who were going crazy over the highly flammable posts in this thread. Or maybe he had to take a minute to calm himself down after being accused of being intentionally misleading and then of being a liar. (Personally, I’d be happy to see a few apologies thrown his way for those, but I’m not holding my breath.)
And then there are his real responsibilities with the company that might be getting in the way, like answering consumer questions and supporting customers, and compiling data for the company.
I’m not trying to reignite any flames, I don’t view this discussion as a personal attack on anyone, I view it as adults having a conversation over issues on which they fail to see eye to eye.
One of the main issues that has been discussed in this thread is whether members feel that they can be completely honest on this forum. That includes disagreements over how certain situations are handled.
Steve and Michael can take my suggestions as they wish. They can acknowledge them, ignore them, get mad at me, or just ban me. It’s their choice, but I’m hoping that being more honest today can avoid further misunderstandings in the future.
And if you feel like discussing the merits of the importance of the financial system vs the long term viability of GM and Chrysler I would be happy to, just pm me.
Sheesh, sometimes you guys forget where you are. Must be the self-medication effects of too much social mones. There is a real life outside this forum…
I completely and wholeheartedly agree. It’s not an issue of dealing with it by ignoring it and dropping it into the thread graveyard, it’s an issue of facing the icky stuff head on, apologizing, and even over apologizing for any sort of messup or misunderstanding, and correcting the situation with a quick phone call, so everyone understands his perspective (and can hear his voice). That’s the adult way to go. Taking responsibility, for things you even didn’t do or had no control over, is the most respectable route.
I pulled the thread from the graveyard the other day so we could approach everything head on, with identifying weaknesses and growing stronger being the end goal. I had no idea to what magnitude a simple miscommunication could ignite such incredible feedback. In some ways this was a blessing!
However, the downside to this major cathartic process, was that the multi day diversion caused a progress blackout, where key resources and people diverted their attention here. It took us away from some of the real progress that OohhYahh is talking about: our launches and set goals.
We’re facing those challenges head on by building all our internal infrastructure, and finding the right people, but these processes, when you do them right, takes immense time, love and effort. We pour 18 hours into the day researching, connecting, testing, implementing… working… working… Finding the right tax advisors. Finding the right fulfillment houses. Letting lawyers and advisors who don’t see the 'big picture" go about their way. Balancing immense synthesis and raw materials costs with the current state of the economy, without sacrificing quality and care. We’re going at the fastest speed possible.
Unfortunately, in the litigious, anti-innovation, incredibly complex world of growing an innovation business in a country whose infrastructure only supports and rewards things like real estate, well, the job is tough! We’ve had to go through an entirely new world of education to make the right approach. I want to take a nap just thinking about it.
This is extremely tough work. This ain’t the fun part. I’m really jealous of Steve, because he gets to hang out all day and do the fun stuff, keep the party rolling while I sit in back managing the day to day flow (supply ordering, workflow, keeping an eye on the shipping room, what have ya), connecting the dots in the big, meta, breathtaking and extremely tough world of forming all the infrastructure our strategy will hang upon. Haha… just expressing that run on sentence makes me want to quit and go into real estate. :o
I understand Steve was very emotional yesterday, but I agree with you. It’s his job.
Chasm, thanks for bringing this up. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Non-response is unacceptable. PM’s though…
Lemme run a few scenes by you, just so you understand our side of the PM answering world.
They’re tough to keep up with! For me, anyway – I put too much effort into genuinely reading and responding to them, that I can usurp 20 - 45 minutes just on one. Times that by 10s and 30s, and I run into a managerial nightmare. :o I don’t know how MHarris could possibly answer PMs. He takes 4 hours per one, because he cares so much and is so intensely circumspect.
The vBulletin PM system doesn’t make it that easy for us to manage many responses. PMs can’t be searched, they aren’t tracked, and they’re just plain time inefficient. We’re so busy! Gosh, if you placed an order via PM system, it would probably take a month to fulfill. PMs are good for friendly chitchat and other quickie comments… not so much order or product help. And we’re not the only ones with an extremely busy board and an inefficient PM system.
If you want to take a look at how another vBulletin does it, skitter over to WebhostingTalk and you’ll see what I mean. Extremely robust forum, that encourages you to hit their helpdesk if you need anything.
Hopefully in future releases of vB, a strong helpdesk would be integrated, and we could use one piece of software to handle everything.
Helpdesks are great because they’re designed for speedy resolution. (but hey, so is the old fashioned telephone call ) We can track them, we can share them, we can easily get through them.
So, if you have a product usage Q, it’s probably best to pop it into the forum. You’ll get amazing responses that way, because you’ll have more eyes and perspectives approaching the question! If you want one of the gurus or Steves to pop in and provide their $.02, hey, you could send a nudge via PM. I would be extremely descriptive in your subject line, so that he knows exactly what’s going on. Provide a link in the body. 2 lines is all that’s necessary. Here’s an example:
Subject: Steve, I’d love your input on my forum post. Link inside!
Body: [Link to post]. I know youre busy, but this is right up your alley. See you there!
See? In two super short lines, you’re appealing to our ego, AND beckoning us to come respond, all in one fell swoop.
I have some prior commitments today. I will set aside some time tonight (or if I’m too tired when I return, tomorrow) to address many of the subjects you bring up.
Check out my last journal entry - in between a business dinner, after dinner coffee with the BF, having the DTR talk, and telling him about pheros, I was fielding calls from Jasmin and getting PM’s and emails from a whole bunch of you lovely folk.
I’m not sure if you guys realize how all of this comes off until you take it in with one fell swoop. I haven’t been around for a while due to personal issues, and had some time and stamina to drop in today and found this.
I’m with Gegogi, I think sometimes the internet is taken far too seriously.
This was all based on company practice though. We as customers were sharing concerns based on product ingredients and communication. When two parties are doing business with each other, things do need to be taken seriously.
The company itself has and is responding well to the criticisms and concerns.
as annoying as some of this may have felt to anyone,
Androtics should be extremely flattered.
I have never been a part of any community where the biz itself is taken so personally, and the people making up the whole are so passionate about the part they play within it.
If this was just any company,
and the product was just anything run-of-the-mill ,
none of this would have gone beyond post 2.
Thanks for your all of your questions and comments. I appreciate them. This actually helps us a lot.
Harris has been writing like a madman and gave me a LOT of it to review. A LOT! Too much probably.
There’s lots of great answers to questions here, but, as some people here have been gracious enough to point out, some of these things perhaps shouldn’t go on a public forum like this.
Although we’re not as super-ultra-secretive as Apple, we have to be at least a little bit like them about some things. Everyone in the pheromone industry (both the good and the “dark sides”, both Jedi AND Sith) is on here in some shape or form… If we divulged every little thing in this public setting, we could lose competitive advantages. Something that took us a year or years to learn could disappear in a poof.
It would be like pouring all our intellectual ability for a week on your term paper, and then having the smelly kid beat you up, steal it from you, turn it into the teacher with his name on it, and get an A+.
As far as our future goes, we could also cause disappointment if everyone finds out about a certain project goal date we set for ourselves internally. Sure, you’ve got to set dates to create pressure, but innovating on schedule almost never goes as planned. Sometimes we even have to change plans to due things out of our control (economies, people, health, you know, reality!)
To address all of this, I will be calling everyone who wants to be called today (or over the course of the next few days… I’m hoping to catch day of the last of the local festival this year hopefully).
We can say far more over the phone than we can on here, as anyone knows who used to call me regularly. I already started calling some people on Friday, and each of these calls seems to be taking far longer than I ever guessed they could, so if there’s too many people for too few hours… that’s ok! I’ll keep plugging away at calls this week. I will call everyone who wants to be called.
I’ll do my very, very best to answer any questions you might have. Grievances, things about goals or status, whatever you want, including many of the things we can’t easily talk about on the forum due to potential legal complications or, again, loss of competitive advantage. We pour too much of our time and soul into researching the things we do to make this company and world better. I honestly could not bear having any more of this work OR time stolen from malicious who are more fixated upon every one of our moves looking for a time to strike and cause havok, instead of intelligently spending their figuring out ways to add value to the world. Just the thought that there are people out there that do that deeply saddens me.
shakes it off and moves on
Anyway, here’s what to do:
Just PM me with a very simple message that includes your phone #, your real first name, a range of best times to call, and anywhere from 1 to 8 short keywords, “tags” or phrases that quickly reference issues you want me to talk about. Even if I might not answer some details which you probably shouldn’t have (like my underwear size or social security #), feel to ask ANYTHING. I won’t be offended. As anyone who knows me will agree, I really like people and I like to help!
Here’s an example PM:
Subject: Jas, call me!
Body:
Hi Jas, it’s John.
Best contact number: 212 555 1234
Best contact time: Weekdays from 8a - 5pm EST. Weekends: I’m free the entire weekend.
Can I call you late?: Late night is ok, I’m usually up until 2am EST.
Keywords: steve, copulin status, why is this normally uncensored forum seemingly censored about a few things, what sort of goals do you guys have now?
Thanks!
I will fix anything I can, upgrade anything I can, and make things as shiny and good as I possibly can. After all, that’s what I’m here for!
Well, it’s Sunday, change of season, almost summer, graduations, local festivals & parties galore. I’m heading out for the day, but Hawaii is 3 hours behind the West Coast.
Too much probably.