Faire les choses pour soi [fr]

[en] With less anxiety in my life in general, and at a professional crossroads which asks for work on projects which delay gratification more than I am used to (which is not much), I find myself struggling to make progress. I love doing things for others, but find it hard to put as much energy into things for myself.

Dans cette période “entre-mandats” où je suis en train de réfléchir à réorienter la façon dont je présente mes activités professionnelles (et probablement par la même occasion les recadrer), je me retrouve aux prises avec un des “challenges de ma vie”: avancer, faire, sans que ce soit directement pour quelqu’un d’autre ou un objectif gratifiant immédiat.

Heavy Load

Je m’appelle Stephanie, j’ai 41 ans, et je suis encore accro à la satisfaction immédiate.

Je me suis déjà cassé le nez sur ce problème de fonctionnement à l’époque où j’écrivais mon mémoire (enfin, où je ne l’écrivais pas, surtout). Depuis, j’ai fait beaucoup de chemin, et c’est clair que 10 ans d’indépendance professionnelle m’ont obligés à trouver des stratégies. Mais quand même.

J’écris volontiers sur impulsion (pour ce blog principalement), mais beaucoup plus difficilement sur commande.
Je fais volontiers quelque chose qui a un effet visible rapidement (ce qui fait de moi une “faiseuse” — allez, hop, trêve de blablas, passons à l’action!), mais je traîne les pieds pour les choses importantes et invisibles (bonjour, compta).
J’aime passer du temps “dans le moment”, à parler avec des gens, mais je me décourage vite lorsqu’il s’agit de travail de longue haleine.

Certes, je suis capable de persévérer, ce n’est pas le désastre total, sinon je n’aurais jamais survécu professionnellement ni personnellement. Mais je paie le prix par le stress de dernière minute (faire les choses dans l’urgence — relative) et les opportunités non poursuivies (le fameux livre, ça vous rappelle quelque chose?

Mon moteur principal pour faire les choses est, il me semble, faire plaisir ou rendre service aux autres. J’aime être utile. J’ai dû apprendre à dire “non”, d’abord aux autres, puis à moi-même, et je prends donc mes engagements de façon plus maîtrisée et réaliste, mais mon premier élan est toujours de me porter volontaire, d’aider autrui, de dépanner. Beaucoup de mes rapports aux autres reposent sur ça, d’ailleurs. En gros, pour dire les choses de façon un peu triviale, je veux qu’on m’aime. Et dans mon monde, on est apprécié parce qu’on est utile. (Oui, je sais, je sais…)

Corollaire, l’angoisse-moteur. A la base, je suis suis quelqu’un qui fonctionne à l’angoisse. Quand j’ai le couteau sous la gorge, que le délai me chauffe les talons, que je sais que je vais m’attirer des ennuis si “je le fais pas”, je fais. Vous aurez fait le lien: si je ne rends pas service, on ne va pas m’aimer, donc je veux rendre service. La peur n’apparaît pas en surface dans ce cas de figure (j’ai vraiment envie de rendre service), mais qu’on ne se leurre pas, elle est là, dessous, tapie.

Il y des degrés aussi chez les spécialistes de la dernière minute: je n’ai jamais fait de nuit blanche pour rendre un séminaire d’uni le lendemain à 8h que j’aurais fini de taper à 7h10. Par contre, je me suis retrouvée plus d’une fois à faire mon impression finale à 1h du matin. Idem avec les impôts et la compta: toujours en retard, toujours à la bourre, mais jamais vraiment dans les ennuis. Et pas de nuits blanches non plus. Je tire sur la corde, mais pas jusqu’à ce qu’elle casse.

Alors, aujourd’hui?

Aujourd’hui il se passe deux choses:

  • d’une part, mon moteur “angoisse” est moins actif — je suis simplement moins angoissée dans ma vie (c’est bien!), mais du coup j’ai “perdu” ce bénéfice, cette force (pas très saine) qui me poussait en avant
  • d’autre part, comme déjà évoqué plus haut, je suis à ce carrefour professionnel où je n’ai pas de gros mandats immédiats en cours, et où j’ai justement l’opportunité d’investir du temps pour faire des choses comme présenter mon activité autrement, mettre sur pied des produits, réaliser (enfin) ces fameux cours en ligne auxquels je pense depuis 5 ans, etc.

Par rapport à la perte du “moteur angoisse”: beaucoup de gens fonctionnent avec ce moteur. C’est très courant. Ce n’est pas idéal, mais c’est comme ça. Dans mon cas, ma “désangoisse” est quelque chose auquel j’aspire (et travaille) depuis de longues années. Ça porte ses fruits. Je vis mieux mon quotidien. Je me sens bien, dans l’ensemble. Bref, je ne suis plus si angoissée. Je me sens plus en paix avec ma vie, j’ai moins peur des gens, j’ai des rapports sociaux plus chaleureux au quotidien.

Mais le revers de la médaille, c’est que je n’ai plus “mon moteur”, et que je n’ai pas encore réussi à le remplacer par un autre. Idéalement, on s’investirait au quotidien dans les projets et activités qui ont un sens par rapport à ce qu’on veut faire de notre vie. Que désire-t-on accomplir, faire, ou comment désire-t-on vivre, pour pouvoir, à l’heure de notre dernier souffle, quitter ce monde sans trop de regrets? Quel est le sens de notre vie, quelles sont nos valeurs, quelle est notre mission? Ça peut être faire la fête, hein, ça n’a pas besoin d’être sauver le monde.

C’est là que je bats un peu de l’aile. Je peine à me projeter, je peine à savoir quel est mon sens. Je peine à accrocher ma charrue à mes désirs à long terme, à faire aujourd’hui ce qui m’apportera des fruits dans le futur — la fameuse gratification différée.

Et de retour de quatre semaines de vacances où j’ai pu vivre comme un petit papillon, sans obligations, portée par les envies de l’instant, je suppose que c’est d’autant plus dur.

J’aimerais être capable de mettre autant d’énergie avec aussi peu d’effort dans ce que je fais pour moi que dans ce que je fais pour les autres.

Si vous avez ce profil papillon-procrastinateur et que vous êtes parvenus à le surmonter pour mettre votre énergie dans des projets ou activités à long terme, j’avoue que je suis curieuse d’entendre votre histoire.

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Tumblr to Capture Comments? [en]

[fr] J'aimerais un système permettant de publier directement sur mon Tumblr les commentaires que je laisse sur d'autres blogs, sans passer par coComment.

The other evening, I was explaining that I still used coComment to capture the comments I made on other blogs. As always, people try to suggest alternatives: [co.mments](http://co.mments.com/) or [disqus](http://disqus.com/), for example. I appreciate the suggestions, but they show me that I haven’t managed to make myself clear.

CoComment does two main things:

– **track** conversations you participate in (or want to keep an eye on) so that you are alerted when a new comment is added to the thread
– **capture** the comments you make on other blogs so that you can collect them somewhere or republish them.

I use mainly the second feature. I’m not that interested in tracking all the conversations I take part in. Every now and again I am, and co.mments does indeed do the job, in an *ad hoc* way. Disqus is quite exciting and also allows centralization of the comments I make *with the system* (if I got it right), but it has the great disadvantage of still being too “blogger-centric” instead of “commenter-centric”: sure, I can install disqus on my blog (as a blogger), but it isn’t going to help me capture or track all my comments until all the blogs I visit have done the same.

So, like at the end of a [messy break-up](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2008/04/19/more-on-cocomment-advertising/) where you’re still sleeping with your ex, I’m still using coComment for the following:

– **capture** the comments I make all over the place and republish them in [my Tumblr](http://steph.tumblr.com).

That’s it. One thing coComment does pretty well, despite all the criticism I can make to the service, is capture comments I leave in a variety of comment forms (from WordPress to FriendFeed and Typepad and Blogger and even home-made in some cases) and spit them out in an RSS feed.

Yesterday, an idea dawned on me: what I really want is for my [comments to be published in my Tumblr](http://getsatisfaction.com/tumblr/topics/using_tumblr_to_capture_comments_made_on_other_blogs). Maybe we can come up with a way to do that directly?

I use Tumblr loads, and love it. The main thing I actively use it for (I’ve embedded a few RSS feeds in it) is for quoting interesting passages off blog/articles that I read. It’s very easy:

3 Steps to Share a Quote on Tumblr

1. highlight some text on a page
2. click on the Tumblr bookmarklet
3. Tumblr automagically recognizes it as a quote, and pops up a window which you use to publish it.

The result of all this is that I have [a Tumblr](http://steph.tumblr.com/) which is full of quotes, comments (thankfully coComment seem to have [removed the nasty ads from the RSS feed I complained about](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2008/03/31/please-dont-be-rude-cocomment-i-loved-you/)), and other things (videos and screenshots, for example).

I’ve been thinking a lot (but not writing, I know) about how these new tools in my landscape, which weren’t there [8 years ago (in a few days!) when I started blogging](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2000/07/13/weblog-open/), are modifying my publishing and interaction habits. The [panel I moderated at BlogTalk in Cork](http://www.viddler.com/explore/steph/videos/42/) was about that, actually, but I think we only brushed the surface.

So, back to the point for this post: I’d like a [hack for my Tumblr bookmarklet — or maybe a separate bookmarklet](http://getsatisfaction.com/tumblr/topics/using_tumblr_to_capture_comments_made_on_other_blogs) (by Tumblr or a third party) which will publish the comment I’m submitting to my tumblelog. It would work a bit like the coComment bookmarklet: click it to activate it at some point before hitting submit — and it does its magic when you submit the comment.

If you like the idea, [head over the Get Satisfaction](http://getsatisfaction.com/tumblr/topics/using_tumblr_to_capture_comments_made_on_other_blogs) and add your 2 cents.

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FOWA: Customer Service is the New Marketing (Lane Becker & Thor Muller) [en]

[fr] Notes prises à l'occasion de la conférence Future of Web Apps (FOWA) à Londres.

*Here are my live notes of this [Future of Web Apps (FOWA)](http://www.futureofwebapps.com/) session with [Thor Muller](http://thormuller.com/) and [Lane Becker](http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/author/lane/) of [Satisfaction](http://getsatisfaction.com). They are probably incomplete and may contain mistakes, though I do my best to be accurate. Chances are I’ll be adding links to extra material later on, so don’t hesitate to come back and check.*

FOWA 2007 71

The sacred hospitality code: serve people food and welcome them in before you ask them their name. A drink before introductions. Let’s look at customer service from that point of view.

Amandari, Bali: 8 waitstaff per guest

Great approach to customer service, but unfortunately doesn’t scale very well.

Different approaches to customer service:

– customer-focused (Four Seasons, [Zappos](http://www.zappos.com/welcome.zhtml), [Craigslist](http://sfbay.craigslist.org/))
– product-focused (Apple, Google, most web startups)
– infrastructure-focused (telecoms…)

The best way to deliver excellent customer service is the stop trying. Because trying looks like robots in cubes answering the phone.

FOWA 2007 77

[Funny Dell Customer Service Call YouTube video.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjSTTb_siCU) In the US about 3% of the population is employed in related support roles.

“Customer Service from ValleySchwag” on Flickr.

Secrets of the Concierge (hotels):

– they talk, get to know people
– they have little control, but a lot of influence
– smashing the silos

Enter the Cluetrain…

“Customer interactions are our best branding opportunities” Tony Hsieh, Zappos. Call centre, with no scripts, and no metrics for call length. Just do everything it takes to make a happy customer. A bunch of concierges rather than robots.

Online: how do you make conversation central? Look at the guys doing [30boxes](http://30boxes.com). With their previous company, had so much success they couldn’t really keep up with their customer support. Worked from a business perspective, but they weren’t very happy about it. So with 30boxes, they set up [a forum](http://30boxes.com/forum/). Went to 50% questions unanswered (previous company) to 50% questions answered by other customers.

Once you start building a community, customers want to start telling you lots of other things. Lots of valuable stuff.

Disconnected support tools => disconnected customers. Contact page, FAQ, Trouble Tickets, Forum, Wiki… But they don’t produce and engaged experience, and it’s disconnected from the service that we’re offering. The common thing here is *conversations*, except with Trouble Tickets (separate).

With a trouble ticketing system, Customer Service is often a firewall between the company and the users. When you make the conversations public, everybody inside the organisation gets much more exposure to the problems, questions, suggestions… Your successes are magnified too.

Dell IdeaStorm. Digg-like thing for their more loyal customers.

Dangers: the Digg revolt. (“The numbers.”)

These conversations are happening somewhere. Better be somewhere you can engage in them.

In your hands, but out of your control. [JetBlue YouTube video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r_PIg7EAUw) (CEO speaking).

Don’t create systems that place constraints on customer interactions. (Time per call: don’t talk to people, avoid interaction… which is actually the wrong thing to do!)

[Ning](http://ning.com). Putting out major product releases on Fridays, as the only people who would be banging it around during the week-end would be their more rabid users. So they’d get feedback etc. from them, and by Monday the release would be nice and clean for “normal users”.

Pownce.

Think of your story as your customers’ story. They’ll put the word out for you and defend you in the marketplace.

Danger: people are messy.

**Smash the silos**: think like a network. Companies think of themselves as silos. Our customers are in a lot of different places. “It’s not our problem” is a problem. When something breaks, it can be hard to know who to call (ie, cellphone not working). People get bounced around from company to company. So, put the customer in the centre. All the stuff we’re building on the web is very interdependent. So, for customer support, we need to stay focused on the customer.

E.g. [Dopplr](http://dopplr.com), a web application that you can use all over the place without ever going on the website. Widgets, API, integration. But a customer support nightmare.

Growing belief that nobody is really in charge anymore. There isn’t necessarily one person/entity to go to. Participate in the larger conversation that’s going on.

Danger: competition? It’s difficult to speak about competition in an environment where everything is networked. Some companies don’t want forums because they don’t want customers talking about other products on their site.

“What would a concierge do?”

Genius Bar in Apple.

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Satisfaction Looks Neat [en]

[fr] Un outil de "customer care" qui permet d'une part aux "clients" de s'entre-aider, et au personnel de participer à la conversation. Ça semble vraiment pas mal! Quelques petits problèmes après 20 minutes d'utilisation.

I read about [Satisfaction](http://getsatisfaction.com/) yesterday somewhere and saw it again today [in Brian Oberkirch’s blog](http://www.brianoberkirch.com/2007/09/13/beyond-trouble-tickets-can-satisfaction-make-customer-service-fun/). I went to [sign up](http://getsatisfaction.com/people/new) and [give it a quick toss around](http://getsatisfaction.com/people/e217220ab7592d9724e9137d6d35aeae376f9ee4/). Here are the first screenshots.

The nice thing is that as this is a support tool, I used it to [record the problems I bumped in](http://getsatisfaction.com/satisfaction) too.

Satisfaction: submitting a problem_idea_question_chat

I think it’s a pretty neat tool and I’m going to use it in future when I bump into problems, in addition to [posting them to Flickr with Skitch](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/tags/skitch). It’s community-based support, but with an option for company employees to participate with a “label” that identifies them as staff.

The first thing that annoyed me was that I had trouble finding where to change my profile photo. I clicked on “Account” and expected to find something there, but in fact it’s under “Dashboard”.

Satisfaction -- change image

Here is [the topic I created about this problem](http://getsatisfaction.com/satisfaction/topics/account_details_place_confusing).

Next issue, a rather important workflow/design flaw:

Recently active topics in Satisfaction Unlimited about Satisfaction Beta Release

I was a bit wordy in [explaining it](http://getsatisfaction.com/satisfaction/topics/submission_workflow_breaks) (early Sunday morning here), but I hope this makes sense:

> Ideally, when fill in the first “chatbox”, I’m going to want to check out the links before saying “not quite right, want to add details and submit”.

> Unfortunately, once I’ve done that, it seems I can’t come back to the page with the link inviting me to “add details and submit”.

> That doesn’t encourage me to click the links and check out first! It encourages me to go straight to “add details and submit”.

> So, if those links are really expected to be useful, encourage me to click on them by providing the “add details and submit” form on them too.

Last but not least:

Get Satisfaction: two gripes

1. If you’re telling me that I’m set to receive e-mail updates, that’s really nice of you — but it would be even nicer to give me a link to where to change it.
2. Please, please, please. [Space-separated tags](http://getsatisfaction.com/satisfaction/topics/i_only_just_discovered_that_you_support_commas_in_your_tags). At least support them. I’ve talked about this [elsewhere](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/09/22/wordpress-finally-has-tags/) (and before, too, but I can’t remember when or where). It breaks the current input model we’re used to (del.icio.us, Flickr…). It makes us type an extra character.

Go try out Satisfaction!

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