Fryer's Blog in the Mountains

Upgrading your Sprint phone? Try Amazon first.

It was time to upgrade my phone.  I did a lot of research, went to the Spring store and looked at the unit.  They wanted $148 (of which I would receive in 4-6 weeks a $50 gift card).  I then go to wireless.amazon.com and the identifical phone is $30.   Why?  Even after the Sprint store rebate, the phone was $20 cheaper and Amazon does not charge $36 for activation and $12 for overnight shipping.

And finally, Amazon didn't stick me with an $8 / month "insurance" policy like the Sprint store does (without your permission).

 

Are 800 numbers necessary?

We've had a personal 800 number since the mid 90's.  It made sense when everyone had to pay by the minute for long distance.  Now, no one pays extra for long distance. 

As a business, I prefer calling a real area code rather than an 800 number.  The only time it makes sense is if it is really easy to remember the last 7 digits.

Do We Really Care About Patients?

It's been three years since I've gotten back into health care.  Our product improves patient outcomes and reduces medical costs.  What we have learned is the vast majority of health care providers (including our own IHC) care more about efficiency of delivery then effectiveness of that delivery.

Sad but true.

So more patients then ever are being over treated, with unnecessary office visits and tests but much more quickly.   And lately it seems that the answer to any problem has one of three choices by the physician:
1) Get this test
2) Take this narcotic prescription
3) Take this anti-depressive drug

Next patient please.

PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or Obama care if you must) seeks to address this by insisting that providers be held responsible after the patient leaves their care and incentives for better outcomes (e.g. doing things that work as opposed to those that are reimbursed).

I am seeing many forward thinking providers and insurance companies who "get it", but we've got a long ways to go.  Healthcare should not be about maximizing revenue per patient at the lowest cost.

CenturyLink / Qwest Dropping VoiP / Broadband Phone: Hello Sprint Connect

I loved my Qwest Broadband phone.  $25 / month for everything.  Then I get a letter last week: "Sorry we're not doing it anymore and you will lose your number the end of December".  What to do?

I looked at Comcast.  $35-$40 / month.  Ummm, no.  Vonage, $26 / month.  Maybe.   Then I saw Sprint Phone Connect.  $20 / month.  It's basically a stationary cell phone into which you can plug in two analogue phones.  And if one of the phones is a base station, you can put them around the house.

Since it has a battery backup, if you lose power, it will still work for a few hours (lose power, no Internet, no VoiP).  However it doesn't have the strong feature set any VoiP phone has, but it does integrate into Google Voice that does have those features.  So we're going to try this out.

I'm still keeping a landline with CenturyLink, but defeaturing options on that line.

Great acquistion strategy there CenturyLink.

UPDATE:  The call quality is subpar on Sprint Connect.  Say a 6 on a scale of 10.
 Tried two different phones so it is the unit.  And I get 5 bars, so that's not the issue.   Sending the unit back and trying Vonage.

Cloud Computing – A Darker Side

Ease of implementing a solution, the ability to seamlessly scale, and having someone else responsible for system management, including backups, are but a few of the key benefits of cloud computing, ones that are fuelling its adoption by organizations.  Research shows that firms of all makes and sizes are incorporating these SaaS-type offerings into their information technology (IT) mix.  But for smaller organizations, those with less than a hundred employees,  the appeal of cloud computing solutions is heightened due to the very limited IT staff they possess, leaving them in an especially vulnerable position.

 

A recent example clearly demonstrates the unfortunate position a smaller company may find themselves in.  In this instance, a firm contracted with a major cloud solution provider, and as part of their  agreement, were allotted 1 GB of storage for application data.  The company’s business grew, and with it, their reliance on the cloud offering and the volume of application data.  Suddenly their provider announced that the firm had exceeded their storage quota by almost 140% (now using 2.38 GB) and wanted to extract additional fees associated with the expanded storage requirements.  Although cloud computing’s pricing is based on usage, it is curious that the overage was only detected when it became substantially large.

 

The idea of paying more for using more is common in the cloud world, but it was the actual pricing that sent a shock wave through this organization.  To become compliant, the provider offered an additional 1.5 GB of storage for $3,000 USD annually.  It’s when you compare this to the rates offered by other firms that you begin to question the integrity of their price.  For example, Amazon S3 offers 1 GB of standard storage for $.14/month or an annual fee of $1.68.  Although Amazon is at the low end of the online storage price spectrum, there are many vendors closer in price to Amazon than to the 1 GB of storage for $3,000 per year.  What further undercuts this cloud provider’s price, however, is the fact they recently launched a new, add-on file storage service, offering existing customers 30 GB for free. 

 

The crux of the issue is that cloud solutions don’t provide the option of storing your data locally, in your own building, or with another online storage provider.  Therefore, you are locked-in.  Furthermore, your reliance on your provider’s solution combined with the amount of data you’ve accumulated makes it extremely difficult to migrate to a competitive solution , leaving you at the mercy of your existing provider.   Cloud computing is tantalizingly attractive, much of it due to how easy it is to adopt—it’s the getting out that is far more problematic.

 

Ryck Marciniak (guest blogger)

Lendio: Take Your Money and Run

Raising money is one of the joys of being a CEO.  Several months ago I decided to apply for an SBA loan.  Rather than go to each bank separately, Lendio could handle it all for you.  

So I put in a request.  For the next two weeks I got bombarded with calls and emails from Lendio to get a subscription.  So I did.

Filed two requests.  Lendio took my money, dinged checked my credit score and then.

Nothing.

I could not followup because they didn't give me the banks contact information.  Support calls and emails unanswered.  I finally got one of the sales people and they said they'ld take care of it.  So they cancelled my subscription and deleted all my information.  (Yes I even wrote Brock Blake the CEO but he wouldn't respond)

Maybe they're doing better now.  I sure hope so.

Unions should help Employers with Health Care

There is a lot of consolidation going on in health care.  The result is the rise of oligarchies in delivery of healthcare, devices and pharmaceuticals.  And they have pricing power. 

So where does that leave the worker and their employers?   While they would like to get the most bang for their buck (patient outcomes and quality of care), they have little negotiating power.   And labor unions have that skill.

Seems to me the unions and the employers are on the same side of the table on this one.  Perhaps it would be to their advantage and work together to try to get the highest value for their health care instead of the highest price. 

Selling the Same Product to Different Customers

If someone told you about a firm that was selling the same product to multiple customers, you would probably have visions of Bernie Madoff or someone like him.  You would definitely feel that there was some type of scam occurring.  But, can you sell the same product to different clients—legally?  In the burgeoning market for testing and assessment services of job candidates, there is one Canadian firm doing just that.

 

Like others in this industry, this organization contracts with hiring firms, providing complete evaluations of potential employees.  The transaction is simple:  online testing is administered, the responses evaluated and a candidate report is generated and sent to the hiring firm, Company A.  The resulting report is what the hiring firm has paid for.  Now that this is done, the question is where else can this information be marketed.

 

Once the initial assessment has been completed by the assessment firm, the job applicant receives an e-mail confirming this.  Also, this same note offers the candidate the opportunity to acquire a copy of the results.  This becomes the second sale of the same data, creating a second revenue stream for the assessment firm.

 

More interestingly, however, is that the candidate’s e-mail also contains a third offer.  Now that a profile has been created and stored with the assessment organization, the candidate has the ability to reference this to any other company they may be trying to secure employment with, Company B for example.  Although the details about this final transaction are not identified, I can’t fathom the testing firm simply relinquishing the profile results without a payment from Company B.  This becomes the third revenue stream from the same profile data.

 

As the economy and competition directly impacts profits, companies need to discover innovative ways to improve top line revenues, ideally with minimal impact on costs.  This is a clear example of how one firm is trying to do this.  There may be some potential issues in this model, but they deserve kudos for their attempt.

 

Ryck Marciniak (guest blogger)

The Hiring Manager’s New Crutch

Every hiring process I’ve experienced over the past few months has utilized testing—in some cases personality and in others skills.  In one instance, the test, which was administered online, was the first step in the hiring process, and I later learned it screened out over a third of the candidates.  In another example, a friend was entering his second interview when the hiring company discovered that no one had reviewed his test results.  They suspended the interview, and after reviewing the results, which indicated he was not a good fit, they terminated the second interview, as well as his candidacy.  The increased reliance on assessment tools by firms is staggering.

 

Firms now contend with Gen Y’s, who view work differently than previous generations, and candidates who are well-schooled in the interview process, knowing the types of questions that will be asked, but more importantly, the most appropriate answers.  Privacy laws also compound an organization’s ability to check out a candidate.  Even validating educational background can be troublesome, at least without the candidate’s consent.  With challenges such as these, companies are resorting to new tactics, ones that will help them to peel back layers and get a true picture of an applicant.  Tests, profiles and assessments have become standard tools in the hiring manager’s tool kit.  And, with the plethora of firms offering these types of services, espousing their scientifically-based capabilities, it is easy to see why companies embrace these types of solutions.

 

It’s not the use of these tools that concerns me; it’s the fact that they are so heavily relied upon.  I could understand the assessment results corroborating interview responses or resume claims, but they are often used independently and definitively.  But in addition to the screening abilities that these tools offer, they also provide organizations with distance and protection from those same candidates.  Rather than having to justify their position to an applicant, they can simply point to the assessment tools, saying “It wasn’t us.  The tests showed you weren’t fit for our company.”

 

Rarely do firms share the full results with applicants, the tests used or the firms who provided these assessments—which is equally disturbing.  Offering candidates this type of information allows them to better understand themselves, to learn and possibly to improve themselves.  Moreover, this level of transparency lends greater credibility to the use of these tools.  Unfortunately, that is a double-edged sword, as it would also provide candidates with the information to question these tools and a firm’s use of them.

 

None of the firms offering assessment services claims 100% accuracy.  That would simply be foolish on their part.  So, the key question is:  what about unintentional errors.  If a company relies exclusively on tests as a screening mechanism, false positives and negatives will inevitably occur, and they would have no way to mitigate their effect.  However, if assessments are used in conjunction with interviews and background checking (Google is a powerful tool), other tools in a hiring manager’s arsenal, then the picture developed about a candidate will be more rounded and ultimately more accurate.  In this soft job market, it is simply a shame when someone is screened out for the wrong reason.

 

Ryck Marciniak (guest blogger)

Reclaiming Dignity in Today’s Hiring Process

With the economy flagging and unemployment rates soaring, it certainly has become an employers’ market.  The abundance of capable individuals available has made firms searching for talent salivate.  Unfortunately, this luxurious position has enabled companies to also act in insensitive and disrespectful ways.

 

A friend of mine, Joe, applied for two positions posted by an organization that he had already done contract work for, in fact for the same department and in the same role.  The postings were identical, including posting and closing dates, except for the fact that one was a permanent position, while the other was a contract for less than a year.  Joe, who was unemployed, applied for both, although his preference, obviously, was the permanent spot.

 

The permanent position was addressed first, and a committee was empanelled to perform a single interview of selected candidates, scoring them on a standard set of questions.   Weeks went by and finally Joe was informed of the firm’s decision to move forward with another applicant.  Nevertheless, Joe also learned that shortly they would begin the process to fill the contract position.  Joe questioned what that meant for him, as he had worked in this role in this department within the past year and had just completed an interview by committee for the matching, permanent role.  Despite this, he was told that he would need to be interviewed by committee again, to be considered for the contract position.  Joe wrestled with what to do, and finally decided, based on the redundancy and inefficiency of this hiring process, that he would forego it, and conveyed his decision to withdraw himself from consideration by e-mail.  A sense of vindication came over Joe, as he was simply not willing to succumb to the whimsical demands of the hiring organization—he stood his ground, drawing that proverbial line in the sand.

 

My own experience recently was different, but equally disconcerting.  Working through a recruiter, I applied for a position with a local technology firm.  Having passed through the first stage, an online profile test, I was scheduled for my first interview with a vice-president and a hired consultant.  The first meeting was orchestrated, unbeknownst to me, to be demeaning, condescending, obstinate, disrespectful and unprofessional, specifically designed to test the mettle of candidates.  Leaving that interview, I was livid.  There was no way I could work for a firm like this, I thought.

 

The recruiter called me later that day and informed me that the company loved me.  As well, I was one of only eight who had survived this ordeal, and they wanted to see me in two days for a second interview.  Although still seething, I was curious to see what kind of company would concoct such a subterfuge, and, I think, my ego had been somewhat stroked, as the only one to pass through this gauntlet successfully.  The second interview was more traditional, and it led to a third.  Despite my original misgivings, things appeared to be moving forward in a positive way.

 

In preparation for the third meeting, an agenda was developed by the firm, mostly focusing on my thoughts on strategies the company could utilize in their target markets.  This last meeting went well, evidenced by the fact they asked for references.  I believed we were heading down the home stretch, and I provided those references.  Days went by and nothing; I began to wonder.  Then the recruiter sent an e-mail announcing that the company was moving in a different direction—they didn’t see me as a ‘fit’ for their organization.  I wondered:  did I get played? 

 

Like Joe, I sent an e-mail, not as an attempt to resurrect my candidacy, but to communicate my disdain for the company’s hiring process.  My note addressed the lack of respect they displayed for the applicants, as well as the firm’s lack of professionalism.  Although it wouldn’t change what happened, it certainly was cathartic, and Joe echoed similar sentiments regarding his e-mail.  Did I regret having gone through this?  No, my only regret was not following my initial instinct, as Joe had done, and walking away after the first interview.  Our communications, to the respective firms, were liberating and energizing, and it signalled a renewed self-respect, one that we would not easily surrender again.

 

It’s easy to talk about principles, but having the conviction to act on them can be costly.  In a weak job market, as we are currently experiencing, a strong stand may result in a candidate being screened out.  However, yielding to the demands of an organization, especially from the outset, allows firms to assume control and power, eroding one’s dignity and respect.  The question is:  are you willing to pay that price?

 

Ryck Marciniak (guest blogger)