Leadership / Technology Questions
Life September 12th, 2011I was contacted by Katie working at Quicken Loans where she was participating in a leadership development program regarding green energy, with an assignment to reach out to various leaders and get a set of relevant questions answered. Â These were the questions and responses that I provided. Â I think it is great to hear about such a program at Quicken Loans and since Katie would not use these outside the course she was on, I asked to publish them here with my responses to get people to discuss these points with their own ideas as well. Â How do you answer these questions? Â Please add your comments below.
1. Â What are the 2-3 most exciting technologies that you use or are watching?
2. Â What is the top trend that you are watching or think people should be watching?
3.  What’s your favorite magazine?
I’m very interested in responsible building and living and the magazine, Home Power has been one of my favorites for some time. Â It is a magazine that provides a window to the best creation, design and new innovations that more and more people are finally getting value from and making things more readily available.
4. Â What is your favorite book that you would recommend to people?
I really don’t have a favorite as books need to address areas of interest topics so there isn’t one book that fits all and I’ve read far too many to have a favorite book.  Some of my favorite authors are Patrick Lencioni and Malcolm Gladwell as I highly enjoy their respectively, fable style of writing and  data backed discoveries.  Some of my favorites are: Win Friends and Influence People, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, The Other 8 Hours, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, The Goal
5. Â What is your favorite website?
6. Â If you could recommend one book for people to read, what would it be?
7.  What’s the most frustrating customer experience you recently had? And how could it have been improved?
Definitely would have to be at a restaurant (Boston Pizza actually) where I had a terrible waitress that yelled across a table of 10 people instead of waiting around to take orders individually, then my meal was missed so they had to rush it after everyone else was already eating that I was with, then the rushed order was wrong and they didn’t bring the correct meal, then they billed me for the wrong meal, (the one I didn’t order) and they had no way to add two orders together into a single payment (my wife and I), so the whole experience was really bad. Â They did nothing to fix it without me asking and they made excuses instead of apologizing for the mistake or offering anything in return for all the problems. Â I guess they didn’t understand how to think about the service from the customer’s perspective, since they got so much of it wrong. Â It was very frustrating.
8. Â What was the best customer experience you recently had?
A sporting goods store locally named Mountain Equipment Coop is and has been over and over my most memorable customer experiences due to quality service staff, fast checkout tills, and great return policies and warranty coverage. Â I recently went in to buy a sleeping bag for backpacking and had my mind set on a certain bag per price ratio I thought was ideal. Â In the store however, it only took a few minutes from one of the staff in camping to find out I really wanted a super light and small bag, since I would be packing it on trips on my mountain unicycle. Â He showed me another bag that was colder temperature rating, half the weight and one third the pack volume, with obviously more cost, but worth the price in size and weight. Â He did not hesitate to rip one out of its plastic bag for me to check its size in a tent on the floor, and pack it into some tiny compression bag to prove it was as small as advertised. Â Needless to say, it only took a few minutes to select it and I am very happy he knew his stuff so I didn’t have to find out the hard way how much larger the other ones where I was looking at.
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September 12th, 2011 at 9:32 AM
I learned alot from this question and answer. It may be simple but you gave great info and more things for me to know. I am checking out the books you enumerated. 🙂
September 12th, 2011 at 11:20 PM
Great responses Mike! Ironically I actually had a great experience recently at a local restaurant here, just alot of friendly staff, that just makes feel welcomed when I walk in. I now go there and pick up food quite often now.
-Jean
September 13th, 2011 at 5:52 AM
Good questions. I would agree, almost impossible to narrow down to a favourite book, I think I would even struggle with a top 10. But that has given me an idea for a blog post!
WRT trends, while I agree, in terms of leadership, it is good to buck the trends, when it comes to marketing (and investing!), anticipating and getting in at the very start of a trend is an extremely useful thing to do.
Thought provoking questions, thank-you.
September 13th, 2011 at 7:09 AM
Good points Kate and changes for your comment as well Jean…
@Kate – I definitely agree with the point of trends, there is reason to detect and put attention to trends for other reasons like you suggest.
September 13th, 2011 at 4:38 PM
Great responses Mike! Ironically I actually had a great experience recently at a local restaurant here, just alot of friendly staff, that just makes feel welcomed when I walk in. I now go there and pick up food quite often now.
September 14th, 2011 at 8:36 AM
Interesting post. I really like the Q&A that Katie put together. The technology I have been watching is green tech and solar. I was living in Florida and many people I knew utilized green energy as much as they could. I learned a lot. As far as books go i have read most of the books you listed yet i try to save books for relaxing, so i read mainly fiction.
September 15th, 2011 at 7:29 AM
Great answers there, Mike. Sorry to hear about your experience at Chicago Pizza. Sounds absolutely dreadful that they could do that many wrong things and then not even apologize or try to make it up. I hope they don’t expect to stay in business too long with that kind of service.
September 25th, 2011 at 9:05 PM
Mike from a technology standpoint you have missed mobile payment. As you might know this is a trending topic and it is set to change the entire transaction mode !
September 26th, 2011 at 11:27 PM
@TimesF – Definitely service can keep people coming back over and over more than anything else.
@Evan – Agree, Katies questions were excellent! Thanks for the mention of your interests as well, I too follow a number of solar and green building methods, I think they too are an important area for the future of energy usage and management for the world. Certainly not a trend though, its just a growing industry and will continue likely.
@Komodo – Boston Pizza just to clarify. Its a big chain so my experience likely isn’t the norm and I had been to many of their locations many times before. not surprisingly though, I haven’t been back, been about 6 months where I used to go much more often.
@Sam – Thanks for your thought of mobile payments. That is not something I’m seeing in any trend myself so while it might be starting, its not something I know anything about I have to say right now.
September 27th, 2011 at 6:18 PM
@Mike: It is trending but not so evidently. You would have heard the news of Google wallet right. This is gonna change everything.
September 27th, 2011 at 9:25 PM
I learned alot from this question and answer. It may be simple but you gave great info and more things for me to know. I am checking out the books you enumerated. 🙂
October 4th, 2011 at 11:45 PM
For my research, I am writing about how technology affects teenagers grades. Well I am using Facebook as an example of distraction. So would I put Facebook in quotations or do I just leave it normal?
October 5th, 2011 at 12:19 AM
I totally agree with you about Google plus. For me its one of the most innovative tool to date because the user can redefine it according to his/her own preferences and not constricted by any system.
October 20th, 2011 at 10:24 AM
Everyone can’t be a good leader.Leader are born by worth.They have different thinking and separate way of doing.Great informative post to all..
October 27th, 2011 at 1:36 PM
These questions tells more things.Everyone can learn from these.Great experience share here!
November 4th, 2011 at 9:52 PM
it is good to buck the trends, when it comes to marketing (and investing!), anticipating and getting in at the very start of a trend is an extremely useful thing to do.I now go there and pick up food quite often now.
November 11th, 2011 at 4:01 AM
These are the questions that make you think about your life’s progress.Google wallet is really a excellent service for all.I love every service that launched by daddy search engine.
November 12th, 2011 at 2:49 AM
nice suggestion of books there . thanks