*Words of Wisdom From The Elder

One of the toughest things about owning a home is selling it.  Home owners are tasked with a mountain of things when preparing to sale their home.  Recently we launched a beta product to assist home owners with one of those task.  The product is called Home Highlighter and provides home owners the ability to build their feature sheets right from the web site complete with multiple templates and mortgage pricing information.  It is has become more main stream for home owners to create feature sheets that allow buyers to drive up to their home and grab detailed information.  Feature sheets can range from a single sheet to detailed books depending on the effort put in by the seller.  Home Highlighter helps home owners quickly and easily show case their home.

How to use Home Highlighter

Step 1 – Choose a Template

The first step getting started with Home Highlighter is to select a template.   Clicking step one will provide a screen whereby two different templates can be selected by pressing the left and right arrows.   Example:

Currently there are two templates to choose from.

To move forward click on the “Customized This Template” button to move to step two.

Step 2 – Fill In Your Details

Click each of the areas to upload images and set the features of your home.  The monthly payment is calculated automatically based on current interest rates and fixed pricing.  This is used to show prospective buyers how affordable the home can be.

Step 3 – Save and Print

Once all of your information is entered you can preview the information and save it.  Once saved you can then preview your generated PDF and print as many copies as you want.  I’ve attached the one I created if I was going to sale our home which you can download below. 

That’s it.  Three simple steps to creating a professional feature sheet the next time you sale your home.  If you have any feedback please use the feedback link located within the Home Highlighter web site.

Have you ever sent an email to several people at work and for whatever reason you forgot to put someone in the TO: field initially?  Instead of putting them at the front of the TO: field in your email email you added them to the end of the TO: field.  Depending on various circumstances what do you think you just said to that person subliminally?  I think the order you place people in your TO: list dictates their importance in the conversation, how serious they should take your email and if a response to it is in order.  Do you think about this or am I just weird?  Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Work Example #1

Let’s use a work example to start with since a lot of us that do email spend most of our time emailing people at work.  Let’s say we need to communicate something to people at work.  Let’s start with this list:

• A & B are 2 team members
• C – Your team leader
• D –  Company CIO

The email is about A & B (your team members) who completed a task recently and who both did an outstanding job.  For the record, B did more work than A on the task.  What order do you go with?  The order A, B, C, D doesn’t make sense because you are emailing about A & B.  They would go onto the CC: line since you would want them to know you are emailing to brag on them to leadership. 

In the TO: line do you put D first or C?  In this case I think you could go with D or C first but the safest bet is to go with D then C and place A & B on the CC: line.  D out ranks C and it is safer to just order them in that manner since they have an implicit ranking.  Be careful on the CC: line though and be sure to order A & B properly based on the amount of work they did.  If B did more work than A, then B should be first on the CC: line indicating he was thought of first in your mind. 

Looking at the email when received by D, I think subliminally D looks at the order on the CC: line and makes a mental note of the order without thinking about it, but somehow remembers that B did more work than A on the task. 

Work Example #2

Let’s say you are composing an email to your team members and there are 10 people on the email.  Who do you put first?  Do you put people in order of rank or do you place them in order of their personal priority on the email.  For example if person #10 is really on the email just an FYI, would you put them first?  Probably not.  You’d put the person that needed to take action the quickest first and then order it from there based on everyone’s priority (still considering rank). 

An optional approach in this scenario is if #10 is really on the email as an FYI move them down to the CC: line.  However, if you really want #10 to read the email and possibly respond or take action quicker, leave them on the TO: line.

While this may sound weird to some I think the order and where you place people on email matters.  Think of it this way.  If you had everyone sitting in your office and were speaking your email to the group instead of writing it, would you or would you not direct your conversation to certain people more than others?   Absolutely.  I think the same thing applies to email.

There’s two quick examples where order can matter and why it matters.  The next time you send an email be sure to think about where you are placing people.  Not only does it tell them how they maybe should respond it also tells them how seriously they should take your communication in a lot of cases.   If you can think of some other examples where this is applicable add your comments below.

They say it isn’t what you know, but who you know. I have a buddy that works for Comcast, Gary.  For those that have been paying attention, Gary is the same buddy that happened to have a new HDDVR on his truck and who helped end my three weeks of waiting for an HDDVR from Comcast.  It pays to know people (words of wisdom to live by).

The last few times I’ve needed something I’ve had the pleasure of by passing the Comcast support center and have gone directly to a Comcast technician, Gary.  He gets free beer, and I get my cable issues resolved.  It is a relationship that works. 🙂  I saw him the other day in passing at the store and told him that a guy came out back in the summer and installed an amp in the attic and he went, “Huh?”. 

Apparently the last guy that was here didn’t do things correctly because Gary is walking around the house going, “What the heck” and “Why’d he do that?!”.  Gary re-wired things up in the attic and removed the amp.  I think we are good.  I can certainly tell my speed is faster, definitely my upload speed has improved as well as the download speed.  This is good since I am on the company VPN all day everyday.  Here’s my latest speed test results.

Now back to work!  Thanks Gary!

I’m not a link blogger and don’t plan on becoming one so don’t expect too many of these type of posts but JoelOnSoftware has a really good article about why he thinks Gmail is Lotus 123 and this new up and coming SDK is Windows.  For those of us that like speculation, what ifs, and some history mixed in this is a must read for you.   Check out the post here:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/09/18.html

BTW the up and coming SDK doesn’t exist, he’s just speculating but interesting thoughts nonetheless.

For those of you that purchased an iPhone and put the unlock software on it only to have your $600 iPhone bricked check out ArcaneCode’s entry about is Apple the new evil empire?

http://arcanecode.wordpress.com/2007/10/08/apple-the-new-evil-empire/

After several months of using Twitter, I’m still twittering.  I guess because other friends are as well.  As soon as I forget about Twitter I get a text message from someone reminding me haha.  For those that are new to Twitter here are some commands you can do on Twitter if you have setup IM or your mobile phone.

track iphone

Send this via your phone or IM client and anyone who updates in public mentions “iphone” you’ll get it on your device in real-time.  From there you can send “whois username” to find out more about that person, or “follow username” to follow his or her updates.

untrack iphone

This will toggle your tracking on obviously.

You are allowed to create as many tracks as you want but if you want to get a list of what you’re currently tracking send:

track

or you can send

stats

To turn them all off send:

track off