Author: Carl Setzer

PayPal+Customer Service+PR=Longevity

Carl Setzer

Reading this at Venture Beat just annoyed the crap out of me: GlassUp raised $100K on Indiegogo — but PayPal is refusing to pay up. This isn’t the first time PayPal has dealt with similar issues, even to the point where their president publicly intervened in a resolution. This troubles me regarding PayPal’s future.

These rules need to significant repair if PayPal wants to remain relevant in this space. StartUps, heck, any business CANNOT operate with random and inconsistent access to funds. I think PayPal’s growth as a purchase transaction processor might be the root of these aggravations. At a brief glance, I see vigorous efforts to protect buyers from fraud. Noble, but hampering these transactions that vary from that model. Policies need to evolve with market changes. Especially market shifts that reflect your company’s goals and objectives. David Marcus has publicly tried to change this, to better align themselves with the startup community’s needs. However, high profile breakdowns like this run the risk of major damage to the brand. And, I guarantee you that someone out there is getting ready to come in and out innovate PayPal.

PayPal has been a disruptive innovator in their field, and have brought a lot of value. However, these gaffs have eroded trust and that goodwill will be hard to earn back. These are ripe fields for competitors to come in and win.

Hypocrisy Notice Of The Day

Carl Setzer

My culture has an adage: “a woman has a right to change her mind”. There seems to be an exception to that: if she’s “lead the guy on”. Thusly, if she changes her mind about wanting intercourse, well, too bad. “She had it coming”.

This attitude needs expunging from the social mind.

Happy Wednesday.

Reflections of a “Shusher”

Carl Setzer

I enjoy Anil Dash’s commentary. His background diverges significantly with mine; he provides me food for thought. His writing challenges the way I see the world. Sometimes with rather profound topics; though, today, he looks at the mundane world of cinema. More specifically, the cultural variation regarding the act of viewing. Read: “SHUSHERS: WRONG ABOUT MOVIES. WRONG ABOUT THE WORLD.”

Ok, I assume you finished reading. So, full disclosure, I come out of cultural world of the “shushers”. My norms dictate quiet, church-esque near reverence during cinematic experiences. Mr. Dash’s essay, though, reminds me (with a delightful wit, IMHO) that my view is one built through ONE cultural lens. Not the only one, not the right one, just one. That varying from my norm doesn’t impart inferiority, lower class-ness; simply difference.

I finished with thoughts of “how do we, in this global culture, navigate these differences without clashing too painfully?” Reading some of the comments reinforces that point. It’s very hard for us to break free of our underlying cultural upbringing and see the “other” in a balanced, respectful way. I expect this will be a continuing aggravation to an embracing, diverse and peacefully co-existing society.

Your Random Thought For The Day

Carl Setzer

To be a Storm Trooper in Star Wars, you must have had a bladder of iron. I expect getting prepped for “bladder elimination” was a half hour horror show for the needy-of-peeing. And I expect Lucas to be a grumpy cat if you piddled in his props.

My brain works in mysterious ways.

Online Music Explorations

Carl Setzer

Another thing that makes me *heart* the internet: music. The ability to connect, on myriad levels, with a huge variety of artists just delights me.

Today I started exploring both Reverbnation and SoundCloud. They seem like great ways to dive deeper into lesser-covered music. One of my hipster-eque traits: I love to be able to say “I knew that band back before they were famous”. Just need to get paid for such.

I like both sites pretty well, though they’re pretty different. I spent more time at ReverbNation, but mostly to explore a friend’s band (check out Verdant Mile). SoundCloud hosts one of my favorite podcasts, Story Collider. Having the larger library of content is particularly delightful to me. I’ll need a deeper dive, though, until I really can form an opion.

Any of you use either of these much? Love them? Hate them? Know of another site that’s way better? Let me know!

A Good Weekend, Fitness-Wise

Carl Setzer

A pretty good week, fitness-wise. The end of week and weekend provided me with the chance to cycle. Friday I simply rode to taekwondo, Saturday morning I got a bit over 12 miles in, and Sunday I got a solid 22 miler in. Sunday’s ride was both hard and eye opening. Part of me wants to reclaim the form I has in my youth. This ride was the longest I’ve had in years; over a decade. I covered a small part of one of my favorite rides. One that is built for climbing. One that showed, glaringly so, how much work I have in front of me.

My feelings weren’t negative, though; not at all. Tranquility really defines my attitude afterwards. I pushed hard, but was mostly able to meet it. I know I can reclaim something.

Oddly, I’m really not trying to “reclaim”. I’m looking for a whole different way. My youthful eating was horrible. The habits I formed dreadful for my long-term health. So, the only piece of reclamation is the time I spent on fitness. Above that, I seek to add a better diet, with deeper insights into health.

I am trying to build a truly healthy, fitness focused lifestyle. And I can see the transformation. It feels great.

Expectations of instant responses are getting silly

Carl Setzer

On a regular basis, I get hit with complaints that I didn’t respond to a message. “I left a message with you 10 minutes ago. Why haven’t your replied?” I get hit with this in all sincerity and, sometimes, with angry vigor. Another colleague was lamenting to me that they’d sent several emails and left several voicemails that morning and were ANGRY that the hadn’t heard back. She was a bit taken back when I pointed out that this person has 100s of clients and is extremely over-worked, and that I was certain there was no insult meant by her less-timely response. 

I think that this stems from our always-on world. Email, texts, etc, come fast; we have nearly instantaneous communication. We get answers from Google/Bing instantly. We are accustomed to immediate response. So, waiting even several minutes feels unreasonable.

I notice, though, that when people are drawn out of themselves, raising their focus, they easily see the bigger picture. They see that I really can’t respond instantly to each of the 100 some odd emails I get in a day. And that taking some time to respond isn’t disrespectful.  

Perhaps we need to just slow down. Perhaps we can. Perhaps….

Annoying Video Ads

Carl Setzer
The first thing I do when one of those obnoxious, over-loud video ads launches on a website I just opened starts playing is to close the whole page. I have to be pretty committed to reading the article for me to stick around through that, or to try and locate the “off” or “mute” button for the bloody thing. 
So, for those of you promoting advertising on your website, you now have something to consider. Of course, I should look at running Ad-Blocker or something like that and move this nuisance into historical reference.