Gratitude: Make It Sincere

We have had an on-going discussion around the bigWebApps virtual water cooler about the abuse of the word “thanks.”

People say “thanks” when they’re not actually thankful for the other party’s action.  At this point, it’s almost a substitute for “goodbye.”  And due to this, it is greatly cheapened.  I agree with the other party in that regard.

But it’s been taken a step further in that saying “thanks” puts you in a “position of weakness.”  I whole-heartedly disagree.

Here is a post by Seth Godin that happens to be quite timely to our conversation.  I’m posting the entire post since it’s so short (as Seth does so well).

 

Do you deserve it?

Do you deserve the luck you’ve been handed? The place you were born, the education you were given, the job you’ve got? Do you deserve your tribe, your customer base, your brand?

Not at all. “Deserve” is such a loaded word. Most of us don’t deserve the great opportunities we have, or the lucky breaks that got us here.

The question shouldn’t be, “do you deserve it.” I think it should be, “what are you going to do with it now that you’ve got it?”

 

When someone takes time out of their day to share with us a bug in one of our applications or watch a webinar where we are spouting off about something we created, I  am deeply thankful for that person doing so.  What motivated that person to spend their time from a busy day to share with us?  And more importantly, how/what can we do to deliver something to them that makes our next event with them go on their “can’t miss” list?

If that puts me in a position of weakness, then I will gladly serve that role.

In closing, I would like to say that you taking your time to read this trivial email is appreciated by me.  If it was worth your time, I look forward to the next opportunity you give me to chat with you.

 

Photo Credit: http://flickr.com/photos/psd/

Taking the Plunge

We have been talking about doing webinars for somewhere around 5 years now.  We have tinkered here and there with pseudo-webinars, but we never fully committed to launching one with full force.

There are several factors that have played into us putting this off, but it mainly comes down to fear.  Are we going to be good or entertaining enough? Will our presentation present information that is considered valuable to the audience? Is our product good enough to present to an audience where we will not be receiving instant verbal feedback for 20 minutes?

Of course, we had excuses, too! Which one of us has the time to set up a webinar? to practice it? to build it?  Who internally has the skills to pull it off?

Fear is a crazy thing.  And it always amazes how fear of something strikes different people in completely different ways.

I am very proud to announce that Patrick Clements has stepped up to the plate for bigWebApps‘ first REAL webinar. Patrick has been slaving away for about three weeks building, honing, and practicing his presentation.  In about an hour from right now, bigWebApps will be moving into our very own “webinar” era.

What’s the webinar covering, you ask? We are releasing a new product to our suite. bigWebApps Warehouse is a complete warehouse and inventory management tool allowing you better control and visibility into your supplies process.

Wish us luck!

(NOTE: there is no link to the webinar because attendance is already FULL! – ROCK!)

photo credit: http://flickr.com/photos/stuant63/