What is icanmakeitbetter?

Well, here is an answer in a short video. All new platform with a ton of new features: surveys, customer panel and idea platform and customer feedback all in one simple, powerful tool. And, it's FREE!

SXSW: A short Sentient Services history

We had the pleasure of being part of Startup America and the Dell Entrepreneur In Residence program during SXSW 2012. You can read the article written by Dell's EIR Ingrid Vandervelt HERE.

And watch the interview below.

I hope you enjoy this short "history" of Sentient Services. We could not have done it without great support from family, friends and clients - thank you!

The Subtle Art of NO

A few years back I found myself in a transitional place professionally. I was in a new state looking for work in a related (albeit only marginally related) field. I found myself in an interview wearing a suit (yes, a suit), sitting in front of someone whose role, and entire department to be honest, I did not fully understand. It’s times like these,  when one takes a resume from one field and submits it to another that you realize you have been talking in hyperbole, or in other words BS laden task lists made to look like a resume. All of a sudden a resume riddled with sexy items like managing the production of vertical specific variations for non-transactional web content becomes worked closely with writers to update various website articles. The latter line item is boring, lame, flat…and as humbling as it may be, more informative to most people on the planet. It was during the vernacular-free discussion that I realized the fulcrum of my career was the fact that I had refined a way to tell my clients and managers “no” on a regular basis and have them love me for it.

Allow me to explain…back to the interview. As it turns out, I got the job. A while later, my boss told me I pulled off the upset and edged out someone with much more relevant experience because of my answer to one single question – “Do you have any experience with difficult clients?” My response – “Respectfully, there’s no such thing as an easy client. But, if you keep them informed and deliver what you say you will, they get a lot easier.” Before you fire me, let me explain. During the interview, I went on to elaborate about how clients come to agencies and research firms to extend their own skill sets and resources. As such, both sides – agency and client – are almost constantly teaching each other new things. This may be learning about new technical product features only a senior engineer could understand (and love) or mastering the phrasing nuances of an insightful discussion guide. For this reason, each project includes an ebb and flow of novel information that makes both sides vulnerable to mistakes which can quickly derail the productivity of any given project.

Now, combine constant learning/exploration with a smartphone in your pocket that makes you available 24x7 and you’ll find that it’s the urge to please, and over-commit that can get you into trouble very quickly. For instance, I may tell my boss I can crank out three reports in as many days. But the end result is going to be a 60+ hour week, and three reports where a substantial piece of each was written past midnight. To quote my high school golf coach – “Nothing good happens after midnight.” I and my client would have a much better product to show for it had I just inserted a little incubation time for each of those reports. Faster is not always better. Once you fail to meet a deadline or underperform, whether irrationally overextended or not, you’ve just set off a chain reaction that will take a whole heck of a lot longer to sort out than the original extra half day you cut out of the schedule, just to be agreeable.

Now, there are two qualifiers here – 1) you must not overuse this gift and 2) this must never be for solely your benefit. Frequently use “no” and you will find yourself fired for being an obstructionist, as you should be. Too much self-serving “no, because that would require me to work past 6” and you’ll be fired for being lazy, as you should be. My point is that we must strive to exceed expectations. Sometimes, that means that you have to lean hard on a history of achievement and ask your colleagues to “Trust me; you’ll be much better off if we do this…” Sometimes you swallow your dissent, roll up your sleeves and make impossible deadlines looks like a walk in the park.

Clients, and our bosses, pay us (not to be tacky, but) a good chunk of money to exceed their expectations – which is not a matter of killing yourself to crank out deliverables. Exceeding expectations is a delicate balance between building up credibility through over-achieving when your client/boss needs you and then calling upon that reservoir of goodwill when things appear headed off course. Master the art of “no” and they’ll love you for it.

Two More New Hires!

Details below on the new hires, but these are some great folks, and fun to work with as well!

Sentient Services is pleased to announce the hire of Meghan Bazaman as Research Analyst at Sentient Services. Ms. Bazaman has a Master of Arts in Advertising from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining Sentient Services, Meghan worked on the agency side at ThinkStreet, and was an Experience Design/Usability intern at Dell. Meghan brings a unique creative  and research driven perspective to global research clients.

Eric Vo is joining Sentient Services to manage clients and projects on the icanmakeitbetter.com social innovation and market research platform. Eric holds a Bachelor of Science in Music Industry/Business Studies from Loyola University, New Orleans, where he studied business strategies and technologies for entertainment companies. Prior to Sentient Services, Eric pursued his entrepreneurial interests by helping build online startups from the ground up, contributing to market research, coding, and online marketing (SEO/SEM). Eric brings a strong technology background as a coder and site builder combined with online marketing, and social community experience.

We are super excited about these new hires. The addition of Meghan and Eric to the Sentient Services and icanmakeitbetter team allows us to continue our rapid global growth, while maintaining impeccable client service and quality. We interviewed for 6 months before finding just the right fit of market research skills, project management and interactive expertise. It just so happened that we found two perfect fits at the same time – we got lucky!

Feel free to stop by and say howdy to them anytime. Thanks for your continued support and helping make Sentient Services and icanmakeitbetter.com a success!

Lessons from SXSW 2012

A great part of being located in Austin, is that it is known as the “Live Music Capital of the World”. Every spring, we have an amazing music festival called SXSW. For those of you not familiar with SXSW it is a weeklong festival of music, movies and cutting edge technology.  As I find myself in the trenches of SXSW this week, I continue to wonder, how did it all get started? I found an article that breaks down the origins of this well-known Austin festival (complete with nifty timeline and demographics):

http://siliconangle.com/blog/2012/03/06/sxsw-over-the-years-from-music-to-tech/

The post begins by describing the amazing growth in popularity of SXSW:

 “What started out as a small avenue for 700 participants to share their common interest in music has since grown to more than twenty times its original size. The growth spreads across more platforms beyond music, including film and web tech. Today, South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival (SXSW) is a much anticipated international gathering of fun-loving and business-minded people.”

I believe that what makes the festival continue to grow in popularity is the central idea that people like to gather around and share their common interests. SXSW fosters a community of people that care about music, film, business, technology and emerging interactive trends. With the springboard in place, people will begin to congregate and share.

Looking at the highlights of this year’s SXSW interactive portion, we see buzz around applications designed specifically for improved sharing. For example, companies like Instagram , a very successful app for sharing photos with friends and family, joined in on the SXSW interactive panels, announcing 27 million users and plans to launch a new Android app very soon. There was also talk of a new app called Highlight. Highlight allows its users to learn more about the people in their nearby location. The app lets you look up names, photos, mutual friends and anything they have chosen to share. Meaning when you meet someone, you can see what you have in common with them.

The bottom line is that people will always find ways to connect around what interests them and what they care about. It is merely the changing technology, allowing us to do so, that makes festivals like SXSW so interesting and exciting.

At Sentient Services, we also believe in connecting people around their interests and ideas, just like SXSW and its event goers.

Our idea platform icanmakeitbetter can be used for market research, but more importantly, it’s a community where users can connect around what they care about and have in common. With icanmakeitbetter, members can post, share, follow ideas, participate in online discussions and take surveys with others. The end result of these conversations – help to improve what you care about.

See our platform at work with Dell and City of Austin.