If I limit my access to social and news apps and open the window to the outdoors, I do better.
The window lets in
Let me be as vigilant for beauty as for threats.
I am excited to say that I am joining the great people of Court Innovations.
Court Innovations is an Ann Arbor software startup, the first startup out of the University of Michigan Law School. Our mission is to increase access to justice for citizens and make the daily work of court clerks, court managers and administrators, magistrates, judges, and law enforcement easier and more efficient. Read more about our online dispute resolution platform.
We recently closed our a Series A investment round. These funds allow us to invest in technology, grow the team (including hiring me), and to expand our reach nationwide from twenty-three courts in Michigan, Ohio, and Arkansas. I can’t wait to see what’s next for us as we grow.
Over the summer, Robert Pasick and I collaborated on Self-Aware: A Guide for Success in Work and Life. The book grew out of Rob’s teaching at the University of Michigan and his experience as a psychologist and executive coach. I helped with the book editing, book project management, and publishing it to ebook and paperback.
The book guides students through self-discovery assessments and reflection exercises. These activities help the reader explore their
The book coaches the student to write their own vision for success and a short and long term plan.
We collaborated on the structure and the publishing of the book. We published it via Kindle Direct Publishing (ebook) and CreateSpace (softcover).
You can find Self-Aware: A Guide for Success in Work and Life on Amazon (affiliate link)
I loved the project so much I am looking for other similar projects. If you have an idea for a book and need help with project management, editing, publishing to different formats, and then publicizing the book, get in touch! I want to be your book editor and publisher.
Edited 7/7/2017 as I no longer take book projects now that I work for Court Innovations.
You might think a curved and twisted spine may make yoga impossible. It’s the opposite: yoga makes living and breathing with scoliosis better. And Elise and DL’s new Yoga for Scoliosis book will help you do yoga better.
Through working on my posture and breath in yoga, I have learned how to reduce my thoracic curve, de-rotate my spine, and breathe into areas which are compressed. When I don’t practice, I know it. My back aches more with twinges and tightness. When I practice, I feel more integrated, graceful, and free.
Elise Browning Miller and nancy DL heraty, two great yoga teachers, just released Yoga for Scoliosis: A Path for Students and Teachers. It is a wonderful book, clearly written with beautiful photographs and illustrations. It’s also quite practical: its spiral-bound pages lay open perfectly so I can consult it in the middle of my sequence.
This Yoga for Scoliosis book describes scoliosis, its four main patterns, and the benefits of yoga for scoliosis. The authors include instructions for beginning your own home practice (including advice about props) and then go into asanas and pranayama.
Covered asanas include:
Each asana is well-described with at least one photograph, instructive text, variations, and specific adjustments for each pattern of scoliosis.
The book concludes with seven yoga for scoliosis practice sequences. These sequences are easy to skim and each refers back to the full instructions for each asana in the sequence.
Over the years, I have taken several workshops and classes from Iyengar yoga teacher Elise Browning Miller. Elise is based in Palo Alto, and she teaches all over the US and even internationally. I have followed her to Cleveland, Chicago, Kalamazoo, and Sonoma. Working with Elise has taught me how to use yoga to be stronger, more joyful, and work with my scoliosis rather than suffer with it. With her help, I have less pain and am lighter in my own body. Who wouldn’t want that?
When I have attended Elise’s workshops in Chicago, I met and worked with DL as well. DL co-authored the book with Elise and is a gentle and nurturing presence in workshops.
If you teach yoga or do yoga and have scoliosis, get the book! You won’t be disappointed. You can purchase the book from Elise’s website.
I’ve gone back to school, college actually.
![[066/365] Back to School](https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2564/3838634535_739f0ff5a8_z.jpg?zz=1)
Thanks and keep in touch!
Surveying the customer seems like a good idea to find out ways to improve. Yet, I’ve been on the receiving end of customer experience surveys that show me we’re doing it all wrong.
Anyone who has purchased a car or who has had their car serviced recently by a car dealership is likely aware of the 10-point customer experience survey that arrives, via email, after the dealership visit. Other interactions with their customer service (say to troubleshoot the connection between said new car and the proprietary little app system that runs the electronics) also trigger a “rate our customer service” email. All these chances to provide feedback are good, right? Nope.
When each interaction with your service creates more work for me, the customer, I wonder. Also, the sales operation doesn’t feel open to actual feedback, it seems they’re only interested in the goal – getting the top mark. They show this in unsubtle ways. Visual cues for how the dealership would like to be rated are on the back of the salesman’s cubicle and on the wall facing the seats in the service department waiting area.
Before I switched to a Chrysler product, I had a car with another brand name. And that dealership sent very emotive letters ahead of the survey, essentially saying if you cannot give us a 10, please let us know so we can correct it before you fill out the survey. Basically, let’s keep this between us, don’t tell Papa Franchise/OEM about any frustration.
Earlier this year, I got this form stapled to my receipt at the drugstore. It says that I may receive a survey, and if I don’t answer a 5 (top score for them) my response “won’t count”!
This pharmacy’s assertion that a rating below “5” won’t count cannot be true, and this note is the opposite of customer service. It’s just forcing the customer to be involved in gaming a corporate system. Yuck. With the people who are the subject of the surveys (sales and customer service folk) specifically asking to subvert the intention of the survey….how can we take this data seriously?
We know from online ratings that people really don’t bother to review a company or an experience unless they’re thrilled or torqued off. Yet, most of the experiences we have with brands, stores, and car dealers are somewhere in the middle of horrid to spectacular. It’s unrealistic to expect they’ll be spectacular 10.0 across the board all of the time. And it’s particularly silly to ask your customer to enable this charade.
Bothering the customer to give you top marks on a survey isn’t a good customer experience.
I’ve started a new behavior in response to this: I won’t fill these silly things out.
If I can’t give the customer service top marks, but it isn’t the agent’s fault (e.g. the issue is mechanical or technological) I have a hard time rating the interaction at all. I can’t give it a 10 because I’m still unsatisfied. But the agent was nice and at least sympathetic to the weirdness of the [insert technical or mechanical issue here]. So, should I be honest and say they’re eroding my faith in their brand but they hire friendly people to take the hit? That’s not an option in the survey, so I just delete the customer experience surveys now.