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This Frilled Shark, sometimes called a “living fossil” because it resembles extinct species of sharks, died shortly after this video was shot. Living between 600 and 1000 meters under water, rarely seen frilled sharks typically eat other sharks, squid, and bony fish, and appear regularly in the catches from bottom trawling, and when caught are used as food or for fishmeal. Not much of a Brand.

John R. Hutchinson writes:

Extinction is not a simple event; it is not simply the death of all representatives of a group. It is the cessation of the origination of new species that renders a group extinct; if species are constantly dying off and no new ones originate through the process of evolution, then that group will go extinct over time no matter what happens.

Is your Business evolving? Your Brand? Or are you going Extinct?

From my previous post, you’ve probably noticed I’m having some trouble with Symantec. What you may not know, is that I’ve been having trouble with different versions of Symantec for the past two years. I’ve been slowly migrating all my clients away from them and anyone who is running their product. Today I had some problems with Symantec detecting Spector 360 as spyware and disabling it even though the end users told Symantec to Exclude scanning this. So, Spector sent me an email on how to fix it all (basically reinstall everything) and a link to Symantec’s chat. When I connected with Symantec’s chat service I was number 29 in the queue and after I go connected this is what was said:

user Misty_Olen
has entered room.

We are experiencing higher than usual service times. Please wait and an analyst will be with you shortly.

We are experiencing higher than usual service times. Please wait and an analyst will be with you shortly.

We are experiencing higher than usual service times. Please wait and an analyst will be with you shortly.

We are experiencing higher than usual service times. Please wait and an analyst will be with you shortly.

We are experiencing higher than usual service times. Please wait and an analyst will be with you shortly.

analyst Shailendra has entered room.

Shailendra:
Hello Misty_Olen. My name is Shailendra.

Misty_Olen:
I have Symantec Corporate Edition 10.1 that we paid for about 50 licenses of, I have Spector 360 that we paid for 50 licenses of, both of these costs thousands of dollars. Now, Symantec has killed my Spector install, even though I clicked exclude. I want someone at Symantec to do something about Spector being detected as spyware.

Shailendra:
Hello , thank you for contacting Symantec Live Technical Support. Please make a note of the Chat Request Id [268368] for this interaction

Shailendra:
Can you confirm the telephone number as

Misty_Olen:
870-xxx-xxxx

Misty_Olen:
870-xxx-xxxx

Misty_Olen:
bottom number is the correct one

Shailendra:
I suggest you please contact enterprise support.

Misty_Olen:
I suggest Symantec get it’s act together and you pass this information on

Shailendra:
I recommend that you please post your message / query to the respective product group. Doing this will direct you to the exact group of Technical Support Engineers specializing in that particular product group, who will study your case and provide you with information that match your needs.

Please click on the URL link provided below and choose the respective product from the drop down list of products:

>Web URL:

http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/enterprise/select_product_contact.html

Shailendra:
Is there anything else I can help you with?

Misty_Olen:
Yes, you could help me

Misty_Olen:
You could agree to pass this on, instead of telling me to call a phone number after waiting through a queue of 29 people

Misty_Olen:
This whole waiting time has been pointless unless you are actually going to do something besides be an online phone book

Shailendra:
I understand your concerns .

Shailendra:
But we cannot do that.

Misty_Olen:
you can’t pass on information

Misty_Olen:
?

Shailendra:
Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience.

Misty_Olen:
No I don’t accept

Misty_Olen:
I accept results

Misty_Olen:
not what you are offering

Misty_Olen:
You should have a boss or someone that you can tell about this

Shailendra:
We cannot pass this information.

Misty_Olen:
that’s what I want you to do

Misty_Olen:
so, are you saying symantec can’t communicate

Shailendra:
I suggest you please contact them.

Misty_Olen:
?

Misty_Olen:
who are you? Do you work for symantec?

Misty_Olen:
This is technical support,

Misty_Olen:
you work for symantec

Misty_Olen:
you have a boss

Misty_Olen:
tell your boss to tell whoever needs to know that there is a problem with this

Shailendra:
Please click on the URL link provided below and choose the respective product from the drop down list of products:

>Web URL:

http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/enterprise/select_product_contact.html

Misty_Olen:
Thanks, but you just lost at least 10 customers from this one exchange, way to go Shailendra, you should look for a new company to go to work for

I lost a snippet of this conversation where Shailendra told me that I was at the Home Users Support group. I understand I didn’t have a home user product, but nowhere in the waiting time did it talk about connecting to Home User technical support. My problem with this is that if you work for a company then you should be able to send an email to somebody who could take a look at this problem. I wasn’t looking for a solution from Symantec, I already have one from Spector, all I wanted from Symantec was for them to step up and do something about this happening in the future. But it looks like they couldn’t even do that.

I posted earlier about Symantec killing Spector 360. Well, it turns out that I was wrong, and you don’t just have to exclude a couple files, you have to completely reinstall Spector, and configure Symantec to exclude Spector from scans. This alone was enough to make me want to kill Symantec, but there’s more, I went to connect to their online chat and I was number 29 in the queue. That’s like telling me to wait forever. I’ve moved most of my customer’s off of Symantec, but after this I’m ready to persuade the rest to switch also. The thing is that Symantec should know that business’s spend thousands of dollars on their Spector 360 software and thousands on Symantec, so why on earth they would detect legitimate software and disable it is beyond me. Get a clue Symantec, better yet just go ahead and die like the dogs you are!

While in Galveston, Bill and I bought our son Colton a starfish for a souvenir. Colton has this turtle tank with a little Red Ear Slider Turtle, complete with Turtle Dock, Water Heater, and Pump. Well, last night Colton was cleaning his room and decided he wanted to put the starfish in the turtle tank. He came to Bill and I and asked if it was ok, I looked to Bill for an answer. We decided to go for it and it seemed fine until the next day, the tank turned all yellow, we had to fish out the starfish to dry out, then drain the turtle tank, and refill with new water. We left the starfish by the windows so the sun would dry it. There were multiple lessons in this:

1. Don’t put a dead starfish in a tank with living animals
2. Don’t put a starfish in the windows so the sun will dry it, it smells up the entire house, and it smells like trash, so you may spend half the day thinking you should take the trash out, then finally realize it’s the starfish
3. Don’t believe that everything Bill says is right just because he is a genius

Just as focus moved from the Main Frame to the Personal Computer, and from the PC to the Laptop, it will move from the Laptop to the Mobile 2.0 Phone — a device for calls, messaging, emails, browsing, and document creation. And the key will be Mashability!

We offer Kick Ass Branding! Unlike Saatchi & Saatchi, we offer:

Consulting for a Fee.

Projects for a Commission.

Partnering for a Royalty.

Let’s have a conversation about your Brand Design.

Today on Gapingvoid I came across the cartoon above and thought that Hugh Macleod pefectly captured how a lot of companies are still approaching their marketing:

“Hi, I’m a large company, and I’m going to blow $100 million telling you how great I am. I’m so great. I rock. That’s right. And you like me, too. You really do. You like hanging onto my every word. Group Hug!”

Consumers are smarter these days and I believe they can actually feel if the product rocks. I think that people turn the “filters” on to filter out all of the bullshit in advertising. So, if you love your product and are passionate about it and you think it rocks then most likely consumers will follow. On the other hand, if you are not passionate about your product then consumers are going to naturally get that, no matter how much money you spend on telling them it’s great.

Misty has been working on a Website Redesign for TLCmagic, and I’m delighted with it. It has a Fluid UI, enables remote, Mobile support with UltraVNC, and it’s simple and Mashable for easy sharing. Out of about ten versions, it’s my favorite!

Looking in the Mirror this weekend, we focused on what makes us different:

• Play — We listen and look. We ask questions and see. We play!
• Raw Format — We say what we think.
• Transparency
  — Secrecy Is Dead. Tap The Hivemind. Reputation Is Everything.

And that makes us different.