Rick Howard

In honor of tax day, I am gonna steal todays entry in my Freakonomics calendar.

In 1987 the IRS change one simple rule: Instead of merely listing the name of each dependent child in order to get a deduction, tax filers were now required to provide a Social Security number for each child. On April 15 of that year, seven million American children suddenly vanished from the tax rolls.

It’s amazing how many people break the law if they think they wont be caught. If you think that is interesting, you should read the Freakonomics book.

Who has the best insurance commercials?

I think the answer to that is pretty easy, everyone loves Geico’s commercials. From the cavemen, celebrity endorsements, nostalgic characters to the almighty gecko himself. There is no shortage of creativity from their ad agency.

Recently, I was in a car accident, my insurance company who I won’t mention but says they take a stand. They do take a stand for themselves. I had nothing but issues with them during the process. They wanted me to take a lower price for my car, pay for my rental and I wasn’t even at fault. I have since switched to Geico, they were the other guys company.

They called and kept contact with me, paid for my rental in full, sent me a check for the car and followed up to make sure I was receiving the right information. This is why people switch to Geico. They pull you in with their commercials and follow it up with great customer service.

They realize the importance of great customer service as opposed to just having an image. An important lesson for all businesses.

You may be flashy and offering a great service, but if people can’t use it, then what purpose does it serve. If no one is going to offer guidance then why should your customers refer you or come back to you.

So the Question is “What are you doing to elevate the image of your company?”

* note 1 - By switching to Geico I saved $220.
* note 2 - Geico’s greatness is only the opinion of this guy. ARCdesign does not promote or endorse them as the auto insurance company of choice.

Our internet has been spotty since Friday, pings to our ip are ranging from 2ms - 4ms with spikes of 76ms-120ms. Not good.

The in office assumption is that our router is going on the fritz or one of the cable or connectors is bad.

An employee from our cable company showed up and informed us that it was due to the new billing system they are implementing.

Who would have thought?

Is this relative to the Chaos Theory?

Although some may say Foxnews is not a reliable source, they have an interesting article on swearing.

More specifically swearing in the workplace.

It is said to relieve stress, which I could understand. Holding in any high-powered feelings such as Anger, Depression or Bliss could cause one to go mad. If the best way for you to deal with Anger is to swear, I say have at it. Just make sure you aren’t going to offend those around you.

Otherwise, your stress relief may turn into additional stress for someone else.

Can your readers contact you?

I read a great blog post this morning at http://www.goldbusinesstips.com/keep-customers-happy-100-of-the-time

It is an article informing small design businesses that lying is important to keeping your customers happy. Sounds like it would be a bad idea, but it actually provides valid points about under selling and over promising.

Unfortunately, one of the paragraphs must have been hurried because it has quite a few grammatical errors. I was going to contact them about it privately, but no email address or contact link is provided.

One key part of a blog is having a way for readers to contact you. It creates a small sense of intimacy and can promote return visits.

So go look at your blog and make sure you aren’t hiding behind your words without allowing visitors to reply.

Happy 4th of July!

This day was fought for and is still being fought for.

For today, throw politics out the window and remember we are all in this together.

Let Freedom Ring.

We at ARC have constantly approaching deadlines and new deadlines coming in all the time. This can cause stressful situations for all involved.

Luckily, lifehacker linked up a solution to 20 ways to prevent stress.

I’m feeling better already.

RIP Don Herbert, 89

If you don’t know who Mr. Wizard is, buy some DVDs!

Internet Privacy is an Oxymoron.

The internet itself is a public stomping ground. So why are people surprised when they don’t get hired or even get fired for things they say or do on the internet.

Read this story about a Man fired, cause: Myspace message. When you get arrested everything you say CAN and WILL be used against you. The same applies to a job. If you do things on job time or outside that COULD affect your employer or their business, It WILL be used against you.

In Malaysia, government employees are now being watched. This is also legal in the US. 77 % of American companies monitor their employees email, according to PC Magazine. In fact, Forbes Magazine even sets standards for companies to follow to legally spy on their employees.

Remember kids, its not just your history or cache file that can get you in trouble, there are numerous programs for your employer to use and of course the best private investigator available, Google.

We here at ARC design use Google for our start pages. In addition to the desktop I use, I also have a laptop at hand.

On my laptop, I receive my email that isn’t necessarily work related, but nonetheless needs to be read. One thing I receive is ADage.com’s newsletter. It had a link to it that I wanted to message to my coworkers, but I did not want to have to open Aol IM just to send one URL, instead I pasted the URL to my Google Start Page’s Notepad and went back to my “work” computer and copy and pasted into my already open AOL IM.

Although not inventive, still a time saver and useful for when you get that Youtube video you just can’t watch at work.

As for the URL in question, it is an article on the Two-headed client. An interesting read for anyone in any business.