Archive for October, 2007

October 31, 2007 | No Comments | Leave One of Your Own

I have a fascination with religion that stems from my days in Catholic school. I love looking at the architecture of churches, learning about saints, and even investigating some of the scandals of the church. When I visited London a few years ago, I visited more churches and bought more religious souvenirs than you can imagine!

ADEL-0001The city of Adelaide would be the perfect vacation destination for me, because it is know as the City of Churches. Many hotels in Adelaide are only a short distance from the all of the sites and the five star Adelaide hotels are sure to make any vacation comfortable.

The city of Adelaide is a perfect destination, because of it’s close proximity to other major Australian cities. It’s easy to find a Brisbane accommodation when the cities are a mere 2.5 hours apart by air. Sydney is less than 2 hours away, and Melbourne is around 1 hour, so getting around is extremely easy.


filed under Oldie Moldies
October 31, 2007 | No Comments | Leave One of Your Own

Working on Catharine’s sweater and spending a lot of time alone. Singapore today. Took tour. Local talent for evening show. Had Lion Dance to greet us today. Went to a gem factory on tour and Charlie bought me a star ruby. It’s pretty.

star ruby 4I think it’s very sweet that Grandpa Charlie bought her a star ruby. Maybe to make up for all the alone time? How can someone be spending so much time alone when they are sharing a cabin with someone else for three months?

Anyway, star rubies are very pretty, I wonder if she ever made a piece of jewelry with it.


filed under Oldie Moldies
October 30, 2007 | No Comments | Leave One of Your Own

Anything “proactive” has to be good, right? It means taking steps to solve a problem before it starts, having the answers before someone asks, setting up a security net to protect against the unforeseeable. ProActive Software does all of that by solving workflow and communication needs, thus increasing efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, and ultimately, your company’s body line.

ProWorkFlow is a completely web based, project task and time management program meant for small to medium businesses, and ProWorkFlow Enterprise is a hierarchal web based project task and time management program meant for corporations.

Two versions for growing customers…very proactive!

There is nothing like walking out of a shop, satisfied with your purchase, product in hand knowing that you have a face behind the sale.

The Internet in some ways has taken that assurance away from the customer and with the masses of choice only a mouse click away the thought of purchasing a product or service online can be quite daunting.

However, the software as a service (SaaS) industry in New Zealand is fast moving from futuristic idea to current day reality and companies offering SaaS are looking for ways to maintain the personal service which has been a big part of historical software sales.
ProActive Software has found great and personal service to be a key part in their success on the global stage.

CEO Julian Stone says customers have said they’re surprised to get such personal service when dealing with ProActive.

He says “Don’t make sales, build relationships. This is a necessary part of the SaaS business model. Look after your customers as they are the foundation of the business. It’s important to keep customers happy month after month to retain their business.”

Customers of their core product www.proworkflow.com, have told Stone that their dealings with people at other software companies, often based in the US, have been rude, lacked callbacks, with slow email responses, making many customers wary of using SaaS where they had little ability to have personal contact with their supplier.

However, Stone says when customers come across a company with good service, they tell people.

Stone has attributed ProActive’s excellent response time with sales and support enquiries to their customers satisfaction. When customers build their business on our servers and use our code they must know we will be there if something needs attention.

An average enquiry for ProActive, from point of contact, to response is typically 15-60 minutes, where most of ProActive’s customers had said average response times for other software companies was usually measured in days, not minutes or hours.

“If you want to make a sale, sell a good product. If you want to grow a business, sell good service. We’ve found that most referral sales now come in as a result of ProActive Software’s service,” Stone says.

As Stone says “ProActive have built their SaaS company they have always kept service as a top priority, knowing their focus would continually be tested and be drawn onto product development and administration.

ProActive Software knows it is extremely important to keep the level of service constant and high “Customers don’t care that we have ten times as many customer to look after, they don’t care we are on someone else’s problem, they want the high service level maintained – so as we grow we automate, simplify, and when necessary bring in additional resource a bit before it is really needed. It takes a while to build a reputation of not letting down customers, it does not take anywhere near as long to lose it,” Stone Says


filed under Oldie Moldies

I was reading the Indy Star this morning when I noticed that their Data Central featured Indiana school suspension rates. I couldn’t help but look up my school district

Lake Prairie Elementary School – 7
Lowell Middle School – 154
Lowell Senior High School – 346
Oak Hill Elementary School – 17
Three Creeks Elementary School – 23

Between the three elementary schools, 47 kids under the age of 10 were suspended! When I looked at the details 1 suspension was for alcohol and the majority of the others were for battery!

My mind is made up and my kids are going to private school. A little discipline goes a long way!


filed under Oldie Moldies
October 30, 2007 | No Comments | Leave One of Your Own

Mar. 9

The only thing that makes Sunday any different is we have eggs for breakfast. Spent most of the day in the cabin. New magician pretty good. Later, movie.

Same shit, different day. Isn’t that the truth?

Mar. 10

Port lecture on Singapore. Went to the theater at sea. Very good play. Well acted. Peter Banks in the movie we saw later

I wish she would give the names of the plays and movies she’s seen! I would know what to add or remove from my Netflix queue if she did!


filed under Ciao Baby