Is Toyota Asleep at the Wheel?

I can’t understand why I’m still seeing Toyota ads for Camrys and other recalled vehicles if the company has advised dealers to STOP selling the cars. As a result of the massive accelerator problem affecting Toyota’s biggest sellers, including some models of Camry, Corolla, Highlander, RAV4, Avalon, Tundra, Sequoia, and Matrix, the company is risking losing the confidence of car owners and car buyers.

On January 21, Toyota issued a safety recall for 2.3 million vehicles that could be affected by sticking accelerator pedals, which was in addition to the earlier (2009) recall of some Toyota and Lexus models for possible floor mat and accelerator “entrapment” problems which could cause accelerators to become stuck. This week, on January 26, Toyota actually suspended sales of all vehicles that could have accelerator-sticking problems. In addition to suspending sales, Toyota has stopped production of the affected vehicles.  The enormity of stopping sales and production (along with the potential loss of revenue) of this many models is unprecedented in the automobile industry.

I understand that media commitments are made WAY in advance; however, Toyota and its dealers around the country should have a disaster or emergency plan in place. They need to pull the spots. Continuing to run spots advertising cars that dealers can’t sell makes them look out of touch, insensitive, and slow to respond.

Toyota has not yet offered either dealers or car-owners a resolution for the problem – we’ll wait for a letter in the mail – but I am confident that this huge public relations catastrophe means that Toyota was not prepared to deal with the problem and probably hoped it would blow over.

As the owner of a 2007 Camry Hybrid, one of the affected vehicles, I am continuing to drive it, I’ve been pleased with my car, and I have confidence that Toyota will offer a solution to solve this accelerator safety problem. However, Toyota, please stop advertising. Your agency and local agencies need to get on the phone and pull the spots. Yes, it will mean a loss of money, but it’s better than promoting cars you can’t sell.

When I worked in radio, we all knew that if or when there was an airline crash, that any scheduled advertising for airlines would be immediately pulled from the schedule. Toyota may not have this kind of policy in place but they need to get some sort of emergency media plan now. Change the existing ads to apology ads or a letter to loyal Toyota customers. Apologizing and taking responsibility for your failures goes a long way to creating good will.

Toyota, wake up and smell the mess of miso soup. You’re paying big bucks for advertising and it’s currently being wasted.

Ode to IT Friends

There are so many benefits to working from home, including avoiding rush hour traffic, putting on sweats at 7am and staying in them all day, going to the grocery store in the middle of the day, and walking around neighborhood lakes on a beautiful afternoon.

However, I miss my IT support. I miss being able to call Mike, Ken, or Steve to rescue me when a program isn’t responding, or my computer freezes, or I can’t network to the right printer. These are the true heroes of any office. You may have an important presentation or report or proposal to write and print out, but you won’t do it successfully unless you and your computer are in perfect harmony. Whether you are in creative, finance, marketing, production, or human resources, your computer is your lifeline, your link to the outside world and within your company.

We are so accustomed to sending a meeting reminder, checking for updates on a project, sending a weekly status report or submitting expense reports online, on our computers, at the comfort of our desks. But when things aren’t working properly (or working at all) it feels frustrating and I feel helpless.

I am not a tech geek (I mean that in the most loving and respectful sense), so I try my best to muddle through. I read the online help FAQs. I call the customer service number when necessary. I search Google for similar situations and solutions. And very occasionally, and many hours later, I’m successful.

More often, though, I feel like a complete moron.

I have been reminded of my admiration for all those IT and tech support gurus I’ve worked with over the years as I’ve switched my phone and Internet service from Verizon to Comcast recently. It’s time to save money and look at bundled packages…plus the fact that any time it rained, the Verizon phone service decided not to work. People couldn’t call us and we couldn’t call out. (I have been completely flummoxed at how telephones in the year 2010 – 133 years after the telephone was invented – would not work properly day to day. After all, I live in the suburbs of Washington, not in a remote, mountainous region of the world.)

So, out with Verizon and in with Comcast (well, not completely, so far). The Internet stopped working after a few days, my wireless router has yet to arrive (11 days after ordering it from Comcast), the telephone has an odd beep (as though the line is bugged), and the tech person at Comcast, although trying to be very helpful, didn’t know anything about Macs. So 11 days after all my communication problems should have been solved (according to my perhaps too high expectations), I am still not technically in the 21^st century. At least Verizon had dedicated Mac specialists to walk me through DSL and connectivity issues – they get an A for tech support!

I currently have one little Ethernet cord in my unfinished basement, where the Comcast internet connection lives, through which I can connect with the outside world while sitting in a too-small child’s chair at a makeshift desktop. It’s not comfortable and it’s not what I expect but at least the Comcast Internet works (currently). Perhaps the wireless router is on the way; I remain hopeful. Yes, I bought one anyway but Comcast won’t provide tech support for anything except their own equipment.

And don’t even get me started on my new printer issues and its inability to print when I hit the print key nor to have any help topic related to the error message I receive.

I have longed for my own IT Mac guy to wander up to my door and know exactly what to do…I have dreams that once again we’ll be able to network all of the laptops and printers in my home and that the wireless will work with blazing speed from any room. To all the tech support people I know and have been fortunate to work with over the years, I salute you. You are my heroes.

Buzzwords in Business

Buzzwords I hope to never hear again.

There are a zillion terms used in business that are words or phrases that have become popular beyond their original intended use. People adapt them when they wish to emulate someone they admire or appear as intelligent as the company CEO. Or they simply become easy terms to use when one can’t put together an intelligent, well thought-through sentence. An example, “at the end of the day.”  It simply means in conclusion or when it’s all over and completed, what is relevant. But it’s these phrases that start to drive me crazy. When I hear meaningless jargon bandied about in conversation, presentations, reports, meetings, or when someone is trying to make a point, I tend to take the speaker less seriously.

Many of these words seem to have become the “you know” phrase of the 2000s: filler words when someone can’t think of the specific word they wish to say. Or a colleague wants to sound “in the know” or contemporary. Or they are words that get thrown out at professional conferences or in advertising so they are latched onto by large groups of people.  They are the words that make me cringe to hear.

Now, I’m seeing some of these words appearing in job postings. It makes me wonder if the HR person or hiring manager who wrote the particular job announcement even understands what he or she is saying (often I certainly don’t).

Can we perhaps consider these some of the worst words or phrases of the past decade, never to be brought up again?  I loathe these sayings. And I hope you never catch me saying them.

Jargon of the past decade:

•       Heavy lifting
•       My plate is full
•       Multitasking
•       Verticals
•       No brainer
•       Synergy
•       Facetime
•       Leverage
•      In the weeds
•       Under the bus
•       Thinking outside the box
•       Stand up meeting
•       Baked into
•       It’s on my radar (or often, it’s on my radar screen)
•       At the end of the day
•       Tee it up

 This is by no means a comprehensive list. These are simply the words that I find most annoying. What are your pet peeve expressions from the 2000s? 

Multitasking: you've got to be kidding

Multitasking – what?

I concluded sometime in the last decade, oh so long ago, that I was not a multi-tasker. That seemed to be the catchphrase of the decade. If you were a multi-talented, efficient, and productive employee, then you were certainly a multitasker. The ideal employee was a multitasker. The person you wanted to hire could certainly multitask. Your boss was likely a multitasker and included that skill in your goals. You were held to the standard that “everyone” who is getting a good performance review, or is a likely candidate for promotion, or takes credit for the project’s success is a multitasker

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, multitasker is defined as: 1) the concurrent performance of several jobs by a computer, or 2) the performance of multiple tasks at one time.

I tried doing multiple things at the same time: writing a presentation, reading emails, taking a phone call, and setting up a meeting all at the same time. Would I forget what I was doing? Of course. Would I get frustrated that I would forget the point of the phone call and what I needed to accomplish? You bet. Would it take me longer to do everything because I would have to repeat what I should have been doing? Yes, yes, yes. So, of course, I would have to get up, get coffee, chat with a peer, then re-focus to resume my priority project.

Today at home, I was again checking email, working on a cover letter, newspaper nearby, chatting with a friend on the phone, scooting to get closer to the fireplace…and ignoring the large mug of coffee on the ottoman. Crash and splash. What was I thinking?

This is how we function these days. Read the newspaper, watch/listen to Good Morning America or NPR, write the grocery shopping list, throw the laundry into the dryer, pour more coffee, ask daughter for the third time about plans for the evening, check bank balance online, and re-read the newspaper article that didn’t quite register the first time.

But does anyone really do multiple things simultaneously and well? Too many choices, too much information, and an expectation that everything should happen now. It’s our culture to expect that if someone sends me an email, I should respond immediately (even if I’m also on the phone). Or if someone calls needing a piece of information, I should drop everything to find the document or phone number.

I must admit that I need more focus and am incorporating this into my 2010 goals. I will keep my mind on the task at hand and NOT on what I’m not doing. It’s easier said than done. I’m interested in a lot of things: reading, the latest news, travel podcasts, catching up on industry e-newsletters, chatting with friends, flipping through a design magazine, my children, and finding a job.

According to researchers at Stanford University, “people who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time.” [http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/august24/multitask-research-study-082409.html].

So, I will work on my focus, find the techniques that work for me, and will share how effective I’m able to be. I’m admitting now that I may not be available when you call or email…I may be working on something else.