So the customer service hating Norrmalmstorg branch of Handelsbanken might be an exception to the rule. I just spoke to a bloke in another branch, and with his calm positivity, he simply made my day. He couldn’t really solve the problem, but that is no longer the issue.
It simply never ever goes wrong: when I visit a Handelsbanken office here in Stockholm, I have a horrific experience.
Today, when I asked for some help tracking money that was sent from the US to my Swedish account, I was questioned like a criminal by a bitter and negative lady who probably never smiled in her life. She sighed and went to consult a colleague, and then came back and told me that I have to go to another Handelsbanken branch.
As if they could help me.
The thought of customer service probably is not active unless I walk in with a suit and tie, or have huge amounts of money in my account. And there is not much else I can do - in the US I changed banks several times with similar motivation: they simply do not care.
I can not wait until all these horrible banking customer service representatives are replaced with computers. As they act today, they and all of Handelsbanken are simply a waste.
How I love Wordpress. And themes. And Widgets.
You are looking at my latest love here - the iTheme. Not only is it good looking, it is also cool in a way I expect to see on many corporate websites shortly: there is a level of interactivity in presentation for you, my honored visitor. The Widgets in the right hand column are not only movable, they are closeable. They should be minimizable too, to be fully awesome in my eyes.
I think that is called progressive disclosure. The web strategy team here at work is all over this, and I will be able to disclose some really neat applications of it on high end corporate websites soon.
Until then - move away and close at will right here.
Update: Yeah, so I was a bit quick there … the Widgets here ARE minimizable, but not closeable. Probably a better choice, but I still would like to argue that all three options need to be present for this to be an optimal solution. If you would, for example, subscribe to my Flickr feed via Bloglines you could close that Widget here and have quicker load times.
Each and every spring, I argue that all my friends and colleagues who leave Sweden during summer are nuts. Sweden in general and (in my opinion) Stockholm in particular is the best place to be in the world during nice summer days.
Each and every summer, I realize that I am the one who is nuts. Why? Because I got stuck on my way to work today. I was shielding myself from some of the craziest rain I have ever experienced. So, I took a picture:
So the image shows that there is some rain. However, the image shows something else to a much higher degree: my mobile phone camera sucks. I have a relatively modern HTC with a 2 megapixel camera, and all images are basically worthless when they are enlarged past the minimal screen on my phone. How can this be so difficult to solve?
For some odd reason, it has become important to me that the Swedish language version of Wikipedia remains in the top 10 language versions - you know, that ones listed around the globe up top on the international portal. It is my scientifically unsupported opinion that Sweden is among the top 10 Internet-smart countries in the world, and that simply should be reflected on Wikipedia.
So - among the 14 languages with in excess of 100.000 articles, how does Swedish place today, on the 11th of July 2007?
Pretty well, it would seem! Steadily in 10th place, with an easier step to move up than down. I have added a couple of articles recently, so I am doing my part!
I was considering doing a population/article analysis, but the English language version made that difficult. I wish I could see some trends - I guess I will simply have to take another snapshot in a month or so.
So Nielsen is removing page views as a measuring point for websites, and replacing them with time spent. I am guessing that the number compared will be unique visitors times average time spent, and talk about “exposure time” or something like that when selling ads and talking about the “size” of a website.
Great, right? I think so. But what will happen? Will news sites that divide articles over several pages let them remain on one? Will all web pages on average become taller? No idea - but I have one fearless prediction: the Drudge Report will start letting it’s links open in a pop-up rather than in the same window. You heard it here first.
We have an SEO-company here in Sweden called Jajja Communications. They, along with most companies on the market, were (at least) previously engaged in dubious tactics, which have left a rotten stench over the whole SEO-field in Sweden. It is better now, and there are a few good companies around.
Anyways, Jajja have been pulled in to a debate over use of blog comment spam etc., and I noticed an interesting effect on a Swedish blog portal’s global tag cloud:
The red words are (as far as I understand) quick movers - tags that have had an exponetial growth in occurance - and the three words here are “Jajja”, “Kommentarsspam” (comment spam) and “Länkfarm” (link farm).
Ouch.
In addition, their crisis management in this situation is under all critique. But that is another story entirely.
(Please note that there is still, hacking-attempts and successes all the same, a disclamer bottom right on this page.)
This makes me sick. Abuse of power? Totally ignoring the system he is tasked with upholding? I can not with words describe the anger and dissapointment I feel. If this happened anywhere else in the world, there would be absolute uproar, and the fact that this has not yet happened in the US is probably a signal: we are not suprised.
Bush really must go.
I just noticed that if you have an @gmail.com email address, you also have an @googlemail.com address. Pretty cool, huh? Good alias to create rules with, perhaps?
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