Toni Schneider – wordpress is making the world a smaller place

I have just seen an interview with Toni Schneider on WallStrip. He is the CEO of Automattic. He doesn’t really do labels so his colleagues affectionately call him the “band leader”.

If you get time then check out the interview, you may need to bear with it whilst it buffers. Listening to him put me very much in mind of our own Customer Street Technical Director, Stuart Forrest. The longer I work within this industry the more people I am coming across like both Toni and Stuart.

These guys, and many more besides, never seem phased by anything, they are approachable, passionate about what they do and most of all are natural. Nothing is for show, they are who they are and a big part of why they do what they do is because they feel they can make a difference that will shape peoples lives for the better.When you listen to Toni he is very frank and open about the things he’s asked in the interview and not full of his own self importance like many CEOs in other industries.

At the end of the day the public are the ones who ultimately decide how good they are and they know that the public can on occasions be very fickle so they take nothing for granted. I would like to think that if you read Stuarts own blog you can get an insight into the man and the passion behind Customer Street.

UFindUs training branches out

When the UFindUs brand was joined by the recently formed Customer Street directories, Smile Local and More UK the training department undertook a major oppertation in rollingout a brand new product that has already made serious impact in the online directory market.

You can follow just how training is improtant to our business  at our training blog, www.customerstreettraining.wordpress.com where James Wright, one of the training managers will undertake to disect the ins’ and outs of training inthe 21st century.

James will also be looking to share with you some of his thoughts on how he rolls out his training on product knowledge accross the brands and the difference that he sees in our new intake as they progress from “newbie” to fully fledged sales person.

Getting under our skin.

I have made an executive decision (just don’t tell the executives!) that everyone who reads my blogs should really get to know those people who make UFindUs tick. Regular readers of my blogs will know that this isn’t exactly a new thing, I have been round the different UFindUs offices and have, on occasions, twisted a few arms so that I could get staff at all levels to tell me (and of course that includes you too) a bit about their time with the company.  

I think that the time is right to move a step further on and every now and then I will do a staff profile, asking questions that help to show who the person really is rather than having it all work related. Those executives that are now reading this will also be subjected to having a spotlight shine in their eyes whilst they are asked relentless questions about their favorite food, holiday destination or football team. Our technical director Stuart Forrest already has his own blog so you can catch up on his own perspective there, but it will still be interesting to get to cover off a few things that haven’t been mentioned yet. What’s even scarier is that I will try to get some pictures of them on their profiles. I guess that I too may even have to succumb to my own questioning before anyone says anything.

Graham Armstrong – UFindUs Ltd