A member of a mom’s blog my wife subscribes to recently went to the new Earl’s in our little city’s mall (which is surrounded by housing that has lots of children around by the way).
To her surprise they had no high chairs and had no intention of getting any; an interesting business move in an area that is primarily families and very suburban, not to mention being located in a mall…

When the mom that tried to go to Earl’s wrote in to Earl’s to ask why there was no high chairs, this is the reply she got:

“Dear Christine,
Thank you for your letter regarding our lack of high chairs at Earls. I am very sorry that, having chosen us so often in the past for special evenings with your family and friends, we have disappointed you in this way. We appreciate all customer feedback and make every attempt to respond to what our customers want from us. On the subject of highchairs, the subject appears to be a sensitive one as we have received mixed views from our customers.
Please understand that we love children and pride ourselves on the great number of children and families that frequent our restaurants – you are always welcome. However, in the urban areas, we also attract a great number of professional and business clients as well as those out for a special occasion and, therefore, we have received both opinions regarding highchairs. In the final analysis, we do our best to respond to the community in which we are situated. We have two sets of customers who have exa ctly opposing demands for our business. No matter which position we take, one group of customers is going to stop visiting us. There is no compromise; there is no way we can keep everyone happy.
I would like to thank you for your honest feedback. I would also appreciate your understanding. Currently, we try to keep the majority of customers happy. In suburban locations, where there are mostly families, we have highchairs. In urban locations, the majority of our customers are adults without families so we do not have highchairs.
Please understand, we are not trying to discriminate against you. Rather, we are trying to maximize our sales opportunities according to the neighbourhood we serve.
I know this may not be the response you are looking for, but I hope you can understand that we have have an obligation to our urban customers and our shareholders to make the best decision for each business.
All comments are read by our management team and by the President of Earls, Stan Fuller. Thank you for your understanding and for taking the time to make your voice heard on the subject.
Sincerely,
Melissa Pulsifer
Earls Restaurants Ltd. “

Maybe Earl’s doesn’t like the children of Burlington, maybe they just want 20 somethings in their restaurant. In any case I  won’t be visiting Earl’s again no matter who I’m with or whatever City I’m in.

There are over 40 comments on that article many are stories larger than the blog post it’s self. The page has become a place for people that are dissatisfied with this company (and some that think people who have been duped are somehow getting what they deserve) to share their feelings and stories. The good news is some of the comments are from people like me that realized what this company was about and had the contract voided before they were unwittingly stuck with insane energy prices. The power of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and social media (blogs) has helped many people (over 500 a month to that article alone) make informed decisions. (though somewhat one sided, my side)

It doesn’t take a web developer to do any of the stuff I describe above, it’s really quite simple. Note: it doesn’t have to be a complaint, happy news in my opinion is better reading…but hey, we have to write what we know right? Just happens when I complain it’s on subjects people are interested in…odd…

How can you make your voice heard?

1. A really easy place to start is with a free wordpress blog, write your articles use all the tags and categories they provide you with. This site uses wordpress though it’s not the free hosted version linked above.

2. Make sure your article (especially the title) contains the words you think people will use to search for your topic, repeat key words (in context, make it readable or people won’t read it).

3. Spread the word, post your blog post to Twitter, Facebook, email it to your friends with a little blurb about what the article says (if they are interested they will read it, if not they can delete it).

4. Wait, it takes time for content to show up in the rankings.

Increasingly the internet is being used by people to voice their opinions about subjects that are of interest to them, if there are people with the same interests, and your content is relevant  your voice can be heard. These instructions are pretty basic, there is a lot more you can do to get your message out there. If you have questions on how you can get your voice heard I’d be happy to help.

I’ve been messing around with Ruby on Rails of all things (insert geek jabs here) and have decided to do a setup with Apache/MySQL/Rails(Passenger). Basically a lot of geek talk meaning I’ve been spending the week in a command line console typing things like:

sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386" gem install mysql -- \
  --with-mysql-dir=/usr/local/mysql --with-mysql-lib=/usr/local/mysql/lib \
  --with-mysql-include=/usr/local/mysql/include

Exciting, no? Well in any case…I needed to download a 60MB package from http://www.mysql.com, and I wanted to see how fast the connection really was so I downloaded it on the train. Much to my surprise (and delight) the speed was increadibly fast considering I am connecting to my phone via bluetooth, then over a cellular network and then out to the internet. What kind of speeds did I get? well take a look for yourself:

183KB/Sec…That’s almost as fast as my cable connection at home. I have been finding that download speeds average between 70KB/Sec and 183KB/sec (this is the highest I have seen so far). What does that mean you may (or may not) ask?

a) I better make sure I stay under my 6GB data limit or I’m going to pay a #$#@ load of data charges for overages

b) the iPhone although amazing IMO still can’t do everything my laptop can for now, until now my laptop lacked mobile internet…

c) more games on the go, start work earlier, less need to work at home.

d) I am officially the biggest nerd on the train

e) I can laugh at Scott Kosman and his HTC Nokia phone in Amsterdam and lack of iPhone and lack of tethering.

This is the menu, even if you dine in

Okay so I just went to this new restaurant at King St. and Portland in Toronto. Wow Chicken it’s called. It’s right in between our favorite restaurants here (Craft Burger (awesome), and the sandwich place I don’t know the name of). I have to say the restaurant fell very short of my expectations for a $18 rotisserie combo meal. Here is what I have to say about Wow Rotisserie Chicken:

Wow, if you have chalk boards inside, write something on them. Draw a happy face, whatever.

Wow, the person working the cash should know the menu and how to enter it.

Wow, 10 Billion little bugs inside, okay that’s not the restaurants fault maybe they are everywhere, but hey, while I’m at it.

Wow, it shouldn’t take 30 minutes to get me my food for takeout. As someone with me said “It’s rotisserie, it shouldn’t be made to order.”

Wow, get my order right:

- I ordered a Chicken Breast Deluxe Combo, got a chiken leg,
- I ordered an extra sauce, got only one.
- Menu says Deluxe Combo is Mousse Desert with berries, got the brownie from the other combo

Wow, the stuffed potato, it tasted okay even if it was just potato sour cream and pepper inside.

Wow, the chicken melt someone else ordered, that cheese, maybe next time MELT it.

Wow, can’t say it was even close to tasty.

Wow, can’t say I’ll be going back ever.

Wow, you are nuts if you waste your money there.

I mean ge’ez I was just out mowing the lawn for the second time the other day.