While I'm Talking about Excellent Customer Experiences...

Just wanted to share this message from Creative Screenwriting magazine in response to my email.

I sent this:

Hi there-

I am writing to inquire about the status of this order.

I placed it over a month ago and have not received it yet. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

-RT

They responded with this:

Hi Robert,

I am very sorry about the late delivery. You have every reason to be
unhappy. So do we. We outsourced DVD fulfillment to a company called
OWD. They failed to see 140+ orders in early December, and blamed
everyone in sight but themselves. We have fired them and are
fulfilling these orders ourselves.

If you do not cancel your order, you will receive (write me if you
don't) a coupon good for $12.97 off another DVD order or off a
subscription to Creative Screenwriting Magazine -- effectively a DVD
for delivery cost or half price on the magazine.

We're trying to get all the DVD's shipped out this week, we've already
begun shipping DVD's out as of Friday.

Take care,
CS

***

This shows a couple of things:

1) They can write well.
2) They know their customers are mostly writers, a notoriously crabby lot, and can disarm them with not only brevity and charm, but with a discount.
3) If they don't care about you, they are really good at hiding it.

What I'll Be Doing on the Flight Home

My job is one that requires me to be on airplanes a lot.

Airplanes can be exciting, but after a certain point, they become like bus trips, only shorter and without the crazies.

I usually watch movies on my laptop when I'm on the plane, but this week I'm going to try the Simply Scripts One Week Challenge in one airplane trip.

http://www.simplyscripts.com/2007/07/28/the-one-week-challenge-there-and-genre-are/

The rules are simple - they give you a genre (in this case, Thriller) and a setting (in this case, an old house boat) and give you a week to submit a 15-page or less script.

Who knows what will happen next? Maybe I will come up with a sequel to Haunted Boat.

Where I will Be This Saturday

Hello all. You have registered for La Reunion Workshop at the MAC!

Please be there at 10:45 AM to check in and get a good seat. The
workshop will last until 5 PM. Presenters are professionals in their
field and a wonderful cross-pollination of ideas and techniques will be
presented between scriptwriting for comic books, film, and plays.

Lunch will be provided by Tin Star, and I have ordered vegetarian,
chicken, and beef options as well as chips and salsa.

After the workshop, there will be an evening get-together at the
fabulous Belmont Hotel located in Oak Cliff. Directions to the Belmont
will be available in the workshop program. We will have poolside
access and a gorgeous view of downtown Dallas to reflect on the day
and have post-workshop conversation. This will be from 7 PM to 9:30
PM.

Please don't hesitate to let David Hopkins or me know if you have any
questions about the workshop or post workshop reception. We look
forward to meeting you all and having a great time on Saturday.

sarah jane semrad
executive director
www.LaReunionTX.org

Podcasts I Like: Professional Podcasts

Part of the entire appeal of podcasting is that it is relatively cheap to become a home audio producer. Plus there is the whole community aspect to it – you don’t know who your next-door neighbors are, but there are about 30 or so podcasters who regularly check in with you.

This is all nice, but a quick glance at the iTunes Top Ten Podcasts shows you that professionally produced podcasts dominate the market. Some of them are existing radio shows being distributed on the internet, and some of them are from existing media empires branching out into the world of podcasting. Either way, they set the standard for what podcasts should aspire to.

So I decided to list out all of my favorite podcasts created by major media outlet. I’m putting This American Life and all of the news podcasts (even the fake news podcast from The Onion) I listen to are in a little penalty box. Seriously, they do not need me to blog about them to get more listeners.

1. Slate / Slate Explainer – I never read Slate Magazine before they started doing podcasts. (And, to be honest, the main reason I first subscribed to the podcast was because Slate has a column about neat podcasts to listen to.) Every day, the podcast presents either an article reading or discussion about a news item. And on Fridays, they have a political gabfest.

2. On the Media – My second favorite NPR program (next to This American Life). It is a media program about the media. Sounds like a potential for a navel-gazing mess, doesn’t it? But it is not, it is one of the most insightful programs about what it is like to live a mediated existence.

3. Left, Right, and Center – Every Friday, I get a one-two punch of this political talk show and the Slate Political Gabfest. Does it make me smarter? No. Does it make me understand politics more? Not really. Does it make me keenly aware how most pundits are more personality then principle? You betcha. You can also make a drinking game out of how many times there are screaming talking heads on a show that claims to be an antidote to screaming talking heads.

4. Creative Screenwriting – If you’ve ever aspired to be a screenwriter, this is the podcast to listen to. Basically, it is a one-on-one conversation with a screenwriter about a completed film. One of my favorite ones is the interview with Zac Penn discussing the script to X3: The Last Stand. Basically, he says that screenwriters on big-budget action films wind up being the logic police more than anything else. The director thinks it would be cool if such-and-such character fought such-and-such character so it is the screenwriter’s job to provide the motivation in a way that makes sense. Truly fascinating.

5. Fanboy Radio – It is so easy to love comics when you are listening to people who love comics.