Cisco CEO John Chambers explains how abandoning command-and-control leadership has enabled the company to innovate more quickly, using collaboration and teamwork. I must say that I was impressed by the comments of this CEO. I can verify that the customer support point of moving this department to a front facing web site is factual from the point of a consumer. It was not that long ago that I had a problem with a Cisco phone and after going to Cisco’s website I had the issue resolved in less than twenty minutes. The more than I listened to the questions and answers the more I realized what was being said was true. In my humble opinion it is unfortunate that today’s business feel that they can continue to use the business model that served them well five or maybe ten years ago.
For example, I live in Opelika, AL and when it comes to media providers Charter Communications is the only choice I have unless I make the move to Dish Network or other satellite providers. Up until a couple months ago I was paying $70.00 a month for cable television of which my family and I did not watch a great deal of. I am sure many of you are like myself and find yourself watching only a handful of channels but paying for 100+ changes and 90% of them I did not watch. At the time of this entry Charter is running a special where I can “Save BIG!” at a cost of $64.99 a month but let us not forget about all the taxes, fees, and so on. What worries me is what is the cost after the six month special? At any rate a couple months back when a bill arrived that was just shy of $200.00 I knew I had to do something. Now to be fair I did have the digital plus television package, home telephone which was a $19.99 a month special for twelve months which at that time would increase to $39.99 a month, and high speed internet. If my bill was shy of $200.00 and the telephone fee was about to increase by $20.00 I was ready for change.
The first thing I did was jump over to AntennaWeb and determine what type of antenna would work best for me. I found this site very informative and once I determine the type of antenna that I thought would work best for me I then begun asking others that I knew who had made the switch from a cable provider if they were happy. Not surprising the answer was yes. Now, I am not saying that I am cheap however if you recall earlier I stated that my family and I do not watch a great deal of television so I pulled out and old set of rabbit ears from the closet which has a built in amplifier and I was pleasantly surprised when I was able to pick you eleven channels which included ABC, CBS, NBS, FOX, PBS, and a number of other local channels and the reception was crystal clear. I then promptly picked up the telephone and called Charter to cancel my cable television.
Where else could I save money? Well since the Charter telephone was about to increase to $39.99 I turned to my cell phone provider which is T-Mobile. I picked up the LinkSys @Home router at my local T-Mobile store took it home plugged up my high speed internet connection and I had a dial tone, all at a cost of $9.99 a month. There again was a substantial savings over Charter. I then had my number transferred from Charter to T-Mobile and seven days later the only remaining service remaining from Charter is the high speed internet service of which I am stuck paying their prices.
One more thing. I should have paid closer attention to all the television shows being streamed on the internet. Other that the standard broadcast channels there are a number of sites out there that I think you will enjoy. In fact if the cable television consumers would call their local providers and drop cable television services maybe then these companies would then start to rethink how they do business. I know that they are many of you reading this that agree with me on this subject. So why not do it today! If you have any doubt about what is streamed on the web today just take a look.
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Steven enjoys all things technical, politics, fun and family. Basically life in general.
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