Said Einstein.
No it was Shakespeare I think but then again what does it matter. I guess a lot since I discovered having a short name is always a plus - especially if you tangle with any call center support (you need that to discover how to turn on that bluetooth you just got - not from rinsing with mouthwash but to wirelessly yak with humanity).
Otherwise my friends with certain highly prized first and last names hailing from the south of the Indian peninsula have to budget 15 minutes to establish their identity using the spelling of their names...those converstaions go something like -
Mie name is Ravichandrashekhar Venkatachari Bhatiprollu - R as in Robert, A as in Apple ....you can simply imagine that the person on the other end has asked for a bathroom break after the thrid occurence of the A in the first name and its not even close to being done. Then middle and then last name...is this guy or gal in Phillipines going to last that long? After which comes the whole argument about how the telephone bill has some wrongly billed minutes when the connection did not even go through and uncle Arvind was upset I had hung up on him.
Having wished the curse of customer service through telephones on ourselves, we find that there are many such nuances that work against the desire to seek quick help. I still find that talking to people at times is easier than dealing with voice prompted automatons that some large businesses employ (airlines who do not really want to deal with any human are notorious) where they clearly do not get the emotional aspect of how upset you really are and want a throat to strangle.
Some banks in the US got that message and have switched to live operators manning the switchboard 24 hours a day. And this really leaves a mark in terms of service rendered. Hence that name becomes tops in customer quality. I savor these relations.
So name your poison.
This time for a tech conference in the realm of what else? AI. But applied to an oft neglected space called Knowledge Management. The latter is a community of practice that focuses on analyzing, organizing and making available reams of data that have been gathered over time by various functions within an organization for anyone in the company to utilize. This function or process is ripe for applying AI agents (or agentic AI framework) and optimize for better outcomes. It was informative. More rewarding was getting acquainted with folks who practice this craft as well as learning of what they see in the corporate or public sectors. Since the venue was Washington DC it also afforded me the chance to take evening strolls albeit the weather was trying. With wind chill in the single digit it still is a glamorous place to perambulate through history absorbing what this country has been through since its founding days. I was able to visit the place Lincoln was killed along with his monument t...
I would blame the aggressive (automated) CRM vendors for the mess. Let the buyers (of these) beware- I forget the Latin phrase for this. QED.
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