Comments on: What Can We Learn from the Skype Outage?

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 23:10:01 +0000

Thanks Valerie!
I think saying I am sorry is something that is important to do well in both personal and business life. I don’t hesitate to apologize, ever, even if I am not 100% sure I am at fault.
Neil

By: Valeria Maltoni

Valeria Maltoni — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 01:12:38 +0000

Neil,
Welcome to the conversation. Saying “I’m sorry” has become common practice among businesses and professionals. And that is good. Yet, a distinction needs to be made on taking full responsibility, as you put it so well.

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 18:15:45 +0000

Elaine,
I believe you are exactly right on how they should have handled it.
On the apologizing for emotions, I believe that is what one does when one believes that the person feeling the emotions is sort of at fault.
“I am sorry you were angry at what I said,” sort of implies that what I said was not a problem but your reaction to it was the real problem. It is not taking responsibility.

By: Valeria Maltoni

Valeria Maltoni — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 01:19:54 +0000

Elaine:
I am grateful that you would take the conversation to the simple gestures of face to face. Talk will be the subject of my post tomorrow at Conversation Agent.
Which brings me back to how opening up the Skype blog to have the conversation there would have benefited the company even more.

By: Elaine Fogel

Elaine Fogel — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 00:44:08 +0000

I also lived through that big August blackout when the eastern grid went down. It’s habitual to enter a room and turn on the light. I know what you mean, Mona. I kept turning things on, forgetting it wasn’t working.
I felt helpless without a computer (and air conditioning). But, in the end, we sat outside with neighbors, sipping wine, eating the ice cream before it melted, and talking. It was a lovely evening that first night without power. Sometimes a jolt like that awakens us to benefits of communicating directly with real people.

By: Valeria Maltoni

Valeria Maltoni — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 18:43:46 +0000

Hi Mona:
I talked to friends who were stuck at the office in NYC blackout. Yes, we have come to rely heavily on technology and may not have made enough alternate plans.
Your example is so good! I can see myself doing the same. In fact, last July our power went off after a big storm and we lived 4 days without it. Each day I checked to see if the refrigerator was working again

By: Mona Piontkowski, Irvine, CA

Mona Piontkowski, Irvine, CA — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 18:24:21 +0000

I think what we can learn from the outage is that we’ve come to take technology for granted. We assume everything will work as planned and when it doesn’t, as it often will, we are in a state of disbelief. Having lived through the great NYC blackout I can’t tell you how many times I tried the light switch only to be surprised each time that it didn’t work.
I guess we should all be good scouts and be prepared – a backup system couldn’t hurt could it?

By: Valeria Maltoni

Valeria Maltoni — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 18:10:12 +0000

Hi Elaine,
I really do appreciate your comment as I was on the same boat as you. I have kept a land line even though I rarely use it with the cell and Skype ready to go.
As I shared in the post, the outage itself was a rarity for a service that has been operating well for years. And yes, some small businesses were impacted because they came to rely solely on that tool.
The learning piece to me was the communications via their blog, which left a lot of room for interpretation and speculation.

By: Elaine Fogel

Elaine Fogel — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:57:10 +0000

Hi, Valeria. I’m a Skype fan but was unaware of the outage until I read about it online. Coincidentally, I didn’t need to place any calls for those two days.
I think the service is wonderful, especially the low cost of making Skype to landline calls. The quality isn’t quite the same as fibre optics, but for the money, a couple of days without it isn’t the end of the world. If people need to communicate for important reasons, there’s always the old-fashioned telephone.