Spira Blog

Incorporating Customer Feedback

If you are a customer of Spira, you may have noticed that recently we have started ramping up our marketing efforts to formalize our customer feedback process with our software.  Being a small software company (compared to say, Microsoft®) it has been economically difficult for Spira to commit to a full time marketing resource and as a result some of our efforts in the customer feedback process have been hit and miss.  Additionally, there always seemed to be so much stuff to do besides marketing that maintaining a strong marketing effort becomes challenging when everyone in the company is focused on successfully delivering projects.

A good example of course, is this blog.  Marketing gurus are continually remind those of us in marketing roles that we should be pumping out content, content, content in our blogs to maximize our SEO ratings.  “10 best ways to do this”, “7 tried and true tip to do that”, “5 top secrets of industry professionals that you need to know.”  Must have this and that.  You know and get the idea. 

Providing good and meaningful content can be a challenge.  You can even pay companies to populate your blog content for you.  But is that really what your blog should be about?  I have been fielding calls lately from these companies, who I think have been trolling the Google® blog content rankings and seeing who is at or close to the bottom, and selling them on the merits of their service.  Personally, I hate it when I read too much regurgitated material, when what I am searching for is unique, insightful and funny content.  But after the coolness factor of starting a blog wears off, keeping it current is a lot tougher than you think.

Another example of our sporadic marketing efforts has occured with listening to and customer feedback in a consistent and formalized fashion.   If we were actively engaged in a project with you, then we were likely getting feedback from you along the course of the project, but if you work at a company where you have been running Spira for years and were relatively self sufficient at using it then your interaction with us might be more hit and miss.  Well, we aim to improve this.

Heading into this winter and onward into 2012, one of our key corporate goals at Spira is to initiate and promote a formal feedback process for our customers to participate in and give us direct feedback on our software and support with the end goal of continually improving it.  This fall we have a Billings Process Forum, where we are inviting billing specialist from our customer base to join us and give us their top feature requests for the product.  Additionally we are hosting a Hydrovac Industry lunch and learn focused on demonstrating our new iPhone® application to the industry and getting ideas on improving it for the industry.

Next year we have identified 5 additional feedback forums, 3 partner lunch and learns and a general user conference as new initiatives that we have resources and budget for that will continue to improve our engagement with you the customer.  If you want to stay current with when these activities are occurring, please sign up for our monthly newsletter here or in the sidebar of our web pages.

So going forward, whether it be at a forum or through email at support@spiradata.com, we are opening up the channels to our customers to improve the feedback process and improve our product and services for them.  We hope to see or hear from you soon.

Cheers

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Spira Data & Amalto Lunch and Learn a Success

This is just a quick thank you to everyone who attended the Spira Data and Amalto Technologies lunch and learn at the Calgary Petroleum Club.  It was an enjoyable and informative session, complemented by great food.

Craig Latimer, VP Sales at Spira presented on Spira Data’s field ticketing solution and Jean-Pierr Foehn flew in from Paris, France to present on Amalto’s b2box solution.

With more and more large oil and gas companies adopting e-procurement systems the combination of capturing electronic field tickets using Spira and electronically submitting these using Amalto’s b2box resonated with the audience in attendance.

If you are interested in finding out more about Amalto, please visit their website at www.amalto.com or contact Robert Vanden Heuvel at robert.vandenheuvel@amalto.com.

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What a Difference a Year Makes!

I know it is an old cliché, but the saying is as true now as it has ever been.  Looking back to this time last year, the global economy was still sketchy, there were financial crises in Greece and other European nations and there was growing unrest in many mid-east countries (well that last one never really seems to change).  This year we have seen and devastating earthquake in Japan, unrest and conflict in Libya and the death of Osama bin Laden.  Each year has its set of newsworthy events and problems.

Here at Spira, this time last year, it truly set in that the economy was in the tank and we would have to battle hard to create new sales and opportunities for our software products.  We had a very strong finish to 2009 and when we cleared off our backlog of work in the late spring of 2010 we lifted our head up from our work to discover that many businesses had stopped spending money on new projects of any kind, let alone software.  The second half of 2010 wasn’t much better, but sometime around Christmas the wheels of the economy began to turn and things gradually improved.

Fast forward to spring 2011 and the trials and tribulations of last year seem, well… last year and we have a whole new set of issues to deal with.  This year we have had difficulty keeping up to demand, which brings its own set of challenges.  But these are good challenges to have.

The thing that we at Spira have noticed the most is that our prospective customers now seem to understand that they need to do business differently going forward.  During good times, many companies threw people and money at their business problems in order to band-aid them.  When the economy headed south, it soon became apparent to these companies that they had to lay-off a lot of people and how they were operating their business was not scalable in good times or bad.

Over the past six months or so the leaders of many oilfield service companies (our core market) have come to the realization that there was a better way of doing business.   It felt like the messages that our company had been advocating for the past 7 years (scalability, business process improvement, and data access) had finally sunk in.  This has forced us to shift our sales approach because previously (last year included) many companies had no interest in talking to us about these improvements, but now however, these same companies have been reaching out and calling us about “getting current with the times”.

There is more to it than this of course.  Besides the improvements in the economy, there have been many technological advancements over the past year that have opened up people’s eyes everywhere to new ways of doing things. Two of them have been the iPad and the continuous improvements to the iPhone.  Over the past year these two devices alone have spawned a wave of new ideas and business applications simply because of their design, portability and connectivity.  This convergence of consumer and business electronics has caused a mental paradigm shift with business owners and executives that is also fuelling the “idea” behind what our software product at Spira are about.  Which is, operational field data capture, processing and real time reporting.  The business value of the idea has been accelerated by the design, portability, processing capabilities and connectivity of new hardware devices.

And I think that is where Spira finds itself right now.  In the rising tide of a stronger economy, a business idea that has taken hold in the marketplace and new devices that can accelerate the adoption of the idea going forward.  It’s an exciting and scary place to be all at the same time because we are not the only company with this grand idea.  Should be a fun 2011 and beyond.

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How to Reduce Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)

Many company’s struggle with reducing their days sales outstanding.

A well thought out strategy can help add revenue to the bottom line but reducing unnecessary costs due to carrying the capital associated with completed work that needs to be invoiced.

Here is a video that shows how to potentially reduce your DSO using Spira Data’s application.

In this day and age, with readily available technologies, like Spira Data, you can impact your side of the DSO equation and reduce your work to revenue times.

Contact Spira Data to find out more.

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Spira’s Movember Stache for Cache Fundraiser

There is a reason some guys don’t grow moustaches…  they just don’t look good.  I count myself as one of those guys and despite being possessed with this knowledge I decided to participate in the Movember fundraising effort in support of men’s prostate health.  If you haven’t heard of the Movember movement and the Movember Foundation click through the links in this page and read all about it.  It’s quite a story.

Craig Latimer our VP Sales kicked it off for us at the Spira office and most of the guys in the office joined in.  I myself signed up a whim and it wasn’t until I began clicking through the Movember website did I realize the momentum behind the Moustache movement.

One of the things that I immediately liked about the Movember idea was that it was specifically about men’s health and it used something unique to men (well mostly) which was the moustache.  There are numerous fundraising and awareness campaigns out in the world that target women’s heath issues but very few centred exclusively on men.  And hey guess what?  We actually die earlier than women.  Our life expectancy is less than the ladies out there.  Granted we take part in a lot more risky stuff than your average female.  But having said this, we still need to put just as much focus on men’s health issues as we do on women’s health issues.

I have seen the underwear campaign and the periwinkle striped tie campaign for prostate health but somehow the Movember campaign sticks with me a little more.  Maybe its because I know I could pull off the tie and underwear thing but a moustache just looks cheesy on me.  No two ways about it.  In fact, I would be surprised if my wife actually kisses me this month.

Now for those of you guys who sport a stache all year round, this might not seem like that big of a deal.  But it is.  I am twelve days into it at this point and I can’t wait to shave this thing off my face.  I mean it itches, my skin actually hurts, I get food stuck to it, I am constantly rubbing it and I am never sure that I get everything in the Kleenex after I blow my nose.  Seriously what’s the appeal?

Anyway, enough about my troubles.  If you want to see some really bad staches, visit the the Spira team on the Movember website and if you feel the urge throw a few bucks and a lighthearted comment to the cause, we welcome and appreciate your support.  Out original goal was $1,500 but since we have surpassed this amount we are shooting for $3000.

Your prostate thanks you.

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How Cost Competitive is Your Administration?

How is it that companies that adhere to rigorous engineering and technical requirements to do their daily work, have a complete gong-show going on in their billing and accounting departments?

It’s an odd contradiction but it exists at many companies in the oil and gas services market place.  The simple answer to this question is that for most companies, administration is just a cost of doing business.  It’s not what they do to make money.  This is true but, it ignores a certain reality that over time, those companies that ignore administrative efficiency lose ground and market share, and are less profitable than other companies that actively manage their administrative costs.

These days becoming more efficient administratively almost always involve technology in one form or another.  The problem many business owners and managers have with technology is that it typically forces them to put in place a clear structure and a set of business rules.  Computers are logic after all, and for a company that operates loosey-goosey administratively, technological solutions force a level of process change onto companies that they may not be ready for.  For many owners and managers structure and rules directly conflict with their entrepreneurial personalities which are typically not bound by structure and rules.  They become administrative victims of their own success, so to speak.

Most business operators see the technological bandwagon coming, and it becomes a matter of when and how and not why.  But there are still some very large companies out there that are pen, paper and spreadsheet based and spend an enormous amount of resources rekeying, reconciling and double-checking their operational data.  They aren’t looking for or have missed the technological bandwagon that other companies in their industry are riding off into the distance. 

These companies are caught in a trap in this downturned economy.  They need to streamline their operations but they lack the cash or borrowing capacity to invest in the change.  Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda done it when times were good!

So as the oil patch slowly warms up on the activity side, is your business a ready waiting, well oiled machine administratively?  Or are you still doing things the old fashioned way.  Maybe you were forced to downsize the last couple of years to control costs.  Are you looking at adding that administrative expense back again?  Would now be good time to look at investing in technology rather than another assistant to handle the increasing amount paper you are expecting as the economy improves?

When faced with a choice to hire a person for $50,000 or to invest in a technology for $50,000 that makes you more efficient administratively and allows you to grow without adding further administration into the foreseeable future; What would be your decision?  It’s a simple question really and if you miss the answer, well… good luck to you.

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The Mobile Data Revolution

Technology is an amazing thing. More specifically electronics and computer technology are amazing. I have spent close to 30 years in and around the oil patch in Calgary, and proud to say that I am second generation “Oilfield Trash”, I have seen firsthand the enormous impact that computers have had on the business that I know and love.

My father was a P.Eng with Norcen and in the mid 1960’s was in charge of a project to bring one of the first mainframe computers to downtown Calgary. The computer, an IBM 360 Model 30 with a 64K processor and occupied an entire floor in their office tower and the cooling equipment another and cost a mere $18,000 per month. This massive computer had all the computing power of a calculator you can buy today in the electronics department of your local London Drugs for under $100.

I remember my first summer job in downtown Calgary, working as a summer student for Kloepfer, Coles, Nikiforuk, Pennel and Associates (the forerunner of GLJ) where I spent countless hours plotting a production show map from PIX cards for about 12 townships in the heart of Pembina. With the advent of Accumap that same map that took me hours of tedium to create a single copy of could be created in mere minutes and printed on a large media roll printer or changed as many time as any engineer or geologist could ever want.

In 1987 I found myself working for Mobil Oil Canada. The President at the time was Arne Nielsen, who was credited with discovering the Pembina field in the early 1950’s. He had a pet project he called PC 1,000 in which he envisioned a personal computer on all 1,000 employee’s desks. I distinctly remember talking with peers and saying that he was in the twilight of his career and was out-to-lunch…..why would I ever need a PC on my desk…..I had access to the terminal down the hall…..and it’s not like I was going to type my own letters or agreements…..that’s what secretaries are for. But Arne had a vision. He saw beyond the limitations of the day, he saw the bigger picture. He saw what could be rather than what was. He embraced and welcomed change.

Some 23 years later I find myself looking forward at the coming Mobile Data Revolution….a time when data collection with a pen and paper will be a thing of the past, when every field worker or member of an increasingly mobile work force will have a laptop, smart phone, I-phone or I-pad to collect digital data at the source rather than writing down on a piece of paper and having someone transcribe the chicken-scratch, coffee-stained, oil smudged scribbling into some spread sheet or corporate computer system in head office where the data can become useful for the purposes of tracking, reporting and forecasting. Hmmmm…..does this story sound vaguely familiar…..perhaps I-phone or smart phone 1,000 or 1,000,000? The difference is that with the move towards “Unified Communications” and with the advances in devices and the ability to transmit massive quantities of data over the latest 4-G networks the technology exists today. The only part that is missing is the vision to drive towards capturing all your data as close to its source of origin as possible.

That’s why you will find me spending my time these days working at Spira Data Corp. Spira is a Calgary based software company that has created a platform software solution that has done exactly that. Spira has the ability to capture virtually any type of data in the field on a wide array of devices and communicate that information to head office in a digital format that can be meshed with existing systems and various data types and formats. The big win is that once the data is captured in the field in a digital format it can be easily moved, merged and manipulated through a company’s existing software systems. The fewer times you touch your data the less chance you have of polluting it or creating human errors.

Spira does not attempt to replace your existing software systems it simply streamlines the process of entering your data into your systems, in a standard data format, that allows data of all types to flow more quickly, accurately and efficiently throughout your organization. Replacing the antiquated pen and paper data capture method is not unlike Arne Nielsen’s vision of 25 years ago…..by having the vision to invest in the latest wave of technology you can increase productivity throughout your organization from top to bottom.

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Handwriting Skills – Do we Really Expect Them to Improve in the Future?

Have you ever gone to write something down by hand and hesitate slightly because it has been so long since you last wrote something on a piece of paper you actually had to concentrate to do it properly?  I still use a pen and paper a lot, but I am increasingly becoming more and more proficient on a computer and less and less proficient at printing and writing. If am not careful, soon I’ll be writing out notes with all of the legibility of a Doctor’s prescription.

So here is a question for all of you out there; do we really expect bad handwriting to improve in the future? 

Personally I don’t expect it to get any better, and I think you can blame this trend on computers, PDAs, IPhones and any other electronic device that relieves us form the burden of printing or writing.

For companies that still use a paper based ticketing system in their field operations, one of the biggest selling features of our software is that billing and payroll staff no longer need to decipher bad handwriting from their field guys.  If these companies continue to stick with paper into the future it is very likely that the problems and errors that they are currently experiencing from by bad penmanship now will get worse in the future.

One of the historical barriers to entry for our software in many companies has been the fear that the field guys will not adopt it because they can’t type.  Well guess what?  Nowadays, most people can type to a certain degree, or they can learn to type and certainly can use a mouse.

I am almost 44 years old and during my high school years there were two computers at our school.  An Atari 400 and a Commodore 64.   Typing was a class that was actually taught on typewriters.  Back then, typing was for girls and computers were for geeks.  I of course, (being blessed with the gift of brilliantly flawed foresight and being way too cool), completely ignored both the typing and computer class at my high school.

Fast forward a couple of years after high school and I find myself at the University of Lethbridge faced with 30, 40 and 50 page management papers that must be typed in order to be graded. Well, I had a bit of a problem on my hands.  My problem actually turned out to be economic not academic.  What it boiled down to was that I could pay someone about $1.50 a page to get my papers typed out; I could fail most of my courses; or I could learn to type and use a computer.

Now $75 bucks bought a lot of beer back then and I decided that maybe computers weren’t just for geeks and typing wasn’t just for girls.  So I chose to learn how to type and use a computer rather than go thirsty on a Friday night and besides other guys were typing too so maybe it wasn’t That bad.  Thankfully by the time that I came to this conclusion, the University had a new IBM 8088 lab and Word Perfect had made word processing much easier for guys like me.  And although slow and tedious at first, I learned how to use a computer and how to type.  That was 23 years ago.

Fast forward another 23 years and times have changed considerably.  One thing for certain is that any new worker that you hire under the age of 35 can definitely use a mouse and keyboard because they grew up using them in school.  Additionally, the majority of workers older than 35 have interacted with computers and understand how to use them.  My dad is 79, and despite resisting computers for years, knows how to use one.

So in examining a barrier like “our guys can’t type”, as a reason to not adopt a laptop based field ticketing system like Spira, I can’t help but wonder if the there is a disconnect with the assumption that bad handwriting equates to not knowing how to use a computer.  It might turn out that the opposite is true and in fact, the worker’s handwriting might be bad because he has used a computer too much.

My experience with companies that have adopted and implemented Spira for their field ticketing is that guys learn pretty quickly and, just like the economic decision that I faced at university 23 years ago, workers are learning to use computer field ticketing in the field because their payroll is tied to it.  They learn quickly that if they don’t use the computer to create their field tickets, they don’t get paid.  Nothing motivates a guy to do something like not having enough money in his jeans to buy beer on a Friday night.

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Sometimes I feel Like an Imposter in the Software Business

Sometimes I feel like an imposter in the world of software.  My previous background prior to working at Spira was in running my own retail dry cleaning business.  On the surface the software seems about as far away from the dry cleaning on the business spectrum as you can get.  But after two years of time at Spira, I have discovered that, business is business, and when you distill the essence of a business problem down to its core, problems in the software business are not necessarily unique to the industry.

I distinctly remember the reaction of a close friend of mine when I revealed that I accepted a job at Spira, he spit out his beer, laughed and said, “why?”  And it wasn’t, “why did I accept the job?”  It was, “why did they hire you?”

My close friend knows me (and Spira) pretty well and he knew that I was not a technical kind of guy by any stretch of the imagination.  And so, even though I could have done without the laughing and spitting out the beer part, his question was entirely legitimate.  The answer was, that Spira had (and still has) lots of great technical people, but what they needed were more people with business minds and business backgrounds.  And that is where I fit into the grand scheme of things at Spira.

So fast-forward to today and here I am, a marketing grad, charged with adding life to our website, proliferating our online presence and starting up a blog to disseminate the superior qualities of our software product to the world and I need a morning of time from our technical analyst at Spira to explain how RSS feeds work and how to incorporate them into our website.  Thankfully our technical analyst (Jono) is patient with me and diligently explained the process of getting this done.

Despite my baby steps, (like the RSS feed lesson) I still feel like a bit of an imposter in the world of technology.  It’s a bit of a load of my chest, a confessional of sorts, to reveal this to the world, but now you know, I can move on with things. 

So in this blog (and pretty much all of my future blogs), you will not find me throwing around software jargon and technical acronyms.  I will however, be talking about business.  Efficiency, process, error reduction and operational issues are my “shtick” so to speak.  These are core concepts to all businesses, large and small.  These are the issues that Spira, on a consulting level and on a software level, can help your company to solve.  Because if you are inefficient, lack process, live with errors and your operations are running the same way they did 10 years ago, then you are in for an awakening in the next ten years.

The leaders in your industry are adopting technology in all aspects of their operations and this is setting them up to be more efficient, more profitable, more responsive and more compliant. And in the process they are eroding your competitiveness if you are still running business as usual.

It’s a bit scary for those of you who are not technical like me.  Having your key information, (billing, payroll, safety etc.) stored in a database somewhere is still tough for some of us to wrap our heads around.  I always liked to be able to touch and feel the paper copies of my business, they seem real to me.  But when I think about the changes we have seen to things like physical paper money for instance, then that fear evaporates.  I have become so accustomed to, and comfortable with electronic money, (as have many of you reading this), getting comfortable with moving your business information to electronic digital form should not be the stretch that is for some.  It should be, how fast can we get this in place so we can take advantage of the technology and the efficiencies it brings to our business.  Let me give you an example from my dry cleaning past.

I can remember the day we began computerizing our front counters at our dry cleaning stores.  We had these big clunky CRT monitors sitting smack dab in the middle of our counters and they immediately changed our interactions with our customers.  At first it was negative.  We were slower, the software had some bugs in it, we asked for addresses and other more personal information and on a customer service level it was a waaaay less personal experience than before.

It was a tough decision to make, very few were using the software, the company (Cleansuite Software) was local, (they can’t possibly be as good as someone from the States!) and it was about $5000 bucks per point of sale station for all of the hardware and printers and software.  Not cheap at the time!  But the software was fundamentally good, and the software company was responsive, and the benefits of the change began to emerge shortly after we put it in place.

Soon, I had daily reports at the push of a button that would take 45 minutes to an hour to prepare previously.  Pricing was accurate and the 5-10% increase in sales due to proper pricing that the software company promised was real!  Customers quit questioning pricing because it was accurate and consistent and you could read it!  No more handwriting legibility and adding issues.  Slowly, myself and my staff became faster with the software, and the software company continually improved the product and fixed the bugs. 

The software also provided me with marketing information that previously I had not had before.  I could track customer volumes to the penny and I truly knew who my top customers were (I was surprised by some of these results).  I sent Christmas cards to my top 100 customers with free cleaning and implemented a standardized discount program so they could stop clipping coupons.  I had a huge marketing leg up on any competitor that still chose to do things by hand.

Our customers got value from our computerized system too (besides the Christmas cards).  I now had access to a customer’s history, starch preferences and little customer nuances that were previously hit and miss on whether they got done when we were writing things out by hand.  I could track tagging, find misplaced items faster, record specific garment colours, fabrics etc.  You get the idea. 

All this from one business change; Computerizing our point of sale system.  I have often used the same analogy when describing Spira.  It is a point of sale system for field service companies.  Sure the data is a little bit different but fundamentally it’s the same idea.

So what does this have to do with me being an imposter in the software world?  Well even though I am not technical, my business experience allows me to recognize the value that a good software product can have for a company (whether it is dry cleaning or oilfield service).  That is why, despite my buddy spitting out his beer at the news, Spira has turned out to be a good fit for my business experience even though I don’t speak the same technical mumbo jumbo as some of my co-workers. 

If you are not technical, and your business experience is telling you that a software product like Spira could make the same sort of sense that Cleansuite Software did for my dry cleaning business.  Get in touch with us and find out what we are all about.

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A Change of Direction for the Spira Blog

After creating a half dozen posts since we started the Spira blog, I decided I would start mixing it up a little with my future blog posts.  I like to read and I have a rule about my reading.  One business book.  One fiction book.  It provides me balance and makes me more interesting to hang out with (at least theoretically).  So, going forward, I am going to take a similar approach to blogging and mix in a little personal experience with a little business experience and see where it leads.

I have a couple reasons for doing this…  First off, I have gone back and looked at my previous posts and they are way too corporate, ditto for my Facebook page and if you are one of the 2 poor souls following me on Twitter you probably are covered in dust and spider webs waiting for one of my riveting tweets like; “Hey check out our new blog at www.spiradata.com.”

Secondly, I have no idea if people are actually reading anything I am putting up here, and if I were reading any of my previous posts (and being perfectly honest with myself), I am not sure I would come back for seconds.  So in the interest of keeping it interesting, I am going to mix it up a little.  There is nowhere to go but up they say and since I started with zero followers, I have nothing to lose (at least in the followers sense).

Actually, what I am struggling with is that I am paid to do some of this “community” stuff on behalf of Spira and it feels so…. unproductive, so… unrelated to our company making money and being successful.  It is a great leap of faith to pretend that anything I write in this blog will make you rush right out and buy 100 licenses of our software and get me my name on the employee of the month wall.  But having read other blog posts on other sites there is some merit to the blog process that humanizes the corporate buyer-seller relationship that can exist in the real world (i.e. not on the internet). 

So with that in mind, I hereby set off to make this blog more interesting and personal all the while slipping in subliminal corporate marketing messages (buy Spira software) to make you rush right out and contact us (click here to contact us).  I promise I will keep the marketing messages light, (BUY SPIRA NOW) after all blatant in your face sales are a turn-off.

Anyway, that’s pretty much all I got for this post.  But whether it is this post or another future post, I would love to hear your feedback or comments.  Good, bad or indifferent.  Seriously, anything not involving profanity is welcome feedback.  If I suck let me know. If you find me brilliant, definitely let me know (we all love praise).  And if my stuff is average, fire off some constructive suggestions to make it better.

Cheers

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