The Heather Gold Show: Process Over Outcome, May 12, 2008 (mp3 file, 34 MB)

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An historic day. One of the happiest of my life.

Hope is good. Equality is best.

our wedding!, originally uploaded by subvert.com.

My Canadian wife and California fiancee Stacey. We will be *LEGALLY* married in San Francisco like every other couple can now be in the State.

My first call was to my Canadian wife/ California fiancee, my second to the caterer.

Free! Don't need permission! So overoyed!

The Wedding FAQ I wrote after Wedding 1.0 in Canada explaining how I feel about it all and why we are getting married twice.

20 Lesbian Wedding Etiquette tips (jokes) I wrote for Curve.

VOTE this November to ensure the constitutional amendment to save my marriage and stop the anti-gay proposition from amending the California constitution.

rian Maier works at the genius bar at the SF Apple Store.

He accomplished in 1 call and 8 minutes what I couldn't in twelve calls, 2 divisions and 2 supervisors with the dreaded at&t: a refund of the obnoxious $1300 at&t billed me *after* I'd called them before travel to Canada to find out how to avoid heavy travel charges.

I'll spare you the gory details of my weeks and dozen calls to a&t which included a bevy of incompetence /possible lying, promised refunds, "policy" etc. But when I was at the Apple Genius Bar to have my hard drive replaced I told my epic saga of customer service horror to Brian who agreed to help me call at&t and see if they could do something. At the very least, he'd be proof that another company, at&t's partner company agrees that I did the right things and that at&t should refund the insane charges (stemming from email auto-checking in the background).

I returned the next day and it worked!

Please give Brian props and dj gigs.

This was truly the most spectacular customer service I've ever received: for another company's services!

Can someone photoshop a cape on him in this pic?

I've learned from this whole thing:

•The margin you pay a truly service oriented company is often made up for in time saved.
•People act differently when they know a third party is watching/hearing them.
•People act differently when a dude with a low voice calls them asking for something.
•Anything is possible

The greatest changes are found in the mundane.

No financial cost to make this change. Huge time investment to change the consciousness that led to it.

Result: some peoples' existence is publicly reflected where it was once invisible.

Imagine you are transgender (or perhaps you don't have to imagine) and how remarkable it would feel to finally have this box to check.

I went to visit my family for Passover last month in Toronto. I called at&t while still in the U.S. to ask if there was a way to use my iPhone as a PDA/camera only in Canada. I should place my iPhone on airplane mode so as not to incur charges. He said no.

Let me warn you now, iPhone travelers, that the correct answer is yes.

I asked if I should buy some kind of package to cover Canada. He said no. I've spent hours on the phone with at&t reps trying to clear this up. It's been a cornucopia of buck-passing, tush-covering and script-reading from various people. 

I have one simple piece of advice for anyone dealing with at&t iPhone customer service: Write down notes of every conversation you have with them and don't expect them to do what they say they will.

What they could have done:

1.  transferred me to someone from Apple with the first call to get accurate information on how to avoid background charges

2. Been human and responsive to my questions. In short *serve* me.

3. Given me correct information.

4. Had the billing changes implemented which were promised on the phone.

5. Advocated for me and called me back rather than passing me on to the next at&t person to start over 

If you want all the gory detail, here's what they did do:

I was advised by at&t cust. service on 4/17 (while in the US) that my $20 data plan would cover all data charges in Canada and that i did *not* need an add'l plan to cover data in Canada. I asked specifically if the phone would do something in the background that would cause charges and the att rep said "no." I was amazed as i was set to turn off my phone. He convinced me I would have minimal additional charges for the couple of short phone calls and texts i might make. So I did have the iPhone on at times while in Canada.

Then I saw my bill for $1300.

I called at+t and was advised on 4/25 by at+t cust service an international plan would be added to my account and backdated to cover the outrageous $1300 I was billed for my time in Canada.

Then I saw my account online the other day. Still: $1300 owing.

The backdating was not implemented. Many phone calls since with at+t cust service have not resolved the problem (including speaking with at&t international who tells me they don't have the authority to backdate more than to 5/1). At this point I was transferred to an Apple rep whose tone was much more helpful and who stayed on the call while another at&t rep was brought on who created an "HLA" or "high level adjustment form."

This person was named Kaylee and she told me she could only give me a $250 credit and that she wasn't authorized to credit me for all of the Canada charges incurred unknowingly. She told me she'd recommend i was credited. 5/9 I was called back by the person who "researched" the HLA named Cheyenne who told me the charges were valid and said i was told on 4/17 about an international plan. I was not and this was the first I'd heard from at+t that they had *any* internal notes on the 4/17 call even though I'd asked in prior calls.

Ms. Mcclanahan , Cheyenne's supervisor then came on the line and told me to email through the web site. Throughought the experience with at&t the two people who sounded helpful either did not implement what they promised or did not give me accurate info. Everyone else was quite stern an would not respond to most of my questions in an individual fashion. Please credit my account for the Canadian data charges (which I've now been informed were for my email pinging the server on auto check in the background..even though I'd asked on 4/1 if I should put my iphone on airplane mode) This was a terrible user experience and customer experience.  

Steve Jobs, this is not insanely great. Just insane.

And I love Apple. I worked on Apple' first music/webcasting team. 

One of my favourite comedy bits that I've done is proof: Microsoft=Xians / Apple=Jews .

Comedy = love.

Dear President Bush…, originally uploaded by subvert.com.

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What's wrong with this picture?, originally uploaded by subvert.com.

Guess where this is?

This is powerful stuff for the web and connecting people through talk shows online which is at the heart of the Heather Gold Show (tHGS) mission. She even used the Ghandi quote about "being the change you wish to see in the world" which I used for the first few shows.

If you want people to connect, the web is really much more the right medium than pure television.

Oprah's basically using the web in a fashion similar to the TV medium. It's a one-to-many show though they took questions via Skype and phone during these webcasts. These were scripted and pre-screened and structured in a standard TV fashion, but it' a process that's familiarized many with these tools. She had over half a million simultaneous streams.

Even with that kind of production, her webcasts made good use of the sense of all of us being together at the same time, doing the same thing. That feeling is a key part of communal prayer or meditation, which is really what was at the the heart of the spiritual study of these webcasts.

But that feeling is also at the heart of any collective connection. It's at the heart of live performance and concerts. It's at the heart of a live lecture or conference. It's at the heart of sports gatherings and rallies It's at the heart of a really great idea brainstorm and conversation. It's at the heart of what I'm doing in tHGS.

I spend a lot of time thinking about Oprah and studying her show these days. She does television and integrated media properties incredibly well. Some of what we're doing at tHGS is quite intentionally a subversion or inversion of what she's doing.

The key difference to the interactive performance I practice and tHGS has developed is that it consciously shifts the form away from one-to-many. 

Oprah's work grows from an era of top/down branding and one-to-many communication and *authority." But authority never really was in the one other than what came from the attention of the many. The form of one-to-many ends up emphasizing the branded "expert" as knowing more than you and mattering more that you. I don't think that's her moral intention, but its inherent in the macroeconomics of the television system and branded person as "property" we've had for a while.

There is no more audience. It's a change and it's not. As Eckhart Tolle would say, it's really a case of acknowledging what *is:* the inherent power and authority over self each person already has. It's a change in recognition or consciousness.

More on what this means in the next post. Cafe Ritual is turning off the lights now.

I'll also be having a laugh at Out Loud, a queer radio show owned by Clear Channel. The official Republican line is not homo-friendly but that business/money love makes for entertaining bedfellows.

I can promise it will be funny.

Listen at 960AM KKGN in SF or online from 8-8:30pm PDT tonight.