My daughter has always been a fan of the TELUS animals.

I think it started a few years ago with the hippopotamus ads for Christmas.

She was a big fan of last year’s Critter Contest, where the public was asked to vote for the next mascot – the saw-whet owl beat out the pot-bellied pig and otter for the title.

So, when she was waiting to change planes in Istanbul last week, she was reading a news story, that she immediately wanted to share with me.

I knew right away that I had to forward it to my friends at TELUS:

OMG I WANT A BABY MARMOSET COULD YOU DIE FROM THE CUTENESS? AND HOW HAS TELUS NOT CAPITALIZED ON THIS PHONE-SELLING FACE?

You have to admit he is a cute little guy.

I sent out a tweet with her message.

My daughter: “OMG I want a baby marmoset! How has @telus not capitalized on this ‘phone-selling’ face?”j.mp/O1ggci #CDNtech

— Mark Goldberg (@Mark_Goldberg) July 26, 2012

Yesterday I saw that a bunch of folks at TELUS wanted to fulfill my daughter’s wish.

@mark_goldberg We heard one of our fans loves Marmosets. So we adopted one from the WWF on her behalf. Check it out. ow.ly/cH11Y

— TELUS (@TELUS) August 2, 2012

There is a page on the TELUS website that tells the story. All of this was done in one week.

There are different ways for companies to deal with social media, engaging with customers in a real time, world-wide focus group.

How effective is your social media strategy?

It has been a few days of little annoyances with a range of our devices.

My son’s computer suffered an unrecoverable mechanical disk failure; my wife’s computer crashed; our TV service was out for the opening weekend of the Olympics; this blog was off the air for a couple days due to a server crash; we blew out a turn signal on a car designed for dealers to replace lights. And so on.

Throughout, we have encountered great service people who did their best to empathize while restoring service. The best customer service experience was on the way home today. The turn signal blew out as we got on the highway, meaning that lane changes were going to be a problem. So at lunch time, we pulled off the highway at Orillia and took the car into a dealer to get the bulb replaced.

We were travelling with our dog, meaning that we needed a place for lunch that was furry friendly.

The Montana’s restaurant had a bench in a shady spot in the front that looked good for a picnic, but the staff went above and beyond for us. They set up a table for us, with full service using real cutlery and plates. They even brought a bowl of cool water for Tobi.

It was above and beyond our expectations, maybe because we often don’t see people in national chain restaurants who love their jobs. It reaffirmed my view that business is done between people and that great customer service needs great people.

How do you build a passionate workforce?

I wrote a guest post for the expertIP blog entitled: “Canada can’t afford a digital divide.”

The message is familiar to my frequent readers: providing refurbished computers and low cost internet connections into low income households with school aged children. Develop a network of partners to provide technical support and digital literacy skills development.

The programmes that we have been proposing don’t need government money as much as they need leadership.

Is anyone hearing the call?

A reader pointed out a column in the Toronto Star by Joe Fiorito, writing about the recent closure of an employment resource room in a local community centre.

the computer room developed to the point where it was serving somewhere near 35 people a day, roughly 13,000 a year; people who live in the neighbourhood and who either cannot afford their own computers, or who do not have an Internet connection in their home.

This closure appears to be a demonstration of the lack of digital vision at our various levels of government.

As I wrote last week, the United States has launched a program to leverage its 2800 jobs centres to help with digital literacy training. Canada’s governments, operating without a national digital strategy, are unable to set objectives and then operate with a view to hit those targets. Instead, we have seen a stream of announcements throwing a little money here and there, all with a suffix saying that the spending is part of our digital strategy.

I wrote last fall about tactics in the absence of a strategy.

Neighbourhood resource centres need to be associated with an interdepartmental, perhaps multi-level government strategy.

Simply shutting down a location in the absence of an overall strategy is heading the wrong way.

The 2012 Olympic Games open this week in London.

As a technology junkie, I appreciate the Olympics having offset the timing of winter games. Until 1992, the summer and winter games were both held every four years in leap years; 1994 marked the first winter games to be held in the alternate even number year.

By holding such a major global event every two years, we can count on the Canadian broadcaster to bring us a demonstration of the latest technologies, integrating  TV, internet and mobile platforms. I don’t think I could stand to wait 4 years between each cycle and I prefer the thrill of being dazzled with new technologies all associated with one event. I suppose the alternative is that more of these capabilities would be trickled out to us with the Super Bowl, elections or some reality talent show; I like the shock and awe approach with special events such as the Olympics.

I only have access to one TV station at my summer residence. Fortunately, it is the official broadcaster of the Olympics. But I expect to be following along on-line as well, accessing the feeds to obscure teams playing in equally obscure events.

I noticed that some of my twitter buddies are already in London to shepherd their teams of people covering the event; for the bulk of us, we will be relying on the latest innovations in converged platform program delivery to follow along.

Let the games begin.