The Feedback I Get About This Blog

Volume IIEntry 72 of 113 in 20164 min read2 comments ↓

Written by Gloria Metrick on July 28, 2016. Published as written. It may not reflect how these systems work today.

We all like to get feedback. It helps give us a sense of how we're doing. I've been writing this blog since August 2009 and had been writing my newsletter for years before that, as well. As you might expect, I've received some amount of feedback in that time. Today, I'm going to share that feedback so that anyone that is curious about these types of things can compare with their own opinions.

The Complaints
I actually get few complaints but you wouldn't expect a lot because, and let's be honest, here, this is a post about LIMS, ELN, LES and other laboratory informatics products. Most people who don't agree probably stop subscribing or just trash the post. Most of this isn't that revolutionary issues that would cause wide protests.

But with that, over the years, here are the complaints I think I have received most often (plus my responses). I could spend time actually quantifying that but I'm not going to spend the time on that for the purpose of this post:

Vendors who ask why I don't write about their product(s) (Response: I only write about what I know - if I don't know your product well-enough to use it, I'm not going to write about it).
Vendors who ask why I DO write about their product (Response: As I just mentioned, I write about what I know).
People in general who ask why I don't write about and/or promote Open Source (Response: I only write about what I know; I work with the so-called COTS systems and that's what I write about).
People in general who complain that I write my posts in a way that grabs the most attention possible (Response: Well, of course I do!).
Vendors who complain the blog is too customer-oriented (Response: I make money from selling to the customers; of course I'm going to write posts that I think will interest the customers!).

Feedback, In General
The customers and consultants reading this blog and the newsletter I used to write tend to be the ones writing directly to me to praise the posts rather than make complaints. Since this blog is written more for them, to begin with, it makes sense they have a tendency to get the most value from what is written, here, and to praise it. I mean to say that if you write for the people who tend to agree with you then you will tend to get more positive than negative feedback not to say that I'm such a terrific writer, necessarily.

Thus, most of the feedback I receive has to do with specific newsletter articles or blog posts. Usually, when someone agrees with me or thinks I've expressed their opinion on a matter quite well, they will write to me to compliment me and tell me what a great piece I've written. Of course, I do enjoy those. :-)

Finally
Even though I have many, many people from the software vendors in the industry subscribing to this blog, overall, it's the customers and other consultants who are struggling to get their work done, struggling to keep up with all the acronyms the software vendors keep throwing at us, struggling to make their projects stay in budget and deliver great value. That is what I do on a daily basis, myself, and I suspect that it's the others like me are most likely the ones reading this blog for that content.

The bottom line is that it's the end customers I want to connect with. I want to get them to buy my services to do product selections, implement their LabWare LIMS / ELN or other systems, and get work in general from them. So, of course I find it a good thing that they seem to be the great readership of this.

For those customers reading this, you can contact me, right now, at [email address removed] or [phone number removed] and talk about great product selection services for your LIMS, ELN or LES system, as well as providing services on the LIMS, ELN or LES that you currently have, such as your LabWare implementation. You don't need to be here in Ann Arbor, Michigan, US for those services. GeoMetrick Enterprises works with customers from all over the world! (seriously, I rarely have had local customers, regardless where my office has been)

Gloria Metrick
GeoMetrick Enterprises
http://www.GeoMetrick.com/

The conversation

2 comments from 1 person, July 28 to July 29, 2016. Gloria replied once.

July 28, 2016

John H. Jones

I really get the fact that you write about what you know and don't write about what you don't know. Later in your post you mention that you want customers to call on you for consulting services such as product selection.

How does that work? I see that you know a few LIMS apps such as labware, thermo and ivention. I am not aware of others and there are over 300 LI apps on the market today and growing. When you help a client select a system, I assume it is to help them choose between the systems that you know since you could not advise on systems you have never worked with. Is that a fair guess?

Perhaps you do not help them select a product but help them define their requirements without respect to any particular LI app? Most all LI vendors/consultants help their clients select the apps they know. It does not help your sales if you help them select an app you do not know.

July 29, 2016

Gloria MetrickAuthor

John, as you indicate, there are hundreds of applications available around the world, today. No-one could know them all in enough detail to tell a customer which one exactly to select.

So, it goes back to gathering requirements more than anything else. When a customer ventures forth to traverse the mysterious world of acronyms, my point to them is this: rather than worrying about whether what you need is called a "LIMS" and "LES" or an "ELN" spend your time looking for products that meet your requirements, regardless the acronym. Customers do often come to me because the acronyms in the industry confuse them but I stress that they should just tune that part out.

Sometimes, the task of gathering requirements makes what a customer needs so clear that they can move forward without another bit of help.

But I do quite frequently help them with their product list (if I see a product out of their price range, I tell them, if their list is too big, I urge them to cut it back) and sometimes sit in on the demos to give my own feedback. Or, for example, if they say they want to buy a system that includes stability management, I search for systems that include that as a feature to include in their selection.

As a side note, I should add that, in all the years I've been working on product selections, very few customers have had any of the products I happen to know as part of their selection process (it's my guess is that the large product selections are done by the larger consulting houses). It's not my job to sell products, it's my job to help the customer find what they need. In addition, in the tiny number of selections (two, in total, and one is actually local to me) where the customer did select a product that I know well, I did not get future business from them for implementation services. I want to stress that because I want to stress to potential customers reading this that I take their selection process seriously and not as an opportunity to create more chargeable work for myself. Some people call me a sap for that, but I can walk away from product selections knowing I truly was there to add value to the process and that's what consulting is supposed to be all about. I can actually give references to future customers to tell you this if you don't believe me and I certainly don't ask that you do since you as a reader and potential customer don't know me.

Note: I should stress that I never claim to know Thermo Fisher Scientific products. They have so many that there is no-one that could be an expert in all of them.

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The conversation

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