I hope to complete some minor repair work today to my family room ceiling. An overflowing second-story toilet led to me drilling holes in the family room ceiling to drain the water that had begun to impact the ceiling drywall and taped seams.

The day after the overflow, I contacted my homeowners insurance company to see about options for repairing the damage. My brief interaction with two tradesmen who came to provide repair estimates, and a third who talked with me by phone, reminded me of the sharp differences in integrity that you see within the trades. It also reminded me of a true story that involved my grandfather and the construction company for which he worked.

First, here’s a summary of my recent experiences with local tradesmen. The day after I contacted my insurance company, an employee of the insurance company called my home and spoke with my wife. The employee said that her husband was in construction, and he could come over to provide an estimate. Kim called me at work, and I agreed to ask for a half-day’s vacation so that I could be there to talk with the construction worker.

Have you ever gotten a sense that a conversation was going to become uncomfortable just before it did? That happened to me when the husband of the insurance company employee took a brief glance at my family room ceiling, and said, “What’s your deductible…$500?”

I confirmed that, and was about to say that the deductible had nothing to do with his estimate…but then, with a wink, he let me know how it had everything to do with his estimate.

“Yeah, this will be about $500,” he said, studying my face. “But there’s no need for you to have to pay the deductible. We can tell the insurance company that it’ll be $1,200, and that’ll cover my cost, your deductible and the cost of your painter.”

My son, who had joined us just after the contractor had begun his “inspection,” looked at me with a “what’s going on?” expression. I felt like telling the contractor off for suggesting that we agree on insurance fraud, but I guess I was too hardened by seeing it and hearing about it as I grew up in Chicago. I just wanted him out of my house.

As I closed the door and looked at my son, he blurted out, “What a creep!” I nodded in agreement, and silently thanked God for a son who understands the difference between right and wrong.

I then called a second contractor to talk about the ceiling repair. He was a referral from a neighbor. As I was scheduling time for him to come over to give me an estimate, this second contractor also asked about the deductible. I later told him not to bother coming.

Contrast that with a neighborhood “handy man” who was a referral from another neighbor. This person was honest and straightforward, and said that he was better at electrical work and plumbing than drywall taping and mudding. “I usually put on the first coat of mud, and then pay someone else to finish it off,” he said. He also said that the ceiling seemed to have dried quickly, with minimal damage. I wouldn’t need to have the extensive repair that the “professional” contractor recommended.

Over the past couple of days, with the help of my brother, Scott, I’ve repaired the ceiling. All that’s left to do is to sand it for the final time, and wait for the painter. As I was laying on the final coat of mud, I thought about a true story that my mom and grandmother told me about my grandfather, Clarence Fieberg. It was a story about the integrity of my grandfather and the construction company for which he worked.

I’ll tell that story in Part Two of this post. I may email it to the dishonest contractors who work around here.

I had to leave the family room just now, as Access Hollywood began its reporting of Oprah Winfrey’s BIG ANNOUNCEMENT regarding her decision to end her long-running television show.

I didn’t run out because I was overcome by emotion over losing Oprah. It was the absolutely idiotic fawning by Access Hollywood’s on-air “talent” that caused me to race to this blog. Someone at “Ground Zero” needs to tell the rest of the globe that Chicago will be okay without Oprah.

“Everyone in Chicago was in shock today” at the news that Oprah is ending her show, according to Access Hollywood. Now, I admit that I work and live in the northern suburbs of Chicago, so my home and office may not actually be considered Ground Zero to some of the entertainment reporters frantically covering Oprah’s life-changing announcement. But my personal observations indicate that, to the majority of my fellow Chicago-area residents, Oprah just isn’t really that significant.

Sure, we might wonder how much she will be throttling down the Oprah, Inc. money machine after a quarter century or so of work. But the truth is that I haven’t seen more than 10 minutes of any Oprah show in the past three to five years. I don’t have an Oprah jones.

Before you label me as one of the few around here who “don’t get it,” you need to know that while I was working, not a single coworker burst into tears or started shouting, “Oprah, Oprah…why???!!” As I drove home, not a single driver in any vehicle swerved across the median headed toward a light post or pond in a suicidal response to the reality that the Oprah Winfrey Show was coming to an end.

As I pulled into my neighborhood, not a single neighbor had started a candlelight vigil, with flowers, pictures of Oprah and cards with messages such as, “All of Chicago is in shock, Oprah, and we will NEVER be able to watch television again.”

Bye-bye, Oprah. Someone probably will let me know when your last show airs. I won’t be watching it; I have a life.

It’s easy to grumble about things we don’t like at work, but I’m happy about a couple of team-building events this week. The first was a bowling outing yesterday. Nothing like rolling a few strikes (emphasis on few) with coworkers, while enjoying food and beverages. The second is a volleyball tournament today.

Also, departments are preparing for the annual Halloween costume and department decoration contests. Winners get a pizza lunch and other prizes. My department won two years ago with a “Men-in-Black” theme.

This year, we’re not as enthused about participating, for some reason. One person wanted us to do a “super hero” theme, but I just don’t look good in tights.

I just logged in from the hotel room in downtown Minneapolis, Minn., where I’m staying through Tuesday to attend the IABC Pacific Plains Region EXCHANGE Conference.

The airport shuttle driver told us about the many accidents that occurred here over the past 24 hours, as drivers encountered icy conditions for the first time this year. Short memories, or too many new residents moving from warmer climates! The driver was behind a truck that lost control as well as a gasoline can that ignited when it hit the ground. Gasoline poured across the road, and the fire chased the gasoline across the road. The shuttle driver couldn’t stop in time, so she drove through it ala “Ghost Rider.” She expected to see her tires flaming, but all was well.

Our ride was much less exciting. Oh well, they’re predicting snow tomorrow, so I’ll be on the lookout for more tragedies.

I’ve got several posts in mind, most of them based on learnings from last week’s Strategic Communications Summit 2009 in Chicago. But I’m finding that I don’t have the energy to stay up late at night to write these posts.

My advice to you young communicators: stop watching videos and bad television, and write while you have the energy. It will pay off, and you’ll sleep better at night, knowing that you didn’t leave something undone…again.

One week ago, I was in the process of getting my two teenagers new mobile phones at our local AT&T store. The knowledgeable and helpful store employee took time to pitch a new service being rolled out by AT&T: FamilyMap.

The service sounded interesting. Here is how FamilyMap is described on AT&T’s website:

Locate your family members with AT&T FamilyMap!

Get peace of mind by being able to conveniently locate a family member’s wireless phone on a map from your mobile phone or PC.

Want to verify that your child arrives home from school each day? Set up a Schedule Check to automatically get location information sent to you via text message or email.

Locate any phone indoors or outdoors on the AT&T Network!

Doesn’t that sound great? Who wouldn’t want to be able to locate a family member in an emergency, or just for “peace of mind”? I decided to sign up for a 30-day trial.

Even after just one week, I can say with confidence that FamilyMap is going to lose customers pretty quickly. The reason? It’s not accurate enough.

How it works
Let’s let the AT&T FamilyMap site explain it:

AT&T FamilyMap uses a number of techniques to determine a phone’s location. AT&T phones that have A-GPS (Assisted GPS) return the most accurate locations when they have a clear line of sight to GPS satellites. For example, the phone is outside or is in a car near a window. For phones where A-GPS is not available, FamilyMap uses cell tower information to provide the most accurate location possible, which is usually within a few hundred yards to a few miles of the phone’s actual location. This includes iPhones, non A-GPS phones, as well as A-GPS phones that are not in a clear line of sight to GPS satellites.

In some situations, AT&T FamilyMap will not be able to locate a phone. The most common reasons are:

• The phone that you are trying to locate is deep inside a building or car.
• The phone is surrounded by tall buildings, hills, or trees.
• The phone is powered off.
• The phone’s battery has run out.
• The phone is not in AT&T network coverage.
• Service on the particular line/number has been terminated or suspended.

Another step to take “for security reasons” is to send a text message to each person you want to track, and they need to accept the text.

For security reasons, phones receive a text message from AT&T FamilyMap when they become locatable. Additionally, locatable phones receive a periodic notification via text message that they can be located. These messages are received about once a month.

When I signed up for the FamilyMap trial, I pictured being able to locate either of my kids when I needed to reach them and didn’t know where they were. But I won’t be able to find them if they are outside of the AT&T coverage area or have their phone turned off.

Heck, as my experience shows, I might not be able to find them even if they are within three feet of me–if I rely on the results of the FamilyMap search.

Just before writing this, I asked FamilyMap to locate me and my daughter. I had confiscated my daughter’s mobile phone until she finished her homework, so it was sitting on the computer desk, about 3 feet from my mobile phone. Here is the result:

You can see that it shows us blocks apart. You can’t tell that it has neither of us located at our home. In fact it has both of us about one mile away from our house!

In several trials, I was only impressed once by the service’s ability to locate someone. It did show exactly where my son was umpiring a baseball game at a local field. But that was the ONLY example of an accurate result.

AT&T, why would you think that sending a parent on a wild goose chase to find a child would bring us “peace of mind”?

I’m going back to the “old school” method of sending a text to my kids and having them tell me where they are. The answer may still be inaccurate, but I won’t be paying $14.99 per month for it!

My daughter, Caitlyn, and I are packing today in preparation for a 13-hour drive tomorrow with about 40 middle-schooler and adult leaders heading to Splash Camp.

The camp is a six-day combination of Christian worship, fun and unexpected growth through challenges. What challenges? Last year we had to use teamwork to get through a challenge course. My daughter had to overcome her dislike for touching fish when she happened to catch the largest walleye in the area up to that point (see picture).

So no blogging until we get back. I may try to Tweet a little (@commakazi) and update my Facebook page via mobile phone. But maybe not—we’re supposed to be leaving the technology behind. I need the phone so that parents can reach me or their kids in an emergency.

My “day job” and some volunteer work have kept me pretty busy lately.

I was able to record an interview with Bob Freer, Infoble VP business development, and Julie Baron, Principal at Communication Works, an Arlington Heights, IL, communications strategist.

Why would a company pay Infoble (http://infoble.com) to create and/or manage the distribution and tracking of podcasts? Because Infoble can overcome many of the barriers facing corporate podcasts, including bandwidth, information security, measurement of ROI, searchable archived content and more.

Earlier this week, I joined two other members of IABC’s Social Responsibility Committee in an interview for the IABC Cafe2Go podcast. Shel Holtz, ABC, led us through a discussion regarding a new website, SR LINK, that is a resource for people interested in communicating about social responsibility.

In this 15-minute interview, Carrie Mamantov, Michaela Hayes and I discuss the goals for the site, the effort that went into launching it and how it is being received to-date.

Yesterday I wrote optimistically and enthusiastically about the social skills of some U.S. teens. Then I read a news article regarding Chinese youth, and realized that a comparison is in order.

The article, “Web-savvy & cynical: China’s youth since Tiananmen,” quotes and compares Chinese citizens who either lived through the June 4, 1989 military crackdown against demonstrators in Beijing, or who were born after it. The difference in political knowledge and concern is striking.

Here is one portion of the article:

Wu Xu, 39, was a Tiananmen participant. His generation was plagued by insecurity, he says, and hoped that China could “catch up” to the West politically and economically.

“This generation is totally different,” says Wu, author of a recent book about Chinese cybernationalism. “There is no kind of feeling of inferiority. … They have had the advantage of the last thirty years of China’s economic performance.”

Wu contends that China’s youth know more than they let on, and while they tend to be fiercely proud of their country they are also highly critical of their government. He calls them “a double-edged sword with no handle,” because their opinions cut in many directions and are not guided by any single ideology or organization.

Although young people in the United States also have opinions that go in many directions and are not guided by any single ideology or organization, they have something that Chinese people don’t: the freedom to speak their minds and to hear dissenting views.

The last presidential election is a case in point. Young people in large numbers supported the ideas of Barack Obama, and used social media tools and techniques to energize that campaign. But Obama’s opinions and promises weren’t unopposed, and voters were able to sift through messages from every candidate (Republican, Democrat and several others).

Further, as a Christian, I appreciate having the freedom to speak truth as I have learned it, in a country where people with other views also have the right to state their views. The mention of a double-edged sword in the article above reminded me of the verse in the bible that states,

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. — Hebrews 4:12 (New International Version)

I truly believe that the situation in China cannot be sustained, and someday, that nation will face truths that have been long suppressed.

I recently shared with you that I don’t find much credibility in the generalizations being spread about distinct and universal differences in employees based on their “generation.” I just don’t see an automatic one-to-one relationship between the year someone was born and the person’s approach to the working world.

My 15-1/2 year old son, Kevin, has been regularly confirming for me that at least one of those stereotypes isn’t true: Teens are not becoming socially inept due to a huge reliance on communications tools such as social networks, texting and lots of time spent gaming online.

One nice example: Kevin (pictured here batting) made a real-life connection with a gaming friend during a baseball game today. As we drove home from his game (which his team won), Kevin described to me how it transpired.

For some time, Kev has been playing “Gears of War” online with several high school friends, and other people he has “met” online. One of the gamers he met was a sophomore at the same high school that Kevin attends. Kevin soon learned the gamer’s first name and that he was of Pakistani heritage.

During the game today, one of Kevin’s teammates mentioned that he knew a sophomore on the other team, and he stated his name. The name of the Pakastani ball player was the same as the gamer’s. Kevin wondered whether it was just a coincidence.

An inning later, Kevin was playing third base and the Pakastani ball player advanced to third. Kevin decided to ask the ball player whether he played Gears of War. When the player said that he did, Kevin asked whether his gamer tag was the one that Kevin knew. Sure enough, it was the same person.

The two of them smiled and made some small talk, and now have a connection that they otherwise wouldn’t have made if two things hadn’t occurred:

• Kevin needed to be social during his online gaming time (which he and his friends are, in general).
• Kevin had to be social in person, asking a stranger a question that might make Kevin feel or look foolish. Isn’t that what we do during networking sessions in the “adult” world?

My point is that the tools that some adults say are making our kids socially inept actually, in some cases, are making it easier for our kids to be social with their peers.