Recently I discovered some of the really nutritious and delicious meals at Jamba Juice in 4S Ranch. So I admit to taking my sandwich over to Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf next door for a latte. Again, despite my claimed loyalty to Starbucks, my wife (to whom I also profess loyalty) loves the Expressos at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. So we sometimes drive over to the “CBTL” in Carmel Mountain, San Diego.

Starbucks knows it’s not about the Coffee. Well, maybe it’s just a little bit about the coffee. But they also understand that it is about the service – about how the coffee is prepared and about everything that happens in a Starbucks store location. Howard Schultz opens his latest book, How Starbucks Fought For Its’ Life Without Losing Its’ Soul with a passage explaining his rationale for a decision to close down all Starbucks retail stores during normal store hours to retrain everyone. It only cost Starbucks several million dollars, so he had some explaining to do, yet that was how important he felt it was to get service right!

Perhaps at CBTL they are forgetting this point. At both the 4S Ranch Coffee Bean and also at the Carmel Mountain store I needed to use the rest room. Let me tell you frankly that there is absolutely nothing more important in any food outlet than the quality of the rest room! Back to back visits to these two Coffee Bean locations I placed a complaint that there was no toilet paper in the restroom. Hand towels were just about overflowing the trash canister. At the first CBTL in 4S Ranch I received the following response: “Sorry, but I can’t get to it now. I have people in line.” But I’m thinking to myself that these people won’t be very happy when they need to use the bathroom. Would they think twice before having even a brief meal at this CBTL? At the second CBTL in Rancho Bernardo I didn’t get the same put off, rather the frustration of an employee who said, “That was supposed to have been done just recently,” obviously upset with a fellow worker who fail at his or her duty.

What does it say about Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf that their employees are missing basic courtesy, respect and compassion for their customers? How can they get it so wrong that the coffee or tea is more important than accommodating their customers basic human hygiene needs? Does the product sale really matter so much as to forget that we have more basic needs? You may think I’m taking the point a bit far, but I have a sense about these things and I am sure that CBTL management is doing something very wrong. Perhaps it is the franchise model that is backfiring on them? There is something not being communicated down the ladder nor reflected back up the chain of command. Or perhaps the top management has lost insight into what truly matters?

The chief goal of any business is to sell a product or service at a profit. Sounds simple, right? Yet the devil is in the process details between supply and delivery. Customer service is that big equation equalizer that comes in between.

What’s our customer service record in the pest control industry?

Would you agree that too often in the pest control industry bodies are placed in trucks with the objective of getting to as many doors as possible in a given day? You’ve seen the results pile sky high in customer complaints and increased regulatory oversight. We hear case after case of houses being quickly treated just to get to the next house or over-treated to compensate for rushing through service delivery.

The pest control industry remains far to focused on the core function of getting bugs killed and far too little on the people being serviced. If we killed every bug on a property, does that alone mean that we accomplished our goal as exterminators? I would hope we are more than just killing machines. I would hope that we have the best interests of our customers in mind. We cannot be only about the short term kill of a pest. We MUST be about the long term care of families, neighborhoods and the environment.

There is a battle raging in the pest control industry for the heart of the profession. In our equivalent of the Starbucks vs. CBTL service battle, there are pest control companies that cannot resist the macho image of killers. They glory in the hunt. At its’ worst, you can see it in their advertising – silly pictures of choking insects and operators with guns. Then there are companies that present a softer, more feminine image within the industry, companies that have to be able to handle pest problems to survive, but that are focused on the holistic needs of people.

Between the time you get the pest control service call and the time you leave your customers’ home, a whole lot happens. I’d bet against any operator who said that most complaints were about the extermination. It’s almost always about some ancillary factor, primarily the representative quality of the pest control technician and customer service representative.

So when you go for your next cup of coffee, think about the service you get and how it compares and contrasts to what you get from a pest control company? How does your company stack up? Has your company forgotten the toilet paper issues?

Since Hearts Pest Management uses universal technicians, I really needed a mobile solution that would provide a full feature Pestpac experience. Wanting to stick with my mobile carrier, Verizon, I asked them about their data access packages and how you can combine them for maximum advantage, explaining that I wanted to access GPS tracking data and wi-fi a WINDOWS operated tablet. Most tablets these days are not based on the Windows operating system, but until Pestpac finishes their software rewrite, it was imperative to stick with a Windows based tablet or notebook. I opted for a tablet because I wanted to be able to mimic features that Pestpac has for its mobile sales force solution. I did check some of Verizon’s competitors but found nothing better.

Here is what I purchased from Verizon:
One nice Droid cellphone with a 4GB data access plan at $30 per month. I topped that by a 2GB plan for a total of 6GB with the ability to have the Droid act as a mobile hot spot for the Windows I.E. 9 tablet (from which I removed I.E. so as to be compatible with Pestpac on Internet Explorer 8). This cost an extra $20 per month. Then I additionally ordered the GPS tracking capability (attached to the Droid, not the truck) for $25 per month). Tracking the worker instead of the truck would in some ways be an inferior solution to tracking the truck, but eliminated the additional fees of installing the GPS tracking software in the truck. It also provided some advantages in finding the worker or the cell phone. But, as luck would have it, the GPS feature was depleting the Droid battery very quickly, even when I used a setting to maximize the battery. The $25 GPS tracking plan had not contract, so I simply dropped it.

I bought a great Fujitsu Stylistic tablet from the local Microsoft store, getting 25% off on the tablet and associated accessaries. I later came back and bought three more and received a multiple Microsoft office license – cutting that cost from $99 per table to a total of $129 for three licenses.

Note that by having my field force access the Pestpac website during the day I will need to increase the number of users licenses. It will not need to be a one-to-one ratio as the licenses are for concurrent use. At a 2-to-1 ratio, the additional license costs will run roughly the same as Pestpac mobile, but now I will have a fully functional Pestpac system for my field staff, including full customer signing capability. The field staff have already started field posting of services and payments very soon after service. No more long time waiting to know the status of field work. They are also getting comfortable with service setups and scheduling follow up trapping services. They are very happy to be able to quickly update customer notes on the spot.

Then I went back to Marathon Data Systems to order the Pestpac GPS tracking system for 4 trucks (those kept in counties beyond our home office). For the extra $50 per vehicle, I purchased the dispatch software, which could save me $100,000 if it helps to avoid a liability causing accident.

As always, the Marathon Data Systems staff was more than happy to help me find the solution that I felt was right for my staff. Pestpac has so many features and components. I think they are comfortable helping companies snap the pieces together as they best fit for each individual company.

There are other Pestpac sub-system purchases in the future for Hearts Pest Management. As our office staff increase and it becomes more difficult to keep each CSR on track with the same set of information we want to impart to customers, I would like to further explore the Pestpac Sales Assistant package. I’ll keep you informed.

First, to be honest, I understand where he is coming from. Having pride in one’s profession is paramount if you are going to do a good job of it. Rightly, he describes his pride in “manning the walls in the war for public health.” I understand that many people want us to “just kill the bugs.” I certainly agree, especially in our profession, that once in a while – at least once a day – you have to laugh at yourself, with your team – share a few laughs with your customers. The work can get to you and so its’ vital to keep it light and loose. Work should be fun.

But that is where our agreement ends.

The author is absolutely right when he says that “terms mean things. Terms give impressions.” And that is why this article takes the pest control profession totally in the wrong direction.

Let me throw out a few questions.

Have we accomplished our exterminator mission with the “spray and go?”
Have we accomplished our exterminator mission with the throw bait and go?
Have we accomplished our exterminator mission with “the bomb” and then yet another bomb?”
Have we accomplished our exterminator mission with “term____ everything” (fill in the product) – including bees.
Have we accomplished our exterminator mission with the fumigation that could have been spot treated?
Have we accomplished our exterminator mission with “just dust everywhere.”
Have we accomplished our exterminator mission if our treatments effect as many non-targets as targets? Or is that just collateral damage?

Again, with respect for the PCT author, as an industry leader, I trust that he is one of the better exterminators.

If we killed every bug on a property, does that alone mean that we accomplished our goal as exterminators? Perhaps, if like some old timers in the industry – you see yourself as just that and no more.

Do you wish that your profession be seen as little more than a hired gun? In the ganglands and in the security industry, “hired guns” know how to kill, but even they sometimes miss to the detriment of innocent bystanders. They certainly are not considered the “brains of the outfit,” and even if they were, they would simply be the brains of a killing machine.

Being Jewish, the term exterminator has always had a negative connotation for me. In war, exterminators are so ruthless that they take pride in exterminating people. They quite openly advocate the extermination of populations. The “cockrooach Tutsi” in Uganda could be and were exterminated by the millions like roaches after an propaganda campaign dehumanizing them. There is a very interesting book called Insectopia, by High Raffles, that delves into a subject he calls insectification, whereby people are dehumanized to the level of insects, at which point extermination is the inevitable outcome.

Consider our own military. Overall, the U.S. army has been a great social transformer for the good of mankind in both foreign and domestic fields. At its’ worst, the reputation of the U.S. military has been severely tarnished, destroying military campaigns that had a purpose. One of the most publicized massacres by the U.S. Army occurred at My Lai when a village of “gooks” was exterminated. This was one of the turning points for the American public against the war in Vietnam. (I wish to make it absolutely clear here that I am a strong advocate for the U.S. military and just recently rebutted on Facebook a rediculous attempt of someone who tried to justify 9-11 with “equal time for American attrocities – My Lai).” Here, I want to drive home that while American soldiers are trained to kill when necessary and they know “collateral damage” occurs, our modern army is absolutely trained to respect the local population, their land and anything else that is a source of pride, ergo their environment.

I contend that even soldiers who are trained to kill people, the good soldiers, are not proud to have killed. They may be giddy happy that the other guy died and not them, but are they happy or proud of the kill? No. They are proud that they accomplished a mission. And the mission was not to kill. It was to destroy an enemy and win over the civilian population. In World War I, tens of millions of people were killed on both sides and we defeated Germany temporarily – but we did not win over the enemy. It took World War II to defeat the idea of German supremacy and fascism. We won over the public and now have Germany as a trusted ally in most issues in the world of public opinion.

We know many nations and armies in history dedicated to extermination. Ours is one that ultimately is focused on winning the peace by winning over the population. Exterminators cannot make that happen.

In our field of pest control, the equivalent of “collateral damage” are the “non-targets.” This is a serious concern – from beneficial species, to pets, people and our environmental health. This collateral damage can cause much more severe pain than the original problem if the exterminator is not educated, focused or sensitive enough to consider all ramifications. That is where regulators and environmentalists have a critical role that cannot be accomplished solely within the industry. Their role is an absolute necessity. There must be external checks and balances on our profession, as any other. To not have a deep respect for these organizations is foolhardy and arrogant. The author’s distain for these functions and the front and center positioning of this mentality by PCT speaks to backward macho thinking attitudes that still pervade much of the industry.

From a purely business standpoint, just as the author sites customers who shout “Just kill the damn bugs!,” I can site many accounts – landscape – residential – commercial – that have been picked up, satisfied accounts without pests – who have taken a green pest control approach. A green pest control approach does not mean you do not kill the bugs. It means that you have a broad based plan that includes the ramifications of what you do and that the plan has points that determine the appropriate level of treatment.

I can relate to what the author says about controlling pests and IPM – “which does not exist in structural pest control.” I.P.M. originated in the agricultural arena where you can’t expect to have 100% control of a pest without severe over application with noticable harmful effects on our food supply and water resources. In the structural pest control arena the customer often has “zero tolerance” for pests. Monitors and control levels can be too little, too late.

But I would contend that is incorrect. Even this PCT contributing author would have to agree that his very own house has insects and arachnids – in the walls, attic, sub-area and dare I say – in his living space. He doesn’t think of them as pests precisely because they are TOLERABLE. Some companies have used a smart marketing tool of selling “pest tubes” to kill those wall void pests that even the author would likely consider overkill and wasted money. One pest control technician I interviewed a long time ago who did this work for several years said that the pest tubes were often clogged and the application pointless.

Residential and commercial customers do have different tolerance levels. That is part of what allows them to choose different service intervals. They also have different tolerance levels related to the price they are willing to pay for service and this indirectly translates back into expectations of when they can expect the pest control technician to inspect and treat.

ZERO TOLERANCE IS DANGEROUS. The EXTERMINATOR who hears a customer shout about a pest problem gets out his zero tolerance toolset, his glug glug approach to measuring, his double and triple aerosols and bombs away. A few years ago I picked up a large senior care facility from one of the big boys in the industry because they took the super-duper exterminator approach, spraying everything in the kitchen – poisoning the food and sickening the patients. Here had been a crew of really bad exterminators – that I believe were not representative of this prominent commercial pest control company.

Typically, bad exterminators do not get better with experience. They get worse! Anyone who has chosen to hire candidates new to the profession rather than hiring an “experienced exterminator with bad habits” knows this to be true. As an industry, we cannot afford to visualize ourselves as exterminators. This will severely damage our profession and public health.

As the author of “I AM an Exterminator!” states, “words have meaning.”

Pestpac has several add-on products that you will want to consider for your pest control organization. BTW, although Pestpac software has been billed as state of the art software for the pest control industry, ergo the name PESTpac, it can be used as a generalist, strong and reasonably priced customer relationship management (CRM) package for many industries, especially the service sector. At the meeting I met a very inquisitive gentleman who owns a company called Poop911. …and that is exactly what they do. They scoop poop! … a great niche market.

Since returning from the meeting I’ve been doing more research on the integration of mobile devices for corporate fleets. The Holy Grail of mobile information access would integrate just about every imaginable need a human could have in a vehicle. Getting all these devices into your vehicle and available for use with customers, in the most convenient, durable and price effective manner has not been an easy nut to crack.

I’m looking for solutions that integrate phone, GPS navigation and tracking, customer relationship management, hands-off data entry and non-distractive fleet communications, without multiple wireless carrier fees, while achieving discounts for purchase/rental of multiple services. Pestpac has created valuable partnerships, including ones that allow it to gain access to cellular data and integrate it into Pestpac. It’s that integration of data into Pestpac that provides that organization with a meaningful advantage over straight solutions from wireless providers. The GPS integration is quite impressive and the connectivity is done in a manner that implemented correctly, can support other wireless devices at a discount. PestPac’s GPS Dispatch allows for additional hands off communication between the field and office using those same navigation and reporting devices.

While many companies have implemented Pestpac mobile handhelds, I am not yet convinced it is the way to go. Pestpac offers fairly tight data security that allows you to put the full power of Pestpac at the route technician’s laptop to the degree that you want to provide the technician with data. The Pestpac handhelds are still far to expensive at $800-1600 per unit. That’s a hefty up front cost. That adds up when you have a fleet of vehicles. The monthly costs are very reasonable. But I can’t see the investment in sturdy handheld devices at those prices when I can buy a fully functional laptop or tablet for $200-400. I’d have to destroy 4 to 8 laptops before I arrive at the cost of one Pestpac recommended and supported handheld device. While the technology delivered on the handheld is highly focused on the needs of a pest control route technician, Pestpac cannot possibly tailor the handheld software to the diverse needs of the industry. Give me a fully functional Pestpac system in the vehicle any day of the week and let me decide what functionality to deliver to the route technician based on security settings.

It is worth delving into the support that Pestpac can offer you today to help run your business. Yet some of the Pestpac add-on products perhaps should be shelved for a year or two until they complete convertion to .net. Currently, Pestpac software operates properly only with the I.E. brower. Once they complete the process of switching to .net, their software as a whole should be open to use on many platforms that are not currently open to it, with all the add-on functionality from handhelds and tablets.

For those expanding their commercial pest control business, check out the commercial add on module, which allows for pest control inspection and reporting drilled down to the room/unit level. That could be extremely valuable for monitoring progress (or the lack thereof) with unit occupants. Think what interesting and valuable information you could provide to support your pest decisions in sensitive accounts such as hospital rooms. During the meeting we were told about a PCO who was able to land a major league stadium contract partially due to the level of reporting they could achieve with Pestpac commercial reports.

As I’ve mentioned in prior posts, the Pestpac visual routing software is a must-have. Now, Pestpac visual router no longer requires licensing Microsoft mapping software. Visual routing is accomplished with an integrations with Google internet based mapping solutions.

One last shout-out for PestPac and Marathon Data Systems. These guys are great team. They have excellent sales and support staff. They have done a great job of supporting our business growth. Like “The Borg,” they listen, learn and adapt, with new and better releases all the time. They deserve your calls and business.

I welcome further discussion on the subject.

Before the internet came to play a huge role in driving pest control service advertisement, it became a tool for internal customer service relationship management. Over the years I have advocated PestPac internet based software for any growing pest control company.

Few people within the industry have a clear understanding of information technology. It’s just not the forte of the typical pest control owner/operator. Many of the people I meet in the pest control industry are afraid to hand over a critical part of the business to an outside entity. They feel it is too critical to hand over to others, even if they are not as knowledgeable as the tech guys. While I can understand that argument, I don’t buy it. It is so much harder to keep business software running on a local platform than to keep it with a company with over 100 employees dedicated to this piece of software and the management of pest control company data. If a problem develops, PestPac is on the hook to make good and recover/restore data fast! But in 10 years, I only recall one occasion when the system was down for more than a few minutes. Can you say that about your own computers?

I love PestPac visual router, which has allowed me to reroute drivers frequently, in ways that non-users can only do once or twice per year. I also love the Voiceshot module, which allows a company to send out computerized messages to customers en mass, a task that could easily require full time workers dedicated to the task of outbound messaging.

Today, I’ll be looking closely at Pestpac’s add-on commercial services module, which could help us properly manage an expanding commercial department at Hearts Pest Management. I would also like to re-explore the GPS integration, without which I have found much of the GPS data available to a company gets ignored. Having data on your computer is good, but best is to have an integrated package that situates data on the screen where you need it when you need it. I also hope that PestPac will be presenting simplified and unified mobile services using common tools from companies like Apple. Unfortunately, PestPac hasn’t aligned with Apple as they should, being the absolute leader in end user appliances. Personally, I’m not comfortable with pest control service technicians being required to have multiple personal contact and service management devices in their trucks that need to sync up with corporate data. Hopefully I will be seeing comfortable, compact devices that without convaluted rigging will be able to manage PestPac data in the service vehicle real-time.

I drove up today from San Diego and arrived at 5:30 AM to beat the Los Angeles traffic. Now that I’ve got you posted, I can go over for breakfast. Wish me a productive meeting and I’ll report back later.

The newsletter had a wikipedia link to the Vietnam era My Lai massacre of Vietnamese by a platoon to battalion size team of U.S. soldiers. This occurred during the 1968 Tet Offensive, in a war where our troops had poor understanding of the population and who was the enemy. But no excuses. The link provided by this So. California landscape company had the heading: “Equal time for American attrocities.” … with no further explanation.

My eyes rolled around in amazement that anyone could compare these two situations in equal light. On the one hand, was an event that happened in war time 53 years ago, in the pitch of battle. The soldiers were brought to trial by their own government. On the other hand a current international alliance of terrorists determined to attack western targets of symbolic significance, to severely damage the finance, security and government of the United States, while potentially killing 100,000 Americans of all religions and nationalities with the felling of two buildings.

The analogy was terrible, horrific and senseless. It would be like condemning the civil war union cause for liberty and freedom because Savannah was burned to the ground.

But returning to the purpose of this blog, I want simply to remind social bloggers that their content, while containing personal elements and passion, should stay on target. Social networking is by definition social. Social networking still must incorporate common sense. I could say many things about the ignorance or the lack of proper analysis by this social networker. But the lesson to be learned from this blogger is that while blogging, like any writing, will eventually get you friends and enemies, one should at least stay focused and present topics that are within the realm of the overall blog subject matter. When I blog about such diverse subjects as my world travellog, I do so such that I can entertain and bring in a diverse crowd of readers, while returning readers to the main topic: that is the people in the pest control industry and their impact both within and outside the industry.

I’m afraid this southern California landscape company simply alienated her fans, supporters and most importantly, her customers. So when you write your business blog, consider the boomerang effect, lest you get smacked up the head with your own shout outs.

The latest issue of 21st Century Israel contains an article about a company called BioPack, which is developing a method of using natural repellents in the packaging of food products. This product is not a pesticide and so is not seen to create resistance over time.
Here is an image demonstrating insect avoidance of this natural chemistry.

It’s worth reviewing the BioPack website for a better understanding of how GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe) products can be used in new and inventive ways to protect our food supply.

During my spring trip to The Baltics, we stopped in Riga, the “Paris of the East.” The city lived up to my expectations. The old city was beautiful. The cafes were alive. The food was outragiously delicious.

Oldtown Riga cafe scene

In a part of the world known for political drama, oppression and economic distress, what I found most profound, was the humor and joy with which the people go about life. Certainly, Latvians have had much to be happy about. Since the demise of the former Soviet Union, Latvia has experienced remarkable economic growth and political freedom. Still, when the United States suffers a cold, the world catches the flu. That was true in Latvia as well, where huge numbers of people lost there jobs in the last few years. Nevertheless, in Riga, people were out in the streets having fun, funny fun, downright silly fun.

Our first day in Riga we discovered that they were celebrating “Everyone Loves A Blond Day”

Everyone Loves A Blond Day in Riga

There were teenagers rocking in the downtown park in Riga.

Rocking Riga, Latvia

And there were some very good musicians who must have majored in marketing, because they were brilliant when it came to creating a unique image for the band. Check out the young men dressed like babushka (grandma).

Rigan musicians in funny outfits

The Rigans provided a good lesson for us on how to enjoy life. With all the problems they face, they still know how to have fun, to make light of problems and most of all, to laugh out loud! Their humor is not a pessimistic, defeatist humor. These Rigans know how to work – they make it so much fun that they can work and work and come home laughing.

For us in America, perhaps the problem is that we have had so much abundance for so many years. Why it should be a shock that we have been living on credit is surprising. In business, especially real estate, the manta has always been to grow rich on “other people’s money.” But we have realized that the underlying proposition is that to live on other people’s money we had to live on other people’s credit. So, times are not what they were.

But let’s take a lesson from Riga. There still is so much to be happy about. So much good in the world. Even in work, we often find friendship… and sometimes even love. If you don’t think life is funny, just watch Jay Leno or Chris Rock, Everyone Loves Raymond or The King of Queens. There is always something good for a belly laugh.

Something funny happens every day at my office. Sometimes I have to laugh … for want of a better alternative. Life goes on, lessons are learned, we grow a little wiser. Every business should have a minimum quota of funny bone moments. It’s one of those intangibles that keeps people employed and your customers coming back for more.

Was your business funny today?

This past spring I was in Estonia when I joined my wife’s business trip to the University of Tartu for a scientific convention. We traveled from Riga, Latvia to Tartu and Tallinn, Estonia and then to Helsinki, Finland.

It was wonderful to see how The Baltic Republics have gone through a revival since the demise of the Soviet Union. Three typical housing styles were evident everywhere. There was the old and elegant housing for the wealthy prior to the Soviet era. There was the bland, stark grey and unadorned housing of the Soviet era (which I didn’t bother photographing). Lastly, there was the new modern housing and where we were staying, some beautiful renovations of downtown commercial nightlife and cafe shops.

Riga alleyway

Here are a few more pictures from the trip:

I took a picture I found very humorous. It was displayed in the bathroom of a restaurant. The picture depicts a merchant selling shoes to a peasant with the inscription – Russian-American Innovative Manufacturing.

I took pictures of interesting foriegn menu items. The main course was liver and onions in beef stroganoff.

This picture shows a beach volleyball game in Tartu (hundreds of miles from the ocean), where the locals brought in sand for the occasion and planted it on a cobblestone street in front of city hall.

There were always the street musicians, even this group of Latin singers.

Everywhere I went the sun was shining, from 3AM to 1AM the following morning. The sun never really sets in late May when you are in The Baltics. The people told me that just a few weeks earlier they had sub-zero weather, which I understood, coming from New York, where the temperature can change by 40 degrees in one day. But here, the cold, dark days had been depressing and now, the people had a chance to make up for all the gloom, with endless cheer and good spirits, street music, games and family outings.

It was wonderful to share in the good spirit of the Estonians, but when we arrived in Tartu, the downtown district was covered in mosquitos. There seemed nowhere to escape them. The shop entrances were lined with mosquitoes queuing up to bite waiting shoppers. The hotels in Estonia (and I’d say most of Europe is no exception) don’t have screened windows. Air conditioning is not required for a 4 star rating and most rooms did not have it. So when the maids attended the rooms each day, it was their custom to air out the rooms by opening the windows, letting all the pesky mosquitos in. My wife spent the better part of her first afternoon in Tartu fighting the mosquitos in the room. She was so bitten up! We spoke to the hotel management, but they just shrugged and said, “Tartu in summer.” The restaurants didn’t seem to care as customers were everywhere to be had on the streets. There was no lack of business. One restaurant did provide us with DEET. The best restaurant in town was on a balcony overlooking the cafes. While the mosquitos hovered below us we were able to eat one meal totally free from mosquito bites. I wasn’t sharing that secret with anyone!

The Estonians still have a lot to learn about capitalism as I thought to myself, “I could make a fortune fighting mosquitos in Tartu in May.” There was not a single pest control company to be seen anywhere. The opportunity seemed ripe. But then again, the Estonians just didn’t seem to care. They were just so happy to have some sun that nothing else mattered. It goes to show that a pest is only a pest when it is beyond the tolerance level. For us, pests were everywhere but for the Estonians, there were no pests at all.

There is no one right way to integrate social media nor one way of doing internet marketing. The field is getting more complex and there are many ways to vision and design based on the your own business persona. Rewrites are often more complex then original site implementations. Due to platform and team changes necessitated, HeartsPM version 4.0 was a full year in the making from vision to rollout.