The Article Writer

By now, you may have heard about the plagiarism scandal at Columbia University where a professor was found to have taken content from two of her students and a former teacher and used these works as her own.Columbia concluded, after an eighteen-month investigation that wrapped up in December, that Madonna Constantine had committed at least two dozen acts of plagiarism.

Possibly worse than Constantine’s transgressions was the way that the university handled the matter — the professor wasn’t fired, instead she was penalized by the university, but we aren’t told how.

In this country, you are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Columbia’s exhaustive investigation has outlined Constantine’s guilt, though she has said that due process wasn’t followed, an accusation Columbia has denied.

This is the same professor who may have been behind an earlier incident where a noose was found hanging from her door at the school. The obvious racial tones in this act — Constantine is black — triggered an uproar as was condemned by the Columbia community. The incident took place as the university was finishing up their invesigation of Constantine.

In my opinion, the message being sent by the university is worse than the plagiarism itself. Columbia University outlines penalty guidelines for students including receiving an F grade for the class and/or suspension or expulsion from the university. But, this is for just one offense. In Constantine’s case, 24 offenses were recorded and she keeps her job.

Inside Higher Ed has an article titled, “Victim, Victimizer, or Both,” which does an excellent job of chronicling the events related to the investigation, including quotes from other faculty members and students.

Are you a stickler for receiving top notch customer service? Do you routinely “come through” as a provider of exemplary services to your customers? If you answered “yes” to both questions, then chances are you have been greatly disappointed at one time or another regarding the service you received from a salesperson, an internet hosting company, a hair stylist, or any one of thousands of different service providers. Frankly, customer service in many areas — retail, for one — isn’t what it used to be. However, where there is poor customer service there is also a great opportunity. Read on and I will explain.

Service That Goes Beyond Expectations

Let’s say you are in a field that routinely provides so-so service to customers. It could be that customer expectations are low and no one expects top notch service. Maybe most customers are simply “price sensitive” and could care less about how fast or how well you deliver. However, you can bet that there are a percentage of customers out there who appreciate service that goes above and beyond the industry standard. These same customers typically will pay a little extra for service that really serves them. If you can tap into this customer base, you can create a niche, raise your prices, and make more money in the long run.

Providing A Bit More To Make More

Depending on your industry, you could command a price premium of 10-25% over the average provider. That may not sound like a lot, but it could spell the difference between eating hamburger or eating steak. I don’t know about you, but I would prefer eating steak!

Working Hard Pays Off

Naturally, providing a high level of customer service means you will have to break a sweat. You may have to happily redo [its all in the attitude, baby!] or improve on an existing project in order to satisfy a good paying customer. This is what sets you apart from the pack.

Settling For Average

If you are satisfied with the “status quo” then that’s okay too. Just don’t expect to have customers beat down your doors with work.

At least the better customers will not!

This article originally appeared on this blog in April 2006. It was modified slightly and pushed forward for your reading enjoyment.

Ugh. One of my favorite blogs is in a quandary. Apparently, one or more of its bloggers has left, curtailing this site’s ability to provide useful and relevant information on a regular basis.

I am not going to mention the blog by name, but it does deal with the automotive industry. Usually, ten articles per day are posted, pithy pieces that are packed with interesting news.

Wanted: Fresh Talent

I knew that something was amiss a few weeks back when I read on this blog that they were openly looking for fresh automotive writing talent. This blog doesn’t use bylines, so I never know who writes what article and whether that person  is new, what their experience is, etc.

However, there have been a few signs of change, which underscores my alarm when a blog that uses multiple bloggers begins to unravel.  Rather than pick apart this one site, the following are my suggestions for all blogs that use multiple authors:

Use bylines. I want to know who wrote the article and what their experience is with that particular subject matter. Include a byline and a link to your About page which offers blogger biographies. Keep the “bios” short, but do offer a link to that blogger’s personal blog.

Don’t fill space. When one or more bloggers leave, please don’t keep things “business as usual” unless you have the talent in place to fill the gap. In this blog’s case, the ten article per day threshold was maintained. Unfortunately, the quality of the articles noticeably diminished. I would prefer to read 3-5 quality articles instead of an additional 3-5 puff pieces.

Someone must take the reigns. One blogger should be the “lead blogger” and be responsible for the content on the site. Not only has the content gone downhill, but typos are on the rise. Worse, one glaring error has remained in an article’s title even though your readers have pointed the mistake out when commenting.

Getting Group Blogging Right 

TechCrunch, Boing Boing, and EnGadget are a handful of blogs using multiple bloggers and are doing this quite well. In my humble opinion any blog employing multiple bloggers needs to consistently provide well written, accurate, and interesting news or risk losing their readership.

We expect newspapers to provide solid, factual information in a timely manner, so why not blogs, particularly those blogs with multiple bloggers?