We’ve all done it – interacted with a machine on a street corner in order to gain access to some physical currency.  Everyone knows the process:

• Select your language (I personally select randomly to mix it up a little)
• Enter PIN (glance over your shoulder to make sure your friend isn’t peeking)
• Select transaction type
• Select account
• Indicate amount (grumble about the increments and/or limits)
• Agree to fee (does anyone stop at this point?)
• The machine wishes you a happy birthday
• Your cash is provided below

Yes, I know, most of us don’t expect our ATM machine to wish us a happy birthday, let alone break the standard protocol that we’ve all become accustomed to over the years. But this seems to be the case with Wells Fargo ATMs, as a friend pointed out to me recently. I thought this was pretty cool and so did he – enough to tell me and most likely a dozen other people about it.

So I poked around to see what else Wells Fargo is doing across other interactive platforms and found the start of a well executed Twitter communication strategy. It seems, for whatever reason, that Wells Fargo had the internal foresight to grab their @WellsFargo account as early as April 2007, but have yet to tweet more than 5 times since April 2007. The bio on that account states “We’re holding our name for now, but hope to participate soon”.

On the other hand, Wells Fargo has another Twitter account, @ask_WellsFargo, with 6 Wells Fargo employees taking turns at the helm. The six are using short signatures on their tweets to indicate who is tweeting. (i.e. ^SS)

I’ve helped implement what seems to be simple social/interactive elements like this into companies big and small – so I can only imagine the amount of politics and coordination that went into both examples of Wells Fargo embracing technology and social trends to create a bond with their customers. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on them, although it would take much more than that to get me to switch banks from USAA. (big fan)

A retail advertising agency that I’ve been working with lately was in need of an updated web presence to visually align with their new corporate branding and addition of an interactive offering.  Knowing that the company was undergoing change, keeping the site informative for prospective clients, but vague enough to allow the company to make changes to their staffing, methodologies and offerings was important.

Working with Walter Stevenson, I directed the development of this simple site, which showcases the agency’s passionate client endorsements.

I recently bit the bullet, changed carriers and got an iphone – with the promise to myself that I would never turn into one of the many iphone zombies that are removed from the social situations going on around them in real life.  I am determined not to become a slave to the device.  (Check back with me on that one.)

When I set up my email on my iphone, it was rather simple and intuitive, as is the case with many Apple products. One issue that became immediately apparent to me was the way that I had my desktop email folders set up and how organizing your email for the iphone is a must if you want to use the device efficiently.  I have been using, what I now realize, a silly, convoluted system of sorting my emails into folders based on Outlook rules – in an effort to maintain control over my inbox.

After a discussion with a former colleague, I thought through a way to deal with organizing your email – “The Empty Inbox Method” – and I can attest to it working (at least for the last week it has). I’m not saying that I’ve discovered something revolutionary or even anything new – I’m just so happy to have an empty email inbox and less stress in my electronic communications.

This is the basic system:

The First Step to Organizing Your Email -  Completely empty your email inbox

Set aside some time to respond to any important messages in your inbox that have been lingering unanswered below your viewing pane.  Then, move everything in your inbox into a new “archive” folder – this will house your read/responded emails from now on.

You now have an empty email inbox. To keep it this way, when you receive a new message – do something with it. I know this sounds too simple, but really, I’ve had an empty email inbox at the end of each day for over a week now.  Basically, with each new email that you receive, take one of the following actions:

ARCHIVE THE EMAIL MESSAGE
Most of my emails require no response or action…CC:s, FYIs and automatic notifications.  Skim through them, then immediately move them into your archive folder.

RESPOND TO THE EMAIL MESSAGE
If the email message calls for an easy answer, send it- then move the email message into your archive folder.

FORWARD THE EMAIL MESSAGE
If the message is better handled by someone else – send it off to that person, then move it to the archive folder.

HOLD THE EMAIL MESSAGE FOR LATER
This is the one exception to an immediate empty email inbox.  Some e-mail messages need longer follow ups than you have time for or you just don’t have all of the answers at that point.  You can leave this in your inbox – it actually beats the default “flagging” option which I always do but rarely follow up on.

Avoid letting too many of these email messages stay in your inbox. Set aside some time at the end of each day to respond to as many of these as possible – with the goal of an empty email inbox.

If you try this method…or a variation of it – I’d love to hear from you on your method for organizing your email.