You’ve seen a few glimpses of our company culture in recent blog posts, so it’s only fitting that you hear about a little boating competition last weekend, care of the Texas Dragon Boat Association.

Our CFO Kevin Klausmeyer threw down the gauntlet a couple months ago in a team-wide email: “Let’s pit the managers against the rest of the company, and see who wins in a 250-meter dragon boat race down Buffalo Bayou.” Most of the folks around the office had never heard of dragon boating prior to Kevin’s email, but as soon as the inter-office challenge was put on the table, everyone made a point to find any relevant YouTube videos and Wikipedia articles and start training for what was sure to be an epic showdown.

The Texas Dragon Boat Association’s May Festival course accommodates three 22-person dragon boats at a time — each dragon boat having one “drummer,” twenty paddlers and one steersperson. Each team races at least three times and needs a minimum of 8 females and 8 males in the boat for each race.

Before you write off the athleticism of the event and start humming “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” you should note that these dragon boats can range from 30 to 100 feet long and only a few feet wide (just enough for one paddler on each side), each race is less than two minutes, and it’s a full-body workout. Teamwork and technique are the two most important components in a dragon boat race, so each of our teams had several practices to get everyone on the same page.

The managers chose to race under the name “The Planet Big Dogs,” so it was only fitting that the non-managers entered the competition as “The Planet Underdogs.” The other teams in the event couldn’t help but fear us as they read our team’s description in the program:

The Planet is widely regarded as an industry-leading IT Infrastructure provider. With multiple data centers, an incredible network and stellar support, we provide small- and medium-sized businesses with customized hosting solutions to fit their needs. We also harbor a secret: The Planet’s recent move to the Bayou Place in downtown Houston was not as innocent as it seemed … it was a strategic move to attract the former Olympians currently slated to paddle for us in the dragon boat races. Following a recent trip to the Yangtze River in China where we practiced our craft on the backs of real dragons, The Planet’s teams have consistently averaged 63 mph in nightly training races at a secret underground facility. In the interest of sportsmanship (and because we hate making our opponents cry), we will disguise our teams as a couple of rag-tag groups of first-time dragon boaters for this event. Autographs, training tips and a dragon boat DVD/Blu-Ray lecture series will be available to the losing teams at a nominal fee following the event.

Saturday rolled around, and everyone showed up to our luau-themed tent in their team shirts, and it was finally time to back up all the inter-office smack talk. Immediately prior to the race, the Underdogs were confident, the Big Dogs were creative: Doug came over to let us know “The winning team is accepting a 10% decrease in salary,” and the rest of the managers were quick to remind us that our yearly performance reviews were coming up soon.

Undaunted, the Underdogs took to the boat, and we made our way to the starting line. Apparently, the pride of the victory wasn’t going to be reward enough, so a last-minute wager was placed: the losing team has to buy and serve lunch to the winning team. The race was on: a team from Cafe Express in boat #4, the Underdogs in boat #5, and the Big Dogs in boat #6.

Always bet on the Underdogs.

The Big Dogs were very gracious in defeat, and we had a great time cheering for each other in rest of the day’s races.

In addition to the awards given to the fastest boats of the day, the TDBA gave a special “Spirit of the Dragon” award to the team that showed the most energy, involvement, and excitement. I’ll save you the suspense:

We won!

We had more than 100 participants, family, friends and cheerleaders throughout the day, so we’ve got a LOT of pictures from the event. I’ll be posting them on a dedicated “Dragon Boat Pictures” blog page so you can retroactively participate vicariously.

-Kevin

April 1^st can be a crazy time around any office. The street smart crowd knows to be wary of “Free Donut” signs; thinks twice before borrowing a pen from a coworker; and answers every phone call with a veil of disbelief. It’s a conspiracy: everyone else on the planet is entitled to be crazy for the day.

Apparently, someone noticed the fear of impending doom in the eyes of a group of coworkers and decided to help them prepare for April Fools’ Day by providing an age-old tool from a conspiracy theorist’s toolbox … The tin foil hat. Apparently, the pranksters helpers ran into a problem: they didn’t have hat sizes for everyone. All hope was not lost, though. A communal hat was created over eight full cubes (with a perimeter of about 125′) to protect the inhabitants from the crazy lurking outside.

Todd and I have been accused of pranking helping from the moment we walked into the office this morning.

For good reason:

P.S. Irene has yet to retroactively grant her permission to us.

The Planet is widely recognized as an industry leader in network performance, reliability and capacity, so for our loyal customers (and soon-to-be customers), we wanted to give you a behind-the-scenes look at what makes our network great.

Terms like “Tier 1 bandwidth” and “fully redundant” are tossed around in networking circles, but to the uninformed, those terms may make about as much sense as “dual layer lunar module connections” and “space-time transfer warps.”

Have no fear, though. The video below should give you a good education on The Planet’s network, and you’ll avoid the typical Network Engineer initiation (which typically involves multiple pairs of socks and a gallon of peanut butter … I’ll spare you the details).

Stan Barber, our vice president of network operations, gave me a great network walkthrough, and because I think everyone could benefit from his tutorial, I did my best to transcribe the simplistic overview on video a la the UPS Whiteboard commercials.

Video Disclaimer: We are continuing to build our network, so the final schematic is forward-looking and will be fully realized shortly. The connections and their explanations have been simplified to best communicate a high-level understanding of the network … Oh, and I am not an actor nor a Network Engineer.

Right about now, you’re probably expecting me to say something like “The Planet: It’s the Network,” but I doubt Verizon would find that message very original.

We take a lot of pride in our hosting network, so if you have any questions, please let us know and we’ll be happy to answer them for you.

-Kevin

The YouTube link: The Planet Network

When Van Halen came to Houston, I wore the rockingest facial hair EVER into the office for a few days after the concert. I’ve amassed a solid collection of t-shirts from companies like RandomShirts.com and Busted Tees, so the other folks at the office don’t even look twice when my shirt says “Fact: Clowns Eat People” or claims “Texas messed with me First.” I zip through the office on the company’s Segway, and I’m usually listening to music on my iPod.

Needless to say, I’m not known to be very formal.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I sported a green t-shirt, jacket, and pair of tennis shoes. You’ll note the “I’m too lazy to shave” beard and regularly-worn jeans.

As you would probably guess, given this context, I face full-on inquiries from curious coworkers when I wear a shirt with buttons or khaki pants, so I decided to push the envelope with a social experiment:

Clean-shaven. Suit. Tie. Hair gel. No detail was spared. I wasn’t this formal when I interviewed for the job, and even when I showed up in a sport coat, I was over dressed.

I made sure to document all of the reactions, so here they are … even the awkward ones:

Either you’re interviewing or somebody’s dead.
- Jimmy T.

I am fully freaked out right now … Now I can’t remember what I was doing!
- Katie S.

That’s your Bob Dole outfit … What? You have an interview today? You’re lookin’ niiice.
- Bryan M.

Check it out, Kevin shaved. When’s the job interview? … You somebody’s best man today?
- Aaron T.

Woah … Hey … Good luck on the job interview … Sorry if somebody died.
- Brandon P.

Fancy! You running for office? … You’ve got a Stephen Colbert thing going on.
- Gretchen P.

Job interview today?
- Judy B. - Chung W. - Andrew G.

What?! Are you feeling okay?! Are you sure?
- John B.

SUIT! You’re a suit today!
- Richard L.

Somebody have a court date? The only reason you’d dressed up like that is if you have a court date or if you’re taking out a nice lady.
- Clayton S.

You’ve got your nerdy hair on … Do you have a date today? Is everything else in your closet dirty?
- Ali L.

Niiice…(*sort of creepily)
- Urvish V.

What’s this all about? What are you doing? What are you wearing? I don’t like it … Who are you meeting?
- Todd M.

What are you doing? Interviewing? You’ve got your power tie on … lookin’ like Donald Trump. When Kevin’s wearing a suit, you know something’s up …
- Will C.

I feel like you’re going to sell me a used Buick…
- Jeff N.

What’s going on today? You meeting the President or something?
- Arnold Y.

You’re lookin’ sharp!
- Kelley H. - Matthew S. - C. Valderamma

Wow. You own one of those [suits]? You get dressed up, and you’re a pretty handsome dude … I know it’s weird to hear another guy say that … Is that a clip-on?
- Steve K.

When you come to visit The Planet, I’d suggest you lean more to the “casual” side of “business casual.”

-Kevin

P.S. Steve said I should include this quote from Gordon Gekko in Wall Street to embody my “look” for the day:

The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works.

I’ve got a serious case of ad blindness. I generally ignore banner advertisements online, tune out when a TV show goes to commercial (except when ShamWow! is being advertised), and I rifle through newspaper pages to read only the most important content — the comics.

“Use as directed.” “Prices and participation may vary.” “Your call may be monitored or recorded to ensure quality customer care.” “Wow, Kevin. You are incredible.” I hear those phrases all the time, so I’m almost desensitized to their meanings: Of course you should use a product like you’re supposed to … If a McDonald’s branch doesn’t give me a Big Mac at the $2 promotional price, that branch loses my business … The call “may” be monitored or recorded (so it’s probably not … right?) … And yes, I know I’m incredible.

In last week’s edition of “This Week* in Vending,” you met The Planet’s Manager of Technical Support Christian Plunkett. Four minutes and 25 seconds into the video, Christian sent my world into a spiral of uncertainty as he explained the weekly call calibration session used to monitor and score The Planet’s phone support quality. What? Calls are monitored and recorded for quality purposes? What does that mean for my other assumptions? Maybe Mitch Hedberg was right when he talked about the existence of a McDonald’s that didn’t participate in anything: “Cheeseburgers? Nope. We got spaghetti … And blankets.”

Once I was coaxed, shivering and confused, from the corner of the darkest room I could find, I pulled myself together enough to join in on last week’s call calibration meeting to get a sense of what all that monitoring and quality assurance looks like behind the scenes. The managers, supervisors and call center reps from our billing care, technical support and quality assurance groups meet in “The Attic” (an aptly named conference room on the lofty mezzanine level of our Houston headquarters) to hear and evaluate randomly-chosen calls from various reps. Our phone system automatically records, stores and indexes each phone call, which can be easily accessed and searched via Web browser. So, in a matter of a few clicks, we hear the “Thank you for calling The Planet” greeting from the first call.

Each person in the meeting has a quality control call monitoring form to grade the customer experience based on each conversation. Points are assigned in various categories to ensure thorough, friendly and consistent calls, with a maximum score of 100 per call. This monitoring process is constantly updated and improved as we meet and exceed the expectations we set for ourselves, with the overarching goal being able to resolve every problem quickly and easily on the customer’s first call.

Because you are probably interested in what one of these calibration sessions looks like, I’ll sneak you in behind the lines. This clip features a discussion about using of the caller’s name conversationally during the call to cultivate a more comfortable, friendly experience.

In addition to these call calibration meetings, individual monitoring sessions are held weekly between every rep and his/her supervisor. These meetings give each agent an opportunity to self-analyze and improve their own service based on what they hear as a third party. Beside providing direct and immediate feedback for each rep, we’ve used these monitoring sessions to evaluate our own support processes. As a result, we’ve changed serveral confusing or unclear policies in order to better streamline the path to a resolution for every customer.

The customer experience at The Planet has gotten even better, so we’re very happy to be constructively dissatisfied with our progress.

-Kevin

Given the phenomenal success of Todd’s “This Month in Vending” interview last week, along with his survival, we decided to post a new episode for your viewing pleasure. With this quick turnaround, we changed the name of the segment to “This Week* in Vending” with the asterisk doubling as an attention grabber for the word change … and as an excuse in case we aren’t able to keep up the pace.

In this interview, I enjoy a vending machine chili-cheese hot dog with Christian Plunkett, The Planet’s Manager of Technical Support. A new addition to the episode is the welcome music track pulled from a song performed by our very own Brandon Holbrook … Hopefully he accepts this shout-out as a substitute for the royalties an artist would typically receive.

If you’ve worked with anyone here at The Planet and you’re interested in hearing from them in a segment of “This Week* in Vending,” please let us know. If you work at The Planet and you want to embarrass one of your co-workers, feel free to nominate them as well.

-Kevin

The YouTube link: This Week in Vending: Christian Plunkett

Sometimes inspiration can come from the strangest of places. Thoreau found his muse on Walden Pond in Concord, MA. Rosa Parks helped spark the civil rights movement on a crowded bus in Montgomery, AL. The catalyst for this post was far more ordinary: the vending machine area in our Houston headquarters.

We wanted to host a series of interviews on the blog to let you meet some of the people behind the scenes here at The Planet, but we needed a hook … A subject that was both intriguing enough to capture interest and fun enough to make the series worth watching. Our first interviewee, Todd Mitchell, came up with the idea of “This Month in Vending” after I adventurously chose a florescent-colored Blue Cream Soda from our vending machines and subsequently shared the product’s ridiculousness with all of my coworkers. Upon further investigation, we found several questionable products that were begging for taste-tests. So, we plunked down some coin for a package of Riblets, and the rest is history:

-Kevin

The YouTube link: This Week in Vending: Todd Mitchell