But In case you have no idea what twitter is, It is a communication utility that connects between people and let them exchange short status that answer the popular question: What are you doing?

In its essence, the service is pretty simple and solve a basic need; communication and therefore people have found multiple uses for twitter.

Some people use it to connect with customers directly and answer their queries, some others use it to update about their product status or to communicate with people around them. The fact is that twitterland is filled with interesting individuals that offer us a sneak peak into their world. yummy!

But lately, lot of people employ very bad techniques to win an audience (twitter can be a fabulous marketing tool if used right). They pollute our streams with non-sense updates, scrape our profile to follow thousands  within minutes and put some more strain on twitter servers (and oh boy we know how unstable twitter can be).

Unfortunately these people get a significant audience and that should stop. How can you recognize them? easy:

• They tend to post non-sense updates or aggressively market their blogs or companies.
• They follow thousands of people, have few followers and few updates ( Divide followers by the people they follow and multiply by 100, if you get a number below 30% then be suspicious).
• If you have 2 different twitter accounts, and you get notified that the same guy follow both accounts within a very short interval (usually within the minute).
• If You get a direct reply from someone you’re not following asking you to follow her because she’s in bed and she’s bored (Yes, true story!).
• Try to engage them within a conversation and if you don’t get a response or even better get an answer that doesn’t make sense, they’re probably just bots.

Usually, I am unhappy with them following me, from time to time I block them as well, but I DO never follow them.

My twitter strategy is pretty simple, I follow relevant people, once a month I go over my twitters friend and remove people that aren’t updating or their updates aren’t relevant to me. I try to not follow many people since I won’t be able to engage all of them and give them the attention they deserve (usually adding 5 people a week). And most importantly, I try to keep a positive ratio between followers and people I follow.

I’d be interested to know what are your twitter strategy or what you are doing to identify the bad guys.
You’re invited to follow me in case you’re a human being and drop me a message.

Right after receiving a green light on that project, I began working on the map and quickly finished, sending that map to their project manager.

Time passed and after exchanging back and forth several emails for few months, the project got stuck at a stage I was waiting for a final answer that would finally clear out all the issues. Waiting for that answer forever, I decided to put an end to it and mailed the project manager requesting for a payment. This is where the fun begins.

The project manager explained me that usually they’re not paying the freelancer before getting a payment for the project. I kindly reminded him that the project is currently stuck and that this project which should have taken no more than a week got stretched over a period of 6 months. That was unacceptable for me and he said he’d discuss that with his CEO. Few days later I received the confirmation that I would be getting paid immediately.

I sent an invoice and 3 weeks later since I haven’t received any check I decided to contact their accountant. A very “kind” and cynical woman answered me and refused to give me any details on the status of my payment. Several minutes later, she finally began to “cooperate” and explained me that since my invoice was sent 3 weeks ago; they haven’t processed it yet. Their payment term were NET 60 (Counting 60 days from the end of the month the invoice was issued – since I issued it on the 15th, I was bound to wait 75 days!).

When asking her if someone else other than her could help me, she rudely replied me with a clear NO. I hanged up and went on writing a mail to that project manager explaining him how bad service that accountant is making to their company and that I’d like a quick intervention. (I am very good at writing complaints mail).

Today, I got a call from that guy, the accountant and he were looking for my invoice but they couldn’t find it (I suspect her to have intentionally lost it since the last time we talked she had it on file).

Now I have to fax them a copy of that invoice and another set of 5 different legal papers. It pretty sums up what I have been through to receive a tiny amount of money.

There are several things that are bothering me right now:

1. The fact most Israelis enterprises contracting freelancers/smaller businesses pay on Net 60 term. If you wish to be the middle man and collect a premium fee on a work I am doing, I expect you to pay me when the project end and not to bother me with your client collection problems.
2. Companies with complex bureaucracy system put in place in order to increase their cash flow over a period of time.
3. Certain people having that much power in their hands.

In conclusion, I expect a company contracting me to treat me in the same way they’d treat a customer. You cannot expect from a contractor to meet its milestones if you cannot pay in time.

I am interested to hear about similar stories, if you’d like to share your own experience, please do so in the comments below.

Cartoon by amazing david horsey

I was introduced to great people, exchanged business ideas, discussed some marketing/sales practices and pitched Octabox to some potential customers.

Overall the event was great and time will tell if something fruitful will evolve out of it.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about getting back to the drawing table and occasionally  put up some tech-oriented comics. Other than that, I’ll be probably ranting about how bad are customer services in Israel, my personal take on Marketing, branding, User experience and anything related to my current startup: Octabox.

For the lazy bunch amongst you, you can add my feed to you current stream of internet noise.