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We, as New Yorkers tend to be a very picky bunch. We want the best our money can buy, want nothing but the “real deal”, complain about things that work 99% of the time, make our opinions known about everything, whether or not our neighbors (or the rest of America) like it or not.

So, we expect the same out of baseball teams. Only the best, only players who give 110%. But the injury streak the Mets have been subject to, to the poor mental mistakes make me wonder if it’s realistic to expect this level of play from a team mostly made up of second and third string players, expected to play mistake free baseball night after night.

I’m one of the worst offenders – my relationship with this team is nothing short of love. And after the disappointment of the last three years and our new shiny home, it’s tough again not to have hope for my team.

I love how the NFL’s salary cap provides parity across the league – allowing everyone a shot at success if they can put together a good season or two.

But baseball is different. Year after year, there are whole teams who never have a shot at the playoff or the World Series, who end up selling their talent to the teams who can afford it. Does the love for their teams change? Or is the hope still the same? The expectations of your team have to be more mild and realistic, right?

For a long time, New York has been on the other side of this pendulum (moreso the Yankees than the Mets, in my opinion). But when your high priced talent has injuries, and all you’re left with is the rest of your team, you’re left with these extremely high expectations, with a team not used to playing with this sort of pressure. And this is where the Mets are right now. And it’s weird. But it’s also fascinating.

I can’t help but think of parables about how one player doesn’t make a team, and how building teams with different skills is important and offering the opportunity for all to contribute makes everyone better.

We all form teams. Personal teams. Professional teams. Educational teams. Emotional teams. And most of the time, we work in defined roles and spaces. But sometimes, the strands get tighten. Crisis is the best real test of these teams. It’s the thing that breaks them apart or pulls them together – stronger than ever.

We’ll see about the Mets, but the bigger questions are about us.

Is your team ready to play a person down? Are you a good team player? Are you a good team leader? How can you make yourself better? Are you ready for crisis?

Let’s review.

A few weeks ago, Kodak decided to change their storage policy for people who stored photos on their Kodak Gallery Service, requiring a minimum purchase on a sliding scale that started at $4.99 and went up to $19.99 annually to start at the end of May. And if people didn’t meet the minimum purchase photo requirements by the end of May, their photos would be deleted.

This put people like me, who smartly, or not smartly, had used Kodak Gallery as backup storage for a collection of more than 3000 photos. Kodak had claimed the primary reason for the change was to repurpose storage used by people who didn’t make any purchases for people who did. Fair enough. So, I endeavored to remove my photos from storage, and delete my account. Unfortunately, there was no easy way for me to download these photos without giving money to Kodak. I shared my story, and found out I wasn’t alone.

The #kodakfail Twitter hashtag grows out of this, and a few other people pile on. I tweet at Kodak’s Chief Blogger, and Kodak’s CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett for reactions. I share my story with BarCampNYC4 in session about Twitter customer service. My biggest point, the communication about this was a real fail, and they’ve missed my use case – someone with a lot of photos who has no way to possibly meet their new requirements without an intense effort in time or money.

Kodak deletes my photos.

My story gets picked up by eConsultancy, Consumerist and a few other places. I write a post for AdAge about the perils of cloud storage, and lessons learned from it.

Finally, after a few days of Tweets, Tumble posts, and updates this blog, which was read a few times by people from Rochester, NY (Kodak’s headquarters), and one last tweet for comment, I get a Tweet from Mr Hayzlett saying that the team was trying to reach me. Kodak was listening.

The next day, I received an email from Kodak’s Public Relations team, trying to understand my story, and learn a litle bit more about my situation, and expressed a bit of confusion about the misunderstanding of Kodak’s purchase requirement (apparently it has been in place for 5 years). I tell her my situation, how there’s no way for me to get photos out, and how this is a major miss for Kodak, and how the communication was clear as to purpose, but it was perhaps a little blunt and unforgiving. She asked me why Flickr was willing to be worth my $24.95 a year, but Kodak was not. She also said Kodak was “working on” the solution of bulk downloads, and actually recommended a Firefox plugin as a stopgap solution.

And, most importantly, they RESTORED my missing photos for another year, and gave me an invite to and a credit to test their new beta product, because they want to continue to hear my feedback.

Huh. They listened, and they want to listen more.

And for those who have had their photos deleted:

“In terms of people who have not complied with the Terms of Service and have not made a purchase, they may be able to get their images restored. They would need to contact Gallery customer service, bring their account current by meeting the purchase requirement and then images may be restored.”

Today, at The 140 Characters (#140conf), Jeffrey Hayzlett, Kodak’s Chief Marketing Officer, and moderately active Twitterer, announced that Kodak was hiring a “Chief Listening Officer” as a part of Kodak’s continued push into digital.

And I can honestly say, after this experience, that Kodak is trying to listen and responding. Even though the solution wasn’t ideal, they tried to offer one that worked for me. And while I’d still like to see Kodak’s solution for “bulk downloads”, so that in a year’s time, this sort of thing doesn’t happen again for me, I think at least trying to offer an alternative was a good gesture. I’d say that Kodak’s listening has turned #kodakfail into at least a #kodakmulligan, or #kodaktryagain. There are still a lot of other brands who think the old way, that would have never even considered my situation.

They’re listening. And they’re trying, and I think that’s really all I could have ever asked.

Many thanks to the hundreds of people who shared my story to help get Kodak’s ear. The customer is always right, and now with social tools, “right” three times as fast, and three levels closer to the brand.

Interview w/ Matthew Knell, co-founder Social Media For Social Change

Posted to Internet Week by shiralazar on June 05, 2009

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Yesterday I had the opportunity to set on an amazing panel representing Social Media for Social Change at the first New York Social Media Roundtable event, put on by Flightpath and hosted by Kate Miltner. I was on an amazing panel featuring Rachel Sklar of Chartini, Alison Palmer of The Center, and Soraya Dorabi of Goods4Good. Matt Caldecutt’s write-up is here but Alice Hunt’s write up of the event itself seems to be the most complete and is available here (she corrected my name from Knoll to Knell in a follow-up post). Also, check out the Twitter hashtag for the event for other audience reaction.  Thanks to everyone who made the event possible.

After the event was over, I had a chance to briefly catch up with video blogger extraordinaire Shira Lazar about the event and SM4SC for the Internet Week NY website. Hope you enjoy.