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A Movember that would make Magnum P.I. proud

November is Movember month, an annual fundraising event where participants grow moustaches to raise awareness and funds that will help to eventually bring an end to prostate cancer, the #1 cancer affecting men around the globe.

For the youngsters not familiar with Magnum P.I., the actor known as Tom Selleck has played a more recent role as Dr. Richard Burke aka Monica’s boyfriend on the TV show, Friends.

Before Movember provided the necessary cover, Tom Selleck was often to blame whenever a man fooled himself into believing he’d look good with a moustache… a credit formerly given to Burt Reynolds.

Dave Woroch, EVP Sales

This Movember, our very own Dave Woroch is putting his best whiskers forward for the cause and with some coaxing he even let us snap a few photos for this post. We think he bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Tom Skerritt aka “Viper”, in the 1986 hit, Top Gun. But don’t tell him that.

If you have no plans to grow an upper lip follicle forest of your own, why not take a moment and support Viper in his efforts? Visit his Movember fundraising page and make a pledge and learn more: http://mobro.co/ViperDave

Are you participating in Movember?

We want to know! Just leave a comment below with a link to your Movember profile, or send us a tweet to @OpenSRS. As the end of November approaches, we’ll pledge $50 to a few of our favourite ‘staches.

From the Movember website:

Since its humble beginnings in Melbourne Australia, Movember has grown to become a truly global movement inspiring more than 1.1 Million Mo Bros and Mo Sistas to participate, with formal campaigns in Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, the UK, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, South Africa and Ireland. In addition, Movember is aware of Mo Bros and Mo Sistas supporting the campaign and men’s health cause across the globe, from Russia to Dubai, Hong Kong to Antarctica, Rio de Janeiro to Mumbai, and everywhere in between.

No matter the country or city, Movember will continue to work to change established habits and attitudes men have about their health, to educate men about the health risks they face, getting them to act on that knowledge thereby increasing the chances of early detection, diagnosis and effective treatment.

In 2010, nearly 119,000 Canadian Mo Bros and Mo Sistas got on board, raising $22.3 million CAD.

Via the moustache, Movember aims to fulfill its vision of having an everlasting impact on the face of men’s health by continuing to spark conversation and spread awareness of men’s health each year.

Tucows’ Employee Lucas Cochran and His Discovery Channel Debut

If you’re a fan of the Discovery Channel, you may have seen our very own Lucas Cochran during Daily Planet’s, “Future Tech” a new segment that covers Tech, Gaming and Social Media.

Lucas is no stranger to the camera. In 2009, he had his own show called “Pimp My PC” on Butterscotch TV, where he helped viewers creatively customize, personalize and trick out their boring beige box PCs.

During business hours at Tucows, Lucas is our go-to guy for all things related to IT and can be counted on to handle everything from the deployment of an authentication cluster, to troubleshooting audio/video issues on Skype.

But labeling Lucas the Tucows IT guy and leaving it at that just wouldn’t be fair…

This man has the geek cred of ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ lead character Lewis Skolnick, combined with the stage presence and comedic timing of Jerry Lewis, and the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of Ron Popeil. When George Clooney needs help with the ladies AND programming his VCR, Lucas is #1 in his speed dial. At least, he will be as soon as George sees this episode of FutureTech.

A word of caution however: never (ever) agree to play Star Wars trivia with this man (you will lose), and never, ever bet Lucas that he’ll be unable to get an old Logitech webcam working on a MacBook Pro (I lost $5 bucks to him this way just last week).

But seriously, Lucas is a great example of the super talented people we get to spend out days with at Tucows/OpenSRS. His intrinsic desire to teach himself new things, combined with his super friendly nature and ability to teach others will undoubtedly make him a great addition to the Daily Planet team and we’re all extremely proud of him here at Tucows.

Congrats Lucas!

To see what Lucas has to say, check out the segment of FutureTech on this week’s episode of Daily Planet.

Exciting updates from your reseller friendly support team!

If you’ve called into support in the past two weeks, you may have noticed something. For starters, the average time it took a support rep to answer the phone was less than 30 seconds. We also recorded zero abandoned calls.

Call volume was the same as always, so how did this happen?

About a month ago, we asked Claire Lam, our head of professional services department, to take on some additional responsibility to help us understand some of the key challenges within the Technical Support group and implement some changes.

For the past several weeks, Claire and her team have been pretty busy.

As our new head of Reseller Technical Support, Claire is applying what she’s learned working with large hosting providers, combined with her background in customer service, software development and business process to identify to implement changes that will help us deliver on our promise of Reseller Friendly customer service.

Measuring for Service

As a data-driven individual, her first order of business was to implement the right measurements. “We need to know how we’re doing today, so we can figure out how we can do better tomorrow.” Claire told me.

Part of this data collection project involved the introduction of Top 5 issues affecting resellers that Claire shares with the entire company on a weekly basis, and the implementation of a short reseller satisfaction survey sent after the closure of every ticket “Resellers aren’t required to complete the short survey, but those who do will be providing us with actionable data we can use to improve” Claire says.

Trying New Things!

In addition to the more traditional methods of support management, Claire and her team are trying new things.

Last week, with the help of Jonathan Clarke, one of our senior support analysts, worked with Claire to implement LiveChat support service right on key areas of the OpenSRS website. It’s on a trial basis with a goal of serving the needs of resellers who are unable to call us, but are looking for something a little more realtime than email. So far, testing has been positive and it’s a perfect example of the kind of thing we think our reseller customers will appreciate.

What’s next in Support?

There’s a number other things Claire’s been working on, but rather than list them here, I’ve asked her to think about some topics she’d like to share and we’ll share them with you here shortly.

So this won’t be the last you’ve heard from Claire and the support team and we hope that in the coming weeks, you’ll notice and appreciate some of the efforts they’ve been working on.

Have you interacted with our support team lately? How did we do? What could we do better?

Help Shape Canada’s Internet in the Upcoming CIRA Elections

Are you a professional Canadian with Board experience and an interest in technology and the Internet? The Canadian Internet Registry Association is looking for interested candidates with expertise in accounting, law, marketing and communications or technology to apply to become a member of the CIRA Board of Directors in the upcoming election.

What is the role of CIRA’s Board?

CIRA’s Board of Directors has a unique role to play in setting policy and strategy to help CIRA continue to be a leading-edge organization that strives for excellence as a registry and supports Canadians in building their presence in the global digital economy.
Why should this interest me or someone I nominate?

Becoming a CIRA Board Member is a unique opportunity to work with Canada’s Internet leaders as they develop strategy and policy that positions .CA for operational excellence. You will gain valuable insight and experience around technical innovation, Canadian and international Internet policy, and organizational governance.

How do I apply?

.CA Members can nominate themselves or another individual by completing the online Nomination Form from August 2 – 15.

Once nominated, Nominees will receive an email with a link to complete an online Nominee Application Form. The Nominee must complete and submit the form before 8 p.m. ET on August 15, 2011.

To be included on the Final Members’ Slate, Member Nominees must then receive the endorsement of at least 20 CIRA Members during the Show of Support stage.

About CIRA

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority is the member-driven organization that manages Canada’s .CA domain name registry, develops and implements policies that support Canada’s Internet community, and represents the .CA registry internationally.

To learn more, visit www.cira.ca.

Holiday Hours: Civic Holiday, August 1st, 2011

This coming Monday our offices will be closed for a Canadian civic holiday. But to all of our non-Canadian friends around the world there’s no reason to be jealous.

The August long weekend is often the worst traffic day of the year for cottage goers as make their way out of the steamy city via congested highways, toward their comfy cold beer, Adirondack chairs and docks on the water.

Sure, eventually they’ll arrive and when they do the chairs are comfy and the lake water is a perfect 78 degrees Fahrenheit. But a short two days later, and they’re back on the road, battling traffic once again. Heck, there’s even some rain in the forecast. Lame.

See? Almost no reason to be jealous at all. In fact, they deserve our sympathy… wading through the biggest traffic jam of the year, only to enjoy a cold beer on a dock with some deer flies and mosquitos? No thank you.

Now, on to official business: Our Technical Support team continues to be available 24/7 to assist you. Please note that during this closure, there will be:

No orders or requests processed for the following TLD’s: .at, .fr, .ch, .li, .dk, .com.mx
No special processing for .ca (registrant transfers, conflicting and municipal registrations) or .eu/.be (redemptions).

Here are the hours by department:

Department	Dates and Hours
Technical Support	Regular hours
Payments	Email support: payments@opensrs.org
Compliance	Closed Aug 1st (Monday)
Service Bureau	Closed Aug 1st (Monday)