On The Horizon | April 2020

April 06th, 2020 Daisy Smith

 

At the beginning of Week 4 of quarantine, and I know I’m not alone when I say that March was really difficult, and April is looking the same. I mentioned last month that change is constant, but I didn’t expect something so abrupt as a pandemic.

We’re in a strange new world right now. Nate Hurd said it best when he spoke to my teams in last month’s Affiliate Spotlight. He said that this pandemic is the type of event that makes you take a step back and think about what really matters. What matters to me is your business. I’ve spent the last three weeks trying to invite myself onto as many calls and zooms as I can manage and consuming as much content as humanly possible. And every day I’m reporting back to the team.

Our team needs to see what’s happening in your business. And I really need to know from you whether we’re hitting the mark and supporting you in the ways you want and need to be supported. So here are the updates for this month. Any and all feedback is welcome.

IN THIS EDITION:

  • TrackMate Survey
  • Scam of the Month
  • No Dev is an Island
  • L&D takes on Montana
  • A Warning About Cyber Thieves
  • Remotely Interested
  • The Latest from Support

-Daryl

A QUICK FAVOR FROM THE TEAMS AT THREEFOLD

You may have already heard a bit about this tool, but in the coming months, we hope to work more with you to improve tracking and receive better analysis on your campaigns. Trackmate was built to give marketers great insight into the performance of campaign funnels through improved tracking and analysis. To ensure Trackmate suits your needs, the team at Threefold wants to hear from all affiliate marketers. Click here to tell them what matters most to you!

Brendan Tobin, UX Designer

 

STARTING OUT WITH SLACK?

Slack has quickly become an essential way to keep in touch with our teams as we adjust to remote working. I wanted to share this quick guide that includes best practices and tips to getting the most out of this application. If you have any issues with Slack or messaging your coworkers, please email us at help@14west.us.

Lance Sturgis, Application Integration Specialist

 

OUR FIRST HACKATHON | READY FIRE HACK

Last month we partnered with the experts at Red Hat to hold our inaugural Agora Hackathon deemed Ready Fire Hack, held at City Garage. This gave Developers and UX Designers from both WesTech and Threefold the rare opportunity to work together under the same roof to build out solutions to challenges specific to the Agora businesses.

Themes from the business problems focused on customer experience, compliance, and content engagement. We think it’s safe to say that the event was a major success, as each of the teams came up with incredible ideas that have real potential to become smart solutions for your businesses. But we had to choose one winner – the team who call themselves Your Form.

Your Form chose to focus on the issue that many of you have experienced – making long copy work on mobile. Working with The Oxford Group’s Brian Kehm, who happened to be at City Garage that day, they were able to better understand the workflow from an editorial perspective. Working with call center data, breaking up the content into digestible sections on a content management system, and fully understanding how to get the most value from the copy from a small screen were crucial to coming up with a solid plan… and winning the competition.

Elliot Sneeringer wrote up his takeaways for a recent WestWord post, which you can read about and watch a video of the event here.

 

SCAM OF THE MONTH | COVID-19

At this point, we’ve all been able to settle into this routine of working from home, but it’s very important to remember that scammers are too. While we are busy worrying about where to find the next roll of toilet paper or how to keep our kids from killing each other, they are busy coming up with new ways to capitalize on this pandemic. As important as it is to keep our hands adequately cleaned, we must remain extra vigilant when it comes to coronavirus scams. Here are just a couple of methods that scammers have quickly started to use.

PHISHING SCAMS | This one involves a quiz. Just giving it a quick glance, it’s obvious that this isn’t something you want to click.  These links could take you to a fake page to grab your credentials or could prompt a download to release malware – which is much worse.  There are other ones out there that are doing things such as asking you to confirm you are not infected or showing you the latest active tracker map. As with all phishing scams, DO NOT CLICK ANY LINKS unless you are 100% sure you know where it came from. And even then, I would ask someone first.

 

TEXT MESSAGES | This is another easy one, which involves receiving random text messages that tell you how to get tested or information on the virus.  These are generally malware-based and are more dangerous than the ones you see in the emails.

 

 

Other usual suspects include social media and phone calls.  As with emails and text messages, if you receive links in social media messages, invites to pages tracking the virus, or information on the virus, you should stay away. Even if the message came from someone on your friends list, it could generally mean they were hacked as well. Make sure you reach out to that person to confirm first.

As always, if you ever have any questions or are not sure please reach out to  security@14west.us. We are always happy to help.  Please stay safe and vigilant everyone!

-Paul Xu, VP Information Security

 

L&D WAS CALLED WESTWARD

We’ve just finished up with a unique collaborative project with NewMarket Group to train their new call center representatives in Billings, Montana. In just three weeks, we were able to provide the needed materials and train their agents specific to NewMarket’s policies and procedures in addition to the usage of Advantage.

It was a solid team effort working with NewMarket Group, but we couldn’t have done it successfully without such a receptive group of people who work at the call center.

-Laura Appel, Senior Training Partner

 

THE LATEST FROM SUPPORT

On the Products end, we are now handling all Global Porfolio, BI (Tier 1), EPP (Tier 1), Funnelcake, and Blueshift tickets. We’ve introduced a dedicated triage to ensure consistent communication and customer experience for your businesses. We’re keeping up with Product teams by holding regular feedback meetings and delivering product reports. Working more closely with the Business Partners to coordinate regular touchpoints with you has also helped improve visibility to ensure we get your Product issues resolved as quickly as possible.

– Tony Browne, Director of Support

 

Daisy Smith

Assistant Director, Communications

"Don’t take yourself too seriously.”

I found myself at 14 West after 18 months of traveling and teaching in Bali, Thailand, and Australia. And now 5 years later, I’ve learned and grown with my team in extraordinary ways. I think that’s due in large part to the fact that I’ve been encouraged to approach my work and explore my potential in the same ways I’ve explored other parts of the world. I’m constantly asking questions, seeing and doing new things. And learning A LOT. I didn’t expect to find an experience like this in “an office back home.”

I love my position at 14 West because I’m invited to take on a diverse range of responsibilities. From running our Wellness Program to brand development and brand marketing to writing, I have a broad range of interests. And my role allows me to develop my skills through work that truly excites me. I have a hard time saying no to new projects, even when I already have a full plate. But when I take on too much, the leaders here are there with the support I need to get the job done. At the same time, I’m given the creative freedom to feel real ownership over my projects, which only motivates me more.

What is one thing you have to do every day in the office? Gotta have my essential oil diffuser going. Five of us share an office and we’re all hooked on the diffuser now, but it’s my job to create the perfect oil cocktail each morning to set the tone for the day. I’m obsessed.