Back when Skycasters was started in 2001, we understood clearly the markets we wanted to serve, and the quality of the product that we wanted to deliver. We wanted to deliver true broadband quality – the quality of service that would allow businesses to operate in areas underserved by traditional terrestrial connections.

We have since expanded that basic idea to include portable solutions and backup services that can keep your business running in the event of a landline failure – but our commitment to delivering an exceptional user experience has not wavered.
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Skycasters toasts the changing season!

The leaves have changed, snow is flying across the northern plains, and the chill in the air heralds no more installer training in Akron until Spring.

Please join us in our celebrating on this YouTube video at Skycasters’ YouTube site.
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Billionaire T. Boone Pickens recently scaled back his plan for massive wind farms – though he’s still taking delivery on those 667 wind turbines he has on order. One of the reasons he gave for the change, besides the price of oil, was transmission problems. High capacity transmission is simply not available.

The coasts consume the majority of the electricity, but some of the best locations for wind farms and solar farms is inland. Practical renewable energy solutions will remain tantalizingly just out of reach until high-capacity cross-country transmission is available. The best way to move high volumes of electricity is via 765 kV. The 765kV grid requires no new technologies, no scientific breakthroughs. We know how to do this today.

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Think of goodwill as something you put in a piggy bank.

Every new business contact is made with an empty piggy bank. The new contact knows nothing about you. You have no goodwill, no account to draw upon.

So you walk in the door. You’re groomed and dressed impeccably. You have all the credentials. You have a product offering that matches the customer’s needs.

Goodwill in the bank.

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I was at a family reunion over Labor Day weekend, and my cousin Beth (who’s been vegetarian for as long as I can remember), asked my wife and me about our relatively recent conversion (February 2008).

My wife had no trouble tracing her inspiration to the book “Skinny Bitch” and its stories of animal cruelty. After fumbling through an answer, and including the obligatory “My wife’s a vegetarian, which pretty much makes me a vegetarian…”, I began to consider the whys of my (mostly) vegetarianism.
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And ain’t that the truth!

No matter your industry, no matter your plans, sometimes that Murphy guy gets the best of you. We’ve all been there. It’s just a matter of how you respond.

Goodwill gets a good workout when problems occur – it’s true in any business. Read the rest of this entry »

I saw a Nationwide Insurance commercial recently in which the visually impaired employee named Michael Piccerello expressed in 30 seconds a concept covered in one of my favorite B books: Janelle Barlow’s “A Complaint is a Gift.”

When a customer takes the time to complain, they are really giving you a gift – a gift of their time. Customers are not required to give you this gift. In fact it is a major imposition on them. Most people avoid uncomfortable situations when they can – it’s just human nature – and complaining is often very uncomfortable. That’s why so few customers take the time to complain. Read the rest of this entry »

Bird bath. Gazebo roof. Flying disc. Solar oven. “Reduce, reuse, recycle” taken to extremes can mean some really wicked ideas for satellite dishes. Especially the C-Band dishes and the big TV dishes that were so popular in the 1970s.

My wife and I were visiting Kelley’s Island, Ohio, a couple weeks ago (those glacial gouges are groovy!), and we saw this old C-Band dish mounted upside down on found wood as a sort of cabana. That got me to thinking of all the other dishes out there. There’s got to be a million used dishes floating around out there.

Aside from WoundedMooseTV’s valued documentaries on YouTube, the web has dozens of examples of backyard entrepreneurs stretching their imaginations over dishes of every size and shape (did you see the skateboard ramp?).

If you have any great pics of satellite dishes creatively reused, and the story behind it, we’ll post them here for everyone to enjoy.

Skycasters’ customers, and other citizens in Honduras, woke on 28 June 2009, to a series of events that on the surface sounds awfully familiar:

The military removes the democratically-elected president, and hands the power to an official the military deems more capable. But there’s more to this story.

The world press has identified that Read the rest of this entry »

I was watching Discovery Channel’s “Ted Koppel goes to China,” and an interesting point came up about the benefits of a one-party political system.

I am not advocating communism or anything – far from it.  I love my country, warts and all, and I still believe that there is no better place to live on the entire planet.  But I’m not above taking my head out of the hole once in a while to see what other people are doing.

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