Yesterday, I wrote a “woe is me” post
because I was having trouble invoking StrikeIron’s Reverse
Phone Lookup from a PHP
SOAP client. Here’s my problem
statement:
The challenge, at least for me, is the service
requires a SOAP header for id/password. I was following the code
sample and getting nowhere. Then, it
(finally) occurred to me to run the code sample. Well, it doesn’t work either!
So, if anyone out
there knows the secret to making this work – getting the service to recognize I
actually have passed in a phone number -- please let me know!
Well, it seems these four words: “at
least for me”, were the key. On the
reverse phone lookup, I was passing the phone number in an array, but come to
find out; I needed an array for my array. On the code sample (batch send of SMS messages), I was short some PEAR
Packages for XML
Serialization.
So, that’s all good. I will definitely be able to leverage the StrikeIron Web Services in my
“bus ride” work. But the cool thing –
and therefore the post title – is how my (operator imposed) problems were
resolved.
This morning, I received an email from a Senior Developer at
StrikeIron, stating someone there saw my post, and they wanted to help me! How great is that? Two emails later, I was all set. Not only did StrikeIron create a new code
sample specific to Reverse Phone, they also debugged my code – thus the array
in an array, and sent me all the PEAR download links.
Never once were my coding skills called out – other than by
me! It’s been awhile since I coded for a
living…
Not only does this experience show StrikeIron’s great
customer (or in my case trial user) experience, but also how smart they are in
monitoring the blogosphere.
Over the summer I wrote a Blogosphere Primer for
PSGroup, and in the opening I wrote this:
“At a minimum, we advise our clients to find and listen to
the blogosphere conversations about their companies, and their competitors.”
I think this is huge. If you aren’t listening for your own company (or person), get
started. You can listen using simple query
mechanisms (Technorati WatchLists,
keyword and URL searches and feeds),
or through sophisticated marketing intelligence services such as Umbria. [The Umbria execs briefed me back in December – impressive offering and vision.]
Lastly, and most importantly, many thanks to Ben for his
help!
