La Piazza Blog - PANDA SECURITY SUPPORT

Posted by Leyre Velasco, 27th October, 2009

The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications which facilitate interactive exchange of information, data sharing, and collaboration on the world wide web. It is thought to have been coined after a conference held by O´Reilly media in 2004. The web 2.0 philosophy promotes web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, not to mention social networks aimed at various sociological profiles.

Companies are more and more implementing community knowledge bases enabling users to solve product and customer service issues on their own. In Panda Security, we are particularly sensitive to this issue and have deviced additional means of Support such as forums, multimedia tutorials, blogs, etc.
The Panda Security International Technical Support Forum for example, enables not only moderators, but users to directly help one another. These new sources improve the quality of support as massive feedback is obtained directly from the users themselves. Community knowledge bases create smarter, more informed customers and users. Content can be authored by both internal and external resources providing a rich source of information relating to the company’s products and services. What´s more, collaboration is a key issue: It improves decision-making, and enables knowledge workers to meet mission objectives with the best information available. However, for an average user, technology in this regard may have already gone too far, and the user finds himself not really prepared to face the trend in technology, some users even questioning the validity of all these tools.

So, before web 3.0*, the natural evolution of web 2.0, spreads, let´s test how web 2.0 you are!! Simply fill in this quiz on social media and web 2.0 by Quizible and check how many of the 32 icons you recognize!!

Web 3.0*: a concept which aims to transform the network in a data base, in search of making content accessible by non-browser applications and towards artificial intelligence and the semantic web.

 If you think you need to improve your web 2.0 skills, check this video to grasp the basic concept of web 2.0!

Why don´t you share your experiences with us and tell us which of the various collaborative tools you find most useful generally speaking? Thanks a lot! Your feedback is really useful to us, as we constantly work to provide you with the most user-friendly tools!!

Posted by david, July 3, 2009

Some weeks ago I had the pleasure of listening to a talk from Genis Roca, in which he explained how people’s perception of technology is ‘everything that has been invented after they were born’. The idea is that we don’t consider anything invented before we were born as technology, because it has always been there; it is something natural to us. While I share this perception of technology to a large extent, it is also true that in my case it applies only when I discover something new and even then for a short period of time (the ‘euphoric’ phase). Take, say, an Ipod; to my father this is technology, but to me it is just a device for listening to music, just as a discman was 20 years ago. Sure, I can also surf the net, watch movies… but in the end it is still a device designed for listening to music.

Are social networks and Web 2.0 technology? The way I see it, they are just channels through which I can interact with people and share information or just talk. Of course I can also share photos, play, post videos, tag friends,… but once again, in the end they are applications for communicating, just as in the 90s we had IRC, and in ten years’ time we will have… whatever.

So what essential differences are there between showing my friends photos in a traditional photo album or posting them on Facebook? Basically three: the immediateness, the duration and the feedback. I could be in London, take a photo, publish it on Facebook and in less than five minutes my friend Ted, who lives in the backend of nowhere in Australia, could be telling me what he thinks of the photo. If I keep my photos published for three of four years, then Ted can always see my photos of London again, without having to come to Spain to see my album.

If we apply all this to tech support, it drives us to look for a way of offering immediate support, which lasts and also provides real, sincere feedback. If customer ‘A’ has a problem, she can contact us and we can offer a specific solution to the specific problem. If customer ‘B’ has the same problem, he can send us an email and we can offer the same solution that we gave to customer ‘A’. If, two years down the line, customer ‘A’ has the same problem again, she can contact us and we can send the same solution that we did two years previously. So now, you will have realized, we have sent the same solution three times. It would seem then that we have a problem. We are providing immediate and effective solutions but they don’t last and they don’t always provide feedback. It’s as if my friend Ted wanted to see my photos of London and each time had to get in a plane and come from Australia to Spain to tell me personally that he likes them. Now I quite like seeing old friends, but this really doesn’t make much sense, does it?

This is why some time ago we started to move towards Support 2.0: from person-to-person, reusable, taking advantage of forums, Facebook, Twitter, blogs,… yet today I want to talk to you specifically about our new Tech Support forum.

Let’s put the previous situation in the context of the 2.0 environment. Customer ‘A’ has a problem and decides to go to the Panda Security Tech Support Forum to find a solution to her problem. She looks in several sub-forums but doesn’t find a solution, so she decides to contact us. Somebody who works at Panda Security offers a solution to the problem, customer ‘A’ applies the solution and immediately, through the solution we have provided, confirms that we have resolved the problem.

Panda Tech Support Forum

Some days later customer ‘B’ has the same problem, he goes to our forums and in one of the sub-forums he finds the solution that we gave to customer ‘A’. But that’s not all. He also sees that the solution has been satisfactory for customer ‘A’. This is very positive for customer ‘B’, he knows that the solution is good, applies it on his computer and goes back to the forum to give his feedback and offer suggestions on how the solution might be improved even. Some time later customer ‘A’ has the same problem again. What will she do? Look at my photos on Facebook or get a return plane ticket from Sydney to Bilbao? But it doesn’t end there, as anyone could run a simple Google search to find the post with the solution to the problem. The end result? We have immediate solutions, which last over time and we get feedback from the most important agents in the process: our clients.

In Panda Security Support Blog we will write relevant issues and useful news on Technical Support matters.

The main idea is to share with you a wide variety of technical information regarding  everyday incidents and queries. You are more than invited to read and comment any of these topics but remember that this blog is just for informative purposes.

On the other hand, if you need technical support of any kind, visit in the first place our Support website: Homeusers Support website and Enterprise Support website

In the Support website you will find all the technical information about our products and in the Security Info section, all the data about malware worlwide.

If you have doubts or want to ask an expert about a specific issue, then visit the newly published Panda Security Technical Forum. There you can look for technical answers and learn a little bit more about your product.

Hope this helps clarify the difference between the purpose of the Forum and Blog.

We would like to introduce you to this new blog,  a space to share with you Technical Support relevant issues, news, and comments.

By the way, we have the pleasure to share with you the new Panda Security Technical Support FORUM!!

Both the blog and the forum are milestones in the Panda Security service to the community. We hope you all enjoy these new tools.

So, we encourage to actively participate in this exciting project, join in!

The Panda Security Support team.