Howdy. My name is Paul and I’m the Director of Technology here at Smilebox. Smilebox is an interesting and unique company. There are a lot of processes and rituals we follow that may interest others, so I thought I would spend some time sharing what happens “Inside the Box.” In the next weeks and months, I hope to give you a glimpse of what makes Smilebox special, not only as a service, but as a place to work. We take a lot of pride in what we do and spend a lot of time trying different ways to improve. Some succeed and some don’t; but we always learn something.
This week I’d like to start out by sharing with you a decision we made early in the company. When we first started Smilebox, we knew we needed to do something a little different. We wanted to ensure that we designed and built a service that was fun and creative. Leveraging the idea that a product directly reflects the team that built it, we needed to foster a culture within Smilebox that was also fun and creative. Explicitly designing the culture of a company during its early stages was a unique challenge and we attacked it directly.
So, how does one go about cultivating a company’s culture? For us, we defined a set of values upon which we would build the company. Many of the founders of Smilebox, including myself, were familiar with various agile processes and the values they espouse. For example, the values defined by Kent Beck for his Extreme Programming process are “Communication”, “Simplicity,” “Courage,” “Feedback” and “Respect.” We wanted to define our own set of values that would set us apart and be guide posts for our future as a company. After much thought and discussion, we agreed on the following values for Smilebox: “Consumer Centric;” “Creative and Technical Excellence;” “Family Oriented;” “Accountable;” “Transparent;” “Collaborative;” and “Fun.”
Just glancing through the values we picked, I think you’ll start to see how Smilebox has built such a fun and creative service. In my next posts, I’ll briefly discuss each value, along with why we feel it is important and how it is reflected in both our work and in our service. Till then, happy Smileboxing…
36 Comments
I also got the message saying that I need to restart Smilebox. Well, I cannot figure out how to restart it! I wanted to use it to send out my Christmas newsletter, but I had to give up. It has been very frustrating. It looks like that I am not the only person having the same problem. Can someone help us out?
Hello, I signed up last August 2008 and have not successfully been able to use Smilebox. It is so frustrating because I get “application not found” every time I click on creating something. So many times I just wished there was a phone number to call in your Customer Support info. I wish I could get a refund, but better yet, I love Smilebox and did two creations just fine, but now I can’t do anything because of the error messages. Going on 8 months and I signed up for a membership and was so looking forward to creating albums. Funny thing is my neice gets it to work for her and she hasn’t even paid for a membership! I’d appreciate any ideas you might want to share. It’s a great concept, but without being able to use it, I wish I’d never paid the membership.
I have paid for the premium version of Smilebox all of a sudden I am getting “updating” message and then a error saying the windows update file is invalid – I have been working on this for days!
You guys need a phone number especially for paying customers ….. very poor customer service. Very frustrating!
Thank you, I have uninstalled the program and re=installed and still not able to log onto the website.
Thanks.
Have you changed your layout? I am not finding the My Creations page anymore. I tried to resend a smilebox and my address book is gone!!!
I’m having the same problem with smilebox saying i need to connect to the internet, but i am connected. i just don’t know what else to do.. can you please help me as well!!
I too have the same problem saying i need to connect to the internet. please help me
When i go to open smilebox, it says smilebox starter has stopped working and must close. I am running windows vista and never used to have problems with it. I have even uninstalled and reinstalled it 4 times, and didnt work any of the times. Is it possible your download is corrupted or something? Is my antivirus sonftware blocking it from opening and not telling me? I can open a smilebox from the web and save it to my HDD (hard drive), but i cant open smilebox as i said. If i could get help that would be great. Thanks Smilebox.
smilebox has stopped working what’s up?
I have just downloaded Smilebox for my laptop. But when i try to open the application an information box pops up which states- “Smilebox is designed to work with an internet connection. please connect to the internet and start Smilebox again”
However i am clearly connected to the internet and have many explorer windows opened. What would the problem be?
i tried downloading smilebox onto my computer but it doesnt work. Now, i just found out my bank is being charge for it. i dont want to pay for something i did not get…how do i fix this?
I have enjoyed using Smilebox but recently have had major problems. Like some of the above mentioned users, when I try to open, it tells me Smilebox is designed to work with an internet connection….I AM CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET!!!! I’ve tried over and over for days to resolve this and have not been able to open and create. I used Smilebox for several creations with not problem and then all of a sudden it stopped working. I would like to speak to a real person to walk me through rather than try confusing suggestions from your customer support site. H E L P !!
I have been using smilebox for years. I had the premium package a few years ago but it expired. Today I decided to renew the premium and went through the process. I made a movie and sent it. Now I cannot open smilebox anymore. The icon is still on my desktop but it will not open.What should I do?
I have used this on my mac … and paid for the full subscription. I was not alerted that it will no longer work on my mac and I have not received word of a refund.
What is the current situation?
Hi
I think this will be a fabulous program to use with my students this year.
I am at a school and they approved me to download smilebox which I did…it keeps saying I’m not connected to the internet and won’t run, but I am. Please help!
Thanks!
Message that I am not connceted to the internet, cannot use smilebox
I am trying to burn onto a DVD to play on the TV and it didnt work. The audio is not in sync with the video at all and half the screen is cut off with a random picture. I sent an email to support. I also want to know why you cannot control when the music starts..you have options to load your own music but it starts during the video..that makes no sense.
We burned a smilebox creation onto a dvd and tried to play it, but it doesn’t recognize the dvd. It plays on our computer, but not on our tv. What is the problem?
I am trying to cancel my subscription but I can not log in and when i send my pass word to email its not going through and this has been two months going. I really need to cancel this. please help.
I installed smilebox on Windows 7 and copied my old smilebox creations (from “my Smilebox Creations”) from my old PC to the new.
Smilebox “sees” there is something (it shows the name and title), but nothing else (I can neither open, nor can I see the photos in my old creations).
what do I do??
I have downloaded smilebox, but I can’t find ANYWHERE on any page to create an acct. SOOOOOOOOOOOOO FRUSTRATING!!!! Yes, I have done the troubleshooting and been to the help page… it does NOT help
There’s no place for my guests to post a reply? I have comments turned on? What’s happening? This is useless if guests can’t reply to one spot.
I always get a message that I am not online when starting Smilebox, even though I am. I used to click to open Smilebox without being online and this usually works. But now I keep getting a message that I need to restart Smilebox to send, print, copy, etc. But I have done this several times but still get the same message and I am going round in circles. I thought I may have put in the wrong password, but after re-setting this I still get the same message. I’d appreciate your help with this problem. Also, how long does a subscriptin last? I have sent three Birthday Greetings so far with music for which I orignally paid.
I have had smilebox for over two years. It has been great however it now comes up with a message saying cannot connect to internet. I am on the internet and there is nothing wrong with the connection. I use smilebox for ecards and projects. I have been trying to solve the problem for three months. i would be thankful if some help could be given.
Guys I have just had the same prob, downloaded smilebox and when try and launch it says, cannot connect without a internet connection, but im connected
fix which worked for me.
I use firefox as my browser, soon as I had launched Internet Explorer and tried to relauch smilebox it worked, hope this helps some of you
Kam
Just joined but can’t log in. Hopeless. I woould like to cancel. Why do I get the whole Smilebox ho ha if I have paid for the service????? I want a clean card!!!!
when ever i try going on smilebox a information box pops up saying that i need internet connection even though the internet is connected. i tried re-installing and i even added smilebox to my trusted sites but nothing seems to work. please help!!
I can no longer get Smilebox to load. I have uninstalled, installed, followed advice from help desk, but nothing works. I keep getting the message:
Smilebox Starter has stopped working
A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.
Windows can’t fix the problem. Do you have further help available???
Eleanor
I am having same problems as sara with the pop up saying that I need internet connection even though the internet is connected. I also tried re-installing. Please help me too. Nothing that I try seems to work around that pop up that says I am not connected to the internet.
Damn it! I love the program and I wanted to send out several Smileboxes of personal pics and a Christmas Light Tour. I too, bought the deluxe program early Nov. and cannot now access my site or get any click points to respond; just nothing. Flavour of the day now smells like a skunk. Aftrer 3 or more hrs. wasted today, I’ve had enough!
I don’t know if Smilebox is capable of this or not, but is there a way to delete all of the stored email addresses at one time rather than having to select “remove” for each and every one?
Has anyone found a solution for problem # 62? It would be nice to see the solutions for the problems mentioned. I have the same problem. Have tried everything, firewalls, etc etc. Nothing solves the problem.
Smilebox won’t run because it doesn’t recognize my internet connection. I’ve already added it to the exections list in Windows firewalland still getting the same error message.
I just made a scrapbook but as i was doing it and creating it, everything was great. As i finished i didn’t click preview or anything, then i saved it onto my computer. Then i saw a tab on the left hand side that looks like its attached to the paper clip with the title name on it, I was finished so i exited the site. Now I have no contact to my projects that i’ve done when i go back to the tab called my creations, how do i find where my projects are saved?
i would like to pay my subscription again. how do i do it? is it possible that the ecard opens without the smilebox staying on the screen for a few seconds. many people dont open thinking it may be a spam mail.
I am receiving same error message about not being connected to internet, even though every other program works fine. Did anyone find a solution?