72 posts tagged “qotd”
What is the most important technology every businessperson should understand to make his/her business successful?
Sponsored by HP.
The smile, followed closely by the handshake. Businesses are social, if they want to succeed. But too many treat customers as interchangeable units, there to be milked and then sent away.What businesses (especially big businesses) don't understand is that today's economy is a commodity-driven one [1].
Very few businesses offer something that I can't get elsewhere. So the deciding factor is almost always going to be the quality of customer care they offer. Treat me well, and I will continue to spend money with you. Treat me badly, and I will leave you. Treat me very badly, and I will make certain that my friends know why I've left you!
So if you want to make me a happy consumer, liable to buy more of your stuff, make it easy and pleasant to buy things. Make the inevitable problems [2] something that gets smoothed over quickly and with a minimum of fuss, not something that I spend ten hours tearing my hair out over. Make using your product something I enjoy, not something I dread. If you want to use my data, ask me politely and let me control how it is used [3]; if you insist that your need to know how I found your website is more important than my order, then you will get neither order nor information [4]. And don't sell my information to anyone else. If you are a business, I'll start shopping elsewhere. If you are a charity, I'll stop giving [5].
Remember that I can do without you. You can't survive without me. And that will be the best technology that you can have.
John
[1] I.e., one in which the goods from Sears look just like the ones from WalMart - except for the price tag.
[2] No product, ever, has been put out without flaws and defects. Heck, look at man...
[3] Don't force me to join a "club" to buy from you. I'll just go elsewhere. You aren't the only source for music (Amazon), books (Cafe Press), flights (Expedia), or food (Kroger's).
[4] A sad-but-true story - the Calyx and Corolla web site will not allow you to place an order unless you tell them how you heard about them.
[5] Another sad-but-true story - I have stopped giving to several charities (including Feed the Children and the ACLU) because they sold my information to other groups who then solicited funds from me.
Have you ever broken a bone? If not, what's the worst injury you've sustained?
Amusingly, I never broke a bone until I was in grad school - and then I broke four in two years! My right radius in a freak slip on ice in Chicago. My collar bone and a cracked skull in an absurd bike accident [1] in Monterey, CA. My left ulna in an absurd bike accident [2] in Alexandria, VA.
You know what's really unfair about all of this? Four broken bones, and I've never gotten a cast! My little sister had had three casts by the time she was six [3], and would hit us with them and then go crying to our mother that we had hurt her!
John
[1] I hadn't wanted to take the bike, but the people that I was house-sitting for insisted. On the way back from work, I ended up at the bottom of a 30-ft deep bike path/ditch with traffic whizzing by on the street overhead and no way that anyone could see me. So I climbed out of the dicth and across to a motel where I asked the manager to call an ambulance for me. The folks on the ambulance were worried because I was too rational following the accident (I gave them my pulse rate, pupil dilation, and medical diagnosis on the phone) and refused to give me any painkillers until five hours later when they were sure I didn't have a concussion.
[2] Biking back from Mt. Vernon, the front tire folded when I put on the brake to slow down. Naturally, this happened at the bottom of a hill more than a mile from anything. The lesson: Never allow me to ride a bike in a city; especially if that city has hidden places where I can break something and not be found...
[3] Fell out of a tree, run over by a car she put into drive, fell out of another tree. I got dropped from the car into highway traffic and only got a small scar on my lip. She trips over a piece of paper and gets a cast. It is't fair!
Yesterday was the summer solstice for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. How did you celebrate the arrival of summer and the longest day of the year?
OK, folks - let's go over this once more time. The Summer Solstice is not the first day of summer. It is midsummer. It has been that way since time immemorial. Get it right!
So why the confusion? Simple - TV "reporters" are lazy. It is easier to match the equinoxes and the solstices with the start of each season than to put them in the middle where they belong [1]. They do the same thing with presidents, referring to Ambassador Bush and Governor Clinton as "President Bush" and "President Clinton" even though they are both no longer in office. And then there was the whole "the new millenium begins in 2000" mess. It wouldn't take that much effort to get things right, but most TV reporters are incapable of doing more than repeating factoids.
Unfortunately, this error has now become institutionalized [2], and is unlikely to go away.
John
[1] They belong not just due to time-honored custom, but because it makes good physical sense. The Earth's climatological system has a built-in lag factor due to the abundance of water changing phases and other factors.
[2] As should be those who make it...
If you had to participate in any reality show, which one would it be?
My life. It doesn't get any more (un)real than that.
John
If you had to go on a two-week vacation with any celebrity, who would you pick as your traveling companion and where would you go?
Satan [1]. Heaven [2]. Just imagine the opportunities for learning...
John
[1] Don't tell me he's not a celebrity.
[2] Don't tell me that he couldn't stand the heat. This is my fantasy and I'm going to enjoy it.
What are your first thoughts upon waking?
Submitted by Cher Cabula.
"All right, all right - I'll get your food already!" My cat is somewhat insistent on having his squishy food as early as possible. He's better than an alarm clock - if I try to push a snooze button, it pushes right back! (With teeth and claws, yet!)
John
Have you ever voted outside your own party? Why or why not?
Submitted by Soup.
Yes, I have. Why? Because I am, first and foremost, an American rather than a Democrat. Though it might surprise my political party's leaders to hear it, they are not always right on the issues nor do they always field the candidate who is best suited for office.
For example, this year I am strongly inclined to vote for McCain rather than for Obama. Why? Because it is my opinion that McCain holds the better position on many of the issues before us (the war in Iraq, corruption in politics, climate change). Though it is my considered opinion that only a Democratic president would be able to muster the moral authority to balance the budget [1], the other issues are more pressing.
This doesn't mean that I won't hold McCain's feet to the fire, metaphorically speaking. As an Okie, it is my fundamental assumption that all politicians are corrupt [2], and that the only way to minimize their damage is by keeping a very close eye on them. I would encourage you to do so as well.
John
[1] A view that is born out by history; compare the budget under Clinton to the Budget under any of the Republicans from Reagan to Bush43.
[2] At one point in my childhood, county commissioners for 60 of the 77 counties in Oklahoma were either on trial, under inditement, or in jail.
Who helped make you the cool person you are today?
Submitted by Amy - Sister Brown Hair Surprise.
Willis Haviland Carrier, father of the modern air conditioner. (Hey, I live in Houston. Did you expect a profound answer?)
John
Do you support the gas tax holiday being pushed by Clinton and McCain?
As an oil company employee, I should be all for it. At least half of that money will end up in our pockets, based on Texas' experiment. And the expectation of lower prices will drive up demand, allowing us to sell more gas. So we make money both ways.
But, as an American, I've got to say that this is the stupidest idea since putting roller skates on a pig [1]. That money pays for new highways, and for repairing old ones [2]. In addition, it takes the focus away from conservation and alternative energy (both of which would reduce the trade deficit [3] and improve our national security [4]) and puts it onto a silly election-year stunt. It is vote-buying, plain and simple.
Dunno about you, but my vote is worth a hell of a lot more than what they are offering...
John
[1] Or releasing Microsoft Vista - your choice.
[2] Remember the Minneapolis Bridge collapse? You know - the one due (at least in part) to shoddy maintenance? Exactly how is cutting the funding for road repair going to keep this from happening again?
[3] Most of that oil comes from overseas. A surprising amount comes from places that support terrorists, are against full civil liberties, or just plain don't like America. Explain to me again how sending them our money to attack us is a good thing?
[4] "He who can destroy a thing, can controls a thing" - Frank Herbert, Dune. Our modern economy runs on energy, which means oil. By reducing our oil supply by a mere 10%, those who control the oil can cripple us. By reducing it 25%, they could destroy us. Do you really want to be controlled by those bozos?
