Plunge into Life

Paying for Bags: Maybe a Good Idea?

2010-05-31T21:33:00.003-04:00

It's a truism: air travel ain't fun.

Perhaps a couple of decades ago or so, flying was a relatively pleasant experience. Back then, security checks were generally quick and easy, packing whatever you wanted was commonplace, and need a pack of playing cards? well the airline often provided them (and newspapers, and blankets, and peanuts...) at no charge.

Now, you have to get to the airport at least an hour early in order to ensure you can get through the security line on tine, many airlines charge you for checking your bags, and playing cards?, well, you're lucky if you get a morsel of food for free, let alone 52 pieces of glossed paper with markings on them for a time killing game of rummy.

One positive side effect of all this, however, is that, scientifically speaking, flying lighter helps reduce the expense of fuel and thus making the trip more efficient. It reasons to say that every ounce of weight that is kept off the plane means the less amount of fuel that is needed to keep the plane flying. Pack less, save fuel.

As consumers, we have to keep in mind that despite the annoyance of paying for bag fees, perhaps we're making a small dent in the amount of fuel being burned. And burning less fuel is always a good thing...

Cookie Wars

2010-05-11T22:26:00.004-04:00

I have a soft spot, sweet tooth, special love, whatever you want to call it, for chocolate chip cookies. I generally eat them at least once a day.

Over the past couple of years I've gone back and forth in trying to find just the right cookie that accomplishes multiple personal goals. When I buy cookies, I look for ones that are:

Affordable: I'm not a cookie snob, per se, just looking for something I can enjoy. I am, however, always interested in saving money when I can, so I don't necessarily need to go with the high end luxury brands

Tasty: Again, basic chocolate chip cookies satisfy me just as much as the fancier brands, so as long as the cookies taste good, I'm on board.

Packaged Properly: This has been the Holy Grail of my search. I hate having to buy cookies that come in plastic cartons that are not recyclable. It's just such a waste, environmentally speaking and it's something that I would like to avoid where possible.

Now for my thoughts on a few of the major brands that can be found in most markets...

Nabisco's Chips Ahoy and Keebler's Chips Deluxe, among others, are guilty of having wasteful packaging. For each brand, a thin plastic sleeve surrounds a rigid plastic carton. Quite shameful. It's unfortunate, too, because I happen to enjoy both brands of cookies, and they both fall on the cheaper end of the cookie spectrum (I think Chips Deluxe may be the cheapest of all major brands), but I just don't want to have to live with the guilt of throwing away packaging that will sit in a landfill for thousands of years just so I can get my sugar fix.

Fortunately, I have found two options that are affordable, tasty, and packaged properly:

Famous Amos: These cookies come in a cardboard, recyclable (or at least biodegradable) box and a foil bag which is at least tolerable. The cookies are really good, and the price is a bit higher than Chips Deluxe and Chips Ahoy, but not dramatically so.

Trader Joe's Crispy Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookies: Though I don't necessarily think these are the best tasting of all the cookie options, they are satisfying, they don't break the bank, and they come in a recyclable (and/or reusable) plastic bowl, which is a pretty good alternative to the non-recyclable packaging mentioned earlier.

So if you're like me... a cookie lover with a conscience(?)... I'd suggest Famous Amos and Trader Joe's brand cookies. But if you have any feedback about other brands that meet these criteria that I should try out, feel free to drop a comment. That'd be sweet!

It's Been a While

2010-03-30T22:44:00.003-04:00

So... it's been a while since I last put fingers to keyboard and uploaded my thoughts for the world (or at least a few people, maybe) to see. Not sure why I took the hiatus... perhaps the creative side of my brain just shriveled up around the end of 2009, or, more likely, perhaps with a new baby in the house, I've decided to focus more time on him.

But whatever the case, I'm back. At least for now.

It's also been a while since I shopped at LL Bean. Admittedly, I am a big fan of this store, but I haven't bought much from them in the past couple of years because I felt that their selection has gone a little flat. Seems like the same stuff year in and year out. Nice clothes and other goodies, all of great quality, but not much in the way of new and exciting.

I decided yesterday to stop by my local LL Bean store to check things out and do some shopping. But not only that, I brought back two long sleeve shirts that I bought there at least a couple of years ago because both shirts developed holes in them from wear and tear. The store took them back, no questions asked, and I got store credit in exchange.

That's really tremendous. Those shirts didn't owe me anything, though I did find it quite odd that they both gave out around the same time. At any rate, I am very appreciative that LL Bean took them back and gave me credit towards my purchase yesterday, which wound up covering about half of what I spent on new clothes. That, my friends, is true customer service and an honorable way of doing business, and I will certainly continue to stop by in the future. Hopefully it won't be a long while till the next time...

Kudos to HP

2009-11-22T10:50:00.003-05:00

After months of informal searching for a new laptop to replace my dying desktop, I finally came across a great price on a laptop, courtesy of Office Depot. Spending a few hundred bucks on anything will almost certainly cause sticker shock, but I must say, I'm quite pleased with my HP G60-530US laptop.

But there's another reason I'm quite happy with HP: packaging.

Yes, packaging. When I opened up my laptop from the cardboard box, I expected to find the laptop surrounded by foam packaging. Instead, I was treated to rigid cardboard. Recyclable cardboard. As a "treehugger" at heart, this really made my day!

Typically, when a product needs to be kept secure in a box, foam is, unfortunately, the go-to packaging protection. So seeing cardboard surrounding my new laptop was a pleasant surprise.

Otherwise, there was only a small amount of plastic used to protect the charging cord. Not bad.

Thank you HP, not only for a great laptop but for your determination in using recyclable cardboard for your packaging. This subtle distinction did not go unnoticed by this consumer.

Attention College Grads: Ignore the Job Reports!

2009-11-15T08:13:00.003-05:00

I remember back when I was in college (give or take, oh, about 10 years ago), I would read reports that projected which occupations would be the fastest growing over the next few years. These reports still pop up regularly today, with predictions and statistics and dialogue about which jobs will be most highly in demand. Problem is, with the nature of a dynamic economy that we have, I can't see how it's possible to predict which jobs will be hot even just a couple of years out.

Take, for instance, this story by the Associated Press that was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer. The gist of the article is that there is now a glut of teachers looking to get jobs in schools across the country, when just a few years ago a shortage of teachers was predicted. Whoops.

In my mind, all of the demographic predictions, economic analyses, and expert opinions can't give a definite answer as to which careers will be in most need in a few years. I think college students and recent grads, heck, even seasoned workers, need to determine what they want to do and go out and do it and do it the best they can, rather than trying to follow these ever-changing predictions and simply trying to ride the next wave of hot jobs.

Think about how many people wanted to be a real estate agent just a few years ago. Now it's one of the most challenging fields to get started in due to the housing crunch. Jobs in "green technology" were pretty much unheard of just a few years ago, now there seems to be a strong growth in these positions. And consider how many law school students are graduating and can't get jobs since law firms are suffering as spending on legal matters has dropped precipitously.

In a nutshell, the folks producing these job-prediction outlooks should get new jobs...

Internet Annoy-vertising on Philly.com

2009-11-14T11:00:00.009-05:00

I have been a long time reader of the Philadelphia Inquirer to keep in touch with Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey news. For a couple of years I read the hard copy of the paper, but gradually grew weary of using all of that paper day in and day out. So I have since become a daily peruser of thenewspaper's online portal, Philly.com, which is much more environmentally friendly, and free for anybody to read, which is also nice.

It's a widely known fact that newspapers are bleeding subscribers due to the ease and efficiency of the Internet and its virtually infinite number of news sources. And it's also widely known that newspapers are having a difficult time making a profit in this changing world of news production.

So I empathize with the fact that newspapers are looking for new, creative ways to make money. But two of the Inquirer's latest undertakings on Philly.com, are quite annoying.

First off, when you click on to Philly.com, you don't realize it, but a pop-under ad often sneaks behind your browser. This in and of itself is annoying, though a fairly common practice across the internet, unfortunately. I frequently get ads from Netflix, for example, in this manner, and promptly ignore them. But the more annoying fact about these pop-unders are that they consist of a list of low rate ads, the likes of which you might see on Facebook's platform. Here's an example of one recent ad (out of six) that popped up:

'See How a Mom Drops 53Lbs!'
See how a mom of 3 drops 53lbs by obeying this 1 old rule... Learn more [link]
[ad accompanied by a cropped photo of a thin woman's belly exposed between tight white shirt and tight jeans]

My suggestion: at least provide some ads of value if you're going to sneak them in there. Perhaps post ads for local houses for sale, sporting event tickets, or other specialized deals, rather than ads trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator of internet surfers.

The other flustering thing that Philly.com does revolves around their sports articles. Click on a link to an article about, say, the Philadelphia Eagles' next game, and a video automatically starts playing when the page opens up. Most of these videos start with a commercial and then contain generic clips or photos of recent games. The main business page also does something similar when clicking on that page. I think it's a sensible idea to have videos incorporated into the site, but I would prefer them to start only when I click on them, and also make the commercials less intrusive.

I do hope that the Inquirer and Philly.com are able to find a way to earn a profit off of their news production, I just hope that they can find a more user-friendly way of appealing to loyal readers by avoiding intrusive ads and videos. Just my 2 cents.

What's Missing at Supermarkets?

2009-10-25T00:01:00.003-04:00

Supermarkets have become a scientifically formulated masterpiece in the art of getting more people to spend more money.

Aisles are arranged in such a way that you are directed past oodles of products you may never need, just to get a bottle of milk. But perhaps, just perhaps, you see something that you might like, and you decide to buy it, even though that's not what you came to the store for.

Endcaps promote products to seem like they're on sale, even though they may not be; but the sheer appeal of that endcap entices shoppers to at least take a look, and at most buy 10 whatever it is that's being promoted.

Cheaper versions of a particular item are often placed on the bottom shelf where people don't look as frequently, and instead go for the higher priced item in the middle.

And so on and so forth.

But I think that anybody who has ever shopped at a supermarket on a Sunday morning will tell you about how aggravating it is to check out and pay for all this food you've dumped in your cart. There are 10 check out lines that are up and running, but each line has six people in it and each person has a cart full of Doritos, string cheese, and marshmallows that all need to be unloaded, scanned, bagged, and reloaded into the cart. Can't get much more inefficient.

So couldn't there be a way to make this process more efficient and build in a register right in the shopping cart? That way, you grab your box of Count Chocula, scan it, and drop it into your cart. Then, when you're finished, you roll up to the front register, pay your bill, bag your goods, and you're off.

Well, that's my simplistic, unrefined idea. Whether it's doable or not, I don't know. But the fact is that an otherwise satisfactory shopping experience can be totally destroyed by standing in line for 10 minutes just to have the honor of handing over your money to someone else. In other words, it's an aggravating way to end your pleasant morning.

Streamline the check out process, make people happy, make more money. That's my suggestion. Now go enjoy your Twinkies.

An Idea for Music at the Gym

2009-10-18T23:12:00.005-04:00

So here's a wacky idea I had when I was at the gym today.

The gym I belong to pumps in music over the loud speakers, presumably a satellite feed that also gets fed to its other locations around the nation. Meanwhile, 75% of the people working out at any given time have their earphones pumping out music from their mp3 players. The music being played varies from rock, to 80s, to hip-hop, etc. Generally it's stuff everybody has heard.

My idea involves the following steps:

1. Each gym member selects his or her top 5 musical artists, and then the artists' names are punched in to a computer. Perhaps these names can be updated over time, but that's besides the point for now.

2. When the gym member scans his or her card in, the computer takes note of this and recognizes the member's musical preferences. The computer would also be able to be set on whether or not the member is wearing an mp3 player during his/her workout.

3. If s/he is NOT wearing an mp3 player, the computer would aggregate the music that this member chose, along with the music that all the other non-mp3 wearing members chose, and then play selections from the bands selected, particularly if there happens to be a common theme between the bands or genres preferred.

Essentially, it's a quasi-personalized radio station that is designed to play music that is popular amongst non-mp3ers who are working out at any given time. That way, the members who are not listening to their own choice of music get to at least hear stuff they may like rather than random stuff that doesn't necessarily appeal to anybody or only a few people. It's kind of a version of target marketing.

Pretty complicated concept now that I think about it. But these are the things I think about as I pause between reps at the gym. Mental workout, I suppose.

Dove Soap Dives into Soapy Semantics

2009-10-10T22:27:00.003-04:00

On a recent trip to a BJ's mega-jumbo-cavernous Warehouse, I wandered to the toiletries section to pick up a package of soap bars for my wife. She specifically requested Dove soap and I happened upon 4-5 options from Unilever's big brand name.

As I was scanning the packaging on each type of soap, I noticed a peculiar play on words that had me wondering, "Are these marketing people serious? Or perhaps it's just a joke?"

Some of the soaps had: "Moisturizing Cream" emblazoned on the cartons.

Other soaps had: "Hydrating Lotion" depicted on them.

Ummm, okay.

Last time I checked, hydrating is synonymous with moisturing.

Ditto for lotion and cream.

Knowing enough about marketing to be dangerous, my hunch is that this is some sort of A/B split test to see which words sell better. Otherwise, perhaps it's just the Unilever marketers trying to liven things up for us bored consumers. Whatever the case, they might want to clean up their semantics...

Husband and Wife Die... Let's Count Their Money?

2009-09-14T07:54:00.006-04:00

I came across an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about a couple who apparently killed themselves in a knife fight over the weekend. Pretty sad and gruesome news, and I feel terrible for the kids who have lost both their parents. Definitely not something you want to hear about.

Speaking of things you don't want to hear about, I was really baffled by some of the extraneous details that were included in the article about the deceased, Robert and Sophia DiAndrea. Please feel free to tell me if you think these are really necessary bits of information, and tell me if you've ever even heard a news report talk about these types of things before (these are actual statements from the article):

-Robert was a $44,860-a-year supervisor of water conveyance systems for the Water Department, hired on May 27, 1997, city records show.

-Hired by the school district on Oct. 23, 1993, Sophia was a fifth-grade teacher who made $81,617 a year, school records show. She had worked four years at Anne Frank Elementary School, at 2000 Bowler St., an eight-minute ride away.

-The DiAndreas bought their home for $138,000 on Jan. 31, 1997, city records show.

Do those details seem bizarrely out of context when talking about a husband and wife who died? I just don't get it. The rest of the article is well-reported, giving a snapshot into their lives, but the financial data seems to come out of left field. Would the journalist have reported how much they both made if it were not public information? Or what if they were a low-income couple? Maybe it's me, but I don't feel the need to count someone else's money after a vicious ending to their lives.

Why Best Buy Might Want to Reconsider Its Own Name

2009-09-11T22:15:00.004-04:00

A recent commercial for Best Buy pointed out something that I noticed recently about the big box electronics store. But what they pointed out isn't exactly something I'd call a selling point or a sensible marketing message.

Their latest commercials feature a hapless customer standing on a podium in front of a stadium full of energetic Best Buy salespeople who want to help answer questions. One of the responses to a question posed by the customer is that 'Best Buy will match any competitor's prices'. And herein lies the problem.

On two recent occasions, I was shopping for electronics products. First was a digital photo frame for a birthday present for my wife. I went to Best Buy and bought the frame that I thought my wife would like. The next day I did some price surfing on the internet and found out that Wal-Mart's price beat Best Buy's price by at least 20% (I apologize, I don't remember the exact prices). When I found this out, after having already bought the frame from Best Buy, I went back and got a credit for the difference in price back to my account, but only after having to stand in a long line at customer service. Not a good way to start.

Then, I recently was looking for a Flip video camera to have on hand for when my son was born (3 weeks ago tomorrow!). I shopped around the prices, and, lo and behold, Wal-Mart beat Best Buy again, this time by about $10. Not a lot, but it made my decision that much easier. Mind you, I'm not normally a shopper at Wal-Mart because I'm not a huge fan of their stores, but hey, if I can save a few bucks... why not?

My point here... if Best Buy were really trying to do a service to its customers it wouldn't offer to match any competitor's prices... it would truly offer the "best buy" in the first place.

Why Women and Cell Phones Don't Mix

2009-09-01T22:20:00.005-04:00

At least once a day, I am privy to this delightful situation:

*RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG*
(insert most annoying ring tone you can think of)

That goes on for about 5 seconds. Then it's a woman's voice:

"Oh, is that my phone ringing?"

Then it's a mad scramble to try to find the phone in the depths of the abyss otherwise known as the pocketbook. (Have you noticed how big women's pocketbooks have gotten lately? Whatever happened to discrete, dainty purses?? Sorry, I digress.)

Phone is found, then it's:

"Oh! It's (insert name of person she talks to every day)!"

"Hello? Hello? HELLO???"

Pause, look at phone.

"Oh I missed it."

This kind of annoying nonsense probably happens at least 19,000 times every second somewhere around the world.

I would love it if somebody could explain to me a rational reason as to why no woman can carry a cell phone in her pocket, or on her belt loop, or elsewhere on her person, and not stash it deep inside the bag. Quite frankly, it's never a man who hears his phone ring and goes through this routine of not knowing if it's his phone or where his phone is. Or, let me clarify that... if it is a man who goes through this routine, he's usually 70 years or older, in which case we'll let him pass because he's earned the right to lose his phone at that age. But no excuses for young or middle aged women for these shenanigans!

Let's get some cell phone etiquette classes, shall we?

Magazine Inserts: Missed Marketing Opportunity

2009-08-25T19:44:00.003-04:00

I subscribe to a few magazines and come across dozens more every month. One thing I've noticed is that there seems to be a major missed opportunity with magazine inserts: marketing to subscribers.

When you subscribe to a magazine, you get the same blow-in inserts as the newsstand version. Why? Wouldn't it make more sense to, perhaps, thank the subscriber for reading the magazine and give him a value added bonus? Or a tailor-made message exclusively for subscribers? Just something that separates the subscriber base from the newsstand base, and gives a more personal, rewarding quality for the most loyal readers.

My thinking is that subscribers shouldn't be subjected to continuous "Subscribe Now!" postcards when they already do receive the magazine every month. Printing those kinds of cards are pestering to subscribers and generally just a waste of paper. And a missed marketing opportunity for the magazine publishers.

Learn from the Boss

2009-08-24T11:32:00.005-04:00

Last night I caught about 15 minutes of a concert on TV featuring Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. I've never seen "The Boss" live and while I do like a good many of his songs, I wouldn't say he's necessarily one of my favorite musicians. That said, I think there's a lot we can learn from this rugged rocker and superstar.

The biggest thing that I noticed about this performance was that he was loving every minute of it. He had a huge smile while singing the lyrics to "Rosalita", he was ripping it on guitar, and dripping in sweat. The crowd was having a blast and singing along. He and his band are legendary over the past few decades for putting on concerts that last three hours or more and getting the audience involved the whole time. Even though I wasn't there live, I could feel the energy the whole time.

As I watched his performance and thought about our daily lives, I realized that if us average Joes were to have one tenth of Bruce's energy, passion, and happiness when doing our jobs, this world would be a much better place. Unfortunately, most of us (myself included at times) just mail it in and don't go all out like he does, but maybe we should all give it a shot. Our daily interactions would improve, we would be happier at our jobs, and we would likely live fuller lives.

Now those would be some Glory Days.

More Crabby Customer Service

2009-08-18T17:03:00.003-04:00

Today I had the privilege of having lunch with my lovely wife after she went for an ultrasound for our overdue baby (41 weeks and counting!). Being in Northeast Philly, we decided to go to an old haunt that we haven't visited in a while-- Chickie's & Pete's on Roosevelt Boulevard. For those of you who have never been there, it's a sports bar that specializes in sandwiches like hot roast pork, as well as crab legs, and crab fries with cheese dipping sauce. Good food, plenty of booze, and always a packed house during any weekend or televised local sporting event, but pretty quiet for a weekday lunch.

So we opened the menus and found a lunch special page. For $8.99 you can get a sandwich, a choice of one side (e.g. fries), and a beverage. Without specifically asking for the lunch special, I ordered a soda, a sandwich, and fries, which I said I would split with my wife since the baskets of fries are quite large. My wife got a sandwich and soda. (Okay, so we didn't fare too well on the healthy eating options scale, but hey, we might not get back there for ages, so why not splurge today, right?)

The meal is served, we scarf it down and enjoy it all. Then we get the bill. Now, mind you, I/we probably could have been more specific when ordering, but the receipt listed each individual item we ordered separately, as opposed to it showing one (or arguably two) lunch specials. As a result, the total cost came out to about $21, rather than $18 ($8.99 x 2). So we pointed this out to the waiter and he says "since you split the fries it doesn't count as a lunch special," or something to that effect, and that if we had specified the lunch specials, we actually would have gotten two baskets of fries (which would have been way to much for us). In sum, we paid more for less.

I wasn't in the mood to argue over a couple of bucks, or call over the manager and make a big scene, so I just let it be. But common sense, or a customer-first attitude, would have sparked one of two options in this young man's brain:

1. When we ordered, he saw that we were looking at the lunch specials page, so he should have asked if we wanted the lunch specials, or he should have said, since you're both ordering sandwiches and sodas and one basket of fries, you can get another basket of fries added on, all for about equal or less money.

2. Or, that not having had happened, he could have said, "Yes, you are correct, let me fix that bill for you."

Neither logical situation crossed through his head, so instead we wound up leaving annoyed, and he wound up with a less generous tip than he otherwise would have earned. So it goes with customer service.

Next time, when I take my wife AND soon-to-be son there, I hope it will work out better!

Good Customer Service Is All Bark AND All Bite

2009-08-13T20:02:00.005-04:00

Today I had an interesting chat on IM with my friend who had a negative customer service experience, and we discussed just how important it is get good customer service in order to be happy with a what you're buying.

Here's his scenario, briefly:

My friend's wife signed up for a dog training class and, despite what it said on their website that the trainer would follow up within a week of ordering a class, the trainer never called them to confirm the order. So right off the bat, the company didn't make good on their promise to reach out to the customer. Meanwhile, they were scrambling to find out whether or not the class was still on, or get any other information they might need in order to attend. Two months went by and not a word from the dog trainer left them too far in the dark about the class. A simple phone call would have put them at ease and made all the difference in the world.

To me, when my initial interaction with a company, non-profit, or other organization is negative, I get extremely down on them, and they have a long, uphill battle to win me back. In our chat today, I likened my friend's situation to that of meeting the first salesperson you talk to at a car dealer. If he or she greets me with a frown, or pressures me into buying, or doesn't know the product line, or just generally ignores me, you can bet I'll take my business elsewhere if at all possible, even if it was just a bad moment for that salesperson who is otherwise dynamite. I easily get turned off by poor customer service, and it's tough to win me back, and I suspect that most customers feel the same way.

On the flip side, this past week I've been shopping for a new car insurance provider in order to save some money on my current auto policy. I communicated with three different companies, and each person I dealt with at each company was extremely friendly, knowledgeable, and interested in helping me through the buying process. One would think that this kind of positive attitude would be commonplace for a business when dealing with a customer that is looking to spend money, but unfortunately, it's often anything but.

Even though good marketing or word-of-mouth can bring a person to the door, a good customer service representative is crucial to bringing along and potentially closing the sale, whether it's for a dog training class, a new car, or a new auto insurance policy. It's really the engine that keeps the sale going.

Gregg, if you're reading this, good chatting with you today, and I hope the dog training class turned out to be a success in spite of an *ahem* ruff start.

Stolen Credit Card... Ugh

2009-07-03T11:19:00.003-04:00

A heads up to one and all... you never know when some lowlife can try and steal your credit card. It happened to my wife just yesterday in fact.

She went to a matinee movie with her two nieces and nephew (aged 11 and under), and paid for the tickets with the credit card that she and I both use regularly. Just another day out and about the town.

Turns out, when I got home from work (which was before my wife got back) I got a recorded call on my answering machine from the credit card company saying that my account was frozen due to suspicious activity.

I immediately followed the prompts and found out that about $350 worth of fraudulent charges had been placed in a short period of time, all after my wife had charged her card at the movies (the AMC Neshaminy 24 Theater in Bensalem, PA, for those of you wondering).

The credit card company subsequently closed the account and is now looking into the mischief, once I confirmed that we had not made these charges.

So the lesson learned is that this nonsense can happen anytime, anywhere. My hunch is that the young girl that swiped the card either copied the numbers down, or took a cell phone photo, or texted the info to somebody and then calls were made in rapid succession to try and get "free" stuff. I can't verify this, but hey, be forewarned. Whatever the case, hopefully they catch the idiotic culprits and put them in their place... jail would be nice!

Getting a Handle on Reusable Bags

2009-06-29T08:06:00.003-04:00

Interesting article on Care2 recently that discussed what to do with your reusable bag once it becomes unusable, like when the handles tear off. In short, the author suggests sending your broken bag off to ChicoBags Company, which in turn has the bags cut into strips for rugs. It's a great suggestion, and definitely something to consider should that come to fruition for any of us, since recycling is always an excellent option.

I just have to wonder if, however, after all of these decades (centuries?) of using bags to carry things... isn't there a better way to make a handle so it won't break off so easily?

Gravity being what it is, I understand that the heavier the items you're carrying, the more stress it puts on the bag that is holding them (see, I learned something in physics class!). But just for that reason, I have to ponder whether or not we can develop either a better implement to help us carry things to and fro, or stronger handles so that they won't rip off of the bag so easily. In other words, if bag handles keep breaking, reusable bag or not, we're wasting a lot of resources in this defective design.

Despite my in-depth knowledge of physics (!), I'm not savvy enough to develop a new design to make it easier to carry things from point A to point B. It's just not my bag, baby. That's why I ask all of those physicists out there to unite and develop a better bag handle to help the world out. You'll be doing the world a lot of good!

Land Rover Ad Laughable

2009-06-19T23:31:00.004-04:00

Had to laugh when I saw an ad for Land Rover while reading the Philadelphia Business Journal today.

Here is the advertisement's headline:

"75% of all the vehicles we've ever sold in this country are still on the road"

Alright, well that's relatively benign.

Subhead:

"Now that's a long-term investment."

Ok, I just bought a new car this week (full disclosure: NOT a Land Rover), and the minute I drove off the lot I literally chuckled to myself and said, "well I just lost 20% of my money in a matter of seconds." It's sad but true.

It is common knowledge that cars lose a huge percentage-- generally considered to be about 30% of their value-- in depreciation during the first year after purchase. So why would an advertiser try to pull the wool over our eyes and say that buying a Land Rover is "an investment?"

An investment, lest we forget, is supposed to be something that makes you money over time, not loses money. Cars are inherently not an investment. They get beat up and lose their luster compared to newer vehicles, thus they are not worth as much as when you buy them new.

Sorry Land Rover, you're not fooling anyone. Or at least you're not fooling 75% of us, but I guess somebody out there is buying your message.

Ozone Layer: Old News?

2009-06-10T07:52:00.003-04:00

Just was thinking that I haven't heard much about the hole in the ozone layer that was so widely publicized just a few years ago. Perhaps I may have simply missed any recent stories about this important environmental topic, and it seems like it would be more talked about in these days of growing environmental consciousness.

A quick search for "ozone layer" on the Google News tool shows few articles in recent weeks that focus on the ozone layer, other than with a passing mention of it.

I would imagine that the status of the Earth's ozone layer has only gotten worse over the years, which means that we should still be alerted to how it is doing. However, like any news story, hearing the same bad news over and over gets to be a drag and people tend to tune it out. But a periodic reminder might not hurt...

What if...

2009-05-31T21:48:00.005-04:00

What if... every child was required to visit a sewage treatment plant, a mine shaft, a landfill, and a slaughterhouse?

Pretty gruesome, yes, but that's the whole point!

Unfortunately I think most Americans are so far removed from the processes that make our lives comfortable that people just take things for granted without thinking of the consequences of their actions.

It's easy to toss a plastic soda bottle in the trash can, rather than recycling it, because it just gets sent off on a garbage truck and you don't have to worry about it anymore. It's just gone, move on to other things in your life, right? But set your eyes, ears, and nose on a 100 acre landfill, and you'll quickly see that everything that gets tossed has to go somewhere, not just magically vanish into thin air.

I certainly can't sit here and say that I'm a perfect saint when it comes to sustainability, but I think by actively taking notice of what I do and how it affects my surroundings puts me way ahead of most people in this country, and perhaps this world. We are all lucky to have what we have and I'm proud of the fact that I live during the most advanced time in history, but at the same time, I realize that there's a long way to go in order for us to live at peace with our world. Hopefully it's not too late, but what if... it is too late???

The Little Things Go a Long Way

2009-05-15T23:48:00.003-04:00

Stopped by my local dry cleaners today to pick up clothes that my wife dropped off about a week ago. I'd say I make an appearance at this dry cleaner about once every 2-3 months... in other words pretty infrequently.

It's a family owned business and I've never really chatted with the owners, just drop off, pick up, not much to it.

But today it was a little thing that went a long way. A younger fellow, possibly the owner's son, greeted me with a hello. I returned the greeting and said I'm sorry, but I don't have my receipt slip with me today.

He promptly took out a book that he has people sign when they don't have their slips, presumably to serve as a record for who picked up the clothes and when in case there's any dispute. I've had to do this in the past because I often lose the slip, so I'm used to it by now.

But I noticed that right off the bat, he flipped to the section labeled "S"... as in the first initial of my last name. I was shocked!

He scribbled out some things on the notebook lines, including my last name and the date. He then proceeded to give me the book to sign and then went and flipped the switch for the rotating clothes hanger and took them off without even flinching.

This small little sequence really amazed me! I barely knew this kid, yet without me telling him my name, giving him a credit card or any other type of identifying information, he already knew who I was and didn't hesitate to process the transaction. Unreal!

I must say, that's true one-on-one marketing right there. It was quick and personalized service like you rarely see anymore, and all from a fellow who I've hardly said two words to in the past. But that little moment I'll certainly remember, for the sheer simplicity yet effectiveness of it.

Sometimes I Just Don't Understand People

2009-04-30T21:50:00.003-04:00

I enjoy playing basketball.

I'm not an all star on the court, but I can hold my own. Put me on the floor with a group of guys who can run really well, and I'm happy be the role player and let the other guys shine. Put me on the court with fellas who are average at best, and I don't mind taking the spotlight. I just like to play, get some exercise, and win as much as I can.

Over the past year I've played with three different groups of players. Two of them were pickup games (two separate groups, we'll call them group A and group B), and the third was a paid league at a local gym with refs, scorekeepers, team records, and playoffs. Unfortunately, I will no longer be participating in the latter group.

In all three of these groups I hardly knew anybody before starting to run with them. Each group contained a wide mix of players, old, young, good, not-so-good, you name it. But the league players turned out to be absolutely obnoxious. And I can't figure out why.

Logic, in my mind, would state that if you're playing in a paid league, you would want to work hard to jell as a team and support each other. That never happened... if you did something wrong, a teammate would get in your face about it. You would also think that since the games were shorter than the pickup games (roughly 30 minutes worth of playing time in a league vs. 1-2 hours in pickup games), that you would want to get the most out of your run, and try to be very efficient. That didn't happen either. Half the time, the players are yelling at the refs for bad/missed calls, or showing up late to the game, or crying like babies because they don't get the ball enough. This behavior totally boggles my mind.

In my two groups of pickup games, I NEVER heard any serious arguments or borderline fights break out. Yet in practically every game of the paid league, a screaming match would break out (usually directed at the refs) or somebody would play rough and cause guys to jaw at each other during stoppages in play, all while the clock was running. Meanwhile in pickup games, yes there would be trash talking, but it was all good natured and light hearted, even if you didn't know the other guys that well. If you fouled somebody, you called it and moved on. Slightly bump into a guy during a league game and it was grounds to yell for a foul or start swinging elbows. Unbelievable.

Sometimes I just don't understand people...

Stretched Thin by Social Networking

2009-04-15T09:06:00.003-04:00

This social networking craze has gotten a little out of hand.

As sensible and easy as it is to connect with others online, I've become stretched thin by all of the social networks I've signed up for over the past few years. Now I'm at the point where I find that most of the ones that I'm signed up for I rarely, if ever, even find time to look at. Here's how stretched thin I've become when it comes to online social networks:

-LinkedIn: This may have been the first social network site that I started using. However, I don't think I've ever gotten much of value out of it, but I can see how it could be valuable for things like finding a job or researching somebody's background.

-MySpace: I used this for a few months and grew out of it. I don't think I've updated my page since sometime last year. Too hyper and shallow for me.

-Twitter: I signed up for this recently, and have had several fleeting moments of interest in it, but for the most part I don't have time to get bombarded with messages all day, so it's pretty much fallen by the wayside.

-Ning: I'm signed up for 3 separate Ning networking sites, none of which I check with regularity. One site has a ton of members signed up for it, but is basically dead quiet. Another has lots of chatter but I don't know anybody. And the third just got started up so we'll see where it goes.

-Plaxo: Somebody recently sent me an email to sign up for Plaxo, and so I did, and so goes another page that just sits there and I don't look at.

-Facebook: Right now, FB is the clear leader for me, though my interest in it is starting to wane. I enjoy the games on there and occasionally catching up with friends, but for the most part, reading about how people don't feel like going to work/class/relative's house is just not all that intriguing to me. Good site to kill a few minutes while relaxing on the couch.

As you well know, there are literally thousands of social networking sites available on the internet, but I just have to wonder at what point this whole system will either collapse or radically change in some way. Most people I know enjoy using one or two of these sites, but the return on investment of time put into them seems to decline after a while. Plus the fact that you have to tip-toe around what you say because it could come back to haunt you makes them a little less inviting. Let's see what the future holds for social networking, and hopefully it develops in a positive direction. In the meantime, I'm going to go check my good old fashioned email...

Power to the People...

2009-04-14T22:04:00.005-04:00

The other day I heard a snippet of a report on NPR about how poor the drinking water can be in Pakistan. I don't recall the exact statistics they presented, but the number of kids getting ill because of filthy drinking water was astronomical and the doctors there can't do much about it.

Situations like this one that was depicted are truly deplorable, especially to think that the main pollution in the water in places like Pakistan come from man made chemicals, untreated sewage, and other preventable sources. It's no wonder that angry citizens rise up and riot and overthrow governments in various corners of the world. While I never can condone violence, I can at least empathize with the plight of those that have to live in these filthy conditions day in and day out.

Interestingly, however, it seems that those groups who do rise to power do absolutely nothing (for the most part) to help their fellow citizens, but instead run off with their newfound power and leave the people behind. I, personally, would think that if these people overthrew the government, the first thing they would want to do in order to gain MORE power would be to help their countrymen. By having a safe, happy, healthy citizenry behind you, by default you become a more powerful person since you're their leader.

An example of this is right here in America. While poverty does still exist in this country unfortunately, it's safe to say that most people have all of the basics building blocks (like running water, ample food at affordable prices, shelter, etc.) at their fingertips to live a healthier life than those citizens of Third World countries. And as a result, American citizens can strive for more prosperous livelihoods. In doing so, they, in turn, help strengthen the country by contributing to the well-being of society.

But in a place where people can't even obtain the basic elements of life, the ability to move up in the world will always be out of reach since most people's time and energy is spent just trying to get by.

So the lesson here, in my viewpoint, is if you want to gain success as a leader (be it as a leader of a country or just at your job), your best bet would be to empower others along the way.

Sound of Music

2009-04-11T10:34:00.004-04:00

Funny that the Philadelphia Inquirer should talk about Muzak in today's news. Just the other day I was thinking about the effect of music in stores.

Over the years I've noticed a variety of musical schemes in stores. Here's a random list of "musical thoughts and memories" off the top of my head:

-Buy Buy Baby in Cherry Hill: This is what got me thinking about this topic recently... Right now their current audience is people in their 20s and 30s. While there, they wisely played music that has been popular with this age group, with music from bands like U2, Coldplay, and so forth. This music could certainly make shoppers in this age bracket feel at ease since shopping for baby products can be a harrowing experience.

-Once while in Manchester, UK, I went into a trendy department store, went up the elevator, and when the doors opened I was right behind a DJ spinning techno tunes. This music was definitely tailored to its shoppers as the majority of them were young, hip, and college-aged.

-Though I haven't actually been into an Abercrombie & Fitch store in a while, I've often walked by their store and heard bass-thumping music blaring, apparently with the goal to get the shoppers' juices flowing while shopping.

-Starbucks plays jazzy, funky music and hawks the CDs at the front counter. I presume that this strategy has worked for them since they've been doing it for a while.

This is just a small sampling of the musical melodies that can affect shoppers' sense of spending while perusing a store. This is truly a marketing decision and the end result, undoubtedly, means putting shoppers at ease and help them feel more willing to spend money.

A Simple Way to Improve On-Hold Messages

2009-03-21T09:56:00.004-04:00

If you've been stuck on hold waiting to talk to a customer service rep, you've undoubtedly been mentally numbed by patronizing pre-recorded sales pitches or rendered temporarily deaf by blaring muzak or told repeatedly that somebody will be with you in just a moment. One choice is worse than the next.

Couldn't this be a chance, instead, for the company to put the customer at ease?

With all the creative folks in this world, one would hope that a better option would be made available.

Here's one simple idea to start the brainstorming:

A selection of classic, clean comic bits such as Abbott & Costello's "Who's on First?" or virtually any Jerry Seinfeld clip or even a clip from the Cosby Show.

Let the customer get comfortable and have a laugh. Is that such a bad thing?

Car Manufacturing: There's Gotta Be a Better Way

2009-03-09T19:34:00.002-04:00

I don't proclaim to know much about the car manufacturing or sales industry, but one thing seems very peculiar to me... the dealership formula.

Even in good times, this concept doesn't make sense to me, and now in bad times it's even more confusing. Here's what I'm talking about:

You go to a dealer and they have hundreds, perhaps thousands of cars just sitting there in the lot. For starters, this seems like a tremendous expense in terms of maintaining inventory, paying for property and associated taxes, keeping the cars clean and safe, and even trying to match up the right car with the right person.

It seems to me that it would make more sense to have one central holding space for a large amount of cars (or even a produce-on-demand type system that would only produce cars when needed), and then the dealers themselves would have only a few dozen on their lot to use as test drive or showroom models. Then if somebody wanted a certain car the dealer would order it and ship it out (which seems to happen a lot anyway).

Again, the automobile industry is not my forte, but having cars just sit there for weeks/months on end doesn't make sense to me.

Who knows, maybe things will change... down the road...

How to Feel Good about Toilet Paper

2009-03-02T21:44:00.004-05:00

Normally, toilet paper is not something that the average Joe Consumer thinks about on a daily basis. But I found a way to actually feel good about the humble TP roll:

By buying recycled.

All these years I've bought brands like Procter and Gamble's Charmin for use in the bathroom. But on a whim, I bought recycled toilet paper from Trader Joe's and I actually kinda feel good about myself. Granted, the Charmin TP has a better texture to it, and it may be cheaper (I'm not sure), but at what cost am I harming the environment so I can have a luxury tissue take care of you know what. Scary to think about how many trees are chopped down to produce something that has a useful existence of about 5 seconds.

The advantages of buying recycled toilet paper are many, including:

-Saving trees
-Minimizing or eliminating bleach from the production process, since bleach is a harsh chemical
-Minimizing or eliminating mercury, which is a by-product in some toilet paper production processes
-Giving good reason for people to recycle... since townships often actually make money on recycling, there's an added incentive to recycle more in order to give back to municipalities (well, that's my theory at least)
-And even the packaging on Trader Joe's (and perhaps other brands) is biodegradable in 18 months (or so it says on the plastic)

Once again, we need to stop thinking like we live in a disposable world since what we've been doing has just been dragging us into a dangerous spiral economically, environmentally, and socially. Time to think differently, from our head down to our feet, and other stopovers in between.

I suggest for anybody interested in purchasing recycled toilet paper, to check out this informative NRDC page, which gives an insightful comparison of various brands.

Thanks for your time and happy wiping! (C'mon, I have a picture of a toilet plunger on this blog for Pete's sakes... you didn't actually expect me to leave without some sort of bathroom humor, did you?)

The Vacuum: The Chump of the Storage Closet

2009-03-01T20:23:00.004-05:00

As a follow up to this morning's post about the excellence of my calculator, I would now like to focus on the poorest performing product in my possession: the vacuum.

Never have I had a vacuum that doesn't, pardon the phrase, suck. I've had several vacuums in the past six or seven years, and they all start off working great, but manage to falter soon thereafter. Admittedly, I'm not a guy who is good at tinkering around to fix something like a vacuum, so I either have to drag it over to my dad (who is a tinkerer by nature), or take it to get fixed at a repair shop, or lug it back to the store to get a new one (if still under warranty), or find that it would cost too much to fix it so I have to replace it instead.

Unfortunately with vacuums there are too many moving parts and virtually the entire body is made of cheap plastic which doesn't last very long (although it certainly lasts for eons in the landfill... I digress). At times my frustration with vacuum cleaners makes me just want to get flooring for the entire house so I can permanently exhile the space-hogging appliance from the building. I haven't gone this far yet, but I am tempted to launch my vacuum, which broke today, out the window. And then calculate how far out into the yard it soared, in inches, using my trusty calculator...

The Calculator: Unheralded King of the Junk Drawer

2009-03-01T12:58:00.003-05:00

Everybody has a calculator or two lying around the house, taking up space in a junk drawer somewhere.

If you're like me, you probably take out the calculator for a total of about five minutes every month or so, and then forget about it for the rest of the time.

But you know what? If your calculator is anything like mine... it works every time without a hitch.

I have a basic solar powered Casio calculator that probably dates back to about the early 90s or so, which means it's at least 15 years old at this point. It never ceases to amaze me how it sits in the dark 99% of its life, but when I take it out to use it, like magic, it starts right up every time. Ingenious invention, that.

This leads me to dream about a world where everything is powered by solar energy. Can you imagine if you were able to park your car in your garage, turn it on and have it run for as long as you'd need it to without having to fill up for gas? Obviously, a car and a calculator are two totally different electronic beasts, but I hope that we can one day get close(r) to that reality.

In the meantime, my humble Casio calculator reigns as king of my junk drawer. Let's check back together in another 15 years or so and see if it still springs to life after spending countless hours in the dark. And maybe by that time we'll have cars and other electronic appliances that are capable of the same impressive feats.

It's Time for Some Gas Station Innovation

2009-02-24T21:28:00.003-05:00

Isn't it about time we reinvent the average gas station?

A (seemingly) simple idea to revolutionize the common fill-up stop: automatic pumps

Instead of having to get out of your car or have somebody walk up to your car to pump gas, I would think there would HAVE to be a way to automate this mundane process. I'm no engineer or inventor, but let's do away with this current system. There's nothing pleasant about this task and for those folks who have to pump gas to make a living, I truly feel for them because it is a thankless, messy job.

Instead of the current manual pump system, an automatic pump would minimize or completely eliminate:

-Having to trudge out of your car on a snowy or rainy or scorching hot day
-The ever-pleasant gasoline smell on one's hands after filling the tank
-Toxic gas spillage on the ground
-The delay it takes for a gas station attendant to come to your car to ask what you want, start the pump, walk away to help somebody else, come back, top it off, get your payment, swipe your card (or count your cash), and finally send you on your way... this is totally inefficient for all involved
-Idling time as you wait for the pump to finish, and as other cars wait in line for the cars in front of them to finish filling up

All in all, the current manual system we have has no real advantage to it, as far as I can tell. An automatic system would still require at least one person to be on premises to monitor any problems, help people as needed, or, like the good ole' days, squeegee each car's windows.

Now let's get pumping on how to make this happen...

5 Predictions for (the Remainder of) 2009

2009-02-22T16:22:00.006-05:00

Ok so I'm a little late to the game to make predictions for 2009, seeing as how we're already nearing the end of February, but what the heck, I'm gonna do it anyway...

Here are trends that I think will become readily apparent in 2009:

1. Fewer people buying bottles of water. It's long been assailed that buying bottles of water is essentially a waste. The water in these bottles is often just tap water, and the markup for these bottles is incredible. (Consider: a gallon of water from the tap costs somewhere in the realm of 1/2 a cent. Meanwhile a 12 oz. water bottle can easily cost a buck in a vending machine or *gasp* $3.50 at a sporting event.) I think people will finally catch on to the scam at hand, now that budgets are getting tighter in an ugly economy and because of the green movement that discourages consumers from buying bottles that take up energy/resources to make. Bottles of water will certainly be needed, such as for emergencies, or traveling, and the like, but I think we'll see the demise of people spending gobs of money on these bottles for daily use.

2. More scrutiny on personal finances. It is quite obvious that people across the country need to focus on where their money goes. With the 2008 stock market crash, the Bernie Madoff pyramid scheme, the mortgage market mayhem, and hosts of other financial debacles that have unraveled, it goes without saying that we need to collectively take better care of our money. Buying cars on a whim is already a thing of the past, as we have seen with the rapid decline in auto sales, but even more abstract measures, such as determining how best to allocate one's 401(k) plan will take up a lot of Americans' time this year, and for good reason. These issues have been ignored for way too long and it has come back to bite us.

3. A decline in interest in what celebs do. This is just a personal hope of mine, anyway. How ridiculous is it that there's such a massive industry based around following celebrities around to see what they're wearing, where they're shopping, or what their kids are up to? To me this is a sickness and proves that too many people have way too much time on their hands. And what irks me is when these minor happenings (not to be confused with actual real-life events) make the local or national news. Not to be morbid, but unless there's blood, sickness, or death involved, there's no reason to be discussing a celebrity's life on the evening newscast.

4. An increase in hard work. This economy will, metaphorically speaking, separate the wheat from the chaff. The people willing to give their best efforts at their jobs will ultimately come out of this recession in relatively good shape. The folks who just cruise on by or lose motivation will miss a tremendous learning opportunity and fall behind... be it financially, socially, or emotionally. Hopefully more people fall into the former category than the latter category. A lot of people made a lot of money without truly earning for a long time, but that will certainly change this year.

5. Decline in sporting attendance. While sports are relatively recession-proof, (even in bad times, people need an outlet, as the theory goes), I have a hunch that this may be the year where people relax their passions for watching pro sports. Let's face facts here... hundreds of thousands of people are being laid off each month, and meanwhile athletes are landing contracts of 10, 20, 30 million dollars a year. Personally, I'm tired of spending gobs of money to support these skyrocketing sums. And when you hear that the ever-popular NFL is laying off people in its home office, that sends me a signal that all is not well in the sports world.

There you have it. 5 predictions for the remainder of 2009. Knowing my history of making predictions, chances are I'll be dead wrong on all of them, but whatever, it's a blog, not stone.

(Image from: http://melton.ca/samples/images/hmmath/water_bottle.jpg)

Billboard Vacancies

2009-02-18T22:16:00.000-05:00

Riding around, I'll often see a billboard that is unsold, and a message on it reading, "Your Ad Here" + a phone number to call to buy the ad space.

Just a thought-- you've got this massive square footage of unused sign space, can't we use it for something for the public good in the meantime? Perhaps a photo of a missing child on one half and your ad on the other half? Or maybe you donate the ad to a charity for a week at a time, until the space gets sold. Or display a work of art by a local artist. Something, anything.

Billboards are considered to be an eyesore by many people. Why not try to counter that opinion with an engaging message instead of just shamelessly self-promoting yourself? In the end, if potential clients see the great possibilities that a billboard can offer, they'll be more inclined to want to rent it. Plus, seeing a sign that essentially says "nobody else wants to place an ad here, why should you?" is not exactly all that enticing to a prospective customer.

In other words, let's see billboard companies get creative and put their Monet where their mouth is.

Cold Blooded Killers

2009-02-16T07:44:00.005-05:00

Another weekend, another cop killing in Philly.

Eighth cop killing in three years. A sickening trend indeed. Way too many police officers, and civilians, being caught up in the line of fire by sinister gunmen.

(Side note: Not sure about you, but it irks me when people use the phrase "cold blooded killers" who do the killing. Is there such a thing as "warm blooded killers?" Aren't all killers despicable, evil, and a scourge on society... which is what cold blooded implies?)

Whatever the case, it's long past the time to weed out these killers from our world. Sooner than later.

Rest in peace, Officer Pawlowski. May this be the end to the "cold blooded killers" in Philly...

The Ups and Downs of Electric Service

2009-02-14T16:31:00.003-05:00

The winds were a-whippin' around on Thursday morning. And at about 6:00am the power in our house blacked out here in South Jersey.

I called PSE&G, our power service company, and was sent to an automated system. At first I was annoyed because I wanted to speak to a person to find out what was going on. But in the end this system was quite helpful and easy to use as it let me know within a minute what the status was (there were many reports of outages in the area) and when power should be back up (around 8:30am).

So I went about my business and got ready for work--in the dark-- and left for work around 8:30 with the power still out.

Around 10am I called PSE&G back to see if I could get a status update since I would go home at lunch to check on things if it was still out. This time, instead of an automated system I got a customer service representative right off the bat. Unfortunately, this rep was rather curt with me but let me know that power had been restored around 9:30. So I was quite disappointed that I would have rather dealt with an automated system instead of this rep. In this economy, there's no excuse to be rude to customers when there's most certainly 100 other people out there who would take your job in a heartbeat.

Hopefully this was just a one time thing with PSE&G... not just the power outage, which happens and is understandable, but also the unfriendly customer service, which is not.

Personal Planners: Paper or Plastic?

2009-02-07T17:58:00.003-05:00

As phones become "smarter," more and more people are using them for various everyday uses, that were, up till a few years ago, never really thought about before.

Your average iPhone or Blackberry, among others, allows you to check email, surf the internet, play games, take photos, and maintain a personal calendar. Though I have not yet taken the plunge into smart phone territory, it is tantalizing to consider buying one due to all that they have to offer. At this point my main hesitation is a monetary one, but another one has since surfaced. For my personal planner, do I prefer paper or plastic?

Let me start by saying that I've never been all that proficient in maintaining a calendar on a regular basis, electronic or otherwise. Somehow I manage to make it to all of my daily appointments, but traditionally it's been a scramble for me. For instance, I don't always get into the habit of looking at my calendar a few days/weeks ahead to see what I have coming up, I just kind of wing it and look at what I need to do soon. Additionally, I've never been good about keeping one single calendar; in other words, I'd have a calendar at work, scraps of notes at home, etc.

However, that has all changed since the start of this year. I bought an old fashioned pocket-sized weekly planner (at a cost of about $5) and attached a thin Moleskine cahier notebook to the front, with a handy rubber band, and I use another rubber band to keep a refillable pencil on the side so it's available at all times. You're probably reading this and thinking it's quite ridiculous that a person in this day and age is carrying around a pocket planner, note pad, and pencil all day long. And to this I say... haha, yes, you're probably right!

But to be totally honest I actually dig it!

Here are my thoughts about this...

-I sit at a computer all day at work and then spend many more hours in front of a computer at home (like, ahem, now). So do I really need another computer to tag along with me and run my life? Well, maybe a smart phone could be helpful and fun in some ways, but I don't think it would make a huge difference in planning my life.

-I love writing with a pencil on paper. So much better than tapping an electronic keypad. And faster... I can flip to the page and write a date down faster than most phone users.

-An elder business colleague of mine, a man who is highly regarded and extremely successful, totes around a similar small personal planner. If he's successful with this simple, almost primitive calendar, then that system can work for me!

I'm going to stick with the paper planner for now and see how it goes. Call me if you have any better ideas...

Procter and Gamble: Stealing Marketshare Thru Coupons

2009-01-27T22:49:00.004-05:00

As a frugal shopper who's always looking to save money when buying groceries, toiletries, and, well, pretty much anything, I've learned to take notice of when there are good deals going around. And lately I've noticed that Procter & Gamble is loading up on the discounts in recent weeks.

For example, I shop at BJ's Wholesale Club because I like the fact that I can get certain items in large quantities at reasonable prices. Things like cereal, which I eat every day and run thru rather quickly. All in all, it's a good place to go to refill the cupboards once a month or so, since things are cheaper in bulk.

To add to it, BJ's has its own circulars with exclusive coupons on a wide variety of products. Procter & Gamble always has coupons in the circularas, such as $2 off a package of 10 boxes of Puffs tissues, or $3 off Tide laundry detergent. But lately they've been laying the deals on heavy. My guess is that they're trying to build up on market share while the economy is in a dive and consumers are being pinched.

Some examples I've seen from their coupons include:
-Buy one package of 30 rolls of toilet paper, and get a package of four tubes of toothpaste for free... a $7.59 value.
-Buy a large bottle of Tide laundry detergent, get a large bottle of Joy dish detergent for free.
-Buy Bounty paper towels, get Zest soap for free...
Etc., etc.

As you can see, these are pretty substantial offers that they're pumping out, and they all tend to be $7-8 values. I suppose that they're big enough and can handle these discounts for the short term with the goal of trying to scare off other competitors. Seems like a reasonable marketing strategy since consumers are always looking for good deals, and it gets their products in people's homes to try out, even if they've never used them before. When the economy improves, my hunch is that they'll gradually go back to advertising their normal coupons.

But hey, when the economy improves, I think we'll all be much happier to go back to any sort of normalcy.

Cats and Money

2009-01-26T18:41:00.003-05:00

I recently opened my end-of-year 401(k) statement that was mailed to me. I looked at it, and, like most individuals in recent months, felt my heart stop momentarily. Yes, it's an ugly scene for investors out there; open statements with caution.

So as is customary, I set it aside on my desk to file it away for future reference.

Today, I went to pick it up to file it and noticed that my cat also had reviewed this 401(k) update. I could tell because there was a gigantic, mushy hairball on it. I promptly filed that in the circular bin, which is what I should have done in the first place. Perhaps we don't give cats enough credit for their investing skills...

Branding Geniusness by Chicago... The Band...

2009-01-23T23:30:00.003-05:00

Heard the classic song "25 or 6 to 4" by Chicago on the radio today. Realized just how subtle yet effective a job the band did to market themselves...

Consider how the word Chicago is used in many different contexts, but primarily referring to the city.

Now think about Chicago, the band.

You immediately conjure up the word Chicago, but in that classic script that just oozes 70s rock. Maybe you even hear a horn section playing in your head. Pretty amazing, isn't it? That's the power of branding, folks.

My bet is that the script was just an afterthought, not a blatant attempt to distinguish the musical group from the city. But whatever the case, it worked. And after all, does anybody really care how it got that way? Or for that matter, does anybody really know what time it is?

Decline in Driving: Decline in Other Problems Too?

2009-01-14T21:23:00.004-05:00

As you've probably heard, Americans have been driving less in the past year or so, in large part due to the high gas prices in 2008, the recession, demographic factors, and so on.

Some follow up questions to this behavioral change is... have road problems declined as well? Are fewer people getting in accidents? Are moving violations dropping? Are incidents of road rage diminishing?

If the answer is yes to most or all of these questions (and granted, it may take a while to determine the answers), it makes me wonder if there will eventually be a fundamental change in driving patterns in the coming years.

As the saying goes, the most dangerous person thing most people will do in any given day is get in the car and go somewhere. Yet we collectively take this risk every day without even putting much thought into it. Perhaps some people will start to realize the inherent downsides of driving, and change their behaviors to drive as little as possible.

But judging how much people love their cars, I'm guessing this won't pan out for a looooong long time...

The Spare Button Dilemma

2009-01-10T09:44:00.004-05:00

I vaguely remember a Jerry Seinfeld bit, where he talks about the buttons that come in little packets when you buy a new shirt or pants. His point was-- does anybody really keep all of these spare buttons?

Over the holidays, I got some new clothes, and one of the pairs of pants came with a little packet of spare buttons. Seinfeld is right-- what am I supposed to do with these buttons? Store them in a little filing cabinet with a description of the pants they belong to? Unlikely.

The real question to me here is... why can't we make clothing where the buttons just stay on permanently? Seems to me like there's got to be a better way to keep buttons on a piece of cloth than by using a tiny piece of twine to keep it attached. Or at least find a way to secure that piece of string on better. Whoever can invent a method to help permanently attach buttons to their pieces of cloth will surely revolutionize the button industry.

Are you that revolutionary person that us clothing wearers so desperately need?

Hungry for an Answer

2009-01-09T19:54:00.004-05:00

I just had the honor and privilege to see one of those commercials advertising dirt cheap artwork for sale produced by the ever-enticing "starving artist" community.

This is perhaps the lowest form of American consumerism ever.

Everybody knows that these "paintings" are done on an assembly line and cost next nothing to make. They're not originals, nor are there any artists even remotely near the painting at the time of production, starving or not. And everybody knows that these paintings look like crap (the proof is right there on the commercial). I'm no art snob, but these framed monsterpieces entice no emotions or mental interest like a true work of are would.

Yet somehow the people selling these things are making money... or if they aren't they sure don't mind wasting it.

So I just have to throw it out there to the world: why in the name of Vincent van Gogh would anybody buy these pathetic things?

Ummmmm

2009-01-06T19:27:00.004-05:00

Sometimes the things that people do are just so incomprehensible and reprehensible and other words that end with -ible, that you just have to wipe your face with your hands and hope that it's just a bad dream.

The title of the article from the TCPalm newspaper pretty much says it all, but the story of what happened pretty much will make you lose all hope for humanity. There's just so much wrong with this on so many levels, not to mention the grammar in the headline, that I don't even know where to begin. So I won't. Read and be the judge for yourself:

Police: Suspicious wife who demands to smell husband's genitals beaten

So, ummmmmm, yeah, that's all I got...

Prediction: Barring Any Change, Facebook Will Fossilize

2009-01-02T20:35:00.003-05:00

Over the past few months, I admit, I've become a frequent user of Facebook. It's a fun, useful site that enables you to easily connect with friends and get an occasional glimpse into their lives, while also letting others into your world, one chunk at a time.

I never really got into MySpace because I felt there was just too much going on and it was more designed for kids to use or it was too corporate or something. Facebook is a lot cleaner and more straightforward. And it seems like others agree with me because I don't know anybody who uses MySpace anymore.

But interestingly, the same benefits that Facebook has over MySpace may actually become Facebook's downfall.

For starters, when I think of Facebook now, even though I still do use it, I can't help but often think about the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza's wife becomes friends with George's friends Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer. In other words-- "worlds collided."

The easy accessibility of Facebook means that your network of "friends" can grow, perhaps not in an exponential manner, but certainly to an unmanageable level. What happens is that you start off becoming friends with the people you are closest to in your real life. And then a friend of a friend wants to be your friend. And then a kid you knew in middle school who you hardly talked to wants to friend you. And then your parents start an account and want to see what's going on in your life. And then your co-workers. And then people you don't even know, who just want to rack up more friends than other people. And then all of a sudden you have 500 people on your friends list, and anything you post becomes virtually public knowledge.

So what does this all mean? It means you either have to be a person who really has nothing to hide in life and doesn't mind sharing everyday experiences with the world. Or, in reflection of Shakespeare's famous line-- "All the world's a stage... and one man in his time plays many parts." Meaning: different people know you in different ways... can you truly be "one person" to everybody when they can see everything that you post?

This makes you think... do I REALLY want to post that photo of me passed out at the party?" Or, similarly, "what if my friend posts a photo of me passed out at the party, and my boss sees it?" To quote another famous writer, "Big Brother is watching you," is what it can feel like when using Facebook, as any reader of George Orwell's "1984" can attest.

So here you have a personal limitation in what you can say-- though of course you have the other choice of denying a friend request so somebody does not get let into your world, which makes it look like you really do have something to hide. Ultimately, you have to make a lot of decisions about what you write, unless you really have nothing to lose by posting it, whether in your mind or in reality. After a while, I think people will tire of having to make these types of decisions.

The other issue at hand is that of advertising on the site. Big Brother is indeed watching you on Facebook... even if it is Big Brother of the Marketing World. I think nothing says this more than when you go to sign up for an application and you get this message:

"Allowing (name of application) access will let it pull your profile information, photos, your friends' info, and other content that it requires to work. Allow or Canel"

Ok, if that doesn't make you wonder about things, then I don't know what does.

So then, let's say you agree to allow access to this application, and let's say that you take part in a game application. Well, the game, being free, is advertising supported, so you're getting hammered with ads everytime you play the game. Oy!

To top it off, each Facebook user will have different pay per click ads hovering on screen anywhere within Facebook, and each ad is tailored to things that you have a tendency to like. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it tracks the sites you go to and homes in on hitting you up with ads for similar sites. On one hand, yes, this is good marketing (reach out only to the people who are inclined to like your product, rather than wasting money on people who are less inclined), but on the other hand, it feels, well, a little creepy.

As a Facebook user, I'm not sure how long I will be able to put up with these downfalls of the site. It's possible I will just overlook them and enjoy the site's functionality. Or, I, along with others, may just ditch the site altogether like has happened with MySpace, due to getting burned out by the constant ads, or the milktoast conversation that ensues due to not wanting to give away too much info about myself to my world of "friends."

Now let me go search around on Facebook and see what kind of shenanigans my boss is up to...

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

2008-12-30T19:33:00.005-05:00

This troubled economy has brought down many businesses, but one business it seems to have bolstered is the "going out of business" advertising shops of the world. Case in point:

Oskar Huber, a Philadelphia-area furniture store is reorganizing under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, meaning EVERYTHING MUST GO GO GO GO! (Sorry, I got a little caught up in the moment there. -Ed.)

The interesting thing is that since they announced this bankruptcy plan, it seems like the company has poured more attention on itself than ever before. For example, the Cherry Hill store has done all of the following to try and get people in the door:

-rented a billboard truck that simply drives around all day with a sign announcing to all passers-by the discounted furniture that is for sale
-paid a poor shlep or two to stand in front of the store by the roadside holding a sign (in gaudy neon pink and green no less), on wooden pole announcing said sales
-placing a portable stadium light in front of the store and pointing it right at the sign above the store front, presumably so drivers will notice it at night while driving by
-hanging shiny red and blue streamers up on the light poles in the parking lot, making it look like a used car dealership

And that's probably just a tip of the iceberg as far as Oskar Huber's going-out-of-business advertising goes. Which tells me that when things are going bad in the economy, riches can be made in the "going under" advertising business.

In other words, catch people when they're desperate and they'll toss all kinds of money around to undertake desperate measures...

Free Credit Reports... A Good Idea that Can be Made Better?

2008-12-29T13:09:00.003-05:00

I like the fact that all US citizens are entitled to a free credit report from each of the "big three" credit report companies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion), since it allows for individuals to better monitor their credit reports for errors or areas that need improving. Having to pay for a report that you never even asked for is rather bizarre to me in the first place, but getting a free credit report is most certainly a wise way to provide more transparency in this otherwise secretive industry.

One suggestion I have to take the free credit report process to the next level would be to automatically send a free credit report each year to all consumers. This would save time for everybody, but would also provide a reminder to each credit report recipient that their credit report and credit score are vital pieces of information in this day and age. And perhaps it would wake some people up to remind them that they really need to get in gear and fix up their reports and scores, otherwise they will be taken to the cleaners any time they ask for a loan, mortgage, etc. Perhaps if people took initiative to improve their credit scores, the economy wouldn't be in the gutter like it is now since people would be more aware of what's going on and would be more mindful of their expenses. Just a thought.

Yes I realize there are challenges to automatically sending everybody a credit report, but for those people who forget or are too lazy to request one or don't have readily available internet access, I would think there might be some way this can be arranged.

Ultimately, my feeling is that the more people that get on board with reviewing their credit reports, the better.

Now I'm off to go check mine out... wish me luck!

Congrats to The Onion... "THE" Number 1 Site

2008-12-21T09:45:00.004-05:00

Anybody who has read The Onion will know about the power of great journalism and how vital it is to our civilization. It is a classic example of building a following and expanding largely by word of mouth because of its excellence in reporting. Satirical as it all may be.

But what I found fascinating regarding The Onion comes straight from Google's search results. I was just curious to see what results came up when I searched the word "the". Out of 10,040,000,000 estimated results, The Onion came up #1. Quite impressive! This is clearly a triumph in search engine optimization (SEO), a marketing tactic that helps websites get to the top of the list for search engine results... whether or not The Onion did this intentionally remains to be seen. But I thought I should point out that for the search on the word "the", The Onion managed to top such venerable institutions as:

-#2: The White House (well, maybe not quite so venerable, but I digress)
-#3: A Wikipedia entry about "the"
-#4: The Economist
-#5: T.H.E.-- Technology Horizons in Education (seems rather amazing that they didn't come up #1 since THE is the title of the publication!)

As you can see, the legend of The Onion continues to grow. So to all of THE writers at THE Onion, keep up THE great work... and keep showing THE White House how to do THE job right!

A Thanks to n:vision for brightening my day...

2008-12-15T22:45:00.005-05:00

Give credit where credit is due...

About a year or two ago, I bought compact fluorescent light bulbs made by n:vision for my bathroom vanity. The light bulbs have worked great, helping to cut down on my energy bills and also helping my peace of mind by using up less pollution-causing electricity.

Interestingly, however, two of the bulbs blew out over a month ago, after a short life. I still happened to have the packaging (where I was safely storing the old incandescent bulbs in the event I still needed them) so I checked the info on there. Indeed, n:vision guarantees the bulbs to last for nine years, so I thought it was odd that the bulbs burned out so soon. To check on this fact, I called the company, spoke to a representative right away (not having to wait on hold), and she said that I was entitled to new bulbs. And guess what? I got them. After a few weeks, I received the new bulbs in the mail, and things are back to normal.

This, to me, is excellent customer service and the perfect example of ensuring tremendous customer satisfaction.

So, thank you to n:vision and I highly encourage others to change their bulbs as well. Consider yourself... enlightened!

AT&T Commercial: Thumbs Down

2008-12-11T18:29:00.004-05:00

Sorry, it's another negative blog post by me ripping on a bad television commercial. But what voice does a lowly consumer have when it comes to these terrible commercials that are forced down everybody's throats? The good ole blog is probably the best bet.

So you've undoubtedly seen the AT&T Wireless commercials showing a closeup of two hands holding the typepad on a Samsung phone. The thumbs, used to type in a text message, have faces superimposed on them. Not only do these thumb-faces make me want to gag because they look bizarre, but they talk and try to say funny things like "Shake your funnymaker." It's really quite torturous and annoying.

I get the concept here, but the execution doesn't work for me. I'm all for a little innovation and having fun with TV commercials, but hopefully AT&T can come up with *ahem* thumb-thing else.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

How the Yellow Pages Could Be More Relevant

2008-12-08T07:31:00.004-05:00

Within the past month I've picked up two or three new phone books that were plopped down by my front door... books from RR Donnelly, Verizon, etc. Talk about hundreds and hundreds of pages of wasted paper. I kept one book and immediately discarded the others in the appropriate bin. Why? Well, the Internet has virtually all of the answers I need, making these behemoth books a thing of the past.

Like most people, I find that the yellow pages are just not that useful anymore. I might flip through a book once or twice a year to find something, but otherwise, I'm heading online to dig up the information I need.

But there is one way that the yellow pages could become more useful. My theory is that if the yellow pages were organized in another way, it could probably serve people better. Yes, alphabetical listing is helpful if you know who you're looking for, but otherwise, it's a game of naming rights and also who has the biggest ad to get your attention.

If I wanted to find a good plumber, for example, how do I know if AAAA Plumbing is better than AA Plumbers? Clearly there are companies out there that play the name placement game, hoping to get customers by virtue of being listed first in the phone book. Alternatively, it will come down to companies that buy the biggest, most colorful ads. That's not going to cut it anymore folks.

If the phone book was organized by, say, the best customer ratings for excellence in performance, it would be a lot more useful to Joe and Sally Homeowner. This way I could find the company that is most likely to do the BEST job on my plumbing repairs, rather than just picking the name I see first, or the one that spends the most marketing dollars to get my attention.

Otherwise, the yellow pages will continue to lose market share to Internet searches. By changing to a format that offers genuine information, rather than listings, it would be a more highly regarded source of help and probably wouldn't get tossed by people like me.

On the other hand, it does make for some good kindling...

Target Kicks It Up a Notch

2008-12-05T22:30:00.004-05:00

I must say that I'm thrilled to report that Target made me smile today.

Big sale?

No.

Free giveaways?

Negatory.

Product placement innovation?

YES!

"Huh?"... you must be saying.

Well let's put it like this. Every store selling shoes that I've ever been to has always had their large sizes stuck in a corner or way at the bottom of the rack. By placing their larger sizes at the top of the racks, Target finally got it right (or perhaps they've had it this way for a while and I never noticed). Let's face facts here, people looking for bigger shoes tend to be taller. And taller people tend to be adept at reaching things in higher places. Putting larger sized shoes on the bottom of the shelf, therefore, makes no sense. Fortunately, Target figured out this little nuance of human nature, unlike most other stores.

Unfortunately, they still didn't have my size.

Guess they're off target with getting shoes bigger than size 13.

One Way Car Makers Could Go the Extra Mile

2008-11-30T09:50:00.004-05:00

With the economy in the gutter, car sales have skidded, and automakers have begun to plead for government subsidies. It's an ugly scene out there.

That situation aside, I think that car makers should look at ways of going the extra mile to befriend consumers again. Sure, cars are safer now than ever, gas mileage is slowly improving, and the amenities inside of cars (can you say cupholders?) have increased. But perhaps it's the simple things that they're missing out on.

For instance, I just read an article in Consumer Reports about 12 things you should have in your car in case of a break down. The list they developed contains the following items: hazard triangles or flares, jumper cables, a flashlight, roadside-assistance membership, tow rope, duct tape, small shovel, bag of sand, windshield scraper, emergency blanket, and hand warmers. All simple things that people ideally should have in their cars, but how many of us really do bother to have all of it?

My feeling is that an auto maker or car dealer should set themselves apart and surprise buyers with a package containing all of these items upon purchase of a new car. Think about how little this entire package would cost (a couple hundred dollars at the very most), but how much goodwill they would be delivering to the new car buyer. Ultimately, it's a simple gesture but it shows they care about the driver.

When Not to Slow Down...

2008-11-26T17:17:00.003-05:00

I thought maybe I'd have some luck at getting a hold of people at work this week, figuring that fewer people would be traveling for Thanksgiving this year and more people would want to be at work in order to safeguard their jobs and/or boost sales. Y'know, good old fashioned boot strapping.

Quite the contrary.

This week has been so slow and that really surprises me. Usually, when the economy is going well, people tend to feel more free-flowing with their time and money so they take off work and you can't find them on days surrounding the holidays. And I would have thought the opposite would be true for this year's Thanksgiving since people seemingly would be hustling to boost sales for the end of this dismal year. I guess that's not happening though, at least not in my neck of the woods

I've made lots of calls and emails and it's like a ghost town out there. I guess I didn't get the memo!

Pillsbury Doughboy: Happy 40+ Birthday

2008-11-22T13:35:00.003-05:00

It dawned on me that the Pillsbury Doughboy has been around for a long time. Turns out, Mr. Doughboy popped into the advertising world in the 1960s, making him over 40 years old.

Which leaves me with the simple question... shouldn't he be the Pillsbury DoughMAN by now?

Chew on that one.

Just a Random Dental Hygiene Thought

2008-11-15T15:20:00.003-05:00

Everywhere I look I see ads for teeth whitening. I guess that's a good thing, in the sense that most people out there take care of their teeth, so dentists and dental product companies need to drum up business in some other way... so "why not encourage people to have a bright, shiny white smile?" these dentists must be saying.

I just had a random dental hygiene thought however... I wonder if it will ever be socially acceptable, and/or trendy to have one's teeth dyed another color. At this point in time, seeing somebody with, say red teeth is considered pretty gross, unless it's Halloween or it's a kid who just ate a cherry flavored lollipop.

But maybe some day down the road, you'll see kids picking out teeth dye colors to match their outfits, or rabid sports fans dyeing their teeth in their team's colors, or politicians taking on a new hue to impress a crowd. After all, who would have thought that tattoos, ear piercings, and hair coloring would be so popular just 50 years ago?

Just something to chew on...

A Reminder, in Light of Today's Election

2008-11-04T07:07:00.004-05:00

As people stream out to the polls to elect either Barack Obama or John McCain the next President of the United States of America, this election has focused around "change" from the current path this country has taken.

Keep in mind, however, that regardless of who is elected today, the REAL power to change things lies in the hands of the PEOPLE.

Wall Street meltdown? The American people let that happen, from seemingly intelligent businesspeople to everyday citizens.

Global Warming? This is one of the greatest catastrophes of all time, also created by humans like you and me.

Iraq War? True, this one was led by the current President, but Americans still enabled it to happen and continue.

This list could go on and on.

Ultimately, if the people of the country truly want change, they have to be more involved and not rely just on the President and other elected officials to make it happen. Talk is cheap, voting is cheap, but doing something about the problems on an individual level is the best way to really bring about change...

Email Inefficiency

2008-11-02T21:44:00.004-05:00

This is a call to all marketers and web designers at various email service providers, including, but not limited to Care2, Comcast, Hotmail, and Yahoo!...

Let's make email more efficient.

Altering one simple step would save countless hours for the collective masses of email checkers:

After entering my screen name and password on an email providers login page, ELIMINATE the next screen which basically says nothing more than how many emails I have in my inbox. I don't care about links to news snippets or cutesy articles or things you're trying to sell me, which are slipped into this meaningless page... I'm just trying to get to my email!

That is all.

Thank you.

Simple Things... So Hard to Do

2008-10-26T22:12:00.004-04:00

Sometimes people really irk me.

Recently I was sitting at my dining room table eating breakfast when I happened to see a neighbor walking outside carrying a cardboard box. She proceeded to walk and carry it to the trash dumpster in front of her house.

Okay, simple task, no big deal.

But, the morning she did this also happened to be the morning when recycling items were getting picked up. And for those of you wondering... yes, my township (Evesham) does pick up cardboard boxes as part of its bi-weekly recycling program.

This really irked me because it's typical of all too many people who simply take it for granted that we have things pretty good, and that we don't have to really worry about where our trash goes on a daily basis. We just chuck it and forget about it.

The thing is that recycling is probably THE EASIEST possible thing that people can do to make a positive impact on the environment. You don't even have to think about it most of the time, just take your cans, plastic bottles, paper, etc, put it in a separate bin from your trash can and take it out every so often. It's really mind-boggling that people are so stubborn to NOT recycle, especially when it benefits everybody when it's done.

Interestingly, our neighboring township Cherry Hill has reported tremendous success with its RecycleBank program where households earn points for recycling that can be redeemed for gift cards and the like. Previously, the recycling rates in Cherry Hill had been good, but are now quite astounding. In other words, people will only do something that truly benefits society if it benefits them directly. Pretty sad, folks.

While I don't disagree that the RecycleBank program is a wise one, I would just be so much happier if people could just conjure up that slight increase of energy and time to be able to do the right thing in the first place, and recycle on their own.

But that would be too simple I suppose...

Presidential Candidates: Put Your Energy Where Your Mouth Is

2008-10-23T22:46:00.003-04:00

Green, as we all know, is the latest buzz word in every corner of the country. "Green" alternative energy supplies, such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric, are talked about on a daily basis by laypeople on the street and congresspeople in Washington. Indeed, this topic is quite popular with John McCain and Barack Obama in their respective presidential campaigns.

Voters want to know what plans and ideas these candidates have about staving off our addiction to oil, due to its effects on climate change as well as its effects on our pocketbooks, among other reasons. And these candidates regularly bandy about how they would change things by investing in alternative energy sources, and so forth.

What I want to see happen is a candidate say-- "Okay-- I'm going to send a message to America and the world. When I get in the White House, I will turn it into a 'Green House' by installing solar panels on the roof, ensuring that the lighting fixtures use CFL bulbs, and make any other feasible retrofits to make this the most efficient building it can be."

Personally I can't think of a better way to make a point and encourage fellow Americans to do something about the dire situation we are in than by leading by example.

Unfortunately, leading by example is not always a hallmark of politicians. Let's see if either one of them goes for this alternative route...

The Next Revolution in Soap Bars

2008-10-21T22:03:00.003-04:00

Yes, you read the title correctly. This post is about a revolutionary idea for soap. It finally came to me today and you heard it here first. Are you ready for this? It's going to blow your mind. The idea:

Soap bars with a sliver on the side.

What could I possibly mean by that, you ask?

Well let me start with some background.

It's always aggravated me that at the end of a soap bar's life, the last 5% of the soap bar becomes too small to use. So you either throw it out, or it drops down the drain, or it breaks into little pieces, or it gets stuck on the soap dish, or any number of futile, wasteful demises.

But now, with my idea, you get a new bar of soap, take the old, small bar of soap, and insert it into the small opening on the side of the new bar. Thus, you waste no soap and the old bar gradually melts seamlessly into the new bar as it gets wet from washing. You just saved yourself the aggravation of dealing with an otherwise useless remnant of a soap bar, and you saved a few cents as well. Why not?

Yes, I told you this idea would blow your mind.

Now who will be the wise person to clean up on this free idea?

More Green = Less Green?

2008-10-08T16:34:00.004-04:00

I've long been a supporter of the so-called green movement and I'm encouraged to see it succeeding in everyday life, from people determined to buying cars with better gas mileage to shoppers using fewer disposable bags to homeowners replacing their incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights.

The increase in these types of actions, to me, is all great news. It means we're conserving our resources, helping to make our world more sustainable, and also in many cases saving money.

Which is where I'm getting increasingly curious as to whether or not the green movement is causing at least part of the readjustment in the stock markets.

Considering the fact that Americans are driving less year over year and that cars are getting more efficient, it should help to cut back on money spent on gasoline. Additionally, if people are using reusable bags to carry their groceries, that's another huge source of petroleum that is not wasted. Or having people use more energy efficient light bulbs means saving money on electric bills. All of these initiatives and others inevitably will result in less money for the oil, electric, and industrial companies. And as these initiatives increase across the country and worldwide, it will have a major impact on corporate bottom lines... read: less profit.

So perhaps part of the sell-off on Wall Street and other stock markets around the world is a result of this fundamental change in society of being more green. If less money is being wasted on oil, electricity, etc. then it means more money to spend elsewhere, but it would also mean less money for those industries and fewer jobs. The net result could end up in people saving more money, or it could result in deflation which could shake up the entire system. Perhaps it will be the starting point of taking wasted money away from companies and putting it back in consumers' pockets, which means a fundamental change in the way we spend money in the future.

I'm clearly not an economist, just a rational observer of what's going on and I would be curious to learn more about the impact of green practices on the bottom line regarding corporate greenbacks. Eventually we'll start to see long term trends, but in the meantime we will have to do our best to adjust to the changes.

FedEx and Today's Lingo

2008-10-03T23:26:00.004-04:00

I just heard a fascinating quote by Alec Baldwin on Real Time with Bill Maher.

It's not the content of what he was talking about, but the wording he chose to use. The quote, as best I remember it, with specific names left out, went something like this...

"Somebody needs to FedEx [a script] to [John & Jane Doe] right away so they get a clue real fast."

This fascinates me because just think about that. He could have said any verb to insinuate "get something to someone FAST". He chose to use the branded term "to FedEx" rather than to "fax", "email", or even "PDF" the document, to imply fast delivery. Wow. That's a pretty impressive marketing coup.

It always amazes me to hear brand terms become standard lingo or verbs, such as Kleenex, Xerox, or Hoover... names that have become synonomous with a generic item, i.e. facial tissue, copier, or vacuum, respectively.

Well done FedEx, you've made the brand-turned-verb list. Score one for the marketing department!

I Hate People that Litter!

2008-09-30T22:21:00.004-04:00

I really, really try not to be someone who complains or criticizes others all the time, but then again I often find myself doing just that on this very blog. I guess it's difficult to keep totally quiet when something causes much aggravation, and I suppose it's a cathartic relief to vent about it in the blog world, at least for me.

So, where was I?

Oh yeah-- I hate people that litter!

This morning I was outside cleaning my yard and found a couple of scraps of paper sitting on my lawn. Strike 1.

Then I walked around a common area in my neighborhood and saw McDonald's cups and a Pepsi can sitting on the ground. Strike 2.

The last straw for me was watching a twenty-something girl in the passenger seat of a car driving by my house drop tissues out the window like it was no big deal. Strike 3.

Look folks, if you drop stuff on the ground, be it from a car, bike, or as you walk somewhere, you're ruining things for every other person around you. Nobody wants to see garbage all over the street/sidewalk/grass/garden, and nobody wants to have to pick up after you. Get a clue!

Ok, that's my rant. Next time I'll find something positive to write about. Promise!

Where to Entrust Your Money

2008-09-28T16:35:00.005-04:00

Getting down to the core of it, investing in stocks means you entrust people that work at public companies to get a better return on your money than you would be able to do on your own. In other words, when you have extra money sitting around, you can either spend it, put it in an interest bearing product (CD's, savings account, etc) or put it to use in another vehicle like stocks to try and get a better return. This entails higher risk obviously.

But with all of today's talks about bailout plans of financial institutions by the government, failing banks and investment companies, and a failing credit system, why should anybody trust other companies to get a better return than I can?

Okay, I'm being a little extreme, but all of this turmoil definitely has a negative reflection on the viability of blindly trusting other companies to do better than you can on your own in terms of getting return on investment. For better or worse the stock market is still the best system we have for building wealth, but now more than ever it's important to realize that you're still risking your trust in someone else to excel. Buyer beware and let's hope this whole thing shakes out soon and proves to be an improvement over where we've been.

Where Would Women Turn without Chocolate??

2008-09-26T17:47:00.003-04:00

I work with a lot of women in my office. And hardly a day goes by where I don't hear something along the lines of:

"I need chocolate!" or

"Do you have any chocolate?" or

"I have such a chocolate craving!" or

"Oh my god, does that have chocolate in it? That looks so good, can I have some?"

Well, you get the idea.

My question is, what would women do if chocolate was never invented? I doubt you'd hear something like:

"I need a turnip!" or

"Do you have any parsley?" or

"I have such a chard craving!"

Well, you get the idea.

I guess that really goes for anything though. Once you get a taste for something (be it a food, drink, or even just a personal preference like driving fancy cars) then you don't want to go back.

But the next time I hear "Oooh, I need some chocolate!" I'm tempted to respond with "Sorry, chocolate's been officially banned. Can I offer you some monkey brains?" That'll stir some things up around the water cooler...

Quote of the Day

2008-09-13T13:13:00.003-04:00

Hurricane Ike has ravaged Texas and I feel for and fear for what the residents there have gone through and will have to go through in coming times. While reading this news report about the damage done, however, I just had to simultaneously chuckle and sigh when I came across this blurb about one resident of Southside Beach:

South of Galveston, authorities said 67-year-old Ray Wilkinson was the only residents (sic) who didn't evacuate from Surfside Beach, population 800. He was drunk and waving when authorities reached him on Saturday morning.

"He kinda drank his way through the night," Mayor Larry Davison said.

Wow. 'Nuff said.

My Dream Bridge

2008-09-11T20:09:00.003-04:00

After sitting for a half hour at 9:00pm last night in traffic on the dreaded eastbound I-76 Schuylkill Expressway, and after seeing the effects of a major accident on I-295 South in Cherry Hill this morning, I would like to call on all inventors and engineers to develop an "instant bridge" that can be quickly erected to allow traffic to simply go over an accident or small construction zone with only minimal interruption in traffic flow, and no imposition on the work being done underneath. That way, everybody's happy and there is no major mess on the roadways.

Yes, that's my dream bridge. Are there any smart people out there who can make this dream come to life?!? Or if such a thing exists, can we please find a way to implement it?

Door to Door Fundraisers... Knock Somewhere Else

2008-09-06T00:12:00.003-04:00

This evening, while I was making dinner, the doorbell rang. I knew right away that it must be a kid trying to sell me something to raise money for some venture or another. I pondered the option of not opening the door but then thought it could be my parents who have been known to stop by on occasion.

Sure enough a teenage girl was on my stoop when I opened the door, and she was holding a binder. I immediately cringed because I really despise when people do this. I understand the need to fundraise (heck, I work for a non-profit which has to do fundraising), but I really hate to be bothered at home by a desperate person without my having previously consented to see him/her. But I listened to her pitch, not wanting to be rude.

The girl was very well prepared with her pitch as she tried to sell me a subscription to help her raise money for an organization that involved students and some sort of project that she breezed over. I said no thanks, I just ended my subscription to that particular publication and was ready to close the door. She then asked me why I had ended the subscription. I said that I just didn't read it anymore and didn't want it again. She said that I could order the subscription and then cancel it right away and still be able to help her cause. I thought this was kind of fishy. So I declined again.

She then asked if I would like to make a donation anyway. I asked her if I could get a form and fill it out and mail it in. She took out a form and said I could use this as a receipt. But she said that I could not mail it in-- even though it had an address on the form. I then saw a website address (which I unfortunately didn't think to write it down or memorize it), and asked if I could donate online. She again said no. The fishiness continued to build here.

So I basically mumbled something about not wanting to give out money in person and that she should come back later, just trying to let her down easy. She said okay and finally left. She didn't return and hopefully she doesn't again, quite frankly. Interestingly, a little later on, I went online to try to find information on this supposed organization based on the information she told me. Of course I couldn't find anything despite doing mutliple searches. Something tells me this was a scam and I'm glad I didn't give anything to her.

This brings me to my conclusion here. While I understand the need to raise money, and I understand the need to ask people to give in order to raise that money, I really think it's in poor taste to stop by unannounced to a person's house to ask for money (and not just a dollar or two, but tens of dollars, mind you), without even knowing that person. A slick sales pitch and vague answers are simply unacceptable and I refuse to throw money at someone just to make them go away. It's really the lowest of the low ways you can fundraise if you ask me.

If anything, my tip would be for the fundraiser to start the pitch by saying "I'm not asking for any money at this time, but I was hoping you would take a minute to hear about X project that I think you will find interesting..." followed by a brief synopsis of what is going on, and accompanied by a brochure with ways I can get more information and ultimately give. This is at least in the direction of trying to build a relationship with me, not trying to bilk me for a few bucks.

Unfortunately it's people and organizations like this who give fundraising a bad name. On the whole, most fundraisers do not take this strategy, but the ones that do are instant turnoffs and give a bad reputation to other organizations that do it right.

Moral: If you're going fishing for money, don't be a fishy person representing a fishy organization and simply trying to bait unassuming people into donating.

866-825-4573: Just Ignore this Number

2008-08-30T12:53:00.006-04:00

This past week, my caller ID has shown the number 866-825-4573 calling my house during the day on three different occasions. One time I was home and picked up and it was just loud classical music playing. After doing a Google search for that phone number I found that scads of other annoyed people have had these calls come in as well. They wrote that sometimes there was silence on the other end, and sometimes idiots babbled on the other end.

So if you get this number calling you, I'd suggest just ignoring it. Unless you want to fall into their trap and call them back or answer the phone and deal with inane calls every few days. I really have no idea who would waste their short time on this planet by doing such nonsense, but hey, to each his own I guess. No sense in wasting your own precious time in dealing with these losers!

TD Bank Branding: Zero Interest

2008-08-18T21:57:00.003-04:00

I realize that trying to brand and market a bank can be quite unexhilarating. But it'd be nice to at least see an attempt to do so by the folks at the newly named "TD Bank"... the name that resulted from the merger of Commerce Bank and TD Banknorth. (Side note: the name in itself is a total bust since Commerce Bank had such a large following in the regions where it has grown. Instead of going with TD Commerce Bank as was originally planned, the bank meekly folded in the wake of a small lawsuit that should have been inconsequential. Now they're stuck with the very nondescript name of TD Bank. I digress.)

Truth be told, I'm a longtime Commerce customer, and yes, it is a bit of a downer to see Commerce lose it's identity in such a manner, but that's just the way of the world. Not something I'll lose sleep over.

But to add to the fact that they've chosen a name with zero pep, they also have partnered it with a clarifying slogan of sorts that attracts zero interest:

TD Bank: "A brand is more than a name..."

Yes, that's literally what it says when I log onto pay my bills. "A brand is more than a name..."

Ok, I realize that this is not their REAL, everyday slogan, but it just seemed like such a weak attempt to generate clicks on the particular page where I saw it. It's like saying:

"A blog post is more than a headline..."

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

More Trashing of the Environment?

2008-08-11T18:08:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I just don't get it. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" apparently doesn't ring true with certain national leaders any more.

The Endangered Species Act has helped bring back animals from the brink of extinction and all of the sudden a certain administration wants to go and throw it out the window. Check out this article for more information.

While some of the arguments in the article make some sense, I really just have no trust or faith in the current administration to do virtually anything that benefits the public, and I don't see how changing the Endangered Species Act really helps us in general. Sure, businesses and industries might benefit, as is stated in this quote in the article:

In recent years... some federal agencies and private developers have complained that the process (of conducting reviews before construction projects) results in delays and increased construction costs

Sorry guys about the delays, but I think that's inevitable in the construction world regardless of animals, but let's not forget the long term... I hope the people behind this law change understand the consequences on their actions on future generations. I truly fear for what our kids and grandkids will encounter in years to come and hope that we can be better stewards of this world. On the one hand I feel as though we've made progress with the attention on all things "green", but on the other hand I wonder if we're really in it full throttle when I read news like this.

Now let's see what else we can break...

Virtual Wallet Update

2008-08-06T07:01:00.004-04:00

Last night I ranted about how PNC introduced its new banking product called Virtual Wallet via a TV commercial blitz but failed to have any connecting search results on Google.

Just out of curiousity, I went back to Google just now and guess what? The top (and only) sponsored link is for PNC's Virtual Wallet, and it looks like they have developed a landing site for the product. This landing site still does not show up in organic results however. And if you go to this landing site, you'll also find that it doesn't have the same setup as PNC's regular site, which may confuse some people.

Let's see how this marketing plan plays out...

Virtual Wallet: Virtual Marketing Flop

2008-08-05T19:59:00.003-04:00

A few months ago an acquaintace of mine who works at a PNC Bank branch tipped me off to a new service that PNC would be offering this summer. She dubbed it "Virtual Wallet". It sounded like a nifty tool when she explained it, which allows people to easily and instantly transfer money back and forth between various personal accounts. Good idea, though quite frankly after a while I forgot about it.

Until yesterday. I saw a commercial (two actually) for PNC's Virtual Wallet. I suppose this is their big summer product launch.

So after seeing the commercial, just out of curiousity, I went online to look up Virtual Wallet on Google. And whadya know-- no relevant results! How does that happen? In fact all of the results for Virtual Wallet were so weak they weren't even remotely connected to PNC. If that were me I would have made sure to have paid search and organic search all lined up before this launch. Even if it leads to informational pages announcing that the service would be coming soon. Instead, it led me to a virtual dead zone in terms of sales and marketing. I was a curious prospective client but couldn't find virtually anything on the subject. As they say on the baseball diamond-- "whiff".

So after that I went to PNC Bank's site and nowhere on their site could I find anything about Virtual Wallet, even when doing a search on their own site. Whiff again.

Maybe I'm missing something here. Maybe it's supposed to be a teaser. But it sure seems to me like the Virtual Wallet marketing campaign is not on the money...

Cat Toys: Cheaper is Better

2008-08-02T17:26:00.005-04:00

Anybody who has seen a young baby open presents know that oftentimes the tyke's favorite gift is that of bubblewrap, a box, or a bow. Well the same goes for cats.

I don't know why cat owners buy fancy toys for cats. I've fallen into that trap with my cat, but never again! I'll save my money for other more important items in life.

To wit, my cat's top 4 toys are:

1. An old shoelace
2. A twisty tie
3. A ping pong ball
4. A black plastic piece that fell off of my desk chair

Total cost for each of these items (estimated): 18 cents.

Total cost for a menagerie of stuffed mice, birds, and other such creatures (estimated): 18 bucks or more.

So to all feline fans, forget your fivers, just grab some trinkets and your cat will be thrilled.

Oh, and just as an aside, that's a picture of my cat pawing and playing with a small bug. Talk about a cheap date!

Book Review: "Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Advertising"

2008-07-27T16:00:00.005-04:00

They say that in order to succeed in any given industry, you really need to immerse yourself in it. In other words, read books, read trade journals, listen to mentors, and generally gain a passion for the field. By doing this, you will become a student of your job, and eventually an expert.

In the weird, wild world of advertising, there are myriad books and magazines and awards shows that a young devotee can immerse herself in. One book that is able to effectively summarize the art of advertising and how to improve yourself in the field is "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This" by ad vet Luke Sullivan.

Anybody in the ad business knows that advertising is largely subjective, ever-evolving, and a creative challenge that is not easy to master. Sullivan describes in detail why these points ring true, while primarily delving into the art of making good ads. And rather than producing a dull, intellectual, research-driven book that could potentially turn off any curious reader, Sullivan has fun with it by showing many great examples of premier ads. Indeed, his passion for advertising jumps off the page. It's a solid book for any college student considering studying advertising in college, or for a burgeoning member of the advertising field, or even for a seasoned pro who just needs a light refresher course. The book is quite versatile in that way.

The book was originally published in 1998, followed by new editions in 2003 and 2008. As a result, "Hey Whipple" touches on new media avenues, such as internet advertising, but still mostly focuses on the big ad outlets of print and TV. I'd say that one area where this book lacks is its small focus on how to create great ads in this new world of media, and where advertising will be going in the future. Since the world of advertising is so rapidly changing, it's important to have a plan for how to adapt.

Another area that lacks in this book is accurately describing life in an ad agency. Sure, if you're a Madison Avenue all-star, this book hits the spot, but the vast majority of ad agencies are not in New York, and in fact many are not even in big cities. So there are many stereotypical references in this book to the life of an ad guy (or gal) that reflect on the one we know so well from the Big Apple. This quote from Neil D. Brown in a recent book review on Amazon.com reflects my sentiments exactly:

What you [Sullivan] espouse about agency life proves you have no idea what the real world of advertising is like. You have a lovely and accurate view of the myopics for New York agencies and clients and processes and even though you now call Austin home you have never really worked in the world of small agencies, smaller clients. And it shows.

His "myopics for New York agencies" notwithstanding, I think it's a good book that breezily depicts the creative side of advertising. That said, you should take this book as just one of thousands of potential sources in your ongoing immersion of the field. Everybody in advertising has an opinion, and this is just one of them. Enjoy your exploration.

Journalism on Drugs

2008-07-25T19:52:00.003-04:00

I have a good friend who lives in the San Antonio area. Today I did a news search to see how things looked there after Hurricane Dolly swept through the area. I found the article below which recapped the damage done in a very succinct manner, like a good write-up is supposed to do. But then, right at the end they throw the reader a vicious curve ball. And I mean a wicked Roger-Clemens-on-steroids curveball. Have a look for yourselves...

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/07/24/Dolly_forces_thousands_to_shelters/UPI-33461216904359/

"WHOA!" Right?

FIVE TONS???

Can anybody explain this journalistic twist for me?

A New York City Hotel Surprise: Comfort Inn

2008-07-20T17:44:00.004-04:00

This past week, my wife and I took an overnight trip to New York City, in part to see Ricky Gervais stand up. (The show was quite funny, for those who are wondering.)

Going to NYC doesn't thrill me enough to go regularly, but it's fun to zip up there for a quick vacation getaway every once and a while. One reason I don't like going there regularly is because of the notoriously insane prices for everything. And hotels are one of the big culprits, especially if you crash at a nice place in a central location in Manhattan.

But this past trip I was pleasantly surprised with the Comfort Inn that we stayed at on 46th Street between 6th & 7th streets. The location was great, situated within walking distance to Central Park and down to Madison Square Garden, and the other key spots in between. The price was the cheapest I could find out of any other hotel when doing a search on my preferred vacation planning source, kayak.com. I was a little squeamish about what the place would be like when we got there since it was the lowest price and because Comfort Inn is not exactly synonomous with the Ritz-Carlton, but I'll be honest and say that the Comfort Inn genuinely came thru for us.

Here's what I liked:

-The room was perfect for what we needed. You're not going to get a huge room in NYC without paying out the nose for it, but in this room we could move around and there was ample furniture and storage space. In addition, everything was new, including the bathroom which was also roomy and recently remodeled. The flat screen TV was a nice touch too.

-The staff was friendly. Sometimes you go to a hotel, particularly in NYC, and the bellhops or other staff members are just hanging all over you for tips. I understand that's their job and that's how they make money, but it can be overbearing and annoying. Other times they can be crabby. Here, they helped you when you needed it, let you carry on if you didn't, and generally smiled the whole time either way.

-The continental breakfast was pretty good. It featured your basic spread of cereal, toast, bagels, donuts, fruit, juices, and hot beverages, but everything was well stocked, fresh, and tasty. The only downside here was the the breakfast room was tight and a surge of people came in while I was there making it a bit uncomfortable.

The only major downsides are that the workout room is literally only a couple of machines, our room had a dismal view of a brick wall behind the building, the hallways and elevator are narrow, and the ice/vending machines are on the ground floor rather than on each floor. Ultimately, however, none of these negatives had any real dampening effect on our stay.

That's my review of this noteworthy NYC hotel. Business travelers and families going on vacation alike should check it out when heading to the Big Apple. And I'd be happy to hear your reviews if you stay there...

Shipping Tips Learned the Hard Way

2008-07-17T22:43:00.004-04:00

Pop the cork, I made my first sale on ebay!

(Yeah, yeah, I hear you out there saying "Welcome to the 21st century, slacker." Jibe noted.)

It was an exciting moment for me, but unfortunately it wasn't all rainbows and sunshine.

I was pretty clueless about, of all things, shipping the item to the buyer. Here are the issues I had...

1. I was tempted to print a label and send it from home, but I wasn't going to be home to send it and didn't want to (or know if I even could) just leave it outside for a pickup.

2. I didn't want to send it from work because I didn't particularly want the recipient to know where I work.

3. So I went to the local UPS Store, innocently, and perhaps stupidly. For starters, in the auction price I way underestimated how much shipping would cost so I had to eat a few bucks on that end since I figured in a set shipping price. (Lesson learned: either explicitly leaving shipping cost blank and make sure buyer knows that they will pay full shipping price, or get a more accurate estimate in the first place, if possible.) Also, at the UPS Store, I blindly brought my item without a box, figuring, "Okay, UPS gives away free boxes for shipping all the time, right?" Well maybe I'm just clueless but I wound up paying three ($%@ing) dollars for a box that was no bigger than a toaster oven (or a breadbox, if you must). So that was a major rip. Three bucks for a stupid box. Wow.

In the end, after making these poor decisions about shipping I hardly made anything on the sale and I wound up spending a lot of time on it to boot.

I'll chalk it up to beginner's errors and see if I can improve on it in future sales. But hopefully you don't make the same dumb errors and assumptions that I did.

Happy selling!

(And shipping!)

Yes, I'm Fashion Illiterate

2008-07-13T21:33:00.004-04:00

I was just looking at Eddie Bauer's website, and I realized just how fashion illiterate I am. I usually just buy clothes based on looks and prices, but I feel left out because nobody ever sat me down and told me what the difference was between "chino" and "khaki" pants or "chambray", "poplin", "twill", or "oxford" shirts, for example.

This lingo confusion is, of course, one of the major gaps between shopping at, say, Gap.com or Gap in the mall. In person, you can touch, try on, and ask others about their opinions; descriptions have minimal value because you're right there to look at the clothes. Online, you're dependent on the company's descriptions-- some of which are unitelligible-- and one-dimensional photos. To add to that, you have to wait for these closed to arrive at your house to determine if you like them, plus you get to pay for that convenience of shipping.

Obviously, these limitations don't apply only to clothes, since buying virtually anything online involves a leap of faith to some extent, but I'd say clothing is probably the most challenging common item that would come into play.

For those of you wondering at home, I'm wearing mesh basketball shorts with an all cotton t-shirt. And no, they're not for sale...

A Dumb Economics/Financial Question

2008-07-07T21:56:00.003-04:00

I follow the economy pretty regularly, though I have no formal training in it. I like to learn about the world of finance, without delving deep into complex formulas and numbers. Call me a minor league financial fan, if you will. Not quite ready for the big leagues, but definitely way more advanced than tee ball.

So here's my dumb question:

In a market like the one we're facing today, where virtually every sector is losing money... WHO is making money?

I don't think anybody would argue with the fact that the industries of housing, banking, retail, manufacturing, and so on are struggling right now, both in America and in many other countries. On the flip side, energy companies have done well and perhaps a few other sectors.

But ultimately, it seems like a LOT of money has been lost all across the stock market and in the housing market and elsewhere, and I'm not quite grasping as to where it's all going. Consumers are getting squeezed by higher prices all over the place (read: inflation), companies are starting to cut back on employment and production it seems, houses still are not selling all that well, savings rates are low so holding money in a safe account doesn't reap big rewards, and on and on.

So I ask again, WHO is on the other side of the transaction, making money right now? Average John and Suzy homeowner, stock investor, employer, and consumer sure aren't making money... so where does it all go???

-Curious in Jersey

I Don't Like this Form of PR

2008-07-06T16:36:00.006-04:00

The other day while finishing up a project at the non-profit foundation where I work, I got a call from a PR person from another charity. I won't use any names to protect the innocent, but the charity itself is a very noble cause and the person I spoke to was genuinely friendly. She was essentially calling me asking for ways to get them grant money, which is fine since we do award grants.

But this was about the third time in six months I have either spoken to this same woman or had an email exchange with her and she still doesn't know who I am. Not only that but she sends these massively huge email files containing Word document attachments that clog up my inbox or that don't work or look unprofessional when I am able view them. In fact, one time when she sent these Word files that didn't open, I suggested she make them into PDFs. She replied saying she didn't know how to convert Word documents to PDFs. So I replied telling her how to do it. So she did it and rattled off like seven in a row in a drive-by emailing. They promptly went into my trash file. And then, as part of this latest phone call that she made, she had the audacity to ask me what my email address was.

I really don't like this form of PR.

What this tells me is that I'm just one person on a huge list, she has no kind of records about who I am, and quite frankly, she doesn't know how to do her job.

Nice combo there.

To all college graduates looking to get a job in public relations, here are a few quick tips:

If you're going into the field of public relations...

1. Learn who your audience is and how to talk to them
2. If you're trying to build rapport with someone... build it! Don't just dump your emails on them or pester them with phone calls. That just moves your organization down a notch on your caller's list because you're annoying them.
3. Learn the latest best practices and how to use technology. Don't expect anybody to bend over backwards for you. You need to be ahead of the game and be able to make somebody else's job easier, not more complex. People are busy and you're trying to get their good favor, not make things harder for them.

Good PR can do an organization a world of good, but bad PR can set it all back a hundred years.

Cleveland Indians: Adding Insult to Injury

2008-07-04T23:39:00.004-04:00

It's bad enough that there's a professional baseball team whose team logo depicts a cartoonified, stereotyped drawing of a Native American warrior. But I think it's pretty ridiculous to offer up a 4th of July logo design that has a United States flag emblazoned over the face (see right).

Across Major League Baseball tonight, teams sported Independence Day designs on hats to salute the troops and raise money for veterans. Nice idea, but the execution by the Cleveland Indians did little to stir a patriotic feeling in this writer's heart. It's adding insult to injury for the Indians to slap a patriotic American design across a stereotyped logo, especially considering how Native Americans were pilfered and plundered by people representing these American colors over the centuries. Now the remaining Native Americans get to be reminded of this shame by watching a baseball game.

Sorry, but no medicine man can cure those longtime wounds, and MLB certainly isn't helping any.

One hundred thousand pounds of...

2008-07-02T21:29:00.002-04:00

One hundred thousand pounds of pigeon excrement will have been scraped off of Philadelphia's City Hall by the time its refurbishing is done.

Ummm.... on the bright side, it's a good thing elephants can't fly and land on buildings, I guess.

Get Smart and Wait for It on DVD

2008-06-27T22:53:00.003-04:00

I'm a tough movie critic, especially when it comes to comedies. I enjoy a good hearty laugh, but at the same time I've grown weary of the same manufactured comedies over and over. What I find is that so many movies use recycled jokes, pratfalls, and innuendo that quite frankly, it just ain't funny anymore.

This leads me to "Get Smart", the new Steve Carrell movie based on the old TV show.

If you're looking for a movie with recycled writing, this one will fit you just fine. It's got 'em all:

-a dance showdown (why does every comedy need a dance showdown nowadays?)
-spy spoofs (dime a dozen)
-stereotyped bad boy characters (woo-hoo)
-weak political commentary (yawn)

I've been a big Steve Carrell fan since he came onto the scene on The Daily Show and The Office, but his movies are taking a dive, in my book. 40 Year Old Virgin was a knee-slapper, but I just can't get into his other stuff lately. Seems like his work that doesnt have an edge to it just doesn't make the grade for me.

So that's what I think. Please help me Get Smart and let me know where I'm missing the jokes by leaving your comments... maybe I missed by "just that much..."

Extra, Extra... Time to Go Cold Turkey

2008-06-21T22:11:00.003-04:00

For the past 5 years or so, I've been a devoted subscriber of the Philadelphia Inquirer. It's a good paper, I get a lot of info from it, and it's helpful to have on hand for using under my cat's litter box. My subscription has been set up to automatically renew using my credit card, and I have just let it keep on charging over the years... I'm not even quite sure what it costs to get it to be totally honest.

Recently, however, I got a new credit card mailed to me to replace my old credit card. And guess what-- the Inquirer can't automatically bill me anymore since the numbers changed. So my subscription will be running out in the next few weeks or so, and the Inquirer's sales team has been calling me relentlessly to remind me that my credit card account has changed. Being the *ahem* wild and crazy guy that I am, however, I'm going to go cold turkey and just let my subscription slide without renewing it. It will be a test for me to see what life is like without getting the newspaper after reading it religiously on a daily basis.

Currently, I read (or skim) the paper during breakfast at home, during lunch at work, and during appropriate bathroom breaks. That's a lot of time spent staring at newsprint, probably well over an hour each day in total.

So I'm going to switch things up a little bit. I'm going to devote more time to reading books (something that's fallen by the wayside recently), catching up on magazines, and perhaps flipping thru Philly.com to get bits and pieces of articles as they catch my fancy.

On the bright side, by not reading the Inquirer, I will no longer be depressed after reading story after story depicting the waning intelligence and lack of decency in this world. Obviously news, by nature, centers around "what's happening", but I can only take so much of political corruption, violence on the streets, nations at war, environmental destruction, filthy rich celebrities getting into trouble, and so on. My enjoyment of the world definitely takes a hit after reading the news every day, and it doesn't help reading about a Philly team losing a game the night before. For once, it might help to be blissfully unaware of most of the problems with the world, and instead focus on how I can make the world better in my own ways.

On the down side, I will need to find an alternative for protecting the carpet under my cat's litter box...

Airlines: Where'd All the Good People Go?

2008-06-13T18:07:00.004-04:00

We've all lamented that air travel has gone downhill every year. From price increases, to squeezing people into smaller seats, to long lines to get through security, to terrible flight delays, airlines have made traveling a nightmare. US Airways has certainly taken the lead in disappointing customers by charging $2 per soda. While I understand the need for businesses' need to make money, it just seems like with all of the highly intelligent, highly educated, and highly creative businesspeople in this world, somebody somewhere could have come up with a better plan than this.

Not only has this drawn a ton of negative publicity, but now this rule encourages travelers to bring their own soda on board and totally defeat the airline's purpose of offsetting the cost to transport the soda.

All of these rules and cost-cutting measures and confusing policies cannot possibly help benefit the airline industry. Hopefully one day some of the great businesspeople of this world will figure out a way to make traveling more enjoyable, more cost efficient, and less of a flea market inside the cabin. Or perhaps it's already happening with airlines such as Southwest, JetBlue, and their innovative brethren.

Instead of scaring away the good people who want to travel, it's time for the good people at the airlines to figure out ways to get other good people to love flying again.

Couch Recommendation: Three Piece Sectional with Chaise Lounge

2008-06-09T17:02:00.005-04:00

To this day, one of my best purchases of all time was buying the couch that I have in my living room. I bought it about six years ago when I moved into an apartment with my friend. It has held up well over the years, but more importantly, it's probably one of the best couches I've ever seen, in my biased yet humble opinion.

You see, it's really about the shape of the couch. It's a three piece sofa that is shaped like a "U". I was too lazy to take a photo of mine, but the one pictured at right is similar in design to my "baby". Essentially it's two sofas at a right angle to one another, with a chaise lounge wrapped around on the opposite side.

The reason this sofa is the best value and most functional is because you have dozens of ways you can sit or lay on it, plus you can have a large number of people configured on it if you have a gathering at your house. You can conceivably sit about eight adults on my couch, which is hands down more than most couches can fit. Plus kids love it because they can make their own little nooks and forts and such with the pillows. (And my cat likes it too, but she likes sitting on any piece of soft furniture!)

Okay, so let's say that you simply want to sit on this particular couch and watch TV. You have a plethora of options. You can lay on the chaise lounge, facing the TV. You can lay sideways on the middle part. Or lay on the opposite sofa piece. Or you can sit on any of the various cushions as you so choose.

One additional major benefit to this type of furniture is for tall people like yours truly. If I want to lay down and take a nap, I can do so fully extended in the middle part without having to curl up my knees or have my legs squeezed in by the arm rests like most couches. To me that is one of the most uncomfortable ways to sleep, but on my couch I have no such restrictions. Needless to say I have logged countless hours in naptime on my beloved couch.

Oddly enough, I rarely see couches of this design in showrooms or in people's homes. Indeed I remember searching a half dozen different stores when looking for the right one, and the one that I got was the ONLY one I saw in any of the stores. Fancy that. Maybe it's a collector's item now. ;-)

So if you haven't gathered already, I would whole-heartedly recommend that if you are shopping for a new couch, and if you have the space in your desired room, you should do yourself a favor and consider buying a three piece sectional sofa with a chaise lounge like I have. If you can find one, that is.

Commercial Suggestion for Cell Phone Companies

2008-06-08T16:35:00.005-04:00

I see cell phone companies often bragging in their commercials about how they provide better reception than their competitors.

"More Bars in More Places" (AT&T)
"Can You Hear Me Now?" (Verizon)
"Now, That's Better" (Sprint)

But how much more vague can you get? Not only that, but many of these commercials show a made-up scenario that is supposed to represent a real cell-phone situation, like AT&T's doofus on top of a ridge knocking on car windows trying to find his daughter because he didn't get the message from her that she was staying over a friend's house. It's lazy marketing.

Instead of all this cutesy stuff, here's my idea for a killer, sensible, and direct ad campaign...

If you're really the best wireless carrier, take comparable phones from each company to one spot, line them up on the screen, and simply show the reception on the phone to illustrate just how much better your reception is. Perhaps it's a field in the middle of Iowa where your company has four bars, the others have two or one. Or maybe it's in the lobby of a hotel in Walla Walla Washington, or on the 17th hole at Augusta National Golf Course.

To me, seeing the actual reception levels at various places like this is indisputable evidence that your company really is better than the others in providing a good signal. And it would be a lot less annoying than these other bogus characters they've developed.

But hey, that's just me.

Book Review: "A Boy Named Shel: The Life and Times of Shel Silverstein" by Lisa Rogak

2008-06-07T12:25:00.005-04:00

Always admiring of famous geniuses in history, I enjoy occasionally reading about the men and women who do great things and create a legacy that lasts long after they're gone. So when I saw "A Boy Named Shel" by Lisa Rogak in the library, I just had to check it out. Silverstein's poems and drawings were always a favorite of mine growing up, but I really knew nothing about him. Now I probably know more than I ever wanted, having read this detailed story of his life.

Perhaps I always had the hunch that, being a children's book writer, Shel Silverstein would have been a classic "kids' kinda guy". You know... the guy who's always running, laughing, and playing with kids, bubbly and outgoing. Well, sometimes hunches are wrong.

In a nutshell, Silverstein was a bit of an enigma. He grew up with an angry father and was very withdrawn, relying mostly on the comfort of reading and drawing, which never pleased his dad, though his mom was very supportive of him doing what he wanted. As he grew up, he worked hard at drawing and eventually served in the Navy as a traveling cartoon artist overseas, and later became a cartoonist for Playboy, which was just the rocketship he needed to travel to the stars.

His career skyrocketed in all different directions, having made his name in cartooning, children's books, country music writing, playwriting, and more. I never really realized the breadth of work he had done, but this book surely gave a comprehensive overview of all that he did. And it also gave much insight into his personal life which really caught me offguard, quite frankly.

In six words, this book portrayed Shel Silverstein as a: woman wooer, world wanderer, and workaholic writer.

Never one to settle down, Shel became a master at reeling-in women (a la Austin Powers, perhaps), and managing to move on after short periods of time of being with them, yet staying friendly with many of them over the years. He hit it off with jaw-dropping Playmates and was always on the prowl for new women wherever he went. He never married, but did have two kids with two different mothers. Unfortunately his first child, his daughter Shoshanna, died tragically at a young age. And while he did love his kids, he didn't seem to spend a whole lot of time with them, which kind of surprised me.

Never one to settle down, Shel lived and traveled all over the world, having lived in Chicago (where he was born), New York, San Francisco, Key West, Martha's Vineyard, etc. Thanks to the marvel of air travel, he would up and leave at the spur of the moment and fly somewhere else whenever he wanted. He would even up and leave in the middle of a conversation if it became boring. He just kept on moving and never collected dust.

Never one to settle down, Shel would write at all hours of the day, jotting notes or drawings on whatever he had nearby, be it a cocktail napkin, a notepad that he always carried, or his shirt sleeves. Ideas seemed to pop out of his head and he would write them down in a flash. He also seemed really intense with his work and never took a day off from creating SOMEthing. And his body of work shows it. Not only that, but he would constantly try new creative outlets, be it learning a new intstrument, teaching himself a different type of writing, or something entirely different. His mind was restless.

These traits were repeated over and over again in this biography to the point of becoming trite. He seemed like an incredibly interesting fellow and a one-in-a-million genius at what he did. But definitely not the person I had pictured in my mind. But ultimately, his works became worldwide gold, though to him fame was never important and he shunned the limelight whenever he could.

If you enjoy reading biographies, this one is well put together and quite in-depth, despite the fact of not having much to work with in terms of interviews of Shel. This is becasue he was very elusive and rarely talked to the media. Rogak paints a vivid picture of Shel's life, which is commendable, though by the end I found myself saying "Okay, I get it already" about his life. This is not necessarily a knock on the writer, but more on the fact that his life was such a revolving cycle, and there also wasn't a lot to work from, just quotes from other people. (And that was a challenge as well because there were SO many people that he became involved with over the years, that it was difficult to remember which person was which and what he or she had in connection with Shel whenever someone else was quoted.)

Having read biographies of many celebrities and historic figures, ranging from Andy Kaufman to Ben Franklin to P.T. Barnum, Silverstein most definitely fits into the category of a fast-moving, never-stopping, genius at work. He was like a speeding train that everybody else just tried to catch up with. And few, if any, really could.

Book Review: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

2008-06-01T16:55:00.004-04:00

Admittedly I'm not much of a sci-fi or horror buff. I find sci-fi to be a little far-fetched at times and horror to be too sickening or repetitive. Fortunately, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks offers a new spin on both genres. It's somewhat sci-fi because it involves the man-made idea of zombies causing chaos in the world, and it's somewhat horror-based because of the destruction the zombies cause, but it's told in a unique way... it takes place roughly in the present time, but told after the actual Zombie War is over. This narrative angle gives it a historical feel and is not in-your-face like horror projects tend to be. And it's an easy read to boot.

Probably the most interesting thing to me about this tale is the parallel that is drawn in this book from zombies taking over the world to other threats that this world faces. Essentially, as you read this book, you can replace zombies with virtually any threat imaginable, such as a highly contagious virus (which is essentially how zombies propogate in this book), to terrorists, to aliens, and so on. As you read, you realize that the tactics used to learn about and fight the zombies are not much different from the tactics needed to control any of the aforementioned threats to our civilization. (And based on this story, let's hope we never have one of these threats happen to this world!)

As the story unfolds, the reader is introduced to a plethora of characters telling their respective stories about how the zombies affected their particular locales, with reports given from all over the world. The manner of writing is very straightforward and does not go overboard in trying to impress you with wacky new inventions like a typcial sci-fi production would. The stories feel very natural and realistic, but in a creative, eye-opening way.

I enjoyed reading this book and "taking the plunge" into genres that I wouldn't normally touch. It's a good crossover book for those who like fiction, but not so much fantasy or horror, but don't mind some overlap. Kudos to Max Brooks for proving that creativity runs in the family, being the son of comedic director Mel Brooks and actor Anne Bancroft. And I'm excited to hear that this book will be made into a movie, so hopefully it lives up to its potential and doesn't flop like a zombie shot in the brains...

Buying Insurance: Not a Walk in the Park

2008-05-30T22:48:00.004-04:00

I don't know about other states, but buying insurance in New Jersey is quite a prominent, competitive, and overwhelming business for consumers. Let's consider how many layers are involved in this buying process...

First off, it really boggles my mind to think about all of the types of insurance out there. There's car insurance, homeowner's insurance, life insurance, health insurance, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. So let's say you know what type of insurance you need.

Then, each insurance product has dozens of different options that affect the size of your premium and payout. If it's car insurance, you have to determine how much deductible to pay, what bodily injury limits to choose, whether or not to get rental car reimbursement, etc.

After that, you need to weigh all of the various companies that sell insurance. If it's auto insurance you need, you've got State Farm, AllState, Geico, Safe Auto, new Jersey Manufacturer's, Esurance, Mercury, Liberty Mutual, Progressive... well, you get the point. Life, health, and other insurance providers subsequently exist to sell their specific policies, such as MetLife or MassMutual. When purchasing from any given insurance company, you must subsequently consider the reputation of the company (i.e.-- will they be there to pay up when called upon?), as well as price and the ability to build a relationship with you over time.

Finally, in many cases you need to determine which agent you want to buy from. I would wager to guess that most insurance agents are found thru referrals, be it from family members, friends, or trusted business associates. A large portion would also come from marketing efforts. Ultimately, if buying thru an agent, you have to like the person/staff and trust that he or she is on your side. Sure there's a commission to be made on every sale, but are they selling you a particular policy with particular options that are in your best interest? And are they good at explaining the policy to you? Sometimes, these factors are just a gut feeling more than anything since they are intangible qualities.

One bonus level to consider is the rule of thumb that you should compare your insurance rates every few years to make sure you're getting a good deal. Geico is betting big marketing bucks on this fact since they hammer home the notion that you can save money with their services, and do it in a brief amount of time (I'm sure you know their slogan from the thousands of commercials that air daily). But regardless of how easy it is, it adds another layer to already-complicated matchmaking game of finding insurance.

I can't think of many other fields that are this multi-leveled for a consumer to have to make a purchasing decision. Perhaps that's why nobody ever looks forward to buying insurance... True, insurance is a must-have in many aspects of life, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily enjoyable. It's certainly no walk in the park.

Stumbling Over Writer's Block

2008-05-27T21:17:00.003-04:00

It's a strange thing, that human brain.

I never ceased to be amazed about how many distinct mental states I can have. From happy to hysterical to hungover, the mind has more moods than a tie-dyed shirt has colors. Right now, for example, I feel like I'm trying to wring out my brain after dipping a plain white t-shirt in vivid-hued liquid dyes in order to get a burst of creativity in my head. The colors seem to keep fading away right after I pick my shirt up from the bucket.

Mentally, I'm stumbling over a case of writer's block, trying to regain clarity and creativity rather than listening to the buzz of a dimming light bulb in my head. Sure, I can jot some notes about the act of having writer's block, but I feel all tapped out in terms of writing fresh and original content, hence the blog post about writer's block. And while the internet has a wealth of resources for inspiration, such as The Simpsons' website, there's only so much staring at a computer monitor that I can do. I do it all day at work, now I'm doing it more at home. Looks like I'll have to kickstart my skull juices some other way.

Hopefully my next post will be full of insight like, *ahem*, usual. Till next time, if you see a guy banging his head against the wall, you'll know what's going on in his brain. Most likely nothing.

Why Jon Corzine Might Be Right About Toll Increases

2008-05-13T19:54:00.003-04:00

Much has been made about New Jersey Governor John Corzine's plan to raise funds by increasing tolls on roads such as the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway. While it's not desirable to have to pay more to drive somewhere, he does have two things going for him in this plan:

1. Tolls are the "perfect tax" as it's said. You're only taxed if you use the road, and the funds raised go to fixing those same roads. So unlike an income tax, for example, all of your taxes go back to help you as user of the road.

2. In the next few years, cars will undoubtedly be getting more efficient as hybrids grow in popularity. This results in less gas used, and, thus, lower amounts of money spent on gas and taxes accompanied with gas. So while gas taxes go down, the tolls will help supplement them, and you'll also be paying less in gas. In theory.

So before dismissing this plan altogether it may be worth consideration if we really do want to fix the aging roadways in NJ. Otherwise there's no comfortable, fun, or magical solution for this situation. Might be time to bite the bullet.

There's Little Reason to Like this Dicks's-Reebok Commercial

2008-05-05T21:37:00.005-04:00

Not too long ago I sounded off about a fairly new obnoxious, annoying, stupid Volkswagen commercial, and found that fellow viewers overwhelmingly agreed that this commercial was one of the worst on TV.

While I can't top that argument, since I think it still IS the most annoying commercial on television, I think I found a close runner-up. This is the one by Dick's Sporting Goods, promoting Reebok sneakers, and features Chad Johnson, Matt Hasselbeck, Tory Holt, and Stacy Keibler. Click on the following link if you really wish to view this waste of ad money, entitled "Reasons".

For those of you who haven't seen it or don't wish to see it, the formula goes something like this... three football players bragging about their skills, one attractive actress clearly demonstrating her lack of acting skills, and one of the football players trying to dance and be funny while the other two laugh at him. I mean, it's quite possibly the most stereotypically bad commercial you could make, in my not-so-humble opinion.

Why? Well for starters, it is a scientifically proven fact that athletes can't act. It's also a scientifically proven fact that white guys get laughed at when they dance, which I know all too well :-) The joke's old. And when you mix in some poor writing and subpar acting by a real actress, you've got a recipe for changing the channel.

I'd just like to point out that, honestly, I really am a positive guy and I try not to focus on the negative, but when these types of advertisers hammer you over the head with the same bad commercial over and over and over, well, sometimes I just have to snap. That's not how marketing is done.

And those are my "Reasons" why this commercial must be put out to pasture.

Water Bottle Update: Out with Nalgene, In with Klean Kanteen

2008-04-27T22:36:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago I blogged about my frustration with Nalgene over it's BPA laced bottles. Allow me to update you with recent events...

Shortly after blogging this irate post, I received an email from a source connected with Nalgene (whose name and affiliation shall remain anonymous). Here's the gyst of the email they sent me and my response:

1. For starters, I inadvertently posted misinformation that there was no information about BPAs on their site. I completely missed this page, which has various links to reports and studies on the effects of BPAs on humans. My apologies.

2. Subsequently, I looked over the information which curiously all slanted to say that there are no significant health problems associated with BPAs on humans. I find this strange as Consumer Reports gave a pretty clear view that 38 experts from around the world colloborated to find that exposure to BPA at levels typcial in the US did increase the rate of breast and prostate cancer, and more. Nalgene seems to have chosen not to mention this. My feeling is that if the concern is out there and that SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE has stated that your products may be harmful in some way, you need to address that, and I don't see that effort being taken on their site to do this.

3. Back to the email... the sender wrote, in essence, that Nalgene would never sell products that they didn't feel were safe, but if somebody did have concerns over the BPA issue, Nalgene offers non-BPA products, and this person proceeded to send me jpg photos of the bottles and a link to the site where I can find the bottle that's right for me. My opinion: too little, too late, too pushy. I'm an angry customer having been potentially exposed to a dangerous product... now's not the time to push something my way.

4. Subsequently, after I replied to the email (and having heard no response), I went out and bought a Klean Kanteen stainless steel bottle. Here's my review with pros and cons of my new bottle...

Pros:
-Stainless steel gets cold FAST and seems to keep the temperature pretty well
-Easy to wash in the dishwasher
-Looks sharp
-Not too heavy
-Safe from any potential plastic issues (if somebody comes out and says stainless steel may be dangerous, then I simply give up!)

Cons:
-Not a big fan of the lid... I bought a bottle with a "sports cap" and the water does not flow smoothly. Too much suction or something. Rather annoying as that is the prime purpose of a water bottle. I may have to try another cap if possible.
-Can't see through as to how much is left, but not a big deal.
-A bit heavier than Nalgene bottles.
-More expensive than Nalgene.

In sum, I do like my new bottle but it's not quite ideal. Quite frankly, I do prefer the design and benefits of the Nalgene bottles over Klean Kanteens, but the Klean Kanteen bottle is a pretty good alternative. Ultimately, if it benefits my health in the long run, I'm all for using the Klean Kanteen.

Thanks and drink up...

Comcast's Curious Display of Showing Its Concern

2008-04-20T20:11:00.004-04:00

Editor's note: this post has no connection with today's article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about how Comcast is monitoring blogs now to try and help boost its customer service ratings. I meant to write about this a few days ago but just got around to it now.

Here's my story:

About a month ago, I called up to ask for a Comcast service technician to come out and replace one of our cable boxes because I had various small annoyances with it, which I won't go into detail here. They promptly and amicably took care of it by giving us a new box for free. Good stuff.

A couple weeks after that, Comcast sent a greeting card-sized mailer to me that apologized for the problems I had and gave me a voucher for a free On-Demand movie. Good stuff.

Then this past week I received another greeting card-sized mailer, which again apologized for the inconvenience and this time sent me a coupon for $10 off any purchase of $50 or more at espnshop.com. Huh?

So let me get this straight.. for their technical difficulties, I should go out and spend money just to take advantage of a small discount? Thanks for that generosity... I think I'll go ahead and save my money instead.

Here are other variations I would have strongly considered to be sensible compared to this silly offer:

A. $10 voucher for my purchase of anything on espnshop.com.
B. $10 voucher if I submitted an opinion survey about my experience with Comcast
C. $10 voucher, in some form or another, where I don't HAVE to spend money in order to get value from it

To me, this whole concept of giving an inconvenience customer a $10 voucher for a $50purchase is a good idea gone sadly wrong. Instead of making a positive customer "touch", they're making this into a blatant sales ploy, but with poor timing at that because before I was just mildly irked about the inconvenience, whereas now I'm steadily creeping up to disgruntled.

So my voucher goes in the recycling bin along with every other inadequate marketing junk mail I receive...

Fundraisers: The New Night Out

2008-04-12T22:14:00.002-04:00

In the past year or so, I've been invited to, heard of, and/or attended charitable funraising functions that centered around the following acts of entertainment:

-auctions
-beef 'n beer
-bowling
-comedy shows
-famous speakers
-sporting events

And that's just a list off the top of my head.

It's becoming quite apparent that the average "night out" is moving away from a casual, loosely planned night out with friends, to an evening arranged well in advance with detailed activities and lots of people gathering to support the same cause. This is a direct result of more involved non-profit marketing, as well as a desire for people to feel a part of something, but also a way to change things up a little bit from the norm.

So for example, instead of making last minute arrangements to go out with my wife and a few other friends to dinner and then to somebody's house to hang out or what have you, I now find many days getting booked well in advance to attend a festivity of some sort that probably will cost us more than a casual night out, but will give us the nice feeling that some of that money is going to a good cause.

All in all I guess it's a good thing to be able to support so many different charitable endeavors and have some fun simultaneously, but at the same time I feel as though I'm losing some of my freedom to be able to do what I/we want rather than having to follow somebody else's schedule of what they think I want.

And now a new thing is for charities to request that you donate money for a "non-event", where you save the money and just spend time at home with your family instead. Novel idea, but that's basically just a voluntary donation with a little PR spin on it. But it ironically reflects on the fact that so many people are inundated with so many event invitations that it's kind of a clever way to ask people to not have to worry about going to another fundraiser, but rather just give the money in lieu of the whole event.

Ultimately, I'm curious to see where this trend goes. After a while, if people get too saturated with fundraiser event invitations, they'll just stop going altogether... kind of like how I feel when I walk down the cereal aisle at the supermarket. Too many choices makes life too complicated, and you just wind up going back to the same 2-3 options everytime because you just don't have the time or energy to analyze them all and decide which one to splurge on.

And such is the way with today's night out at a fundraising event. Now pardon me while I check my schedule to see when I'm booked and when I can just hang out...

Irate with Nalgene... Something I Never Thought I'd Say

2008-04-04T21:48:00.005-04:00

For over 5 years now, I have been bringing bottles of water to work and drinking from them throughout the day. Specifically, I bring Nalgene bottles and fill them up with water from my fridge. I use these Nalgene bottles because they are incredibly sturdy, easy to clean, save me tons of money compared to buying bottled water, and help save the environment because I'm not consuming wasteful, plastic bottles everyday. They've been great for me. But now I'm absolutely petrified of them.

Today I read in Consumer Reports a descriptive article pertaining to the potential dangers of B.P.A.-- a type of plastic that is used to make these Nalgene bottles. I can't find this particular article online yet, but the Consumerist ran a helpful piece, as did this blog post which really rings true with me, and this Treehugger.com article echoes this growing concern of mine... and hopefully yours as well.

This society we live in where we perpetually produce new products, and THEN LATER find out they are harmful has got to stop. It's positively scary what we're doing to our Earth and ourselves, and reading an article about a product that was previously considered to be innocuous really disturbs me. Especially when I used one every freaking day of the work week.

The average lay person like myself would never know the difference between a "good" plastic and a "bad" plastic, and now I feel completely used and ignorant because I would never have had any idea about the problem with BPAs had I not read this article. Nalgene has really made me irate.

Sadly, nowhere on their site does Nalgene even attempt to address this issue, which is poor public relations to me. Nor do they make any attempt at offering refunds or exchanges for people who bought these types of bottles. Not only that, there's no humanoid listed that I could even write to, just a department name or a generic email address, both of which will probably wind up in their respective trash bins. But I'll still give them a piece of my mind, and hey, I just griped with the world about my concerns right, so that's a start.

My next thing to do is find a new SAFE water bottle...

REALTOR Commercials Reek of Desperation

2008-03-28T21:53:00.003-04:00

For the past year or so I've seen a few different commercials for REALTORS (henceforth referred to as just "realtors", lower case, here... sorry, I just want it to seem like I'm SCREAMING at readers). To me, these commercials just reek of desperation.

Maybe it's the stiff, overly business-like actors that have no real personality other than trying to professionalize an industry that is largely wide-open in terms of personalities. Let's face it, real estate agents are often real characters, and that's probably because they have to be in order to sell homes through think and through thin. But I definitely don't associate a realtor as being a corporate suit, which is the image that these commercials are going for.

Add to that, these realtor commercials remind me of what the gasoline industry is trying to do... pounding the airwaves with ads that are really veiled attempts at public relations. All of a sudden, gas companies are the Earth's best friends: researching new "clean" energy, giving tips on how to improve gas mileage, and showing what the "green" future holds in the world of energy production. All so friendly and glistening. And all too phony for me to believe it's really happening.

In my humble opinion, I think that the real estate industry is trying to cling to an outdated, dying industry. Or if it's not dying, it will soon be changing.

Having recently purchased a home for the first time, I found the process rather daunting, from soup to nuts. A good realtor, to his/her credit, guides a homebuyer (as my realtor did) through all of these obstacles and answsers a lot of questions along the way and gives worthwhile advice. To get paid, the real estate agent simply has to sell houses for high values (that increase over time) in order to absorb high commissions.

But as I see it, and as Seth Godin talked about in this great post, this formula will be changing in due time. As housing prices rise higher (okay, maybe not at the moment, but over the long run), commissions will also be rising for agents, while their amount of work performed, in theory, won't. So either an hourly rate or a flat selling fee will eventually come in to play, I would theorize. Or more people will take things in their own hands and buy/sell on their own.

On that note, with the advent of the internet and with the pressure that has now come on homeowners to do more thorough research, the average homebuyer will be able to easily obtain important information that otherwise would have come from the realtor. In other words, information is becoming more readily accessible via the internet and other sources, meaning the realtor's competitive advantage will likely gradually decline.

So getting back to the commercials, the National Association of REALTORS has it in its best interest to try and preserve that image of the realtor being the all-knowing confidant that you absolutely need to buy or sell your home. Maybe that's the case today. But in the long run, that sounds like an uphill battle to me. And desperation is no place to be in the world of advertising...