One and off in the past, I hear people talk about the difference between educating customers and selling to them. The two are often presented as mutually exclusive. You can educate, or you can sell. Educate is a waste of time, while selling produces immediately bankable results. And so on.

There is a school of thought that says: don’t encourage your customer to think; tell them what to think. …

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” Mark Twain.

Australians are going to the poll this weekend. Essentially to choose between two parties who are about as differentiated from each other as brie and camembert.

Images from wikipedia

Going for the majority may well be a good thing to do in …

“History has demanded … that intelligent beings choose between order and anarchy, between creation and destruction, between reason and unreason.” Autifon Deliamber in Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg.

An essential management tool for the 21st century.

From http://icanhascheezburger.com

This nicely put together YouTube video by Michael Wesch.

Thanks Greg!

This is a fun example of authenticity in product naming - a dust collector is … well a dust collector!

Designed by Sebastiaan Straatsma and spotted on core77.

On a personal note: I am taking a few weeks off - to get over a lingering cold and to un-tire myself hopefully.

As a sign of universal approval of this decision, I lost my phone yesterday. I left it somewhere and the person who picked it up tried to use it, thereby disabling it. I suppose the attempt at using it would constitute theft… so it is off …

Adjective: unchanged when multiplied by itself. Used in mathematics and SOA (services oriented architecture) software development.

This could apply to people too! An idempotent person is someone who remains unchanged despite repeated exposure to the same input.

Mr Guts who eats like there is no tomorrow and yet does not gain weight would have an idempotent metabolism. Miss PR who wholeheartedly believes in her own BS would be the opposite …

From Stilgherrian’s post: The tyranny of the ideal:

Design idealised processes, safely away from the people doing the work. You are the consultant, you know best.

Idealised processes make great flowcharts to present to the board (the people paying your fees) – especially when you remove the messiness that is humanity. Yuck.

Implement the process. They, the people doing the work, will take it (or leave). More …

NRMA Insurance is running a series of simple TV and radio ads at the moment. All they do is list stats about how many claims they have paid out, and how quickly, in response to recent floods in parts of New South Wales.

Nothing about how much they care about customer service, or how many years they have been in business, or how they are committed …