Tag: business

Who needs phone books?

Random Thoughts

Face it.  The world is changing.  I moved out of my parents’ house back in 1994, and in all the years since I have received a full batch of anywhere from six to ten phone books, yellow and white pages, every year.  And in all that time, I can recall perhaps five or six times I ever used them.  Nowadays I can find anything I might possibly need a phone book for on the Internet.  Or rather, I’m going to use the Internet and any business that isn’t out there is probably not going to get my dollars.  Even the Yellow Pages themselves have opened up YellowPages.com, and if you happen to live in a state serviced by AT&T you can even browse an online version of the printed phone books.  I’m sure more services are out there as well…

So, given my penchant over the last couple of years to stop junk mail, you can imagine how I feel about my annual stack of phone books that appear on my door step.  True, I simply drive them over to the post office where they have a dumpster for phone book recycling, but the printing of the books is just a giant waste to begin with.  (Yeah, yeah… I know, “In Case of Emergencies”, but I keep written down all the emergency phone numbers I would need, especially the ones I would need if I had no power or Internet access.)  That’s why I was very happy when I got an email from Green Dimes about Yellow Pages Goes Green.

I’ve signed up to have them stop sending me phone books, and now I just have to wait and see…

The Unintended Take Away

Random Thoughts

In the business world, be it advertising, marketing or any facet of business, the “take away” is what sticks with you when a meeting, product, or whatever is done.  With advertising and marketing, the take away they usually want the consumer to have is “I want that”, or better yet “I need that”, though sometimes they just want you to leave with “That’s a good product or company.”  While the immediate punch might be dealt with humor, they want you to remember the product and not the joke, unless the joke reminds you directly and fondly of the product.

I’ve always been a fan of the unintended take away.  This is usually some idea that either they didn’t think of or even one that they expressly did not want to show, but wound up embedding it in the audience’s minds anyway.

Take a look at these two commercials for Liberty Mutual:

Now, the idea they want you to take away from this is that Liberty Mutual looks out for people and is a good company.  They aren’t selling you anything in particular, but they are trying to sell you the brand, the general positive attitude toward the business practices of the company.

The other night, the wife and I saw the second commercial and the conversation went like this:

Her: I especially like how the end is the beginning, like time travel.
Me: Yeah.
Her: Its as if doing good deeds…
Me: … get you trapped in a Groundhog Day time loop?
Her: Yeah.
Me: Better stop doing good deeds then.
Her: Maybe that’s why people are mean to each other, fear of getting caught in a time loop.

The unintended take away.

Yeah, we are weird people.

Ignoranceproofing

Random Thoughts

In Business, there are two types of people.

The first type is the kind of person who expects any individual who has a job to be able to do that job. This means that the individual needs to make the effort to understand each job function and why it is done. They also need to have a fundamental comprehension of the equipment they are involved with on a day to day basis.

The second type is the kind of person who expects the tools they use in their job to not allow them to make mistakes, so that even if they do not understand what they are doing, what they need to do is explained for them at every step and wrong choices are incapable of being made.

I’m the first type. And because of that, when I write programs, I write them so that everything that needs to be possible is available. Many people I write these programs for are the second type, and they want my program to analyse data (and read minds) and allow them on any given screen to only be able to do what they are required to do for their job.

For example, I have a screen that allows you to edit the status of a port and to edit the assignments of that port. I coded it completely open (you can edit either at any time) because our database and backend has been shown to have… quirks where data goes missing. The people I am writing it for want the screen to only allow you to set a port’s status to working if an assignment exists, and only to set it to available if no assignment exists. They also want adding or deleting an assignment disabled if the port is in a working status. So, if a bug happens that obliterates an assignment while leaving the port in a working status… my way, you add the assignment back. Their way… you have to set the port to available, then make the assignment, and then set the port back to working. And if for some reason you want to manually delete a port… my way, delete assignment, set port to available. Their way, set the port to available, delete assignment.

Now, the question is, do you see why my way is better?

This screen is not the entire application. And there are hundreds of people using the application. On another screen, there is an equipment assignment page that searches for and offers available ports for assignment. In both cases, they are making the port available for assignment when it is not ready to be (or is not going to be) available.

So, I do it their way… and the next complaint I get is that one person was working on the manual screen above and the port was assigned by the automatic screen after they made it available when it wasn’t really available. Now they want me to code in a delay, store a time stamp and only offer to automatic assignments ports that have been available for at least an hour… *sigh*

In Good Company

Reviews

I have a problem with the business world… it has become cold. Mantras like “It’s just business.” have become the defacto for meaning “I’m going to destroy your life and I refuse to feel the slightest bit of guilt for it.” Companies are sold and bought, people are downsized, reintroduced to the market, and let go. And more and more I hate dealing with them in any fasion.

When I call a help desk… excuse me, a call center with a problem, I want someone to listen to me and assist me in finding a solution. Instead these days I get my “data” collected and I’m entered into the system. I can’t remember the last time someone said they would call me back and they actually did so. Instead I’m left calling them back in a few days and re-entering the system, starting over.

When I go into a store or talk to any salesman, I never get the feeling that they want to actually sell me a product. I do get the feeling that that want to take my money. When was the last time you heard a salesman say, “You know, I don’t think this product is really the right one for you. Perhaps you should look into a …” without it being a disparaging remark about your social status but an honest assessment of your needs and the capabilities of the items they sell.

I knew going in to see the movie ‘In Good Company’ I was going to like it. Its the story of a good business, a sports magazine, whose head of sales actually cares about his product and his clients, that is bought by one of those global conglomerates who emphasize numbers and profit, and couldn’t care less about the people who work for them and their lives.

I really don’t want to talk about the movie too much, only to say that its excellent, as long as you aren’t on the side of the global conglomerates.

EverQuest… What`s next?

Random Thoughts

I was going to originally post this in the EverQuest category, but that was really for my ideas for fixing EQ… seeing as I no longer play EQ, its a dead category but will remain as is… and this, this is just comedy.

Over on the message boards for Monkly-Business, someone asked, “Now that Omens of War is out, what do you think the next expansion will be?”

Seeing as the next expansion will come after World of Warcraft’s release, and there are a number of games on the horizon, as well as free content patches for City of Heroes, the following was my reply:

EverQuest: The Twenty Other Zones of Faydwer That You Just Never Happened to Notice During the Last Five Years of Playing.

Featuring zones like: Middle Faydark, Dagnor’s Other Cauldron, The Hidden Lair of Meldrath, The land of LXnmoptgWWjyr, The Brownie City, Randomly Generated Dungeon Zone with Poor Pathing and Randomly Placed Mobs 27, and at least three new Estates none of which will be restful!

With this expansion they will introduce new items contain the new NO LOOT tag – you can view the stats and take screenshots and have the items load to Lucy, but you can’t pick it up and equip it! These items are intended for all the people who like to make Magelo profiles for their non-existant characters by picking items that they’ve never seen for themselves and try to pass themselves off as uber!

Also in this expansion, we will be introducing female giants! Ever wonder where all the giants come from seeing as they are all male? Well, rather than fix class balance, we’ve decided to make a whole set of Lore including new zones, spells for mobs that you’ll never get, and new models (since we STILL aren’t going to do new player models no matter how much you beg) all about the story of the where the female giants have been for the past 6 years! All because we know you care!

And lets not forget that we will be introducing a new class! Following both the arcane and physical arts this player can nuke as well as a wizard, heal like a cleric, tank like a warrior, and dps like a rogue.. from ANY ANGLE! This new class, called the Tankmage is bound to turn grouping and raiding on its ear! Class balance? WE GIVE UP!!

The Girl Next Door

Reviews

I just got back from seeing this movie, and for the first time in a while, I just felt I had to come write something about it before sleeping on it.

When I first heard about it, I laughed. When I first saw the preview, I laughed. But from what I heard and from what I saw, I expected to see a funny, yet typical movie about a not quite so cool kid who meets a girl who makes him into the cool guy he always had the potential to be.

What I saw can only be described as a Risky Business for a new generation. It was funny, and sexy, and it just drew me in in a way that your typical comedy can’t. The story is excellent, the comic timing is superb, the acting is perfect, and the girls are hot.

Its ‘R’ rated for a reason, and it needs to be. Much like American Pie, and the afore mentioned Risky Business, its not just kids, comedy, and naked chicks. There is quality here.

See this film.

Sometimes, you just have to say, ‘what the fuck?’ Make your move. Go with it.