Sunday, July 29, 2007

Impulse buying in children

Yesterday I volunteered for four hours selling tickets at the LVIS fair in East Hampton. My booth was right near a bunch of kids rides. Pony rides, giant slides, rock climbing, and snow cones.

Sitting there I watched a fascinating phenomenon. As kids bought tickets, I would first give them the tickets and then count out their change. Half the time the kids were running off before I could even give them their change. I had to yell at them to get them back to the booth.

The desire for one more pony ride or snow cone was so great they'd leave $15 in change behind.

Interesting to see considering what sometimes happens in online auctions where people bid over the retail cost of an item.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Yellowman at Stephen Talkhouse August 26th 8pm

I'm officially excited.

Yellowman is playing at Stephen Talkhouse this summer on August 26th 8pm. This means 10 pm, but I'm excited to attend.

The Five Whys

For some reason I remembered back to a Delta Upsilon Leadership conference I attended in Washington DC when I was president of the chapter.

Maybe it was the traffic on the LIE Westbound.

The conference taught the "five whys." It is a technique for finding the root cause of a problem.

Simple technique, you just keep asking why? Five times at a minimum.

Here's a hypothetical Internet advertising example.

Problem: The client is unhappy.

Why? Their campaign didn't launch on time.

Why? Their creatives weren't loaded and launched on time.

Why? Account management didn't collect the creatives on time.

Why? The agency couldn't send the creatives over on time.

Why? The agency did not get the creatives from the creative agency on time.

You can keep going past five whys, but you can see how this technique can quickly drill down to the root cause.

Added Favorite Podcasts

I just added a Favorite Podcasts module to my blog's right rail.

Manager Tools is a great podcast that I subscribe to via iTunes. Each podcast is about 30 minutes and they cover a variety of topics. You need to register to get the older casts.

Whether you're new to managing old or been at it for a while their podcasts will have some useful nuggets.

My biggest issue now is that my ipod and shuffle don't work. I need to buy a new one.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Back from Europe

I'm finally back from Europe and caught up on sleep. I hit visited four countries in five days and met with great colleagues in three countries. If I haven't responded to emails, expect a catchup in the next few days.

Few things stood out in UK, DE, FR -

In London I called for a wake-up call, which I received by a human on the time I requested as well as a backup automated call ten minutes later. Nice touch.

Many products are labeled as being celiac safe. Make it much easier to get around.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Westbound on 495 and North on the Hutch

My wife and I drove back from East Hampton today and were privileged enough to be behind a silver Audi A4.

We watched this man (driver) and woman proceed to cross in and out of the HOV lane illegally about a dozen times. Twice in front of police on the side of the highway. As they crossed the solid white lines stones and road debris was thrown up into the air.

I wonder if I video taped this behavior on my cell phone whether I could mail this into the police for a ticket?

He cut off a few people during the illegal lane changes, we were both expecting an accident.

After we watched this idiocy, we were stuck in traffic on the Hutchinson River Parkway and there we found a mSUV pulled off the road, with another car in the right line (two lane road each way) stopped talking to the person. The cars weren't visibly damaged, so I guess it makes it ok to cause delays for everyone.

Saturday, July 07, 2007

East Hampton Library Novel Night

I just finished up helping stuff envelopes for the East Hampton's Library Novel Night. My wife is a board member we're sending out invitations for the August 11th event.

Personally I'm torn because of two authors, Robert Caro and Renee Mauborgne. I can only attend one dinner with one author and both are great. My wife and I would like to attend the Blue Ocean Strategy dinner with Renee.

It's a great event and I highly recommend it if you have the time and money. The proceeds benefit the East Hampton Library.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Just back from watching Sicko

Diana and I took in the movie Sicko this evening. A thought provoking film, although me being my normal skeptic self I had to do a little searching afterwards.

Wikipedia has a write up on the film as well as a write up on the controversies over it.

The thing that struck me the most about all of it was when they talked about the cost of a treatment. A person would say, "It costs $24K in the US, but it's free here." That maybe true from a patient out of pocket situation, but it costs someone something somewhere.

Real Life Big Love

Interesting ABC video segment on a woman escaping from polygamy.


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