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Wal-Mart + Greed = Insanity

"Stop stepping on my sister! She's on the ground!"

So cried Linda Ellzey as she desparately tried to rescue her sister who was being trampled unconscious by a mob of crazed shoppers rushing the opening doors at a Florida Wal-Mart in hopes of getting their hands on a discounted DVD player.

"She got pushed down, and they walked over her like a herd of elephants."

When paramedics arrived on the scene, they found the 41-year old woman slumped over a DVD player, seemingly invisible to the frenzied shoppers all around her. Doctors expect to keep her in the hospital through the weekend.

Wal-Mart's response?

Ms Ellzey said Wal-Mart officials called later to ask after her sister, and the store apologised and offered to put a DVD player on hold for her.

"We are very disappointed this happened," she said. "We want her to come back as a shopper."

The behavior of the shoppers is the stomach-turning crime here, but I am aghast that Wal-Mart 1) couldn't give the woman a $29 DVD player after creating an environment that put her in the hospital and 2) could have the gall to punctuate their lame apology with a wish that she return to the scene of the crime and give them more of her money!

Can someone please tell me how anyone with a conscience can shop at Wal-Mart?

Woman crushed in rush at DVD sale | BBC NEWS

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for countless things, and among them is the freedom of speech that allows my to publish this blog. I am also thankful for visitors like you who drop by to visit and share your thoughts.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The path to Ask-Steve.com

Once in a while I like to post the search strings that people are using to find my site. Here are a few from the past 24 hours:

qwest dsl test portland
how to speak with a british accent
how can i drop my accent?
media player and Launchcast
star spangled ice cream
launchcast windows media 9
"Policy Analysis Market" online "november 2003"
americans in Britain
t mobile wifi
pfizer sales reps
launchcast media
industry damage lack of professionalism IT information technology
launchcast not play tuning
+webtech +laptop
zine printing
spy cell phones
how to make a bcc in yahoo mail
www.ask,com
tivo "replacement drive"
what does the British accent sound like?
clear channel china
"yahoo mail plus"

So there you have it! A little glimpse into what people are searching for and how they end up here.

Want to do some serious keyholing into what people are searching for? Check out this list for some voyeuristic fun!

Google Zeitgeist
Yahoo! Buzz Index
Lycos 50
metacrawler MetaSpy
JeevesIQ
AltaVista Real Searches

Mommy, that lady jacked into my iPod

From the "Okay, I have to admit, that's fairly funky" department.

There is a new trend within the "exclusive, hip club of iPod owners" that I'll call "iPod 69ing" (although "Pod-swapping" is also kind of catchy...). The following bit from Wired News contains suggestive language and thinly-veiled sexual situations. Read on, brave reader, read on:

During his regular evening walk, software executive Steve Crandall often nods a polite greeting to other iPod users he passes: He easily spots the distinctive white earbuds threaded from pocket to ears.

But while quietly enjoying some chamber music one evening in August, Crandall's polite nodding protocol was rudely shattered.

Crandall was boldly approached by another iPod user, a 30ish woman bopping enthusiastically to some high-energy tune.

"She walked right up to me and got within my comfort field," Crandall stammered. "I was taken aback. She pulled out the earbuds on her iPod and indicated the jack with her eyes."

Warily unplugging his own earbuds, Crandall gingerly plugged them into the woman's iPod, and was greeted by a rush of techno.

"We listened for about 30 seconds," Crandall said. "No words were exchanged. We nodded and walked off."

The article is definitely worth a read. Oh — and please practice safe Pod-swapping!

Feel Free to Jack Into My IPod -- Wired News

Are we sheep? Boycott self checkout machines.

The Fred Meyer store near my house has installed self-checkout machines -- lots of them. They're being pitched as a convenience, but they're far from it. For one thing, they're buggy as hell. Nearly every time I go through, I end up being instructed by the condescending female voice to "wait for assistance," or "remove the last item from the bag and wait for assistance," or "touch the last item to the yellow pad and place it back in the bag." Argh! This is convenience? It is Fred Meyer suckering their paying customers to do the job of their cashiers so they can fire their cashiers and save a great deal of money. Is any of this savings passed on to the throngs of suckers like me who stand and take abuse from a computerized voice? Nope. We pay the same price as we would if we went through a line where we're actually giving a human being something to do — and thus some job security. On top of that, the block that Fred Meyer occupies is by far the most disgusting in the neighborhood, with litter strewn everywhere.

I don't ask for much, but do me a favor and boycott the self check out machines. They're a complete racket.

Conference calls can be a challenge

Another thread from the Fast Company Now blog:

When Conferences Call
If you regularly schedule conference calls with remote colleagues, distributed teams, and other partners, you might want to rethink your teamwork tactics. According to a recent RoperASW/Tandberg poll, less than half of respondents pay attention during conference calls. And what they do instead is quite interesting -- and occasionally alarming.

Are conference calls productive? Do you have any conference call tips or tactics? Add a comment and share your ideas.

Posted by Heath Row at November 21, 2003 12:39 PM | 2 Comments

MY COMMENTS:

Posted by: Steve at November 21, 2003 03:49 PM

My company has offices around the world -- from the U.S. to the U.K, and throughout Asia. This often means that our Asia staff are on the call in the afternoon, our U.K. staff at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning, and we on the U.S. West Coast at 11:00 at night. Our staff on the East Coast then have to set their alarm clocks for 2:00 a.m.! Needless to say, many people on the call are not going to be at their peak, let alone fully attentive. That said, the calls are still fairly productive.

One possible solution is for people speaking to pause frequently and solicit questions and feedback. People who are hesitant to break in will often jump in when specifically asked. If someone is silent for too long, call them by name and ask for their feedback. This should be handled carefully so as to not make it feel like the teacher making sure the student is paying attention, but it is an effective way to keep everyone alert and involved.

It also helps to send as detailed as possible an agenda out ahead of time so people have time to familiarize themselves with the topics to be discussed and formulate questions and comments ahead of time. This is especially important for global calls where not all participants speak English as their first language. Inability to understand what is being discussed, either because of language difficulty or poor sound quality, will lose people faster than almost anything else.

The larger the group, the higher the likelihood that people will feel disconnected lose focus. Consider a communication tree where you hold one call with group or regional leaders and then those leaders hold "local" calls with their groups. This helps alleviate the time difference hassles, as well. The leaders can then hold a follow up call to report back results and feedback.

It is also important to make sure the call is necessary in the first place. Conference calls are not cheap, and neither is the value of people's time. Can the same thing be accomplished "offline" via e-mail or some other means of asynchronous communication?

When Conferences Call | Fast Company Now

From Fast Company Now: Join the Marching Brand

The following is the original post in Fast Company Now, Fast Company magazine's excellent blog, and my comment there. Follow the link at the end to read more comments.

ORIGINAL POST:

Mark Didriksen of Jack Morton Worldwide offers a thoughtful study of "brand training." Instead of giving such exposure to a company's brand short shrift by relegating it to new-employee orientation -- or leaving it to HR rather than the marketing department -- Didriksen suggests that organizations put more thought behind customers' interactions and how employees represent the company and everything it stands for.

This isn't just for event marketers or field sales people, either. It's for everyone. Just look at the impact that Fred Harvey, his restaurants -- and his Harvey Girls -- had on the Santa Fe Railroad in the late 1800s. And think about the old-school stereotypical IBM employee and the lasting impression they leave.

How do you -- and your company -- inculcate brand values in employees? Do you pay attention to how employees reflect and represent the core of your business?

Posted by Heath Row at November 18, 2003

=============================

MY COMMENT:

Posted by: Steve at November 19, 2003

> How do you... inculcate
> brand values in employees?

A company should hire people who "represent the company and everything it stands for." In my experience, trying to "inculcate," or reprogram, employees to fit the mandated corporate culture is largely a futile effort and a disservice to everyone involved.

On the other hand, if a company hires good people who fit in with the goals of the organization, these people will naturally move in the direction of those goals and everyone -- employees (and their families), management, clients, and stakeholders -- will be much happier and more successful for it.

I don't like the growing popularity of the word "inculcate" in corporate speak, especially when it is used true to its etymology (see immediately below).

inculcate:
ETYMOLOGY: Latin inculcre, inculct-, to force upon : in-, on; see in—2 + calcre, to trample (from calx, calc-, heel).

1. To impress (something) upon the mind of another by frequent instruction or repetition; instill: inculcating sound principles.
2. To teach (others) by frequent instruction or repetition; indoctrinate: inculcate the young with a sense of duty.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

=============================

Join the Marching Brand | Fast Company Now

Founder of Cuss Control Academy announces surprise resignation

Jim O'Connor, founder of the Cuss Control Academy, announced his resignation this week. The sudden news came as a surprise to the person who bought his book and the seven people that have visited his Web site in hopes of cleaning up their language. O'Connor said he felt compelled to resign after uttering the "G.D. word" (this paper later learned that he said "gosh darn") after hitting his thumb with a hammer while doing some home remodeling. While he feels he has done all he can to make things right, including writing the phrase "Cussing is very bad and I will not do it again" 1,000 times, he doesn't feel he can expect his eight supporters to respect him after such an embarrassing and shameful display of moral weakness. A replacement for O'Connor has not yet been announced.

What goes around...: More music industry mergers

American Economist Tyler Cowen called Sony and Bertelsmann's plan to combine their struggling music businesses "a desparation merger in a fading industry."

Unwilling to heed cries of outrage from their paying customers and warnings from industry analysts, it appears music execs are reaping the results of targeting consumers with threats and lawsuits and unconvincingly trying to blame online music for their poor performance and inability to innovate.

"...the fact is that big music firms are in deep trouble because sales are falling fast; merging is one of the few things they can think of doing."

Merging is not likely to help. If the RIAA is any example of group thinking in the industry, this is a situation where two heads are not going to be better than one.

Economist.com | Music mergers

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