#7 Most Meaningless Site

I was just perusing my logs and noticed that someone was referred to this blog when they searched "meaningless sites." on Yahoo!. My list of entries under the "meaningless statistics" category was #7 on the list of results. Hey, I'll take all the traffic I can get!

Financial News Futility

Here are this morning's headlines on Yahoo! Finance. Notice that stocks are going to open both higher and lower. For the record, the market opened lower.

The Talent Myth

I just finished reading Malcom Gladwell's article, The Talent Myth. What a scathing indictment of the "wisdom" of consultants when it comes to hiring. The whole Enron/McKinsey relationship kept reminding me of "the Bobs" from Office Space. The last line in the article is a classic:

It never occurred to them that, if everyone had to think outside the box, maybe it was the box that needed fixing.

Priceless!

Multi-Channel Shoppers

Decker Marketing has some good thoughts about the cause and effect relationship between multi-channel retailing and the amount customers spend. With all the hoopla about the fact that multi-channel customers are bigger spenders, the real issue is getting lost. Decker rightly asks:

Does a customer spend more because the company has multiple channels? Or do the best customers use multi channels?

This has been on my mind for a while. If all the additional business from multi-channel shoppers were incremental, then the overall sales increases/decreases would be making bigger headlines. I look forward to seeing more analysis of this phenomenon, but my hunch is that good multi-channel customers are simply a new subset of a retailer's existing customer base. Perhaps they are more profitable. Perhaps they are more satisfied and loyal due to the experience. And, yes, they may have already been the best customers.

More than anything, I'm looking forward to learning about how multi-channel shoppers affect market share. Specifically, I'd like to know if there are certain elements of multi-channel strategy that are much more successful than others. If so, how is this affecting consumer behavior in general? Who are the winners and losers?

The Best of Bok '04

Today's Beacon Journal featured a couple pages of Chip Bok's best editorial cartoon's from 2004. Bok's work is incredible. We are really blessed to have such talent working for our local paper. Here's my favorite...

Mossberg Endorses Firefox

Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal wrote a terrific review of the Firefox browser today. I couldn't agree more with his assessment.

For weeks it has amazed me that Microsoft has not yet mounted a serious defense of Internet Explorer. They've been nearly silent on the Firefox issue. Then the other day it occurred to me that Firefox may actually be good for Microsoft, bruised ego aside.

Think about it. Does MS really make any money on IE? It's bundled with the OS, so computer buyers pay for it every time they buy a copy of Windows. Firefox poses virtually no short-term financial threat to MS, as far as I can tell. Firefox, if anything, improves the Windows operating environment by making web browsing more secure, not less. It wouldn't at all surprise me if MS puts a positive spin on the Firefox situation since it may make people feel better (or less insecure) about using Windows.

Lightly Killed Chickens

This USA Today story is so bizarre that I'm not sure where to start. What I find particularly amusing is that you've got PETA arguing about methods of slaughtering chickens. I wonder how their vegetarian members, which must be quite numerous, feel about this. Perhaps we should coin a new oxymoron here: pragmatic extremism.

The whole thing is excellent fodder for a Monty Python sketch, a la Crunchy Frog...

We use only the finest baby frogs, dew-picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in the finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope, and lovingly frosted with glucose.

Scared of Santa Photo Gallery

Nothing says Happy Holidays like a photo of sweet little toddlers screaming at Santa. (via Boing Boing) Some of these are priceless.

Malcom Gladwell

I read a lot of articles, but I'm certainly no expert on journalism or even good writing. Having said that, I am captivated every time I read something by Malcolm Gladwell. (His book, The Tipping Point, is a classic and ought to be a mandatory text for every marketer.)

Gladwell's latest piece posted on his web site is fantastic. It's about plagiarism, and it's written from multiple perspectives simultaneously -- at least that's the best I can explain it. In this story I learned a lot about intellectual property law, the creative process and the minds of serial killers. Yes, all that in an article that's ultimately about plagiarism.

I guess what I like the most is that when I finish reading something that Gladwell writes, I feel like I learned something valuable without being burdened by having to decide whether there was something in the story with which I had to agree or disagree. First and foremost, the guy imparts observations and knowledge. How refreshing.

WATS Up?

I just clicked on an ad for Woodhill Supply that got my attention. It's great to see a small, regional business with a professional, well designed web site. They have their phone number and address prominently displayed on their home page, which is an excellent idea. However, it really cracks me up that they call their toll-free phone number an  "Ohio WATS" line on their home page. I wonder how many people even know what a WATS line is (or was).