Archives for February 2005

Dear Jack,

When I first began reading this blog it was funny, witty and exciting. Now it is filled with material that just bores me. Can you become that funny guy again.

Thank you,

Ted Broganski

Dear Ted,

So you are saying that my blog has jumped the shark. I feel so sad. Ok, I don’t really feel sad, but I am funny. Ask my children and they’ll tell you that among four-year-old boys and seven month old girls I am right there with Thomas, Kipper and even cooler than Captain Feathersword. Still working on Greg, Anthony, Murray and Jeff.

How sad would it have been if they would have said that Wags the Dog or Henry the Octopus were funnier than me, it would have crushed me.

Thanks,

Jack

Dear Jack,

I saw that some of your readers call you condescending. They forgot to call you pompous. Stop making fun of fat people.

You suck,

Dick

Dear Dick,

The last three words of your post made me laugh so hard I almost snorted my milk through my nose. Ok, that is an exaggeration, I am lactose intolerant so I avoid dairy, but if I was drinking milk it would have gone through my nose.

Thanks for the laugh,

Jack

Dear Jack,

Your fiction rocks! Please keep writing, I look forward to reading more.

-Dude

Dear Dude,

Surfs up and the doggies are hanging ten. Not sure what that means, but I like the sound of it.

Thanks,

Jack

There are a number of people who have taken up the mantle of trying to chastise the United States for its actions and place within the world. They attribute much of the unrest and ill activities in the world to the U.S. claiming that US policy is the reason for terror, torture and or turmoil.

They accuse the US of being greedy and demean contributions to disaster relief, be it comments about financial contributions, manpower or issues with treaties and agreements.

What bothers me about this is that these criticisms are often layed out by people who have a poor understanding of economics, a skewed look at the political aspect and an agenda that does not allow for any middle ground.

The point is not to say that the US is without blame and or perfect, but that there is a problem with much of the criticism and its applicability and balance. When pundits comment on the proportion of aid to tsunami victims relative to other countries they focus on what they think the US should do, as opposed to what may be required, as well as they sometimes miss the long term perspective.

In simple English that means that although you might be able to throw tons of cash at a problem, it is not always the most effective method of bringing a solution. There are literally tons of donations that are not being used because the affected areas haven’t any ability to use them.

You need to understand that restoring an infrastructure that was wiped out takes more than a checkbook and that it requires time to rebuild and restore a framework that can make use of the assistance that is being offered.

In reference to treaties and agreements it is also important to take a harder look at them than to just say that majority wishes and rules should always be followed. Sometimes the majority is wrong, sometimes the majority interests are not in line with a minority and the refusal to go along with the majority is not always indicative of who holds the moral ground.

There are a number of fundamental differences between men and women, especially when it comes to communication. One of the things that I fail to understand and frankly do not have any interest in understanding are the comments our wives/girlfriends/lovers/significant others make for the sole purpose of aggravating us.

Some of them have this burning desire to create conflict where none exists for inexplicable reasons. I am not clear if they feel like they need attention, are looking for makeup sex or are just being ridiculous pains-in-the-ass when they say these things, but they definitely say them.

It is not just me, my male colleagues and friends have compared notes on this and there is a disturbing pattern of this behavior.To me it fits in the category of questions like “does this make me look fat?”

Don’t ask me because I will tell you if it makes your butt look big enough to drive a bus through or if it makes you look fabulous. It is the honesty policy and it makes life much easier.

Say what you mean and mean what you say.

I went to visit a new website and noticed that they have a link to a short video that made me laugh. It is called Shalom and it came out about four or five years ago as a parody of a beer commercial that was making the rounds.

If you want to see it you can click here and follow the instructions for viewing it.

Numbers are a useful tool for swaying opinions and making a point. They are supposed to represent neutral data that cannot be called into question for bias and as such serve a very important role in garnering support.

Not a week goes by in which we do not hear about the numerical result of a study or survey. Fifty-six percent of Americans think that column x is more important than column y and twenty-seven percent are ambivalent about the two and or are simply disinterested.

The problem is that very few people have the ability to really dig in and understand how the data was gathered, let alone provide a practical application for its use. To me it is a very serious issue and one that deserves further education and research.

I have a practical example to share with you about how numbers can be massaged and misleading.

In a past life I sold copiers for one of the major companies. It was a tough job for many reasons, not the least of which was that copiers were not an inexpensive piece of office equipment as well as the technological advances rendered them obsolete or out of date relatively quickly.

What this meant was that you really didn’t want to purchase a copier, you wanted to lease it. The idea being that you would pay a lower monthly fee and at the end of the term you could turn it in for a credit on your next copier.

Here is a real example of how numbers were manipulated. On one of our lower end models we used to offer a 3 year (36 month lease) term that ran about $12,250.00 for the entire term. That included the copier, service and toner.

This unit went head-to-head with a unit that my biggest competitor promoted as being far less costly than our unit. For that matter they used to brag about their copier cost $300 a month and ours was $340 and change. So they would go into meetings with their prospects and draw up a little chart in which they showed the $40 a month they claimed they would save for a whopping total of $1,440 over the life of the lease.

But they had a couple of weak spots in their plan that I used to take advantage of. The first was that toner was not included as part of the lease. These copiers were being sold based upon a couple of things, one was obviously features and the other was related to the volume of copies the business anticipated they would need.

So I could use this estimated volume and reasonably predict that the business would require two toner cartridges per year. Since my competition had not built the cost of toner into the lease the business could expect to pay a total of $900 per year for toner. In other words, the business was going to be hit with an additional expense of $2,700 for the use of the copier.

Let’s recap the costs for a moment:

So in reality the copier I offered was less expensive than the competitor’s model because of hidden costs. Most of the time all it took to convince the prospect not to use the other guy was to point out the real price and wait for the steam to stop blowing out of their ears.

But the real point of this example is that numbers are not always as meaningful or significant as people want them to be. It is important to take the time to understand what is being fed to you and how that data was gathered.