Thought Provoking

WORK is not play. But maybe it should be.

CRM, Tech, Thought Provoking

The future of CRM as reported by the New York Times? I wonder how soon Siebel/SAP/Salesforce will be changing their interfaces to suit this model?

In fact, Paul Johnston has remade his company on the idea that business software will work better if it feels like a game. Mr. Johnston is not some awkward adolescent, but the polished president and chief executive of Entellium, which makes software for customer relationship management. Businesses spend billions of dollars on such software to try to track their sales staff, their marketers, their customer service — anything that connects them with customers. Unfortunately, most of the software is the business equivalent of calorie counting. No one does it gladly. Worse, the software has a Big Brother aspect to it.

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New Zealand schoolgirls

Thought Provoking

The Guardian reports that two New Zealand schoolgirls did a science test in school that is going to cost the makers of Ribena a couple of million dollars.

Two New Zealand schoolgirls humbled one of the world’s biggest food and drugs companies after their school science experiment found that their ready-to-drink Ribena contained almost no trace of vitamin C.

Students Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo tested the blackcurrant cordial against rival brands to test their hypothesis that cheaper brands were less healthy.

Instead, their tests found that the Ribena contained a tiny amount of vitamin C, while another brand’s orange juice drink contained almost four times more.

Face to face

Thought Provoking

A nice article from Tim Harford of the Financial Times, one of the most interesting economists out there (and IMHO there are a few).

So what is happening? To some extent, the same thing that happened to the paperless office. It turned out that all those computers made it easy and cheap to produce a lot of documents. Yes, the documents could in principle have been viewed on screen, but why not print them out?

Similarly, e-mail, internet networking and cheap phone calls have made it easy to maintain a lot of relationships. In principle some of them could be restricted to cyberspace, but how much fun is that? The same e-mail that allows you to maintain a long-distance business relationship also creates demand for more travel as people try to establish those relationships in the first place.

Closer to home, communication technology makes it easier than ever to arrange a drink with friends. Just e-mail a distribution list or post the invitation on your online journal. This spontaneity isn’t much use if your friends are hundreds of miles away.

E-mail and mobile phones aren’t substitutes for face-to-face contact at all. As the economists Jess Gaspar and Ed Glaeser have pointed out, they are complements to it.

Time For a New Life

Thought Provoking

From eBay in Australia comes the following interesting item.. At the end of the piece there is a note that a documentary is being made about the process. Reality TV takes a deeper step into identity management and a ground-breaking example of identity transferral. If Identity Theft went this far it would be impressive and scary.

NEW LIFE FOR SALE!!
This auction is for a New Life in the coastal town of Wollongong, Australia of a 24 year old male.

It includes the following:
Winning bidder will take ownership of my:
– Name

– Phone number

– All my possessions which includes the following

– Clothes,

– Roughly 300 CDs

– Surfboard

– Laptop (minus certain information with my discretion),

– Pushbike (Has wonky handlebars, may need some work)

– Books,

– Bed

– CD player

– Backpack

– Tennis racquets

– Golf Clubs(which you will have no idea how to use)

– Childhood photos

– Skateboard

– Nice lamp which your ex-girlfriend bought you.

– I will teach you my skills which include the following

– Surfing (Expert)

– Climbing (Intermediate)

– Skateboarding (Novice)

– Handstand Skills (Expert)

– Fire Twirling Skills (Intermediate)

– Devil Stick Twirling (Expert)

(Plus many more)

– Will introduce to all my friends & potential lovers (around 8 which I have been flirting with)

– I have around 15 close friends and around 170 other friends

– I have 2 nemeses.

– Lifestyle is very social. It includes a lot of going out.

NB: Friends will treat you exactly as they have treated me. This includes friends who take me surfing, running, climbing and cook for me. All of these features will be transferred over to the winning applicant.

Life also includes the following features

– Will have access to a cruisy job in march delivering fruit.

– You will write a satirical horiscope in the University of Wollongong Magazine.

– You will have new parents to have Christmas with & birthday presents from friends.

– A birthday party will also be organised for you.