The saga continues. I’m trying to run an AdWords ad for my mom’s Kumon center. She has been told by Google that she can’t use the term “Kumon”—the name of her company—in her ad because it’s a trademarked term. I asked Google to tell me who the person is who can give permission to Kumon holders. This is their unsatisfying reply:
Thank you for your email. I understand you would like to have contact information of the trademark owner who filed a complaint for the trademark term ‘Kumon.’ Please note that we are unable to provide this information. If you have authorization to use this term in your ads then I suggest you ask the individual who has provided you this authorization to follow the trademark authorization steps outlined at http://www.google.com/tm_complaint_adwords.html
Yes, I can try to get my Mom to get her regional franchise office to track down the person in Japan who is responsible for this policy. Or Google can just tell me. sigh.
“I’m not bitter about what happened to me as a child, and my mother was instrumental in keeping me from being so. ... She taught me to be grateful for my life regardless of what that entailed, and that’s directly related to the image of Christ on the cross and the example of sacrifice that he gave us. What she taught me is that the deliverance God offers you from pain is not no pain—it’s that the pain is actually a gift. What’s the option? God doesn’t really give you another choice.”
After over a decade of user testing, it is clear that the way we search the web is similar to the way we would search our home for valuables as it was burning to the ground. Frantically.
“We must shift the focus of companies back to the customer and away from shareholder value ... The shift necessitates a fundamental change in our prevailing theory of the firm… The current theory holds that the singular goal of the corporation should be shareholder value maximization. Instead, companies should place customers at the center of the firm and focus on delighting them, while earning an acceptable return for shareholders.”
You can scroll right easily by holding down the SHIFT key and using your scroll wheel. (Firefox users trying this will end up jumping to old Web pages until a) Firefox releases a fix, b) they change their settings like so.)