So, I got a call this morning from (604) 731-1182. The fellow on the other end of the line said, “Good Morning! I’m just calling to see if you were interested in selling your condo.”
I said I didn’t own a condominium. He said, “Oh, thank you anyway,” and hung up.
I called him back (yay caller ID) and asked him who he was, how he got my phone number and why he thought I had a condo. He wouldn’t tell me who he was, and caller ID just said “Private” (boo, caller ID).
He said he just got my number from the phone book. Susie and I used to live downtown in a condominium and we still have the same number.
I figure, if people are randomly calling up condo owners asking if they’re ready to sell, it’s either because a) speculation and demand is SO out of control that they’re looking for any way to weasel in, and that’s too insane to last, or b) this guy’s like a shark—he smells blood in the water and he knows that there’s a wave of condo owners ready to sell who might just be scared into it by a well-timed phone call.
Of course, it could be c) he works for the ministry of condo sales and he’s just doing a survey. Who knows.
“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.)