Smart people learn from their mistakes and find a better way to do things next time a similar situation arises. Really smart people learn from other people’s mistakes and don’t make that mistake the first time around. The Michigan Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association (MBWWA) is definitely not really smart. They may even be downright stupid.
With change comes risk. Simple enough, except that failing to change can be a bigger risk as your business stagnates, gets overtaken, is left in the dust by your competitors. So perhaps it should be taken as a given that a company should be somewhat introspective. Regularly evaluating the performance of individuals and the organization and striving to be better than ever before at whatever it is you do. Change happens very quickly on the Web. Even the best websites become outdated very quickly as new and better technologies and best practices are developed. What was great in 2002 is often regarded as tired or dated in 2005. This can be unsettling to a company that invested heavily in a […]
(via Jonathan Snook) Roger Hudson has posted a nice primer on using tables in HTML to display data. We quotes the W3C specifications and walks through some clear examples on how to properly use tables in HTML. It’s good to see resources like this that explain how to create data tables that are accessible for all users. Hudson links to a number of resources at the bottom of the page but he leaves out a very useful post by Roger Johansson at 456 Berea Street. I’ve drifted away from posting basic HTML and CSS instructions here of late, hopefully these resources of of some interest.
The attacks on London today are another example of evil at work on our world. Our sympathies go out to everyone who has been hurt or killed and their loved ones. It’s a struggle to find strong enough words to describe the terrorists who would carry our such evil acts toward fellow human beings. I went through my library of curse words and can find none strong enough for individuals that evil and vile. “Evildoers” is too forgiving, they are not simply doing evil, they are in their hearts and souls so hopelessly beyond good that it is chilling to ponder for anyone with even a hint of compassion or goodness in them. Londoners today are feeling the same pain […]
Yesterday I wrote about the Supreme Court stifling innovation. I went on and on about the personal responsibility of the individuals who use a product for illegal activities such as running over children with a car or copying music illegally using P2P clients. I’d like to address the other side of the coin now, the responsibility of people who build things.
Today we are going to talk about what colors say. For instance, Green often says “it’s not easy being me”… Okay, Green doesn’t really say that, we all know that Green only speaks Dutch… Colors convey important information, however they sometimes tell us the wrong thing. A green stop sign is a great visual contradiction. We learn from a young age that “green means go”, “red means stop”, and yellow either means “slow down” or, depending on your parents, “go like hell”. So what happens when you switch around the colors on a traffic light? You get a whole bunch of accidents when people receive conflicting signals.
Ah, I love a good play on words… and I hate it when fools are in charge of very important things. In this case I’m referring to the recent United States Supreme Court decision regarding P2P file sharing services. This ruling makes a mockery of all sorts of common sense. Where to begin… Personal Responsibility is for Chumps I think the biggest lesson to be learned from this case is that the whole concept of competent individuals being responsible for their own actions is being thrown out the window and cheered by the masses as it splatters on the sidewalk below. This case hinges on the idea that makers of a product with a legitimate legal use should not be […]
Keith recently wrote about a really bad customer experience he had at Overstock.com. I feel badly for him but it also got me thinking about how rarely I see rants about great customer experience online and I’d like to change that.
