Kirsten Mortensen's blog

“I ate three lumps of it. But I spat two of them out, so I really ate one and a half of them.”

Ooookay.

Welcome to the mind of a man who, to protest an act of animal cruelty that never happened, cooks and eats a domestic dog. And then exults that his act was “art.”

It’s a mind where 3-2 = 1&1/2.

The worst part is that he got attention for this. Which is all he’s really after, anyway.

Technorati Tags: idiots

Via Instapundit, here’s an interesting blog post about the consequences of bad customer service.

What strikes me is that the Internet has rendered the word-of-mouth marketing variable extremely efficient.

Years ago there was a so-called rule of thumb that if someone had a bad customer experience, he’d share his experience with, on average, 10 other people.

I have no idea if that is fact or myth, but for the sake of argument suppose it’s accurate.

Each of those 10 people, in theory, might pass the anecdote along — but like the kid’s game of “telephone,” it is likely to lose some of its impact, and perhaps be distorted outright, after it’s been passed down the line a couple times from its original source.

Contrast that with how things work today. Today the original story — with all its hair-raising details — can be shared with the click of a mouse — not only to people you meet physically, but to hoards of total strangers. And since it’s passed along intact, it loses none of its impact.

Delta’s customer base, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, comprises 11.2 percent of the 659 million Americans who will fly in 2007. Instapundit gets what, 100K hits a day? And that’s only the people who see Professor Reynold’s original post — you also have to add in the people who visit when he brings the story up again, plus the people who visit all the sites who link to his story, like LB’s Rambles did today. Seems to me that could easily add up to a measurable impact on Delta’s business. It’s not like these airlines enjoy big fat margins after all.

This is about more than the need to monitor what bloggers are saying about your company. This is about a change in the variables that can impact a company’s reputation and, ultimately, its bottom line. And there’s only one fix — prevention. Good customer relations has to be a top corporate priority, because once you’ve broken faith with the wrong person, it’s too late, you’ve just opened a vein and the red ink is starting to pour.

Technorati Tags: blogging, customer relations

Terry Ryan, the most excellent professional dog training who I collaborated with on Outwitting Dogs, has asked me to help spread the word that she’s got openings in a couple of the courses she teaches.

She writes that there are a few openings in her two-day survey courses in June.

She’s also got openings in August in a couple of courses she teaches with Bob Bailey. These are the famous “chicken training” courses that Bob ran with his late wife for years. Terry’s got some background on them on her website here.

Bob’s the person who introduced me to Terry as well :-)

For more information or to sign up for one of these courses, click here.

Technorati Tags: dog training, Bob Bailey, chicken training

I’m starting to post on my new golf-only blog, so slide on over there if you want to know more ;-)

No. I didn’t post my score. LOL

From John Leo, writing in City Journal. A take-down of bad writing. Lots of examples, in case you want more for your scrap book (e.g. from a hospital bill, “disposable mucus recovery unit” instead of “box of Kleenex.”)

On a lighter note, a bit about his own decisions as a writer. When he began his U.S. News & World Report column 18 years ago, for instance, he copied the style of . . . John Madden. And then this:

After a month or so, I realized that readers of columns don’t just follow the words. They listen to the background music too. Readers want to know who you are. Is the writer consistent and fair? Does his take on the world relate to me? Is he humorless or playful? Do I want to spend time with him? Is he in the pocket of some cause or political party?

Good questions for any writer to ask.

Lots more to enjoy in the piece, and look, only a click away ;-)

Technorati Tags: writing

Hugh Hewitt has read the entire immigration bill and has some ideas for how to address some of the most untenable aspects.

I just posted an idea for another amendment in the comments at 2blowhards: make all amnesty recipients and their employers ineligible to vote for the next, say, 20 years.

Let those of us who bear the bill’s costs, but don’t get any of the benefits, decide who in Washington D.C. goes or stays for the next few election cycles.

Congress would drop the bill like a hot potato. Because it’s not about what’s good for our country — that’s got nothing to do with it. It’s about buying votes.

Madness.

Technorati Tags: immigration bill

Congress. Stupid stupid stupid Congress.

Mother Jones: The Senate Immigration Plan Is a Turkey: An Unbiased Primer

And from the other side of the aisle — one of numerous examples — Town Hall blogger Kevin McCullough has picked out a nice new nickname for John McCain: “Shamnesty McCain.”

I am so sick of bad laws that bring only ill, and the politicians who write them. McCain being a prime example. I mean, how long are we going to sit by and let these guys pass laws they HAVEN’T EVEN READ?

Madness.

Do you know, for instance, that if this bill passes, your employer (assuming you hold a job) is going to be checking YOU to make sure you’re an American citizen? Just what US employers need, more paperwork mandated by elitist pols. Just what workers need, more bureaucratic red tape to wade through.

Madness.

Here’s from a Computerworld article on the background check fiasco in the making:

The Congressional Budget Office, in a report last year that looked at earlier legislation seeking electronic verification . . . predicted that the government would have to spend $250 million over the first five years of a verification program compensating employees who lost jobs because of system errors. The CBO forecasted 10 errors per million for native-born workers and an initial error rate of 0.4% — or 4,000 per million — for foreign-born workers . . .

But errors aren’t the only concern. Some policy analysts said they fear that the creation of a verification system like the one envisioned in the Senate proposal could lead to a national ID and enable the government to probe deeply into other databases, such as ones that contain tax records.

Madness.

Washington Post article:

In some ways, border security improvements that would have to be made by a December 2008 deadline are the easy part, according to Dawn M. Lurie, bar liaison for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency (USCIS) has been “overburdened and pretty much dysfunctional,” she said.

“I read this [bill] and say this is hysterical. How is it going to be implemented? It’s crazy.”

I am sick of the government proposing overcomplicated solutions to problems because our political leaders either lack the basic intelligence or the basic integrity to do otherwise.

Madness.

Technorati Tags: immigration bill

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