Looking out the window on a Saturday night, some of the vacant office spaces are impossible to miss. The reason is simple: they’ve got all their lights on, brightly illuminating the raw floor that lacks furniture or even carpeting. Meanwhile, all the occupied floors are dark, aside from a few exit signs and other emergency […]

Ikea doesn’t advertise that much in Chicago, at least not on the billboards and other out-of-home canvases that I see in the city. Maybe they assume that they already have the market cornered, and any interested customers will seek them out anyway. Or perhaps it’s because despite having two Ikea stores in the so-called Chicagoland […]

This week, I spent several days working on revisions to a contract with a potential vendor. We actually negotiated all the major items (like the costs and timeline) before starting on the contract, and it was the vendor’s job to send me a contract draft reflecting those agreed-upon points. Well, the document I received was […]

I’ve seen plenty of pictures of excess packaging posted all across the Internet. From huge boxes containing a tiny item to multiple boxes nested like Russian dolls, documenting unnecessary packing material nearly qualifies as a competitive sport. With this in mind, I was amused to receive a package from Target that took the opposite approach. […]

Let’s say that I’m recording something on my Tivo. I check out the program and decide I don’t want it. So, I stop watching that program before it’s over, and I tell the Tivo to stop recording the program. Will I be keeping that recording for later? Doubtful, since I manually cancelled the process. So […]

When you make a purchase in a retail store using a credit or debit card, one of the first things you see on the screen (or get asked by the cashier) is quite predictable: “credit or debit?” For Visa and MasterCard, this makes sense: those brands issue both types of cards. But what about the […]

I recently listened to an interview with one of the product managers at Facebook. During the interview, they briefly touched on the issues that Facebook has experienced whenever they’ve changed the interface or modified the privacy settings. One statement from the Facebook rep really caught my attention, though. While talking about past updates, she said […]

When interacting with customers and prospects, it’s important to choose the right tone. For example, consider the following ways of closing out a sales conversation: – “We’ll do anything possible to win this deal — even give you the product for free!” – “We’re really busy with new orders, so I’m not going to waste […]

Let’s say I’m shopping for shoes. I start by choosing Men’s Shoes, and then click additional filters for the desired Brand, Color, Size, and so on. I don’t find what I’m looking for, so I go back to the homepage and start again. But even on e-commerce sites that are renowned for their smart interface […]

When I see a DVD in my Netflix queue that’s listed as “Very Long Wait”, I know that I’ll need to be patient. Very, very patient. Heck, I think I waited three months to get the “Caprica” pilot, making me wonder if they only bought one copy and made all the BSG fans stand in […]