What a coincidence that on the day I finished listening to the audio version of The Big Short by Michael Lewis, the SEC announced charges against Goldman Sachs for improprieties from the subprime mortgage mess.  A lot has been written about Goldman’s central role in the subprime industry since the meltdown, so it is not a surprise that they were the first investment bank to be targeted.  Will they be the last?  Only time will tell.

We subscribe to a lot of magazines, and I’ve found it difficult to manage the renewal process.  It doesn’t help that magazines start the renewal process six months or more before your subscription actually expires.  Between the outside cover renewal cards and the repetitive mailings, I can’t remember if I (or my wife) renewed a subscription or not.
So I was pleasantly surprised that two magazines I read, Fortune and Mens Journal, both offered online renewals.  

During my holiday shopping on www.patagonia.com, I was able to learn firsthand how not to implement a web-based chat feature.
As soon as I went to the Patagonia website, before I had a chance to click to anywhere else, a popup chat window opened with a nice customer service representative asking if they could help me find anything.  Like 99% of anyone who has ever just arrived at an ecommerce site – or for that matter just stepped foot in a store – I said “no thanks” (in this case by …

My local gas station is driving me crazy.  Every time I insert my credit card to buy gas, it displays the message “Do you want to buy a carwash?” Every time I say “No”.   And the next time I visit, they ask me again.
This is probably a trivial complaint, and I realize that the classic “upsell” is a standard part of doing business.  I even wrote an article about how impressed I was with my tire dealer’s “captive upsell”.  Nevertheless, this gas station is doing it completely wrong.  The classic …

A North Carolina principal was terminated for approving an “innovative” fundraising idea proposed to her by the parent advisory council.  Their idea was to allow students to make a $20 donation to the school’s new technology fund in return for 20 “points” that could be added to two of their exams (10 points per exam).  For example, if a student scored a 68 on an exam they could add 10 points to make it a 78.  After enough parents complained the school district stepped in, stopped the program, and terminated …

I think that I want an Amazon Kindle.  As a self-professed early adopter of gadgets, the Kindle should certainly rank near the top of my list.  I wish the product did more (touch screen, color, play movies, etc.) but I’ll just have to wait for the future Apple tablet to give me another multimedia toy.   At $299 it is also fairly expensive as noted by many reviewers, but that hasn’t stopped me from buying cool technology before.
So why haven’t I taken the plunge?  Because I have at least a dozen …

First an important disclaimer – this article is NOT for OR against healthcare reform!  I (and most reasonable minds) can agree that (1) having ~50 million people uninsured is terrible, (2) our government is not exactly the model of efficiency in almost anything it does, (3) healthcare costs are growing out of control, and (4) our economic problems (read: deficit) provide serious obstacles to paying for expensive initiatives.
I’m not opining on whether a plan will work or not and what it should look like.  What I am very interested in …