Classes started today for the spring semester. More than 50% done. Boy, am I glad!
The first class was Brand Management.
The professor showed a video of a Nike ad that came out in November 1999. The ad can be viewed on Youtube. Back in those days, there were many predictions of bad things happening on January 1st, 2000. I was personally involved in developing and selling a couple of Y2K products. Anyone remember Y2K Pro?
The ad is a spoof on these predictions. As a newsgroup poster so aptly summarizes it: “A young man wakes up on New Year’s Day and goes out for a morning run. Singular of purpose, the runner is oblivious to the city around him as malfunctions and mayhem proliferate” .
As a wannabe-runner, I totally understand and appreciate the ad. In fact, I am bowled over by how effectively it reveals the mindset of a runner. That is exactly how I feel when I am out there running.
However, I think that the effectiveness of the ad is diluted if used on a more general audience: folks who don’t run and who don’t know anyone who runs. Do they understand that “singularity of purpose”? Would they think that running past an ATM spewing out $$$ is just dumb? Would they miss the message?
Perhaps there are two messages there: one for runners and the other one for non-runners.
Non-runners will go away remembering the ad (and therefore Nike), because of the humorous situation. Which is, I guess, one goal of advertising: brand awareness.
Runners will simply put on their Nike shoes and just go do it…
I am sitting in a hotel room in Taipei nursing a sore throat.
The one thing I didn’t bring along was salt to gargle the throat with. Otherwise, I have everything else. Well, almost everything else.
For traveling, I have a toiletries bag that hold:
- Dayquil (in capsule form)
- Nyquil (in capsule form)
- Imodium
- Claritin
- Anti-acid
- Band-aid
- Tylenol
- Bengay
- Calcium supplement
- Airborne
- Sewing kit for those deep cuts…
Okay, that last one was a joke.
I do have a sewing kit though, along with nail clippers (they do allow you to take those on planes), electric shaver, toothbrush, hair gel, toothpaste and comb.
The toiletries bag gets emptied only when I am at the hotel. Otherwise, everything stays together. The last thing I want to do in the frenzy of last minute packing is to put together the toiletries bag. The only thing I do on a semi-regular basis is to make sure that there is enough of the expendable items.
I have also several items which I’ve not been able to keep together:
- Alarm clock
- AC plugs for different countries
- Ipod Shuffle + headphones
- Ipod Shuffle sync cable
- Spare headphones for running with Ipod
- LAN cable
- AC adaptor for devices that charge via a USB cable
- Spare glasses
The challenge is to have enough duplication so that you don’t have to raid your travel pack for stuff. That works fine for low cost items like medication. But it’ll be expensive to have a spare Ipod shuffle or even a pair of extra glasses (my last pair cost $500!).
One thing you learn in business school is the question of optimizing resources to maximize revenue.
An example of this is the airline industry, where resources are the seats and optimizing means that you sell seating at different prices (thereby targeting different market segments) in order to fill up all of them for a given flight.
This applies too in the hotel industry where resources would be the rooms.
I usually stay at the Sheraton when I am in Taipei. This is a great hotel. However, the last two times I have been here, they have wanted me to move to another room after the first night.
The ostensible reason was to give me the exact class of room that I am paying for. In other words, I get a “free” upgrade the first night, and something less fancy the second.
I guess that this is an optimization thing: so that they can maximize income from the higher class room.
However, customer satisfaction goes out the door.
When I get into a hotel, I want to unpack and hang out the shirts and pants. I also want to set up my other stuff. In other words, after a 13-hour flight, I want to feel at home.
Making me change rooms means that I have to pack my bags again after the first night’s stay.
So I am not satisfied.
Low End Mac has a good article on the new MacBook Air. Entitled “The MacBook Air Misses the Mark“, the article explains why the MacBook Air has disappointed a lot of 12″ Powerbook users who are (still) looking for a replacement.
The article is all fine and dandy until it goes on to say: “If, like me, you are tired of waiting for Apple to replace your 12″ wonder, then it would appear the 15″ MacBook Pro is the only option.”
Which freaks me out completely.
I upgraded from a 12″ 1.5GHz Powerbook. But guess what. I upgraded to a MacBook. No “Pro”.
If you are using a 12″ Powerbook, your are interested in size and weight.
So why on earth would you go for a 15″ behemoth?
12″ Powerbook users: wake up and smell the roses. So what if Steve Jobs didn’t come through this time?
There’s always the MacBook and with a 1280×800 screen (compared to 1024×768 in the Powerbook), it is definitely an UPGRADE!