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We are motivated to do good, even great, things for friendship (social norms) and we expect to pay for commercial goods (market norms), but when we mix these, bad things happen in our social lives and for companies that get this wrong.
What are social and market norms and why do I care? -»You weren’t planning to buy the premium edition, but somehow that’s what you came home with. How did they get you do to do that? Easy. The Contrast Principle
Don't think you can be taken in? Read on -»If you have to make a snap decision to save your life, that’s one thing, but the hoopla around Malcom Gladwell’s book Blink got me thinking of the times when I’ve been told that you can’t always trust logic. Well, never trust someone who tells you that.
Why It Is Polite to Stare -»Common sense keeps us from doing uncommonly stupid things. And uncommonly wonderful things.
Common sense leads to… Read on »It seems that every corporate website has some place to handle problems and complaints. But shouldn’t you have a place to handle happy customers? The unhappy customer may be unrecoverable, but you want a long-term relationship with happy customers.
Keep happy customers »If you’re Word 2000 index is out of alphabetical order, the culprit could be a semicolon in my the text of an index entry. If you do that, it throws a wrench in the works.
Read howWord 2007 indexing can get out order »We all know one “magic word”. Please works well, but there’s another word that you must know if you want to get your way and must recognize if you want to be less susceptible to manipulation.
The Other Magic Word. Click to find out -»
There’s not much to say. This site is maintained (to put it charitably!) by Tom Lambert, a historian by profession, an outdoorsman by avocation and a geek by nature.
If you have a question, comment or injurious insult, go ahead and send me an email.