Shiny Bits of Life

Today I’m guest posting over at Elizabeth’s Letters from a Small State. So you’ll need to go to see what I wrote about striving for balance… and see how this photo relates.

Two receipts were given to me after I bought a few pieces of flagstone for a Saturday afternoon project. One was nicely generated by the cash register – complete with a little marketing message at the bottom (“On August 28th, the first 40 customers receive a free reusable bag!”). And then there was the no-technology carbon-copy of a hand-written receipt, showing the weight of the flagstones I purchased.

Santa Fe Sand & Gravel could save themselves time and money by integrating their systems – so that all the info is on the computer-assisted receipt.

Takeaway: Simplify. What are some ways you can simpilfy your business – or life – by eliminating redundant systems?

Not long from now, you’ll be seeing a Mini SUV on the road. As in, Mini Cooper.

It’s just wrong.

Focus… stick to what your core strength is. My guess is that they will sell about twenty. (I am joking – but I do not think that this will be their most popular model.)

It gets as little as 20 mpg. It’s 16″ longer and 6″ taller. If you will remember back to when the Mini was reintroduced (2001), the idea was to have a sporting car that got decent fuel economy. No more.

My take? Buy a used Mini and a used Toyota RAV instead. Then you will have your SUV – and what God intended – a fun, sporty car. All for less than the $29,000 starting price of a new Mini Cooper Countryman AWD.

Photo courtesy of Road & Track magazine.

Yes, it’s true – I think Starbucks just made a mistake.

I get their weekly emails, and last week’s featured their new flavored coffees: “Natural Fusions“.

I’m showing my bias here – I don’t like flavored coffees to start with. (Those Frappuccinos and such – well, that’s a different matter. I like those. But they aren’t really coffee.) But my take is that those who like flavored coffee (or flavoured, if you are in the English-speaking part of the world) should add syrup to their freshly-brewed cup. Just like your neighborhood coffee bar would.

This tower of public notices stands in downtown Boulder, Colorado – the home of a university with more than 30,000 students. Most of the posters are for live music events.

Did you notice that all of them look more or less the same?

How hard would it be to design a poster with catchy full-color photo surrounded by a significantly large white border ? Or maybe a 98% black poster with just a tiny bit of white type in the center? Then just put one on top of about every fifth standard poster. Those would stand out.

Takeaway: Let’s think outside the box, my friends.

Joe Montana loves his new Skechers shoes so much that he wants to throw them far away.

(What were the ad creators thinking?!)

Note two: these shoes are supposed to help the wearer burn more calories. Isn’t that what all sporting shoes will do – if you use them while exercising? I think they will help you burn even more calories if you continually throw them down a football field, retrieve them and repeat the process.

I got a free subscription to a men’s magazine. One issue and then I canceled – but that’s another story.

The magazine had five separate ads for cologne with scent-laden flaps. Two might have been alright. Five? None of those advertisers are getting much bang-for-their buck.

Analogy: If you ate a meal and then had ice cream, two scoops would be enjoyable. But five?

The Checker Auto Parts store in our neighborhood quietly changed its name to O’Reilly Auto Parts. The only change was the sign. The transition was mandated by some high-level corporate decision… I think a corporate merger was involved.

I’d consider the change to be a waste of money, as long as the Checker name still exists (which it does).

Takeaway: If you’re going to change your name, make it worth your while. Change something else too.

My friend Jon Swanson spearheaded a great campaign to reduce the debt his church has on their building. He came up with several ways to view how the monthly mortgage payments could be better used – in this instance, one monthly payment could be used to fund a large number of New Testaments, rather than paying interest.

Takeaway: What are some ways you can use your resources in a better way?

There are two directions people go with their blogs – having dates with their posts and not having dates. I vote yes for putting the date with your post. Reasons?

1. It shows your readers that you are staying current with your blog.

2. It gives your readers a frame of reference for when the material was created. This is important for determining if the information might be relevant. In many fields these days, the latest information is vital. (This is true for social media, the area I work in.)

The other argument is that “my information is timeless”. That may be true – but your readers would like to know when you thought that particular thought. Maybe you have changed your thinking since then! (Not many people take time to go back to update all of their posts.)

If you are giving timeless information – and it’s valuable – just post it again, in a different way. Readers are smart enough to search your blog for that topic, if they liked what you had to say.

Finally, sometimes I actually will leave a blog when the blog is giving technical information and there is not date with the post.