Back to the Past

I booked a cruise to the Bahamas recently, and I can't begin to tell you what a hassle it was to go through the process. I need a vacation from booking my vacation!

I would love to go to someone and say, "this is where I want to go, this is what I'm willing to pay, take care of the rest." Oh wait, it's called a travel agency! And they're all going out of business because we have the convenience of doing everything ourselves through orbitz or priceline or travelocity.

But price shopping is anything but convenient. The initial thrill of beating the big hotels wears off pretty quickly. And then you have to keep a log of all the confirmation #'s, hotel phone #'s, travel regulations and...well, that's another blog post on travel organization.

Looks like there may be a reemerging niche for travel planning. Or maybe just hiring a travel websites expert. Either way, extend your hours AAA!

In Want of Need

“Is there any other industry in this country which seeks to presume so completely to give the customer what he does not want?”
--Rupert Murdoch

Sometimes leftovers just sit in the fridge, not because you don't want them, but because they're in the back of the fridge. If you keep fruit out on the table instead of a cookie jar, you're more likely to eat fruit. And if you make it appealing, say by putting a variety of bright colored fruit on the table, you'll be even more likely to grab something on the way out the door.

Availability is extremely important in changing habits. Marketing is all about spending lots of money to get a product in front of you. Once you see it, you start thinking about price and quality, but whether you need it is lost in the novelty and appeal. Most of our cultural mores and definitions of beauty are shaped this way. I can't help but think that Rupert Murdoch preferred seeing really skinny, attractive women on TV, which left us a culture of eating disorders and a single-minded warped sense of beauty. Its remarkable!

But if big corporations and marketing firms can psych you out to want what you don't need and like what you never cared about, so can you. Put that fruit bowl on the table, maybe along with some oatmeal in your pantry, and sugar-free juices in your fridge. Avoid TV for a week and see how you feel. Go grocery shopping with a list in hand. Work out a personal budget and use cash more. The tips are endless and you've heard them all before. But there is truth in cliché and when you're better off because of it, it doesn't matter what you call it. What matters is that it works.

The Closing Flood Gates

"In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone."
--John Kenneth Galbraith

We all love specialists. Patients know exactly what they go to them for, they've seen the problem hundreds of times in a given month so they have a pretty good idea how to treat you, their offices have 42" plasma TVs not magazines, and they attract the cream of the med school crop so you know they're good. But who gets you to see them?

PCPs! They're the referral centers. The gatekeepers to the rest of health care industry. And soon they'll be in pretty dire straits. Just go to the AAFP policy page, and you get an idea of all the Federal advocacy issues they're involved with. People flock to where the money is, but in this case the monetary incentives set up for the specialty docs and against the primary docs may not actually be beneficial to our health.

Insolvency or plain old not having the money

"Without change, rising costs will drive government spending to unprecedented levels, consume nearly all projected federal revenues and threaten America's future prosperity."
--Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson

The dates in this NPR news article are just scary. 2041 for Social Security. 2019 for Medicare. According to program trustees, those are the forecasted years when the trust funds for each benefit program run out. "Depleted" and "wiped out" were also particular terms chosen by the author of the article.

But I thought Medicare Part D was just approved just a few years ago? How did it get budgeted in? And what about the privatization debate for social security? If the gov't can't support us (or needs to exorbitantly raise tax rates to do so), maybe we should be allowed to invest for ourselves.

The healthcare economist elaborates further on the Medicare end.

Weekend Smörgåsbord

1. Tyler Cowen's link to RateMyCop.com

2. TEDBlog's mirror therapy for phantom limb pain

3. DMX on Obama (Ctrl+F "Obama")

4. Calculating your RealAge

5. Slate on the 25th Amendment loophole: 2 presidents for the price of 1!

A Mortgage-Backed Life

As I'm washing dishes today, I'm constantly thinking of what I have to do next. Go to the bank, get a car wash, go workout, get something to eat. The list continues. I'm on autopilot with my shoulders shrugged and brow creased. Getting to the next thing is more important than what I'm doing now. I'm not enjoying the process.

We always seem to be trying to get to the happy and fun moments without giving much thought to what we're experiencing now. So often I hear "just gotta get through the day", or "same shit different day". Your job or whatever you're trying to get out of the way may be terrible, annoying, or boring, but its the attitude you have towards it that'll make it easier to handle. Unless you have an alternative (which, if you did, you would grab right away and not complain), the task still has to be done.

Owning what you do always helps. When you really personalize something, make it your responsibility, realize your name will be on it, you start paying more attention. Think about owning a car or house versus renting either one. You just take better care of the thing you own because ultimately its you who'll have to fix it if something goes wrong. Even with such a simple thing as washing dishes, if you say to yourself, "if I don't pay attention to this and do it well, I'll be eating out of a dirty plate and might get sick", you'll be that much more focused.

I read about this "ownership perspective" a long time ago when I was perusing books that helped you narrow down your career choice. One of the books kept bringing up the fact that no matter what you choose to do, from engineering to auto sales, own that job and make it yours. Don't go in thinking you're getting paid to work. You're renting yourself (your human capital) out. Go in owning that job! Think like the owner and see what you can do to improve the place, ask questions, make suggestions, get a comment box going, whatever gets you involved.

Applying this point of view to your career is too big of a start. Keep it simple. Now how many things popped in your mind while you were reading this? Start there...

The oh-so-close horizon

Vista (vist-uh) n.

1.	a view or prospect, esp. one seen through a long, narrow avenue or passage, as between rows of trees or houses.

2.	such an avenue or passage, esp. when formally planned.

3.	a far-reaching mental view: vistas of the future.

Have you noticed how the word, "vista" has been popping up everywhere?? Considering definition #3, I understand why and it makes even more sense in the corporate view of things. Strategic planning meets Marketing, right? Here are a few more instances:

• WorldVistA
• AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America)
• the Rx variety of course...Evista
• and c'mon now...Windows Vista

It's About Time

Time Out of Mind is simply a wonderful article. Author Stefan Klein makes a strong and articulate argument against the notion that "time is money".

"Believing time is money to lose, we perceive our shortage of time as stressful. Thus, our fight-or-flight instinct is engaged, and the regions of the brain we use to calmly and sensibly plan our time get switched off. We become fidgety, erratic and rash.

Tasks take longer. We make mistakes — which take still more time to iron out. Who among us has not been locked out of an apartment or lost a wallet when in a great hurry? The perceived lack of time becomes real: We are not stressed because we have no time, but rather, we have no time because we are stressed."

After taking a couple of economics courses, you invariably come to realize that the "cost" in opportunity cost is in fact stress. Applying the "no free lunch" principle makes perfect sense when you're making a calculated decision on which alternative might be best for the growth of your business. But does it realistically apply when you're calculating your free time in terms of dollars? "My free time is worth _______." Its really not, because its free! It only costs as much as you think it does. Hence the stress.

Quick elaboration. Suppose you get paid $10/hour and all your overtime is pre-approved. Now you have to valuate every extra hour beyond 8 hours as being worth $10, otherwise you lose it. Therefore, any activity you might choose to do outside of your work time has to be worth more than $10 to you. But what if you take a break because you're tired? Or go grab a sandwich? Or just do nothing? Some might say that these activities make you more productive and energetic allowing you to work more hours later. That's one possible rationalization. But is it even necessary?

The moment you choose to pursue an activity outside of work, your acceptance of the cost is intrinsic in your choice. Borrowing from economics once again, that cost is sunk. If you decide to focus on it, you only end up causing yourself stress above and beyond the $10 you already decided are worth losing. So then, would it be appropriate to say that opportunity cost is in the mind of the perceiver?

Trendy Disruptive Marketing

Dove's self-esteem fund sponsors the two videos below. If you haven't seen them yet, they're definitely worth a couple minutes of your time. There's been a lot of debate about whether this is some sort of "altruistic" marketing to fuel sentiment against mass media depictions of women.

Keep in mind this is marketing. Just like any other company selling any other product. But Dove has caught on to all the female angst that's been building up over the past few decades against the fashion, diet, exercise industry to make us all look like twigs. And why not? It does in fact sell:

"According to Information Resources, Inc., sales of Dove soap brands grew 7% to $281.3 million from Jan. 1 to Nov. 5, 2006; Dove hair care products sales grew 13.3% to $102.5 million; and Dove skin care products and lotions grew 16.2% to $117 million in that time period. Unilever posits that one in every three households uses a Dove product."

EVOLUTION


ONSLAUGHT

"The Thing To Do"

"Our leading men are not of much account and never have been, but the average of the people is immense, beyond all history. Sometimes I think in all departments, literature and art included, that will be the way our superiority will exhibit itself. We will not have great individuals or great leaders, but a great average bulk, unprecedentedly great."
--Walt Whitman

Whenever someone says "its the thing to do", I usually cringe and think exactly the opposite. Its not that I don't want to do what everyone else does, or that I'm above it in any way, but I'm instantly mystified and skeptical at how so many people can agree on one thing. Back in the 80's it was the thing to wear bell bottoms, and we all know how badly that went.

But now, its become a great mass marketing scheme. An iPhone, a big-screen tv, facebook, having a USB-drive hanging off your key chain are all considered chic and nouveau. Taco Bell (insert any generic fast food chain here) features a new special and its the thing to do to grab one. Even the coming election suffers from this phenomenon. Obama is the guy to want to vote for. Whether any of the above are sensible or not makes no difference. They're just the things to do.

Then again, making a well thought-out decision backed by unbiased research is very difficult these days. Who has the time for it? We outsource this kind of brain power to the Al Gores and Malcolm Gladwells of the world, hoping they took the time to do it right. I don't have the answer, and going against "the thing to do" just because it is isn't right either. All you can really do is be aware of peer pressure, groupthink, and the bandwagon effect. Once you acknowledge the mass mania, its much harder to get caught up in it. But its just a start. Then comes the hard part; personal justification.