Reporters, apparently having insufficient news to cover, have found that staged news is more easily controlled, requires little shoe leather, and reaches appropriate conclusions; I suspect it also reinforces the reporters’ sense of superiority. It does betray, however, a misunderstanding of the implied contract between a retail merchant and his customer – a more nuanced respect than merely (or even always) that the customer is right. Wretchard posts about ABC’s visit to the Czech Stop I’ve mentioned before. An actor behind the counter refuses to serve an actress in hijab. He is rude and disrespectful. Customers react – sometimes protective of the actress, sometimes critical, but always, of course, naively. (Update: Wretchard’s commentors are also, as usual, insightful until somehow they become completely off-topic- I don’t understand how that can happen.)
Business
A Marketing Challenge
If the marketing class will come to order, we have an interesting case study today. We’re going to focus on a product, the market penetration of which is being limited by an attribute that–on first glance–would seem to be a good thing.
Photoshop on Sale
Adobe is running a promotion during February. If you own any version of Photoshop Elements (the cheap version of Photoshop) you can upgrade to the latest full version of Photoshop, CS3, for $300 + tax. This represents about a 50% discount from the regular price, and is only $100 more than the price to upgrade from a previous full version of Photoshop. (To take advantage of this deal, call 800-585-0774, mention offer 27105 and be ready to provide your Photoshop Elements serial number.)
John McCain: Victorian or Elizabethan?
About a week ago, William Kristol suggested that John McCain is in many ways a man of the Victorian era. (Via Erin O’Connor) Comes now Withywindle, of the fine blog Athens & Jerusalem, with the suggestion that–in view of his expressed contempt for economic motivations–McCain is actually an Elizabethan.
Turning the Sow’s Ear into a Silk Purse
Lately I’ve been struggling with the concept of “educated beyond one’s intelligence”. Testing and education is supposed to separate the meritorious from the masses. Unfortunately, education serves only to cut off the very bottom, obviously inept cohort, but seems to have less ability to separate truly good people from mediocre intellects and fakers. This has direct implications beyond Academia, as David Foster pointed out when he noted the reliance of businesses on paper trail rather than accomplishments as a means of filtering potential new hires.
I’m now starting to construct a mental model for why education seems to be failing at this central task, and a few terms spring immediately to mind.