The blog "You Are Not So Smart" recently blogged on a very interesting subject called "Anchoring Effect."
The shortened version of the blog post - as decision makers, our perception of value or the "starting point" is heavily influenced by other numbers our points of reference we have seen related to that decision, regardless of whether these numbers have any firm grasp in reality.
Exhibit A - Have you ever shopped online at Overstock.com or REI-outlet.com? When you're looking at the items on sale, do you ever look at the % discount from the original price, rather than the sale price? If two items of similar utility both cost $50, but one was originally $400 and the other was $89, I will always buy the first.
Would you buy a $5,000 Armani suit if it was "on sale" for $750 or a $300 suit from Joseph Bank marked down from $350? Fact is, they were both stitched in the same factory in Bangladesh and cost $50 for materials and labor. :)
Food for thought!
Here's the link to the full article!
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
(Healthy???) Signs You're a New Daddy
Just a few observations on becoming Daddy wise. Can anyone else identify with these? Let me know in the comments!!!
1) Your grocery bill quadruples on account of diapers, breast pads, and "feminine napkins."
2) You feel like you struck the lottery if you get more than three hours of sleep at a time.
3) Your garbage consumption multiplies exponentially overnight (likely related to item 1).
4) Your typical reading changes from "Good to Great" or "Competitive Strategy" to"Baby Wise," "What to Expect," or "The Happiest Baby on the Block."
5) Breasts are all business, all day, every day - no exceptions
6) Instead of tracking trending of regional housing values or international economies, your spreadsheets track and graph nursing trends and the frequency and nature of dirty diapers.
7) You may discover errant feces on any part of your body at any time. It's probably not yours, but still. . .
8) Alarmingly, you don't panic at said errant feces from item 7. You may find this difficult to reconcile.
9) You find that you have a preference between handling projectile vomiting or projectile diarrhea. Not that you have a choice, but the fact that you have a preference at all seems a little twisted.
10) The line separating six weeks and forever is alarmingly blurred. Six. friggin'. weeks.
11) You don't work out at the gym anymore, but you may have developed a custom arm, shoulder, traps, core, and leg toning program based on one 8 pound weight. Don't worry, this weight should increase by around 1 oz. per day (but try to control your own).
12) You may feel regret for not paying better attention to lyrics during singing time in Primary. Most lullaby's and songs invariably turn to "bloo bloo, blee blah, zong dee zee dong."
13) You and your wife hold a small celebration every time your baby burps, farts, or poops. You still cry after the blowouts.
14) You notice an increase in flatulence on account of bouncing four hours a day. Just go with it - baby can use the pointers and your wife will appreciate less poo-particles in the bed.
15) You will likely experience a redistribution of hair from your head to your middle and upper back. No words of comfort on this one.
16) By the time 8:30 PM rolls around, you and your wife have the same thing on your minds. . . bedtime (sleeping, specifically).
17) Your vocal cords will tighten significantly when communicating with your baby, resulting in a pinched contra tenor or higher voice register. Low-register grunting from time to time will reassure yourself and others of your masculinity.
18) Despite quizzical stares from bystanders, you probably wear a diaper bag with pride. As long as you're not wearing an outfit to match the bag, this is perfectly normal.
19) You're certain that the greatest gift you can give the world is to give everyone a glimpse of your baby. Just be sure to be sensitive to others whose children are not nearly as cute as yours, okay?
20) Your life is completely turned upside down, but you find that you wouldn't trade it for the world (even though sometimes you want to shoot yourself in the face).
Welcome to fatherhood, you studly man. High fives all around!
1) Your grocery bill quadruples on account of diapers, breast pads, and "feminine napkins."
2) You feel like you struck the lottery if you get more than three hours of sleep at a time.
3) Your garbage consumption multiplies exponentially overnight (likely related to item 1).
4) Your typical reading changes from "Good to Great" or "Competitive Strategy" to"Baby Wise," "What to Expect," or "The Happiest Baby on the Block."
5) Breasts are all business, all day, every day - no exceptions
6) Instead of tracking trending of regional housing values or international economies, your spreadsheets track and graph nursing trends and the frequency and nature of dirty diapers.
7) You may discover errant feces on any part of your body at any time. It's probably not yours, but still. . .
8) Alarmingly, you don't panic at said errant feces from item 7. You may find this difficult to reconcile.
9) You find that you have a preference between handling projectile vomiting or projectile diarrhea. Not that you have a choice, but the fact that you have a preference at all seems a little twisted.
 |
| *Edited for content. The top half of this picture (not shown) is both horrifying and hilarious. |
10) The line separating six weeks and forever is alarmingly blurred. Six. friggin'. weeks.
11) You don't work out at the gym anymore, but you may have developed a custom arm, shoulder, traps, core, and leg toning program based on one 8 pound weight. Don't worry, this weight should increase by around 1 oz. per day (but try to control your own).
12) You may feel regret for not paying better attention to lyrics during singing time in Primary. Most lullaby's and songs invariably turn to "bloo bloo, blee blah, zong dee zee dong."
13) You and your wife hold a small celebration every time your baby burps, farts, or poops. You still cry after the blowouts.
14) You notice an increase in flatulence on account of bouncing four hours a day. Just go with it - baby can use the pointers and your wife will appreciate less poo-particles in the bed.
15) You will likely experience a redistribution of hair from your head to your middle and upper back. No words of comfort on this one.
16) By the time 8:30 PM rolls around, you and your wife have the same thing on your minds. . . bedtime (sleeping, specifically).
17) Your vocal cords will tighten significantly when communicating with your baby, resulting in a pinched contra tenor or higher voice register. Low-register grunting from time to time will reassure yourself and others of your masculinity.
18) Despite quizzical stares from bystanders, you probably wear a diaper bag with pride. As long as you're not wearing an outfit to match the bag, this is perfectly normal.
19) You're certain that the greatest gift you can give the world is to give everyone a glimpse of your baby. Just be sure to be sensitive to others whose children are not nearly as cute as yours, okay?
20) Your life is completely turned upside down, but you find that you wouldn't trade it for the world (even though sometimes you want to shoot yourself in the face).
Welcome to fatherhood, you studly man. High fives all around!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Planning Your Next Trip? Do It Right!
Most everyone has heard of the internet. If you don't have a Hotmail or AOL e-mail address, you might even be aware of travel sites like Travelocity, Orbitz, or Expedia. Ideally, you have heard of Kayak for all of your flight, car, cruise, and general "where-the-crap-should-I-go" queries. It is also helpful for aggregating hotel information internationally, but I do not recommend this site for domestic hotel stays (more on that in a moment).
Truth is, many of these sites access data from the same travel database company, Cambridge-based ITA Software. Incidentally, Google recently purchased the company for $700 Million [Google Travel, anyone?]). Therefore, until Google creates some ridiculously amazing travel tool, the only differentiating factor between searching for your travel deals from Kayak, Orbitz, Expedia, Bing, or others is the user experience and interface. This is where Kayak beats the pants off the rest of these jokers. The experience begins as you would expect, but once the query is complete, you can apply filters to just about every detail related to travel (take off and landing times, dates, stops, airports, airlines, flight quality, trip duration, layover duration, etc.). Also, my experience has shown that Kayak uses additional international carrier data that doesn't show up elsewhere.
If you're looking for a deal on domestic US hotel stays and you're flexible with hotel brands, there is no other substitute worth looking at besides Priceline (Name Your Own Price, to be exact). The quandary with naming your own price is having a frame of reference on where to begin. Using forum sites like biddingfortravel.com or betterbidding.com will give you a general idea on what prices are winning which star ratings in different city zones. Would you believe that the average price paid for a 4 Star hotel in New York City is $132.56? Did you know you can stay in a 3.5 Star hotel in Los Angeles for $61.18?
Truth is, the bidding process can get emotional and a little tricky at times, but using Priceline will save you far more cash than an extra 100,000 loyalty points could ever offer for paying retail. The good news? I am involved in developing a travel website that will hold your hand through every step of the bidding process. Using current and historical data and pricing trends, it will prompt you on the starting bid, bid increments, and bidding strategy. Brilliant!!! You can be sure I'll post on this later, so stay tuned!
If you're planning a trip and you're not a fanatic of Excel, it may be worth your time checking out TripLittle. This free service will walk you through the whole process of budgeting your trip, creating your itinerary, and planning your packing list. It's very simple to use, and it just might remind you of something you hadn't considered. Perhaps you forgot that the price of fuel in Europe is $9.00 / gallon. :)
One more thing to consider as you're planning your next amazing trip: Once you've aggregated the costs of flight, hotel, car rental, food, souvenirs, and all that other junk, the "Total Cost" at the bottom of the list may surprise you. What may surprise you even more is looking into the cost of a Cruise instead. I recently priced out the cost of a three week trip from the US to UAE, Jordan, Israel, and Egypt. Not including museum, touring, and souvenir costs, it would be about $5,800 per couple (and that includes spending 14+ nights in my guest bedroom, free of charge). I looked at that and thought to myself, "self, that seems like a lot."
So, just for kicks, I decided to price out a three week Mediterranean Cruise, along with flights to and from Barcelona. The result? $6,500 per couple, including airfare, two nights in a hotel, cruise price including taxes, and $500 each for tours and souvenirs. And get this, you would see Morocco, the Canary Islands, Madeira, Spain, Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Malta! I won't speak for you, and maybe you're just dying to visit me and Dubai and the Emirates Palace, but I would take the Cruise over the trip any day of the week. Cruises are saweeeeet! My two cents, anyway.
One last word - last minute cruises generally go for a song, so if you can stomach a little ambiguity about where you want to cruise, try to book within 30 days of departure for the best deals around. Also, go through the hassle of visiting CruiseCompete.com - I got a quote from them substantially less than any other travel site for my Mediterranean cruise last Summer. In October, there was an 18 day Royal Caribbean cruise departing from Dubai, touring Oman, India, the Maldives, and porting in Singapore for $499 US. Who in their right mind could pass up an opportunity like that???
Happy traveling!!!
Kayak
Priceline
BidWizard (Our new hotel booking site - coming soon!)
TripLittle
CruiseCompete
Questions? Other helpful sites? Let me know in the comments!!!
Truth is, many of these sites access data from the same travel database company, Cambridge-based ITA Software. Incidentally, Google recently purchased the company for $700 Million [Google Travel, anyone?]). Therefore, until Google creates some ridiculously amazing travel tool, the only differentiating factor between searching for your travel deals from Kayak, Orbitz, Expedia, Bing, or others is the user experience and interface. This is where Kayak beats the pants off the rest of these jokers. The experience begins as you would expect, but once the query is complete, you can apply filters to just about every detail related to travel (take off and landing times, dates, stops, airports, airlines, flight quality, trip duration, layover duration, etc.). Also, my experience has shown that Kayak uses additional international carrier data that doesn't show up elsewhere.
If you're looking for a deal on domestic US hotel stays and you're flexible with hotel brands, there is no other substitute worth looking at besides Priceline (Name Your Own Price, to be exact). The quandary with naming your own price is having a frame of reference on where to begin. Using forum sites like biddingfortravel.com or betterbidding.com will give you a general idea on what prices are winning which star ratings in different city zones. Would you believe that the average price paid for a 4 Star hotel in New York City is $132.56? Did you know you can stay in a 3.5 Star hotel in Los Angeles for $61.18?
Truth is, the bidding process can get emotional and a little tricky at times, but using Priceline will save you far more cash than an extra 100,000 loyalty points could ever offer for paying retail. The good news? I am involved in developing a travel website that will hold your hand through every step of the bidding process. Using current and historical data and pricing trends, it will prompt you on the starting bid, bid increments, and bidding strategy. Brilliant!!! You can be sure I'll post on this later, so stay tuned!
If you're planning a trip and you're not a fanatic of Excel, it may be worth your time checking out TripLittle. This free service will walk you through the whole process of budgeting your trip, creating your itinerary, and planning your packing list. It's very simple to use, and it just might remind you of something you hadn't considered. Perhaps you forgot that the price of fuel in Europe is $9.00 / gallon. :)
One more thing to consider as you're planning your next amazing trip: Once you've aggregated the costs of flight, hotel, car rental, food, souvenirs, and all that other junk, the "Total Cost" at the bottom of the list may surprise you. What may surprise you even more is looking into the cost of a Cruise instead. I recently priced out the cost of a three week trip from the US to UAE, Jordan, Israel, and Egypt. Not including museum, touring, and souvenir costs, it would be about $5,800 per couple (and that includes spending 14+ nights in my guest bedroom, free of charge). I looked at that and thought to myself, "self, that seems like a lot."
So, just for kicks, I decided to price out a three week Mediterranean Cruise, along with flights to and from Barcelona. The result? $6,500 per couple, including airfare, two nights in a hotel, cruise price including taxes, and $500 each for tours and souvenirs. And get this, you would see Morocco, the Canary Islands, Madeira, Spain, Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Malta! I won't speak for you, and maybe you're just dying to visit me and Dubai and the Emirates Palace, but I would take the Cruise over the trip any day of the week. Cruises are saweeeeet! My two cents, anyway.
One last word - last minute cruises generally go for a song, so if you can stomach a little ambiguity about where you want to cruise, try to book within 30 days of departure for the best deals around. Also, go through the hassle of visiting CruiseCompete.com - I got a quote from them substantially less than any other travel site for my Mediterranean cruise last Summer. In October, there was an 18 day Royal Caribbean cruise departing from Dubai, touring Oman, India, the Maldives, and porting in Singapore for $499 US. Who in their right mind could pass up an opportunity like that???
Happy traveling!!!
Kayak
Priceline
BidWizard (Our new hotel booking site - coming soon!)
TripLittle
CruiseCompete
Questions? Other helpful sites? Let me know in the comments!!!
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Brief Introduction
Like many of you out there, I consider myself to be a tech and business geek. Not only that, but I have to admit that I'm an Apple fanboy. That doesn't mean I hate Google (or Microsoft) - it just means that I may have a little more bias toward Apple from time to time. Besides just enjoying tech, I do a considerable amount of research in technology, and I figure that there must be another sucker out there who might actually appreciate some of the things I find along the way.
Since confessions are out on the table, I also admit that I would consider myself a very frugal person. From time to time, people might even accuse me of being cheap. Fact is, I regularly pass up expenses like shopping, eating out, or going to the movies so that I can spend my money on more meaningful objectives like sporting goods, electronics, and travel. If it's easier for you to remember that I'm cheap, I'll wear the badge with pride. I will definitely post on the frugal (read: smart) approach to the latest and greatest tech and travel deals.
I should like to write about business as it suits me - perhaps the latest business idea or venture I'm involved in. And certainly, if there is anything that you would consider helpful or interesting, please let me know in the comments and I will make it happen!
And yes, I consider Apple Keynote days as work holidays.
Thanks for reading!!!
Since confessions are out on the table, I also admit that I would consider myself a very frugal person. From time to time, people might even accuse me of being cheap. Fact is, I regularly pass up expenses like shopping, eating out, or going to the movies so that I can spend my money on more meaningful objectives like sporting goods, electronics, and travel. If it's easier for you to remember that I'm cheap, I'll wear the badge with pride. I will definitely post on the frugal (read: smart) approach to the latest and greatest tech and travel deals.
I should like to write about business as it suits me - perhaps the latest business idea or venture I'm involved in. And certainly, if there is anything that you would consider helpful or interesting, please let me know in the comments and I will make it happen!
And yes, I consider Apple Keynote days as work holidays.
Thanks for reading!!!
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