Things that matter

photo by: austinANOMIC

Brring-brring. “Farndale *(quote author), where the hell is your copy?”

“Ah yes, copy. Prose. The written word. Did I tell you that Joseph, our four-year-old, has just written his first word? It’s ‘tbehsp’. Must be Eastern European or something. Not a language I recognise, anyway. Little chap is very gifted.”

“What the —- are you talking about?”

“Like it, like it. An ironic allusion to The Sunday Telegraph’s campaign to stop people swearing in public life. Topical.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“Thanks for asking. I have been feeling a little run down lately. Must be the weather.”

“You’re fired.”

Researchers in Britain say that the ideal phone conversation should last for nine minutes and thirty-six seconds. That is based on the analysis of what more than 2,000 people liked and disliked about their phone conversations. You can read more on that on telegraph.co.uk.

But what should a phone call be? The ideal phone call should be a brief exchange of a few vital pieces of information. Just like a telegraph note in the past, only updated to have voice and almost complete mobility. Read the rest of this entry »

“Way down deep, we’re all motivated by the same urges. Cats have the courage to live by them.”
– Jim Davis

Everyone has urges. Some of those urges are natural and healthy (when they’re not abused, e.g. sex, eating), some are neutral (again, when not abused, e.g. thinking of a big screen TV or a new fancy car), while others are artificial and destructive (e.g. drugs).

What happens with an individual when it becomes the subject of destructive urges? Usually, he tries to suppress them by distracting or talking himself out of them. Lack of education in the aspect and the somehow natural feeling that suppression is the right thing to do are at least two of the factors contributing to it. But suppression usually just feeds the urges and creates the illusion that they are conquered and under control.

Suppressing a thought, feeling or sensation, including pain, ultimately increases it. Read the rest of this entry »

Enough is as good as a feast.
– English Proverb

This paper has been around for a while, but I’m sure there are quite a few people that haven’t read or even heard of it. It is a study showing how having too many choices can result in lower satisfaction from the choice made, lower probability of actually making a choice and lower quality results from it.

The information presented in this paper is useful for businesses that specialize in product and service sales ( both online and offline), but also for the regular person that either tries to make a ‘right’ choice in life or in a store.

Findings from 3 experimental studies starkly challenge the implicit assumption that having more choices is necessarily more intrinsically motivating than having fewer.

Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. R. 2000. When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing?

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2000, Vol. 79, No. 6, 995-1006.

Copyright 2000 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

photo by: René Ehrhardt