Service of Follow-Ups II
October 29th, 2010
Categories: Age, Deception, Details, Double Checking, Follow-Up, Ka-Ching
I like to follow up on the topics covered. I did so last on January 14.
Being a twitch, details are important to me-and to service. I covered the topic directly in Service of Details and Service of Being Detail Oriented.
Here’s the update, where someone wasn’t:
The Wall Street Journal ran a headline, “Condo is Sold, After A Decade,” in the “Greater New York” section on October 9/10. The article went on to describe the sale of an important apartment in one of the most high profile cooperatives in the city, River House. Most New Yorkers know the difference between a co-op and a condo even if they rent. What happened to the headline writer at the Journal? [Most simply, in a condo, you get a deed to your apartment; in a co-op, you own shares in a corporation and must be approved by a board. In both you pay monthly maintenance.]
Service of Ka-ching was about the cockamamie new and unimproved New York State voting system. The election is on Tuesday. Last week, The New York Post reported that the instructions tell voters to fill in the oval above the name of your choice of candidate when it should be the oval below. More “details” than “Ka-ching? Wherever it fits, it’s a disgrace.
After I wrote about the Service of Age and, among other things, discussed the riots in France where workers wanted to stop at 60, not 62, I thought “what in the Sam Hill are these people going to do for 40 years?” A fellow office tenant told me today about a marketing class she is taking at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She didn’t know about this blog or previous post when she described her wonderful professor who founded FIT’s communications and advertising department. He’s 86.
We’ve covered deception quite a few times, most recently in Service of Who are We Fooling? I thought of it when I read Katy Tomasulo’s study, “95% of Green-Marketed Products Utilize Misleading Claims,” published on ebuild. The title says it all-except the subhead and second paragraph gave me pause. The subhead: “While only 5% of the 5,300 products examined by TerraChoice were free of some form of greenwashing, the results, including in the construction sector, showed improvement over last year.” Similarly the second paragraph: “On a positive note, that 95% is an improvement over last year, in which only 2% of studied products were free of greenwashing (and only 1% in 2007).” I need to write about green products soon. I’ve been putting it off.
Any thoughts on these updates or other follow-ups to share?
One of the nicest follow-ups involves the Toyota dealership in Rutland, VT. We usually schedule a check-up there over the summer because it’s cheaper (much cheaper), very, very civilized and somewhat convenient. They always send a “thank you” card for having used their services. A nice touch and follow-up.
KF,
That is a great follow-up idea and a good tip about asking a dealership if they have lower prices at one or another season. You’ve written about this amazing dealer previously–a keeper for sure!
Jeanne,
You wrote a piece on classical music and age and the demise of WQXR, “as we knew it.”
As most of your readers know, WQXR was saved and converted into a public radio station. The result: more talk, “acknowledgements” instead of “advertisements,” less news and when there is news, the listener is skeptical of its accuracy because of the left wing bias of public radio, and music that a friend of mine describes as a mix between a high school music appreciation class and panderingly modern.
A tip to your readers: there is on the internet a commercial radio station in Brescia, Italy, which broadcasts an attractive, intelligent cross section of classical music, including many historic recordings, 24/7, with minimal advertising and talking and the news three or four times a day. Try it. Besides Italian is a far prettier language than English.
It is interesting that Brecia, polulation maybe 300,000, can support a commercial good music radio station, and the NYC metro area, population, 20,000,000, can’t.
Jeremiah
Jeremiah,
I love hearing Italian, but don’t speak or understand it which probably would be an advantage as I do listen to music at the office. The ads and newscasts wouldn’t distract me were I to listen to this station. Or maybe I’d learn Italian.
WQXR just finished a week of fundraising generating lots of talk. Better than the alternative in the market otherwise bereft of calming, classical music.
Your point that NYC, an international city known for its cultural opportunities and excellent music schools, doesn’t support this traditional music, makes me sad. What next?
To diverge a bit, I wonder if Jeremiah listens to Public Radio. It has a reputation for being left wing, but takes pride in wingless news, and is a success at so doing, since it receives complaints from both left and right – which would not happen if its reporting was biased. I don’t listen to the new WQXR all that frequently, but have yet to hear it promote a set of views, and no, I do not plan to listen to an Italian station, when there is plenty of good music in my area. Depending upon location, checking the FM dial might result in finding WMNR, a strictly 24/7 classical station, with rare visits to classical jazz & bluegrass forms.
Regardless of political stripe, NPR does not feature loud persons who encourage threats of violence to those whose views are different to their own. Left or right, that sort of tactic stinks. Fox News features such an individual: Glenn Beck. Should I now stop watching football?