As of tomorrow morning I will be back in Montreal after more than four months in sunny St. John’s. I have mixed feelings about my return, though this is mainly because shortly after I return I will have to move from my current apartment to a new apartment, though how this move is to happen has not yet been sorted out. Hopefully something will fall into place (my original plan was to buy a hand truck and move things between the two places several boxes at a time).
My return to Montreal not only means a return to class and school work, but also a return to busing and other related activities. Actually just today I received the schedule for my first week back on the job. It is hard to believe that it has been more than four months since I have changed a keg or bused a table.
Aside from a few busing shifts I will actually not have all that much on my schedule for my first few days in Montreal. This should be nice, and will hopefully allow me to see more of Montreal than I would see otherwise, or these several days off may just allow me to catch up on a summer’s worth of missed naps.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Thesis
That is to say that I'm doneish with my Masters thesis. I handed in my thesis to my readers on Friday. I defend next Friday. Corrections are due the Friday after that.
I've been working very hard for the past three weeks in particular. The last week was light on sleep, but I made up for it by sleeping for about 13 hours Friday night. I haven't slept that well since my NSERC USRA days. I've relaxed yesterday and today, but I'm going to be back hard at work starting tomorrow, when I begin the preparations for my talk.
Presuming I pass, I will immediately start my PhD here at Dal, again under the supervision of Dr. R.J. Nowakowski, which I am very much looking forward to.
I've been working very hard for the past three weeks in particular. The last week was light on sleep, but I made up for it by sleeping for about 13 hours Friday night. I haven't slept that well since my NSERC USRA days. I've relaxed yesterday and today, but I'm going to be back hard at work starting tomorrow, when I begin the preparations for my talk.
Presuming I pass, I will immediately start my PhD here at Dal, again under the supervision of Dr. R.J. Nowakowski, which I am very much looking forward to.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
A Few Quick Notes 111
-Another rainy St. John’s day today. What is surprising is how much time it has actually been raining this month. Maybe we will break a record.
-In 1998 or 1999, while I was still in high school, my mother and I made a small batch of dogberry wine. If I recall correctly we ended up with about 4 bottles, one of which was given to a friend for Christmas, two of which were consumed at the time, and the remaining bottle of which was left to age. For some reason that I still can’t quite figure out it became imperative that the bottle be opened a few days ago, or we were going to toss it. As someone who develops attachments to such things I was opposed to opening the bottle and preferred that we keep it in the basement forever. Anyway, the bottle was opened and after an initial sniff test it was determined to be acceptable to serve. Amazingly it seems that aging the wine made a huge difference. What had been an almost undrinkable product 8 or 9 years ago was palatable, though not in the realm of ‘good.’ Most noticeable was the very distinct and crisp bitter dogberry taste. In a few days this batch will be but a memory and it will be time to start on the next batch.
-Earlier this week, while skimming through the Globe and Mail online edition, I came across an article about $15 cups of coffee. After several descriptions of the supposedly abundant flavour of this coffee those of a less experienced coffee drinker were also included. While this woman acknowledged that the coffee was flavourful, it seemed odd to her that for the same price she could have had something she valued more, which in her case was lip-gloss. Aside from being baffled at a $15 cup of coffee, I was amazed that someone could manage to pay $15 for lip-gloss and not feel extremely ripped off. In full-blown student mode, not only could I buy lip-gloss, but also I could likely feed myself for 2 or 3 days on that kind of money. I guess some people value on different things.
-Recently, while looking at an undated report on portable classrooms I came across discussions regarding these structures at schools that I had attended. I was particularly taken aback by the photos of sub-par portable classrooms at I.J. These photos were disturbing not only because of the poor quality, but also because I had no recollection of these facilities (I can't even imagine where they might have been). Based on the evidence in the photos it is likely a good thing that they were gone by the time that I arrived, they seemed to be falling apart.
-While we have been doing relatively well at Rose and Thistle trivia the past number of weeks we haven’t been able to convert any of our success into a coveted $50 bar tab. Three weeks ago we had the infamous transcription error, two weeks ago we were out by a point, and last week we managed to foul up the tie-breaker question.
At Bitters this week we weren’t even close. Not only did we manage to do spectacularly poorly on the Tour de France round, we also managed to mess up several additional categories. Though we finished second last, we were only about 8 points away from the leader.
-In 1998 or 1999, while I was still in high school, my mother and I made a small batch of dogberry wine. If I recall correctly we ended up with about 4 bottles, one of which was given to a friend for Christmas, two of which were consumed at the time, and the remaining bottle of which was left to age. For some reason that I still can’t quite figure out it became imperative that the bottle be opened a few days ago, or we were going to toss it. As someone who develops attachments to such things I was opposed to opening the bottle and preferred that we keep it in the basement forever. Anyway, the bottle was opened and after an initial sniff test it was determined to be acceptable to serve. Amazingly it seems that aging the wine made a huge difference. What had been an almost undrinkable product 8 or 9 years ago was palatable, though not in the realm of ‘good.’ Most noticeable was the very distinct and crisp bitter dogberry taste. In a few days this batch will be but a memory and it will be time to start on the next batch.
-Earlier this week, while skimming through the Globe and Mail online edition, I came across an article about $15 cups of coffee. After several descriptions of the supposedly abundant flavour of this coffee those of a less experienced coffee drinker were also included. While this woman acknowledged that the coffee was flavourful, it seemed odd to her that for the same price she could have had something she valued more, which in her case was lip-gloss. Aside from being baffled at a $15 cup of coffee, I was amazed that someone could manage to pay $15 for lip-gloss and not feel extremely ripped off. In full-blown student mode, not only could I buy lip-gloss, but also I could likely feed myself for 2 or 3 days on that kind of money. I guess some people value on different things.
-Recently, while looking at an undated report on portable classrooms I came across discussions regarding these structures at schools that I had attended. I was particularly taken aback by the photos of sub-par portable classrooms at I.J. These photos were disturbing not only because of the poor quality, but also because I had no recollection of these facilities (I can't even imagine where they might have been). Based on the evidence in the photos it is likely a good thing that they were gone by the time that I arrived, they seemed to be falling apart.
-While we have been doing relatively well at Rose and Thistle trivia the past number of weeks we haven’t been able to convert any of our success into a coveted $50 bar tab. Three weeks ago we had the infamous transcription error, two weeks ago we were out by a point, and last week we managed to foul up the tie-breaker question.
At Bitters this week we weren’t even close. Not only did we manage to do spectacularly poorly on the Tour de France round, we also managed to mess up several additional categories. Though we finished second last, we were only about 8 points away from the leader.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Market Research
Several months ago, while I was still in Montreal, I received an email informing me that I had been specially selected to participate in a Chapters customer research initiative called Voices Advisory Panel. If I agree to participate they, Chapters, would, from time to time, send me brief surveys relating to my book shopping experiences. As I am a sucker for this kind of thing I agreed to participate and filled out my first survey. Now several months and surveys later I have noticed a few problems with this incarnation of market research.
One of the first major problems is the incentive program. I guess the idea is that by offering me a chance to win a $50 gift card I will jump at the chance to answer their surveys. This certainly isn’t what hooked me (as I am only there because I like answering surveys), and I doubt that it hooked that many others. The more I think about it the more insulting it seems. For some untold number of months or years I am supposed to take time out of my day just for the chance to win a $50 gift card? It seems that a scheme that they might consider would be to give all participants a $5 credit on their account, making it likely that they will spend the free $5 along with a few more supplied by the participant. As a participant, not only would I think I was getting a good deal I would also likely buy more. On top of this, I think that such a scheme has the ability to create devoted customers as well as make money.
So once one gets past the less than inviting incentive scheme and onto the meat of the exercise they are confronted by a series of poor questions and a badly designed series of surveys. One of the main problems with the questions seems to be the biases held by the writers. Frequently it is assumed that we as participants view the services offered by the store in the same light as management. On the survey on bargain books they did not offer me a place to show my disdain for coffee table books about WWII shipwrecks, or for that matter most coffee table books available in most bargain book sections. If they don’t know that the prevalence of coffee table books is driving me away from the bargain book section and they don’t offer me a place to provide them with this information then their questions relating to signage will be somewhat of a waste, especially if they don’t make a corresponding change to the distasteful content. Assuming that their sales problem relates to signage, or marketing, rather than available materials is a great oversight. If all you have to sell are coffee table books then the size of the font on a sign is not going to make a difference when it comes to my purchasing habits.
The problem of poorly conceived and poorly written questions is compounded by the decision that they have made to not allow one to skip a question. In many cases each survey I find that I am being forced to provide an answer that does not truly, or even come close to, representing how I actually feel about the situation. Depending on the number of respondents who feel this way they may have a problem on their hand. It is quite likely that all of this is for naught. They could be collecting survey after survey of completely worthless data and then making marketing decisions based on their pre-conceived and biased notions of what it is their customers want and respond to.
Though to give the authors of the surveys credit, in many instances respondents are given the opportunity to provide opinions in prose. Unfortunately, those analyzing the data then have to deal with individuals like me who take the opportunity to vent their frustration about the absurdity of the survey instead of instead of dealing with the desired question. An additional problem with this type of question that I know I create is that I tend to provide answers that may use a broader interpretation of the question or expect a greater degree of change than they might be willing to make.
At the end of the day the real question might be why I am complaining so vigorously about something I have continued to do voluntarily for some number of months. I guess I might feel this way because I am not fundamentally opposed to market research that has the goal of providing customers with a more desirable set of commercial offerings (even if the fundamental goal of the company is to make money). If this research is conducted successfully and the results properly analyzed and effective policies are implemented then, hopefully, the range of products and services available will more closely suit my needs than range of products and services that was available before this research. In this particular case I find it frustrating to see what could be thousands of people, myself included, spending time on a project that will eventually see likely see no positive results as a result of this tremendous expenditure of time and effort.
One of the first major problems is the incentive program. I guess the idea is that by offering me a chance to win a $50 gift card I will jump at the chance to answer their surveys. This certainly isn’t what hooked me (as I am only there because I like answering surveys), and I doubt that it hooked that many others. The more I think about it the more insulting it seems. For some untold number of months or years I am supposed to take time out of my day just for the chance to win a $50 gift card? It seems that a scheme that they might consider would be to give all participants a $5 credit on their account, making it likely that they will spend the free $5 along with a few more supplied by the participant. As a participant, not only would I think I was getting a good deal I would also likely buy more. On top of this, I think that such a scheme has the ability to create devoted customers as well as make money.
So once one gets past the less than inviting incentive scheme and onto the meat of the exercise they are confronted by a series of poor questions and a badly designed series of surveys. One of the main problems with the questions seems to be the biases held by the writers. Frequently it is assumed that we as participants view the services offered by the store in the same light as management. On the survey on bargain books they did not offer me a place to show my disdain for coffee table books about WWII shipwrecks, or for that matter most coffee table books available in most bargain book sections. If they don’t know that the prevalence of coffee table books is driving me away from the bargain book section and they don’t offer me a place to provide them with this information then their questions relating to signage will be somewhat of a waste, especially if they don’t make a corresponding change to the distasteful content. Assuming that their sales problem relates to signage, or marketing, rather than available materials is a great oversight. If all you have to sell are coffee table books then the size of the font on a sign is not going to make a difference when it comes to my purchasing habits.
The problem of poorly conceived and poorly written questions is compounded by the decision that they have made to not allow one to skip a question. In many cases each survey I find that I am being forced to provide an answer that does not truly, or even come close to, representing how I actually feel about the situation. Depending on the number of respondents who feel this way they may have a problem on their hand. It is quite likely that all of this is for naught. They could be collecting survey after survey of completely worthless data and then making marketing decisions based on their pre-conceived and biased notions of what it is their customers want and respond to.
Though to give the authors of the surveys credit, in many instances respondents are given the opportunity to provide opinions in prose. Unfortunately, those analyzing the data then have to deal with individuals like me who take the opportunity to vent their frustration about the absurdity of the survey instead of instead of dealing with the desired question. An additional problem with this type of question that I know I create is that I tend to provide answers that may use a broader interpretation of the question or expect a greater degree of change than they might be willing to make.
At the end of the day the real question might be why I am complaining so vigorously about something I have continued to do voluntarily for some number of months. I guess I might feel this way because I am not fundamentally opposed to market research that has the goal of providing customers with a more desirable set of commercial offerings (even if the fundamental goal of the company is to make money). If this research is conducted successfully and the results properly analyzed and effective policies are implemented then, hopefully, the range of products and services available will more closely suit my needs than range of products and services that was available before this research. In this particular case I find it frustrating to see what could be thousands of people, myself included, spending time on a project that will eventually see likely see no positive results as a result of this tremendous expenditure of time and effort.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
A Few Quick Notes 110
-Today is another nice summer day in St. John’s. While not hot, the temperature is by no means cold, though I can imagine that some might say that it is cool. Actually, while on my early morning bagel run with my sister, she claimed it was cool enough to need a jacket. Not surprisingly, at least from my perspective, she soon found that it was actually warm enough and removed the jacket.
-As some of you might have been able to deduce from comments written above, Georgetown Bakery has re-opened after their summer hiatus. Not surprisingly, it was pretty busy, many people obviously wanted their fix after going two and a half week without Georgetown products.
-On the subject of stores, several weeks ago I learned that the NLC store on Water Street will be closing in the near future, though I don’t know an exact date. Prior to learning that it was closing I learned, by reading NLC’s annual report, that, comparatively, it did not make that much money. For the year reported, the small store in Churchill Square and the Water Street stores had similar revenues.
This closure may cause some of you to worry that your access to high-end wines will be disappearing, but this is not the case. It seems that controversial new store, built on what was once a field, even now has a better selection of high-end wines than the Water Street store.
-On Tuesday, as is my practice, I went to the Rose and Thistle for their weekly trivia night. As the evening was to get underway promptly at 9:00 PM I arrived a little earlier than usual so that I would be sure to have a good table. Not surprisingly there wasn’t a big rush and upon my entry I became one of only two patrons in the bar. This wasn’t so bad as I had a free copy of the Town Cryer (sp?) with which I was able to distract myself.
With plenty of time to spare Peter showed up and we patiently waited for things to get underway. As we should have expected, this didn’t really happen at the pace that we had been lead to believe it would last week. As usual things got underway ten or fifteen minutes after 9:00 PM.
As the first fifteen questions were being asked there was a definite sense among the participants that they were on the easy side of things. Even if this is the case, my experience is that the second half is typically more difficult than the first half.
Anyway, as we proceeded to the second half we were feeling pretty good about the early round, and pretty good about the questions in the second round, though were definitely a few that we did not get. Unfortunately, the host did not open up a question about the boroughs of New York that would have allowed me to earn us an extra point. Anyway, thing were still ok. Fortunately this week, unlike last week, there were no instances of last minute changes or disagreements that lead to the correct answer being exchanged for the wrong answer. Shortly after the final question we handed the host a copy of our answer sheet (so that he can confirm the score we have given ourselves).
As the correcting started out positive feeling continued, it seemed that we had a few that several other teams had missed, though we also missed a few. By the time the grading had stopped we appeared to have 24 out of a possible 30.5. As the host counted down from 30.5 our hopes of winning grew, particularly as he a steadily approached out number without anyone else announcing a higher score. Suddenly he reached 24 and we alerted him of our having attained that score.
It seemed that another team also was trying to indicate that they too had a similar score. Actually, as it turned out, they were thought that they had 24.5. After the host checked their answers it became clear that they actually had only 24. The host then went on to check our score. Within a few minutes he came over to our table and indicated that he only was able to count 23 on our sheet. We then started to go through the questions one by one, that was until we reached the question about what “SWAT” stood for. It seemed that on the answer sheet that we had given him we had actually written “special tactics and tactics” instead of “special weapons and tactics” as we had written on our copy of the answer sheet. The biggest burn was that we had actually written the correct answer on the back of the sheet that we had handed him. I guess we will just have to be more careful next time.
-Several months ago, May 1 to be exact, I placed an ILL request at the A.C. Hunter library. Since the placing of the request over three months ago I have heard nothing from the library. By this point I would think that they might say that they will not be able to procure the book or give me some kind of time frame, or even just let me know that they haven’t forgotten about the book. I guess I should go back and let them know if they don’t have it shortly then it will be to late, I will have left the province. I just didn’t imagine that it would take more than 3 months (particularly when there is a free version of WorldCat with which they could have located a copy book in about 1 minute).
-Last night I played a game called ‘kubb.’ Apparently this game’s history can be traced back to the Vikings a thousand years ago. The basic premise of the game is that teams are trying to knock down the opposing team’s blocks before their own are knocked down. As one might guess, with a thousand years under its belt many variations have been developed, each of which adds a particular element to the game. If you are curious, it was pretty fun as well as simple. It should also be noted that this is definitely an outdoor game (though as a child I definitely would have been tempted to play a modified version in the living room).
-After reading a biographical timeline outlining the major events in Benazir Bhutto’s life in today’s Globe and Mail I examined their short list of sources. Along side such sources as the Encyclopaedia Britannica and H.W. Wilson were Wikipedia and Famousmuslims.com. While I don’t know exactly how these sources were used, I certainly hope that any information from any of these less than completely credible sources was confirmed in more credible sources. I really would not have expected the Globe, or any self-respecting newspaper, to turn to Wikipedia on such a subject, particularly when certain parties might be interested in presenting her in a certain light. While I don’t know that this is happening, I would still think it too risky to use Wikipedia because of the ease with which such tampering could occur.
-As some of you might have been able to deduce from comments written above, Georgetown Bakery has re-opened after their summer hiatus. Not surprisingly, it was pretty busy, many people obviously wanted their fix after going two and a half week without Georgetown products.
-On the subject of stores, several weeks ago I learned that the NLC store on Water Street will be closing in the near future, though I don’t know an exact date. Prior to learning that it was closing I learned, by reading NLC’s annual report, that, comparatively, it did not make that much money. For the year reported, the small store in Churchill Square and the Water Street stores had similar revenues.
This closure may cause some of you to worry that your access to high-end wines will be disappearing, but this is not the case. It seems that controversial new store, built on what was once a field, even now has a better selection of high-end wines than the Water Street store.
-On Tuesday, as is my practice, I went to the Rose and Thistle for their weekly trivia night. As the evening was to get underway promptly at 9:00 PM I arrived a little earlier than usual so that I would be sure to have a good table. Not surprisingly there wasn’t a big rush and upon my entry I became one of only two patrons in the bar. This wasn’t so bad as I had a free copy of the Town Cryer (sp?) with which I was able to distract myself.
With plenty of time to spare Peter showed up and we patiently waited for things to get underway. As we should have expected, this didn’t really happen at the pace that we had been lead to believe it would last week. As usual things got underway ten or fifteen minutes after 9:00 PM.
As the first fifteen questions were being asked there was a definite sense among the participants that they were on the easy side of things. Even if this is the case, my experience is that the second half is typically more difficult than the first half.
Anyway, as we proceeded to the second half we were feeling pretty good about the early round, and pretty good about the questions in the second round, though were definitely a few that we did not get. Unfortunately, the host did not open up a question about the boroughs of New York that would have allowed me to earn us an extra point. Anyway, thing were still ok. Fortunately this week, unlike last week, there were no instances of last minute changes or disagreements that lead to the correct answer being exchanged for the wrong answer. Shortly after the final question we handed the host a copy of our answer sheet (so that he can confirm the score we have given ourselves).
As the correcting started out positive feeling continued, it seemed that we had a few that several other teams had missed, though we also missed a few. By the time the grading had stopped we appeared to have 24 out of a possible 30.5. As the host counted down from 30.5 our hopes of winning grew, particularly as he a steadily approached out number without anyone else announcing a higher score. Suddenly he reached 24 and we alerted him of our having attained that score.
It seemed that another team also was trying to indicate that they too had a similar score. Actually, as it turned out, they were thought that they had 24.5. After the host checked their answers it became clear that they actually had only 24. The host then went on to check our score. Within a few minutes he came over to our table and indicated that he only was able to count 23 on our sheet. We then started to go through the questions one by one, that was until we reached the question about what “SWAT” stood for. It seemed that on the answer sheet that we had given him we had actually written “special tactics and tactics” instead of “special weapons and tactics” as we had written on our copy of the answer sheet. The biggest burn was that we had actually written the correct answer on the back of the sheet that we had handed him. I guess we will just have to be more careful next time.
-Several months ago, May 1 to be exact, I placed an ILL request at the A.C. Hunter library. Since the placing of the request over three months ago I have heard nothing from the library. By this point I would think that they might say that they will not be able to procure the book or give me some kind of time frame, or even just let me know that they haven’t forgotten about the book. I guess I should go back and let them know if they don’t have it shortly then it will be to late, I will have left the province. I just didn’t imagine that it would take more than 3 months (particularly when there is a free version of WorldCat with which they could have located a copy book in about 1 minute).
-Last night I played a game called ‘kubb.’ Apparently this game’s history can be traced back to the Vikings a thousand years ago. The basic premise of the game is that teams are trying to knock down the opposing team’s blocks before their own are knocked down. As one might guess, with a thousand years under its belt many variations have been developed, each of which adds a particular element to the game. If you are curious, it was pretty fun as well as simple. It should also be noted that this is definitely an outdoor game (though as a child I definitely would have been tempted to play a modified version in the living room).
-After reading a biographical timeline outlining the major events in Benazir Bhutto’s life in today’s Globe and Mail I examined their short list of sources. Along side such sources as the Encyclopaedia Britannica and H.W. Wilson were Wikipedia and Famousmuslims.com. While I don’t know exactly how these sources were used, I certainly hope that any information from any of these less than completely credible sources was confirmed in more credible sources. I really would not have expected the Globe, or any self-respecting newspaper, to turn to Wikipedia on such a subject, particularly when certain parties might be interested in presenting her in a certain light. While I don’t know that this is happening, I would still think it too risky to use Wikipedia because of the ease with which such tampering could occur.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)