Check out Minneapolis musician Chris Koza’s catchy track, “Adjust” off his most recent album The Dark Delirious Morning. Actually, just check out the whole album while you’re at it. Spice up these dreary November days.

“The honeymoon is over. By now, it is clear to teachers and parents alike if a student is experiencing difficulties adjusting to the new demands of the school year.”

Whether those demands are related to a new school, new coursework, new teachers, new classmates or a combination, it is important not to take a ‘wait and see’ approach. If difficulties are not addressed in a proactive manner, student motivation for school can dwindle, and behavior problems may increase.

Parents and teachers should begin by talking about the issue and building a positive working relationship with the student. Discussions should focus on the student’s assets, strengths, and interests. Begin by trying to learn what the student dislikes and his/her reasons those dislikes. Are assignments too hard? Are long-term projects overwhelming? Is a new teacher’s style more challenging? Is the student being bullied or alienated by friends?”

You can read the rest at ASAH’s Parents’ Connection

One of the many, many things that gets under my skin is people not setting up their new TV properly once home and plugged in.

Why does this bother me?
By default, TVs are not set up to look their best in the home. Out of the box the settings are all cranked up way too high. This is to give them the “wow” factor when on the shop floor, trying to make one brand stand out from the next.

I can’t understand how people can be happy with radioactive-looking grass, bright orange skin tones, shadows that look like black holes and extra lines around every edge. Especially if they have spent a pretty penny on their new appliance.

It’s a shame that a more natural default setting is not common – you’re left to settle for the glowing grass, or set things up yourself.

For a proper calibration, you really need a series of test screens (found on some THX certified and Disney DVDs – Aliens and Cars are two examples) or calibration built into the TVs menu system.

So what can you do once at home if you don’t have any of the above?
Follow the steps below for a quick and dirty method to getting the best from your TV;

• Before changing anything, you should turn off any ‘advanced’ settings.
  This will be things like Pixel Plus, XD Engine, Motion Hyper Brilliance, Super Mega Wonder-Depth, or any other pointless nonsense that was probably a marketing selling point for your TV. These are largely a waste of time and can be switched back on after you have set things up, if you feel you really need them.
  
• Dynamic Contrast is common place with LCDs now. Turn this off too.

• Watching the TV in pitch black or with mid-summer sunshine beaming into the room will affect the picture greatly. It’s best to configure these settings with the curtains drawn but the lights on.
• If your input (DVR, DVD Player, etc.) has options to adjust its picture, set these to ‘normal’, or the middle value, or whatever the default option is. There’s no use adjusting your TV if the source’s colour is turned up full blast or the contrast turn all the way down.
• Turn the Contrast, Brightness, Colour, Tint, Sharpness and Colour Temp of your TV all to their middle values before starting (Don’t worry if you don’t have all those options).

Backlight
Turn this to the middle most setting for now. Too high will wash out some highlights and make blacks appear grey, too low and it’ll be hard to make out some details. There will likely be an “auto” setting for this which should be switched on once calibration is complete.

Contrast
Pop in a DVD or Blu-ray and find a scene with some highlights and shadows. Something with clouds on a sunny day above a field of trees should be suitable.
Pause the scene (a Digital TV box with a pause function will also do).
Set the Contrast to the middle.
Start to turn the contrast down.
Take a note of the value just before the detail in the shadows disappears.
Start to turn the contrast back up.
Take a note of the value just before the detail in the highlights disappears (such as the clouds).
Set the contrast to the value in between the two numbers you noted.

Brightness
This time find and pause on a dark scene.
Within this dark scene look for something dark on something else dark, such as a lapel on a black suit, or the outline of black trousers in a dark room.
This will likely be the darkest value on any source you’ll be watching.
Start to turn the brightness down.
Take a note of the value just before the detail you found disappears.
Set the brightness to that value.
Any higher can result in dark parts looking grey instead of black. Any lower and you won’t be seeing all the details in dark scenes.

Colour
Find a program with natural tones. A football match or news report will do.
Turn the colour all the way down. Yes, so the image is grayscale.
Turn the colour up slowly until the colours look natural.
Take a note of and keep that setting.
If you start with the colour cranked up too high and work backwards, your eyes will desensitise and leave you picking a setting too high.
Don’t be surprised if you hardly turn it up at all, this is normal.

Tint
This should be left in the middle setting unless you notice the colour of the TV looking “off”. As in greens looking purple, reds looking yellow etc.

Sharpness
I can’t see why this setting should even be on modern TVs with digital connections. I can understand it for old analogue connections where ghosting or bleeding would have been an issue. But on digital connections, each pixel should be displaying its own signal and nothing else. There should be no reason for ghosting or colour bleed nowadays. But, such is life.
All Digital Set Top boxes, DVD players and DVRs should have some sort of GUI.
Access this GUI and leave it on-screen.
Set the sharpness down to the lowest setting.
Slowly turn this up and take note of when vertical lines start appearing next to the letters and menus.
This should really be left at the lowest setting, but you may find yourself happier with an artificially sharper looking image at the expense of some ghosting.
Set this to your preferred value.

Colour Temp
Again, this should be left at the middle, or ‘neutral’ value, but the lighting in your room may leave the image looking too warm (to the red or orange side) or too cold (to the blue side).
Stay on the program with natural tones.
Adjust the value up and down until you find a value you feel conformable with. Unless your room is lit up with blue or red bulbs, you’ll likely find this can be left in the middle.

Save your settings!

Now, go back and do all that again, but WITHOUT setting everything to their middle values first this time.
This is because you may have knocked off a previous setting as you have adjusted a later one. For example, changing the colour to a more natural value may have changed the optimum value for the brightness and contrast.

Depending on your TV, you may need to do this for every source in use. i.e. if you have your DVR and DVD Player on separate inputs.

From here on you will likely find yourself tweaking the odd setting now and then as you watch various sources. This is normal. You are more likely to spot the odd detail missing or highlight washed out on a variety of images.

Try to avoid switching on all the extra super-special-advanced hyper settings if you can. These tend to add something to the experience that isn’t needed and can often make it worse. One example is was Philips’ “Pixel Plus”. This did some motion adaptation to try and make the image flow smoother and look more realistic, but instead took away from a movie’s cinematic feeling, instead making it feel like a live-filmed sit-com.
Not all are like this, some may actually improve something. I have yet to find one.

Please remember that not all sources are made the same. You will come across some dark films that look like the brightness is turned up to high. This will likely be due to how they have been authored and not your settings.
It’s easy to tell this on letter-boxed movies – the blacks bars at the top and bottom of the screen are pure black. Anything against these bars that should be black, but appear grey, will likely be because of how the film has been mastered.

Hopefully you’re now enjoying your TV a bit more than before.

One way to discourage an internet binge is to limit the comforts when browsing the web.

1) Adjust the monitor so it is too bright or too dark.

2) Turn the monitor 15 degrees in another direction so one can see what is on the screen but not with ease.

3) Choose a chair that one would normally not use (it is not balanced right, rickety, shakes etc.).

4) Keep the door/window open on a cold day.

If these ideas don’t do it, how about coming up with something else that works?

Got any really good ideas? Send them to us. They can be funny if you’d like but they should be respectable and repeatable to others.

Stop…Think…Take Action

(If you know of someone who can use an internet usage reminder why not pass this on to them?)

A girl after she got married and moved to her husband’s house, very often she phoned up her mother asking for suggestions concerning how to handle her in-laws. In no way she could mingle with her in-laws.  In addition, she will complain about them to her parents. She compared her husband’s actions with her father’s and pointed out the differences between them.

She developed a lower back pain. Lower back means place of support. There is no pain while sitting or lying. There is pain only while walking. The body says “you are secured here. By your behaviour don’t spoil your place in your new family. Adjust yourself to fit in here. This is your place of security.”

Soon after her marriage, the girl developed a feeling of being forsaken as she was away from her parents.  She felt insecure and lonely without her father around. A sense of incapacity had set inside her. She was resisting changing and adjusting to the new environment and thus a new phase of her life.

One dose of Bach Flower Remedy Walnut and Chicory cured her pain. Within one month, she acclimatized to the new environment.

Change is the order of life. Accept it.

Please check to know more about Mind-Body intelligence:

http://www.naranheal.com/mudras.php?cat_id=45

Windows 7′nin hoş bir görselliği var. Evet yüzyılın tespitini yaptım az önce. Efektlerde ekran kartının gücü kullanıldığı için bilgisayara çok bir yükü olmuyor diyorlar. Gerçi bu sistemi yıllar önce Ubuntu yapıyordu. Neyse sene 2009 Microsoft da yaptı. Geç olsun güç olmasın.

Efektler için şöyle seçenekler var:

- En iyi efektler

- Bilgisayarım için en iyi efektler(Bunu bilgisayarınıza yapacağı bir benchmark testinden sonra söylüyor)

- En iyi performans

- Uyarlanmış(Custom)

Şimdi benim gibi XP’den çıkmış şahıslar için yabancı arayüzde buralara ulaşmak için şuralardan geçiyoruz:

Başlat -> Bilgisayarım’a sağ tıklıyoruz ve “Properties” ya da “Özellikler”e basıyoruz

Çıkan pencerede “System” ya da “Sistem” penceresinin altında Rating kısmı var. Eğer ki Windows 7′yi yeni kurduysanız burada herhangi bir puan görünmez. Puan yoksa Rating’in karşısına basıp bilgisayarımızı kısa süren bir testten geçiriyoruz. Microsoft, sistemimizin gücüne göre 1.0 ile 7.9 arasında bir puan veriyor bize. Daha sonra Rating kısmının karşısında puanınız çıkacaktır. Onun yanındaki Windows Experience Index’e basıyoruz.

Puanlamanın ayrıntılarının göründüğü bir pencere açılacak. Sol menüden Adjust visual effects’e basıyoruz. Ve tadaa

Artık ayar penceresi açıldı. Gönlünce oyna, eğlen, değiştir.

Hah benimki böyle işte

Deepa told me few months back, “My husband is a rogue. I want to divorce him. How can I compromise on this issue?”

1. I gave her Bach Flower Remedies Rescue Remedy and Holy.
2. I asked her to do the acceptance Mudra and do the affirmations. Please check the link:
3. I asked her to affirm, “This is how god has made him. This is how god wants him to behave. With him, there is something I need to learn.”  The very statement may appear simple. But, it works very well with couples.
4. I also asked her to affirm, “This is how god has made me. Let me not interfere with Divine Will. I am happy to accept God’s Will and Divine Order from today”.

Acceptance will come when you understand there is a divine purpose behind everything and if we do not to interfere with the Divine Order. When you accept, automatically a new pattern of thinking will come and you will feel a new surge of energy.

Change in you will change the other person. We only need to have patience and acceptance. Then alone we can adjust to our circumstances. Life is nothing but adjustment and comprise. That’s the Bach Flower Remedy Walnut! (Take Walnut or chant the Switch Word ‘Adjust’)

Feedback from Deepa

“Till today I feel alright. I have become a new person. I could accept my husband as he is”. 

Naran S. Balakumar: Whenever she meets me, she used to say, “These affirmations are so divine that the moment I think about them, unusual peace dawns on me and all my anger vanishes.”

Congratulations to Adjust of Advanced Placement and Bottom Brick for winning the Columbus ‘So You Think You Can Rap’ Contest.

Check him out at myspace.com/adjust614

He beat out eight other acts in the final round to grab first place.  He wins $1000 and the coveted opening spot for Talib Kweli on Nov. 6 at Skully’s

Just thinking……

We have been in our new home now for two weeks as of today. I am somewhat homesick for our old place and community and church. But I keep telling myself that God has been in control of this entire move; He has never let us down, and He always has the best plans laid out for us. Strange…… it’s not that I really am doubting God, but I sometimes dwell on what I had versus where I am now. Am I like the Hebrew people longing for cucumbers of Egypt?

Last night, I dreamed that we went back to our old home. The new owners were having a party and invited us in. The place was unrecognizable. I could not find my beautiful kitchen and the entry was all different. We stayed at the party for a while, and then left. In a way, this was a liberating dream, letting me let go a little.

Although I miss my wonderful custom designed home, I miss the people even more. We had such wonderful relationships with so many co-workers, neighbors, and church members. We knew so many, and so many knew us. We could count on people being there for us. Now we know no one except for family. It’s weird to walk into store and not recognize a soul. We have to completely start over establishing our reputation as being honest law-abiding citizens, and set up a web of trusted contacts. It will take time……
Meanwhile I cherish the emails and phone calls from old friends, and the letter from a friend that was waiting for us in the mailbox when we arrived. Our former pastor came to see us, and prayed for us as we settled into our new home.

Church is an important part of our lives, but we are finding it a difficult decision about where to worship. We are used to larger churches (although size really doesn’t matter). But it seems so odd to be in a city that is 5 times larger than the one we left, and yet hardly anyone goes to church. The churches are small, maybe 25 in attendance??, and the one we tried was rather cold. We went there for Ss, Church, a special occasion, and Wednesday night. One person spoke to us. The Sunday School class for adults was a lecture for anyone between 18 and death, whereas, we were used to a small groups who shared and prayed and studied the Word. We are used to vitality in our worship, and here it seems one heartbeat from death. We were used to people being very excited about going to church, and there doesn’t seem to be excitement here, but rather a ho-humed-ness. So our prayer is: where does God want us to worship and serve? I have no doubt that He WANTS us to worship and serve; we just don’t know where.

The weather is colder up here, the prices are higher, and the house was not clean when we moved in. Gripe gripe gripe…..

On the plus side (and yes, there is a plus side), we are near family, and the grandkids have been here helping us put books and toys away. I also landed a job teaching two classes for the local college, so that is a plus, and it is two classes that I really enjoy. We have a lovely home with so much space and nicely decorated. So God has been good to us, and has provided so much.

The unpacking has been going slowly, and we are not finding things that we are sure we owned! Plus we are finding things that we have no memory of owning, or things that make us wonder why we ever thought we had to own them. It’s been, well, uh….. slow…….

But this is where we are. Father, point us in the right direction. Guard our paths and direct our days. Amen.

To God be the Glory…..
bug

September 30, 2009

LESSON PLAN – CHANGE

Some changes will have to been done in my lesson plan. Instead of having students create their presentation with PhotoStory on “Why are You Learning French,” the French teacher and I have decided to have them create it with MovieMaker.

PhotoStory is very nice and easy to use, but we wanted to have them create their document with more tools. It does not allow to have 2 audio at the same time. For instance, students are going to record themselves at different times during the school year, saved as mp3. 

Contrarily to PhotStory, they will be able, with MovieMaker, to add their own MP3 recording and also have a background music, which will end up being nicer. They will  download the music from http://www.freeplay.com/, which is a wonderful site where they can download music of various lenght, very appropriate for school presentations.

RUBRIC

The rubric will be used to grade students on:

• are students pronuncing the French words correctly? (grade will based on “did we understand the first time” or “I understood after the 2nd time,” etc)
• are the words correctly spelled (at this time it will be on vacabulary only, since they did not learn the verbs yet)
• did they include an image on each page?
• did they write and introduce themselves clearly on the title page, and was the title written in both languages?
• did have 3 pages to show the reasons they should learn French, with one reason per page?

Of course, the rubric may need to be adjusted as I am creating it.

Never forget your concession strategy. With new information, you may need to adjust the strategy often, but whether you are, make your concessions count. Whether you make concessions along the way or at the end of deliberations, think of them as tools in the negotiations, not required give-aways. And don’t think you have to make a concession each time the other side makes one, but try to make your concessions only when the other side gives too. Don’t worry about being seen as stubborn—you will be respected for your consistency. Generally it is a good idea to let the opposite side volunteer its own concessions rather than suggest them yourself.

Whenever making concessions, keep them small. Each inch should make good mileage. The other side needs to have something to chip at—giving too much too soon doesn’t allow the process of negotiation. Old hands recommend accompanying each concession with sweat and tears, emphasizing the importance and generosity of the concession. Whether the style of your arguments, they must contain the necessary content.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Lectures, Line of Sight

SUNCORP chairman John Story has blamed a poor profit performance on the bank’s failure to adjust quickly enough to changing economic conditions and says his bankers deserve to be paid less this year.

In the bank’s annual report published yesterday, the long-term chairman of Suncorp said the Queensland bank had been hit harder by the global financial crisis than others in financial services because of its diversified business base. However, Mr Story also blamed the former management of Suncorp for not reacting to changes in the Australian and global economy and for pushing ahead in banking businesses in which it could not compete against its major rivals.

Suncorp’s net profit for the 2009 financial year fell 40 per cent to $348 million, while the full-year dividend was cut to 40c, fully franked. The total dividend will be paid next week.

“The board, management team and I are only too aware that last year’s profit result, share price performance and dividends were deeply disappointing to all shareholders,” Mr Story said.

“We also accept there are things that, with the benefit of hindsight, we could have done better.

“I think we could have, for example, acted more quickly to slow business lending.”

Suncorp has now placed most of its business and corporate lending book into “rundown”, in a bid to concentrate on its core lending areas of residential property, personal and small business.

Former Suncorp chief executive John Mulcahy, who was ousted in February, would not comment on the criticism of the Suncorp strategy during his leadership of the bank.

“I’m in the next phase of my career now, which is building a portfolio of non-executive directorships,” Mr Mulcahy told The Weekend Australian.

In the annual report, Mr Story said the board had voted to cut the salaries of its main bankers, and that salaries for senior executives would be frozen at the rate that was paid two years ago. “Given our financial results, it was appropriate that executives be paid far less,” he said.

Nick Warren

You may not have noticed it but hidden away to one side of “Adjust” – the newsletter of the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council is a reference to the Summer 2009 edition of the Tribunals Journal. Within that journal are two articles on subjects of interest to anyone who has ever represented someone at what we now call First Tier Tribunals.

Melanie Lewis has written an article called “Walking A Tightrope To A Solution” dealing with “… strategies that can be used by a tribunal faced with a poorly represented party without compromising the impartiality of the hearing.”

Scroll back up the same document and you will find an equally interesting article by Nick Warren called “Ambitious Route” and describing “… the task of framing a new set of rules for the First-tier and Upper Tribunals.”

Happy reading.

Variations in the rate of exchange of the dollar against foreign currencies represent a difference of major importance in international logistics just as they do in any other facet of international operations. The design and operation of an international logistic system is based on a set of units of measure. Thus, as rates of exchange vary, so do the local costs associated with different local currencies; these include transportation, warehousing, inventorying, information processing, and other costs elements.

When variations in rates of exchange become substantial in magnitude, and significantly different between countries, it is usually necessary to re-evaluate the structure of the logistic system, to ensure that it is adjusted to keep it close to its optimal performance. By the same token, management reports must provide explicit identification of variations in costs due to variations in currency rates of exchange, as opposed to variations in performance.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Line of Sight

On Friday, August 14, 2009 a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld a decision by a Federal judge of the North Dakota Federal District Court not to overturn a jury’s verdict finding that American Family Mutual Insurance Company committed bad faith adjustment practices and should pay punitive damages.  The case involved a farmer, Thomas Moore, and his wife, who purchased a structure to use as rental property and insured it for $50,000.  The property burned down and American Family accused the Moores of arson, which apparently the jury concluded was so unfounded as to constitute bad faith on the part of American Family.  You can read the case here:  http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/09/08/083238P.pdf.

The jury concluded that the Moores should have received their original insurance claim of $48,414.97, as well as $1,150,000 for, among other things: economic losses that Moores suffered from loss of income on their rental property; the potential expenses they might incur as a result of being deemed uninsurable as a result of American Family’s reporting its unfounded conclusion to various agencies; and the related emotional trauma caused by the accusation that they were arsonists.  The jury also added $1,150,000 in punitive damages, which are warranted under North Dakota law where an insurer “guilty by clear and convincing evidence of oppression, fraud, or actual malice.”  The panel of Eighth Circuit judges held that the punitive damage award was not excessive and was supported by the evidence.

This case should be compelling reason for insurers to exercise appropriate discretion before accusing insureds of wrongdoing and/or denying an insurance claim.  Importantly, it should also encourage people who feel their insurance claims have wrongfully been denied to pursue their rights.  Minnesota does have its own version of North Dakota’s bad faith adjustment practices statues and provides a policy holder with the right to seek additional damages and attorneys’ fees if the insurance company acts in bad faith or is knowingly unreasonable.  These rights are affected where the insured proceeds with an arbitration or appraisal proceeding, so it is important to get proper advice before pursuing that option under an insurance policy.  Contact an attorney right away if you believe you are not being offered the insurance benefits you paid for.  Thomsen & Nybeck has insurance coverage litigation attorneys who can help.

Entry by Matt Drewes.  Matt is a shareholder at Thomsen & Nybeck, P.A. and head of the firm’s Community Association Representation Group and Co-chairs the firm’s Construction Defect Litigation Group.  He practices primarily in the areas of real estate litigation, townhome and condominium law, construction litigation, debtor/creditor law, insurance litigation and employment law.

Every girl has dreams of her prince charming. She has an image of him. He’ll be tall, dark, handsome will come on a white horse and sweep her off her feet. This image a girl gets from the various fables, fairy tales she reads or has heard from her grandparents. Since childhood she dreams of her man and her marriage. How will he be like? What will he meet me? Etc etc. but we all know they are all stories.

It’s seldom happens you find soul mate of your choice in every manner. Whether it’s a love marriage or arranged marriage, some where you do have to compromise or say adjust. But isn’t that wrong then, this can’t be love. Because you are changing the person you are in love with. If adjustment has to take place then that’s an arranged marriage and not love.

That debate can continue long and longer without giving any answer. So what’s the solution? No two people are same and its impossible that both will like each other’s each and every habit. The two concepts are not very different as it they seem to be. It’s just that in love marriage you meet the person, know him and then decide whether to marry or not. It’s not the other way round in arranged marriage it’s just that you meet person through your parents, and rest of the process is same. So why such a fuss? What for? It’s hard to understand.

Ultimately the basic aim is to be happy at the end of day. And failure in relationship can happen both in arranged as well as love marriage. It’s difficult to say whether relationship will be successful in future run or not. But if trust and love is there in a relationship it can bear any storm. Both should be compatible, in the sense must have same goals in life and thinking should be same to a certain manner. They must accept each other as they are but that’s easier said than done. When different thinking, different priorities are there, whether one likes it or not, somewhere this thought comes in mind, If I am doing this much for him he should also. A selfish thought, but difficult to prevent from coming into mind, making life all the more difficult.

But one truth is there, that each wants to be loved more than they love the other person and wish to find a person like that. I too wish the same.

Made for each other, but still couldn't be together.

Competency models provide a tool for determining exactly what skills are required to meet the different needs of the present and probable needs of the future. For example, general agents of a life insurance company are responsible for managing the overall operation of the agency. With increased competition the focus shifted to strategic marketing, territory development and building leadership teams. The company was concerned that the people it was selecting to fill the agent’s role might not be able to meet the challenges of the changing business environment. By using a competency model to determine what behaviors the general agents were now required to perform, the company realized that the job was very different from what it had been five years earlier. Consequently, the company could begin to adjust in selection criteria to reflect the changing demands of the role. It could also ascertain the training needs of the current general agents by identifying their skill gaps and deciding which of those gaps ought to be addressed immediately to ensure high performance.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Line of Sight

Companies need to delight customers to gain a competitive edge. The delight is referred to as a profoundly positive emotional state that results from having  one’s expectations exceeded to a surprising degree. The type of service that results in delight is “positively outrageous service”—that which is unexpected, random, extraordinary, and disproportionately positive.

A way that managers can conceive of delight I to consider product and service features in terms of concentric rings. The innermost bull’s eye refers to attributes that are central to the basic function of the product or service, called musts. Their provision isn’t particularly noticeable, but their absence would be. Around the musts is a ring called satisfiers: features that have the potential to further satisfaction beyond the basic function of the product. At the next and final outer level are delights, product features that are unexpected and surprisingly enjoyable. These are things that consumers would not expect to find and are therefore highly surprised and sometimes excited when they receive them. For example, in your classes the musts consist of professors, rooms, syllabus, and class meetings. Satisfiers might include professors who are entertaining and friendly, interesting lectures, and good audio-visual aids. A delight might include a free textbook for students signing up for the course.

Delighting customers may seem like a good idea, but this level of service provision comes with extra effort and cost to the firm. Therefore the benefits of providing delight must be weighed. Among the considerations are the staying power and competitive implications of delight.

Staying power involves the question of how long a company can expect an experience of delight to maintain the customer’s attention. If it is fleeting and the customer forgets it immediately, it may not be worth the cost. Alternatively, if the customer remembers the delight and adjusts her level of expectation upward accordingly, it will cost the company more just to satisfy, effectively raising the bar for the future. Delighting customers does in fact raise expectations and make it more difficult for a company to satisfy customers in the future.

The competitive implication of delight relates to its impact on expectations of other firms in the same industry.if a competitor in the same industry is unable to copy the delight strategy, it will be disadvantaged by the consumer’s increased expectations. If you were offered that free textbook in one of your classes, you might then expect to receive one in each of your classes. Those classes not offering the free textbook might not have high enrollment levels compared to the delighting class. If a competitor can easily copy the delight strategy, however, neither firm benefits (although the consumer does), and all firm may be hurt because their cost increase and profit erode. The implication is that if companies choose to delight, they should do so in areas that cannot be copied by other firms.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Line of Sight

Posted on Facebook July 6 at 3:20pm

Life is much like bowling. You have to know where to stand, where to aim, and how to guide your arm so that the ball goes straight towards the point you want to hit (or where you want it to curve into the point that you want to hit…if you’re really doing something). Whether or not you hit what you’re aiming for and/or got the result you wanted, learn from it and adjust.