on the vp debate

courtesy of the interweb...

simpsons quote of the day

Homer:  I used to worry Marge was too good for me - she was always thinking of ways to improve me.  But then part of her died, and she doesn't try anymore.  So we're all where we wanna be.

simpsons quote of the day

Lisa:  Dad we gotta do something.
Homer:  What can I do?  I'm only one man.
Lisa:  Lincoln was only one man.
Homer:  Are you sure there wasn't a midget in his hat?  There was an email that said there was.

on the title

The title of this blog is from a Simpsons episode (of course).

"Tied to a Bear" is the name of fictional reality TV show as depicted in a sign panned over in season 14 episode 5 (DABF21) Helter Shelter. It's when the Simpsons are at a tv studio auditioning to appear on "the 1895 House" another fictional reality show (based on the actual UK series The 1900 House). Other fictional reality shows depicted in passing signs are "Mystery Injection" and "Sucker Punch". "Tied to a Bear" won out over my other possible Simpsons based title also from season 14:

on aig

You can count on Krugman for a pithy one-liner on the AIG bailout...

on expectations

So far, school has been very organised, and very professional in presenting itself to us, the students. The slick presentations, videos and catering at orientation, the quality of the staff in the program office and the faculty, the meticulous thought and effort put into organising our study groups, timetables and seating arrangements. It's a big name school and we have come to expect professional service and management. So when something slips up, it jars, dents our confidence and can take us a while to forgive. I think about this now because for our first month of short introductory courses we were all given timetables and whole of stream events were loaded onto our personal calenders so we can follow the flurry of lectures, workshops, briefings and so forth.

A couple of weeks ago, however, a small slip up meant that we were not notified of a compulsory workshop until a few hours before it was due to start. Not surprisingly, we as a group were pretty unimpressed and a number of people missed the email and didn't make it. The workshop was advertised to us in some other package we were given during orientation - but we were given such a pile of material during orientation, no one had been able to get to this particular bit of information. We had been relying instead on the timetable and our calendars to give us the important things. Although school acted quickly to organise a repeat session and apologise for the confusion, some grumbling persisted.

This got me thinking about the expectations the school generated for us, and how a relatively small deviation from the standards we had been led to expect caused a disproportionate amount of dissatisfaction. With our expectations so high, a tiny event tarnished the school's brand in our eyes.

It got me thinking about how fragile reptuations can be, and how much they are worth. Like how a relativly small safety incident can cause so much damage the reputation of an airline which has built a massive brand on its reputation for safe flying. The lesson is: lower your customer's expectations.

on mba