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I need some new blogs, please. If you work in the web industry, chances are your blog reading closely mirrors mine. To some degree, it should. When a new trend emerges or controversy brews, we’ll get trustworthy insight from various thought leaders as well as a helpful dose of sarcasm every once in awhile. That [...]

Renate catches a mind-numbingly early bus for work, and we’re being sociable tonight, so we pulled ourselves out of bed at 5:15 this morning to vote. If the polls hadn’t opened at 6, we would’ve been SOL. We would’ve been electoral miscreants. We would’ve been those people the pundits moan about every year (except 2004) [...]

Washington Mutual Bank (now breezily known as WaMu) wants us to believe they disdain the way banks charge customers for checks, overdrafts, ATM withdrawals, and so on. The company’s advertising campaign features a genial WaMu employee taunting a group of old, white bankers, who snicker at WaMu’s customer-friendly policies. Billboard ads feature the same codgers [...]

Apparently our city government has developed a taste for banning things. Scandalously delicious things. Things you must be told are bad for you. Things like fat. Yes, we’re too dang fat and the City Council is going to do something about it, dul gurn it. According to today’s Tribune, Chicago Alderman Edward Burke wants to [...]

Can you believe it? The good people at the Chicago Transit Authority have given me my very own subway car. I can do whatever I want with my subway car. I can leave my briefcase on the seat next to me in the morning even if the train becomes horribly overcrowded. I can board my [...]

It’s time to do our part as water-loving citizens of Chicago. The Mayor and other intrepid city planners want to implement new standards that would reduce the amount of bacteria in the Chicago River and create an environment in which fish can thrive (and people can avoid staph infection). From yesterday’s Tribune: Unlike most other [...]

EXT. WACKER DRIVE – EARLY EVENING DREW walks down the street toward the subway station, leaving a voice message for HIS WIFE RENATE. A WOMAN approaches, waving at him. WOMAN Excuse me? Hi. Hello? Drew looks at the woman, then looks at his phone as if to say, “I’m on the phone.” The woman waits [...]

A former colleague of mine had a handy metaphor for describing poor Customer Relationship Management (CRM): You work at an information booth. Someone walks up to you and says, ‘where’s the nearest gas station?’ You reply, ‘isn’t it a nice day?’ The person tries again: ‘I’m just looking for directions to the nearest gas station.’ [...]