Mark Kolier’s Blog

Since I am a busy person and am not much of a shopper (more the type of buyer that walks into a store to buy what he came for and then walks out), shopping on the web is a great option for me. During the holidays I, like so many people, relish every opportunity to not have to fight the store crowd to purchase gifts.

My estimation is that more than 75% of the time I shop online. I have fairly high confidence that my credit card info will not be stolen (it used to be higher), and that the right goods will be shipped to me in a reasonable amount of time if I’ve not specified a special delivery.

So when I noticed that I was running low on after shave/cologne and realized that I had no time to go to the store I decided to try shopping for it online. It seems to me that very few men would go out of their way go to the store specifically to buy men’s cologne as it is the kind of thing you pick up when you are at the mall or department store shopping for other things and you remember to buy some so you won’t have to make a special trip.

Since I am an Amazon Prime member I checked it out there first. The annual membership to Amazon Prime offers ‘free shipping’ which is actually not free since you pay $79 a year for the membership. I checked out the offerings for men’s cologne on Amazon and they had a fair amount but it was not all that well organized and a bit clunky.

I then decided to try Perfumania.com (Sephora.com was next on my list). The Perfumania.com site was well organized and easy to navigate. They were having a June special which was clearly marked on the home page. Sephora.com also looked intuitive and easy to use but there were no specials listed on the home page. I bet you can guess where I decided to shop.

The prices on Perfumania.com were lower than Amazon.com – not substantially but lower. And free shipping was offered for orders over $60. Yes I was having some second thoughts about my Amazon Prime membership. A free gift was offered as well as samples and they were having a buy one get one for half price special also (something they term BOGO which is not the greatest name I thought as its only one letter away from BOZO).

Off I went placing my order by choosing the cologne I wanted. And then I hit the wall. The site was interminably slow and when I tried to load 2 items into my shopping cart the sands of internet time just kept on spilling. When I hit refresh it took me back a page and I had to enter in all my information a second, (and then third) time! And while I did not want to pay half price for another item of the same sort,( I did like the option however), the instructions were that I would be able to do it at time of order. But I never saw the option once I FINALLY got into the shopping cart.

At last I was able to make my purchase and check out. Yet the experience which had the potential to be a very good one was undermined because of the slow and frustrating performance of the site interface.
It’s something to keep in mind – you can get everything right, but then if you drive the customer crazy by making the navigation or site process difficult you will have more than lost what you gained.

Do you have any good stories to share that illustrate what I am writing about?

If you had not yet heard starting in January of 2012, light bulbs have to be at least 25% more efficient than the ones we’ve been using for years invented by Thomas Edison way back in 1879. Bulbs that have been inexpensive and disposable will be disappearing by 2014. An excellent article last week by Gwendolyn Bounds of the Wall Street Journal http://on.wsj.com/lpUdSB outlines the features and benefits of the new and old bulb technologies.

In our discussions with Chinese companies we’ve explored the idea of helping them bring LED light bulbs into the United States. So far there has been a great deal of hesitancy on the part of the Chinese companies we have met with to lead with LED light bulbs to be marketed to American consumers. Part of the reason is that sales of building-wide lighting systems are substantially larger and easier than selling individual light bulbs to individual American consumers. However we firmly believe (as the article supports) Americans will be VERY receptive to LED light bulbs once the prices come down which they are predicted to do in a relatively short time. It is our belief that direct-to-consumer marketing of LED light bulbs would allow for lower pricing to happen even more quickly.

Compact Fluorescent Bulbs (CFL’s) have been a step in the right direction but as I have noted before (link to your previous blog post) the trace amounts of mercury found in them is of great concern and for the most part they are not dimmable which is a major drawback. That they are odd-looking unless housed in an outer bulb is more of a minor issue.

The current pricing for LED light bulbs are $20-$55 each. This is in stark contrast to traditional incandescent bulbs which are priced at 25-50 cents each or even CFL’s which average $2 to $5. We are talking 100 times the cost here! The life spans of LED are not 100 times as long as traditional incandescent – more like 25-30 times. The annual operating costs of LED bulbs however are less than 25% per bulb as compared to traditional incandescent bulbs.

Once prices for LED bulbs come down into the $10/bulb or less range the idea that they last 25 times longer and use less energy will have people clamoring to buy them. And they will have to come down in price since I wonder about how people will feel when they drop and break a $20 or even $50 bulb. Dropping and breaking a $ 0.50 bulb is mess. Dropping a $ 20 or even $ 50 bulb is a catastrophe!

What would it take for you to ‘switch’ over to an LED bulb? Is there a price threshold? Would you miss 132-year old technology?

They’re everywhere – iPads. On the train to New York City, on planes, all over the globe I see people using them more and more. As yet I have not succumbed to Apple or any other tablet maker.

Part of my hesitancy in general has to do with the monthly charges that come with tablets when not using Wi-Fi. It appears to range from $ 15 – $ 25/month depending on usage. I am well aware of iPad’s Wi-Fi connectivity. I am also aware of the geographic limitations of that same connectivity. Having used an iPad a few times it is an impressive piece of technology.

There are alternatives. The most recent effort is from RIM (maker of Blackberry) called ‘Playbook’. The website ‘Digital trends’ has listed a number of them and reviews have been lukewarm. And the cost for a supplemental data plan from Sprint can be $ 30 per month. PC magazine recently did a review of iPad alternatives – http://bit.ly/l2R0yB, There are indeed a number of options but none really that have been deemed a worthy competitor to the iPad as yet.

At Computex in Taipei Tuesday, some new models were introduced. A company called Asustek offered the ‘Padfone’ to be released in time for Christmas. Already there are countless tablets currently on the market – Dell has a ‘Mini 5’, HP the ‘Slate’, Lenovo the ‘U1’, Archos (I had not heard of this) the ‘Archos 9’, Asustek the ‘Eee Pad Transformer’, Acer the ‘Iconia Tab A500’, Gateway has the ‘EC18T’, HTC the ‘Flyer’, Motorola the ‘Xoom’, Samsung has the ‘Galaxy Tab’, and of course Barnes and Noble has been making noise with the ‘Nook’ which is not really a tablet as it only has WiFi connectivity Many of the newer tablets are running on Google’s Android platform. As for other tablets there are more and I could go on but won’t.
Since I still read newspapers (3 of them daily) the idea that I could get them delivered on my tablet is interesting but then I remember that my wife and I both like to share and read the newspaper in the morning (at least when I am not traveling) and tablets are not really ‘sharable’. And subscriptions to iPad content while less expensive than print content are not all that less expensive.

I don’t see myself watching many movies on a tablet – I simply do not have the time nor interest. It could be useful when traveling and a downloaded movie could be played on the hotel television but I am guessing that hotels are on to that idea and will disallow Fire Wire or connection to the television so as not to cannibalize their usurious charges for in-room movies (really – $ 14.99 for a movie in a small hotel room?).

I’ve seen my associates use the iPad to deliver PowerPoint and other presentations and that’s kind of cool as tablets are much lighter and more portable. But I remain on the fence. Will I really use a tablet? Will it be a replacement for a laptop (you can purchase a foldout keyboard for a tablet so there is a way to not have to type on the screen which seems like a big pain in the neck to me)? Or will a tablet purchase add to the technology I lug around – mobile phone, laptop, extra batteries, cords and such?

I think I am getting closer to purchasing a tablet and at this point the iPad still is the clear front runner. It still bugs me that Apple does not support Flash and HTML5 is still not ready for prime time. But until a clear alternative emerges I am likely to watch the tablet game from the sidelines.

Ok all you iPad and other tablet owners – let me know what I am missing.

With Katie Couric’s departure from CBS News I find it increasingly difficult to remember who the evening anchors are on the national news networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC). Last night I saw a promotion in the New York market to watch the evening news on NBC with Sue Simmons. As someone that does not watch evening news it seemed to me that Sue Simmons has been around for ages. I was right. She started in New York on ‘Live at Five’ with Chuck Scarborough in 1980. This means Ms. Simmons has been on the air in the New York metropolitan area for more than 30 years. She is far from unique. New York television newscaster Ernie Anastos will be 68 years old in July and has been on the air in New York since 1978.

Since most Americans get their news from a number of news sources and nearly 60% get their news from both online and offline services (source Pew Research Center http://bit.ly/m3rAl1) it surprises me that television news has not already gone by the wayside. I have respect for the professional abilities of longtime newscasters like Sue Simmons, Chuck Scarborough (still on the air also) and Ernie Anastos but I am guessing the only reason they are still on the air is that the local networks have not figured out programming that would draw more viewers in the same time slot – and accordingly, command more advertising dollars.

Another essay from Pew Research http://bit.ly/kFuV87 on the State of the News Media 2011 discusses both the durability and decline of television network news. (I am aware the newscasters I am noting are local affiliate newscasters). I am postulating that television newscasters are truly a vanishing breed and we will never see again a newscaster endure multiple decades on air.
And the most trusted ‘national’ newscaster in the United States today is….Jon Stewart. What does that tell you?

Hyper-local sites like AOL’s Patch (http://www.patch.com) offer news and information on an individual town basis. I think Patch could be seriously upgraded and can see a time in the near future where video coverage of local events (updated every 3 or 4 hours) could be made available on a website. It would be ad supported both within the broadcast as well as on the page itself. I’m not sure a subscription would work for something like that. But having video and stories from your local town – news, events, and sports (videos of kid’s and high school sports would be a huge draw) is relevant and highly engaging.

I like to watch Bloomberg News and have in on in the office all day. Do you watch the evening news? Do you watch the morning news or any television news for that matter?

I have traveled back and forth from New York to Lexington, Kentucky four times per year for more than 10 years. When I first went to Kentucky as a provincial northeasterner I had a general idea about what I thought Kentucky would be like. What I found out was that my pre-conceived idea was, by and large, incorrect. The people were and are and sophisticated, techno-savvy and there are great places to eat in and around the greater Lexington area. Not quite what I had imagined.

Today, when I talk to people about my trips to Kentucky they often roll their eyes and even snicker a bit. They have what they think is a general idea about what it’s like even though they’ve never been there. I am very careful now to not draw conclusions about things with which I have no experience. Of course I will have an idea or anticipation just like everyone else does, but I also want to allow myself to be surprised, while at the same time I want to be willing to challenge my own uneducated perceptions.

The same thing has been true regarding my travels to China. Before my first trip I had perceptions that in general turned out to be just plain wrong, like a country filled with morose, unhappy people living in a Socialist state or people that were unfamiliar with western customs and food that would be so unfamiliar I would not be able to eat. These perceptions like so many are built out of the limited information that is available to people – on television, in books and movies, and in the media.

It makes no sense to me to try to sum up people in places like Lexington, Kentucky or Shenzhen, China or anywhere else for that matter. Some people may fit certain generalizations but far fewer of them fit any particular category than one might imagine. And in so doing that’s how stereotypes are created.

Just because people live in a place does not mean they should be lumped together as being New Yorkers (loud and pushy), Angelinos (from Los Angeles – mellow and laid back) or Kentuckians – backward country bumpkins.

Generalizations are in my view counterproductive and even can be dangerous. We seem to want to make sense out of things by categorizing people either by where they are from, their ethnic or religious background, corporate affiliations or political views. I try very hard to take things as I see them and to not allow preconceived notions to rule my real-life experiences. It’s not always easy that’s for sure.

In general do you think this concept is worth your attention?