The Curse of Untrained Employees . . .

Or maybe not. Check out Denny Hatch's article titled The Curse of Untrained Employees.

My opinion: the Apple example is, most definitely, an illustration of lack of training and, in general, atypical of Apple stores. I can imagine the illustration from Simon & Schuster may be an example of lack of training--or of a really stupid policy. But I don't know about the BA (British Airways) illustration, nor the Sanofi Aventis and Amazon illustrations. I imagine the BA situation must arise from some strange government regulation, and the latter two merely identify mistakes and incompetencies that even well-trained people--and business owners!--will engage in from time to time.

And the royal palace? I am quite sure that has nothing to do with lack of training. Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me to find that the Queen herself initiated the attempt to acquire public assistance.

Anyway.

Enjoy.

And any math heads who can figure this out, I'd be much obliged: How do you think BA came up with a 46% APR . . . even if and as they roll their membership fee into a percentage rate? I mean, to hit 46%, even including the £150 fee, the "typical" Premium customer would have to charge, say, an average of only about £600 per year on their card, wouldn't they? £150 on £600 is 25%. Add the 19.9% "real" interest, and you're getting into the 45% range. I would imagine.

But that hardly seems "typical" of a Premium class BA customer! Does it?

(By the way, you can still find this offer today on the BA website.)

King Camp Gillette, II

On Thursday, January 28th, I asked, "To what extent is the iPad a potential heir to King Camp Gillette's "disposable razor" approach to profits?"

I was pleased to see, today, that someone else had the same thought, blogged on the 29th. Also, because he is obviously more tuned-in to Apple than I am, he explained far better than I--and with much greater sensitivity to the sources of income than I had--where and how Apple is following King Camp Gillette's philosophy:

I think Apple wants to give the iPhone and the iPad to as many people as possible at cost or with a small profit. . . . Now why would they do that you might ask?

The key reason, I would argue, is that Apple wants the magic of recurring revenues. This is the dream of many companies - to have millions of folks paying a small amount of money every month for using a service. What makes Apple stand out is the fact that they have an army of developers who are writing code for some very cool apps. Yes, there is an app for that. In fact, there is an app for almost every idea ever thought of.

Not only has the app store been widely successful, but Apple also has iTunes, and iBooks along with iTV coming down the road. So this is what I believe Apple’s business model is going to be: with 125 million people who are giving Apple their contact and credit card information, Apple has a huge base of customers, much like the newspapers and magazines did in the ’60s and ’70s, but on a much smaller scale. Now Apple can upsell products to those customers at will. The genius part about all of this is the fact that other people are creating products to be sold through the Apple store. Apple just reinvented the King Gillette model in a thoroughly modern way. Hats off to you, Steve.

That’s my take on Apple’s stealth business model.

Amen!

174 seconds of the most . . . stupendous . . . hyperbole

What a great, . . . great, . . . great, . . . wonderful, . . . phenomenal, . . . fantastic, . . . stupendous . . . video!

Enjoy!

iPad a game-changer

The marketing director at Sonlight Curriculum emailed me yesterday, just past noon, to inform me of the announcement, then being made, of the Apple iPad.

Interesting. Sonlight has been working on an "e" version of  its curriculum for some time, but the appearance of the iPad, I think, kicks development into high gear. Finally, there is a platform that can "do it all."

One wonders how the iPad will change the game for Amazon and its Kindle, let alone for Sony and its Readers, or Barnes & Noble and its Nook.
*******And while we're on the subject: I was impressed by Gary Trudeau's apparent cartoon scoop of the announcement.

Bouncing off of Trudeau's comment about people paying for content, and Apple and AT&T's working relationship with respect to monthly data plans, I wonder: To what extent is the iPad a potential heir to King Camp Gillette's "disposable razor" approach to profits? Really. I mean, it sounds as if I can do all the downloading I want for free as long as I use my home internet connection. So is Trudeau being unfair?

Latest breakthrough from Apple!

Exciting breakthrough in miniaturization:



Enjoy the ad.