A1 - In Ontario – Cell Phones with Bluetooth Voice Dial.

Q 2 - So what are the genius “marketing” folks at Bell, Rogers & Telus missing?

A2 – Opportunity. A giant opportunity - Missed.

Their collective web sites are almost void of information on Voice Dial. They continue to deliver hyper-babble mush about sleek features in hot pink, midnight black and pineapple white cases. ONLY Fido offered any close advice when doing a word search under Voice Dial.

For years these companies have pounded tens of millions of dollars expounding features that manufactures tear sheets said would sell more phones. NOW, HERE, TODAY – a reason – a change in the law – an easy reason to guide customers to an upgrade that the customer would pay for. No negotiating, no threatening to switch carriers, just a need – “help me continue to burn air-time minutes, while complying with the Law”. And they fail. Same old, same old marketing. Not an opportunity in sight.

Talk about “blowing” Investor Value. Solutions guys, this was your big chance to shine. Or at least look like you were awake. Silly gooses.

Hey, how’s the golf?

My jury still out.

Kindle – if laptop screens couldn’t kill it, will Kindle and the Sony eBook Reader be the Great Paper-Killer?

I’m thinking not. Yes, I really want a Kindle, but they just ain’t available in Canada (yet) so I went and played with the newest generation Sony Reader. Yes clear, easy to read text. Smooth fonts, non glare screen, light in weight and cool. But “it ain’t paper”. You can scroll, flip pages etc, but it’s missing the texture of how much more to read, by the thickness of the right pile, how much read, by the thickness of the left bundle.

I take zealous care of my books - their pages, even the corners of the cover. But on a beach, in the yard, I can drop a magazine as I snooze, Kindle, Sony – they’re not droppable.

And the price, for the small difference, if I wanted to carry a bundle of books these “e” readers, I’d save lots of weight. But for texture, I like a book, the art, the weight, the flipping of a real page, as I know pages. BUT back to price – a significant cost of publishing a book is printing the first copy and then the second, and so on, but the first copy …wow expensive to get to. So for Kindle books – which takes none of that financial horsepower, not even shelf space, the savings seem not there. Bravo to the author if they can reap more, but are they? Or is this really just a retail margin improvement – with loss of texture.

As for Kindle – I still really want one, and likely will jump at the chance, but like so many electronic toys, suspect I’ll tire fast and yearn to flip real pages, real fast.

You advertise to sell a product. And in retail, you even locate near and with other similar stores - to bring people into your store.

Once in your sales arena – you hope I’ll impulse buy at least another product, another thing, not just the advertised ‘special’. Properly planed, I should experience “ah-hah” moments in your establishment saying things like …”I need that”, “…and oh, I want one of them too!”

So why do you kill the opportunity. Yes on the floor crush it, stomp it. As I’m about to consider a purchase I didn’t plan, - an impulse buy – retail gold. Why do you frustrate my attempt by not having a price anywhere? Why?

Why can you build a store, inventory it, advertise it, hire people but in the end - terminate my uncontrolled emotion and preparedness to part with money, by missing the most basic point – “how much?”

…and there’s been a lot I’ve meant to say – share, but….
The headline – Ontario 24.7B Deeper In Debit got my engine going. Again.

This is what a Billion looks like:
1,000,000,000.
Hundred Million:
100,000,000.
One Million:
1,000,000.
Getting the idea about how big a billion is?

How many “working taxpayers” does it take to get the first billion of tax revenue?

For those that don’t relate to long, large, number of a Billion, take a smaller step – remember the folks at “e-health” Ontario who spent anywhere from 600 to 800 million dollars, of our money much of it recklessly? Now the Official Word is that “they thought it needed to be done quickly”. I ask was is the build of a system, or the burn of the money? And we the citizens are ok with their response, as justified and rational. Criminal maybe? Why is Conrad Black in jail? Why is Drabinsky headed there?

So when you hear $24,000,000,000; remember it was one Health scandal at a time. Had we removed the most recently discovered one, the headline would read closer to only $23 Billion, and despite what our political leaders tell us; save a billion here, a half billion there, and pretty soon we owe many less billions.

Then there was a Power Plant for a Casino in Windsor at 89 or 90 million, built by Ontario Lottery Corp, plus a management contract given out to run it for 9 or was it 25 years?.... and a few management salaries later at Ontario Hydro, then morphed into Hydro One, oh and then there were some other great ones over at The Ontario Lottery Corp, first paid, then quietly settled as it seems we fired 'em wrong; and did ya' hear about the stuff at the yet undiscovered LCBO...you will!

And why just kick the public issues, did ya’ hear about the multi-million dollar payout of the genius-guru that ran Sick Kids Hospital Charitable Foundation?

And now the Toronto School Board is hiring a Director of Marketing to help retain and enroll….got’a love it, more empirical power plays, on our dime, at a time of ‘restraint”.

No wonder we invented Viagra.
It's just with all the high blood pressure these fiasco’s should create, Viagra is a no-no. No?