My World and Welcome To It

A Blog for Shirey Consulting Services – Views and Thoughts About Just About Everything

Archive for February, 2010

Krispy Kreme People (it’s not a compliment)

Feb 16

Posted by dshirey in Uncategorized | Comments off

People who buy Krispy Kreme donuts don’t know anything – about donuts that is. 

 

Truth is, I keep a very close eye on the donut trade and am, if you don’t mind me tooting my own horn a bit, one of this country’s leading experts on donuts and their impact on the military industrial complex of today.  Although I am not at liberty to list the government agencies who regularly retain my services, let me simply say that I have been called upon numerous times by a high ranking member of the General Electric corporate staff to mediate difficult donut disputes. 

 

The simple fact of the matter is that when choosing a dozen donuts, 73.7 – 78.6% should be chocolate.  Of that number, 30% should be white cream, 20% custard, 30%, chocolate covered cinnamon, and 20% some sort of split between cake and raised donuts.  Up to two of those may have a frosting other than chocolate (no maple or butterscotch), and sprinkles or nuts are a matter of personal preference. 

 

The remainder of the dozen should be an assortment; a powdered or cinnamon sugar one for the zip heads, one with nuts for those people who collect chipmunk statues, a glazed for the one who has no personality and isn’t afraid to show it, and then something really weird like coconut or blueberry or whatever.  Nobody will eat that one but it’s good to leave something for the cleaning staff.  And of course you’re going to get some valuable style points if you sneak a couple of buttermilk or old fashioned’s in there for some of these loners. 

 

But the thing is, when somebody brings in a dozen Krispy Kremes they are almost always glazed with just one or two chocolate, or else some bizarre sprinkled kind with, again, one or two chocolate.  I don’t understand this and can only assume that Krispy Kreme people just don’t know what they’re doing.  After all, if you can’t grasp the basics of donut – human interaction, what hope do you have of understanding something really complex.  Like women.  Or men.     

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20 Tips in 30 Minutes

Feb 9

Posted by dshirey in Uncategorized | Comments off

20 tips in 30 minutes.  Just saw that on TV.  Promo for Rachael Ray’s show, I think.  And that tip thing is not limited to just TV.  Today, technical tips articles are king.  We want something that will list exactly what we need to know in 10 easy bullet points.  It fits in with the way we are thinking today; just tell me what I need to know, don’t give me a lot of background, just give me the facts.  Sound familiar?    

From one point of view, there is nothing wrong with that.  It’s good to distill facts down to easily digestible nuggets, things that we can focus on and act on easily.  It’s good to have an expert say ‘hey, these are the things you need to pay attention to’. 

But from another point of view, it’s not so good.   I am tempted to believe that most of the time when we read through one of those ‘tips’ articles we end up not really learning anything.  They become a crutch that help us appear being in a learning mode but keep us from actually thinking, and often we don’t as much read as we do scan so that eventually we say ‘well, these don’t really apply to us’ and then move on.   We graze, picking up a tidbit here and there (or not). 

What we really need, however, is to sometimes pull up a chair and sit down to a real meat and potatoes meal.  Sometimes we need to engage our minds and learn in depth, getting beyond the tips and how to use a specific command to understand how something really works.  And that is something that is sorely missing, particularly in the midrange environment.   

Now I know what most people will say at this point.  It’s the fault of the internet.  Browsing the web is making it harder for us to concentrate and stay focused, and there might even be some truth to that.  But blaming the web is a cop out.  There are lots of long substitive articles out on the web, but what are the ones we tend to look at?  ’10 Easy Ways to Protect your Computer from Hackers’, ’15 Environment Clean Up Tips to make your PC run faster, ‘Seven Mood Killers for Sex’, that sort of thing.  In the end, we are at fault.  We won’t take time, we won’t put in the effort and the end result is hilltop knowledge.  We believe what we are told, but we don’t know why. 

And that’s a sad state of affairs for professionals.  When was the last time you really learned something top to bottom? 

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