October 2011

How to make 31 days seem better than a month?

Would you prefer a dishwasher with 9 years of warranty or 108 months of warranty? Would you prefer a watch that can stay underwater for 1.5 minutes or 90 seconds? Would you buy a smartphone that got a 4 out of a possible 5 rating or 798 points out of 1000? Would you prefer a [...]

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Grouponomics : Groupon, A smashing success or poised to fail?

Groupon has been in the news again lately with talk about its IPO and what appears to be its hope for a very high valuation. However only 66% of the companies who participated in Groupon can deem the deal a success Groupon is the fastest growing company ever. 42% of the Restaurants that participated in [...]

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This little piggy wants to retire…

Once upon a time, in the charming little town of Pigglesworth, there lived five little piggies – Patricia, Priscilla, Pippin, Pookie and Pinky. They all had a great desire to retire and enjoy the  relaxed life around Pigglesworth.  Here are their stories: This little piggy went to market The oldest piggy Patricia wanted to become [...]

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How we lose money on groceries

Everyone wants to save money on groceries.  In spite of numerous tips to save money on groceries, the grocery store is still a major area for impulse shopping. The reason? Visual merchandising. Visual merchandising is not a new concept, it has been in practice for decades now. Depending on customer’s tastes, the layout and ambiance changes but [...]

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When frugality = stupidity : Illusion of saving money

Which of the squares A & B is a darker shade of gray? If you answered A as I did first, you are wrong The answer is both of them are the exact shade of gray. (See the proof at the end of the post). Everyday we are tricked by a number of illusions. Sometimes [...]

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Big rewards, lousy performance : When motivation fails

One of the frustrations of the Occupy Wall Street protesters are the big bonuses the CEOs of the banks got, after getting bail out money. And the reason often cited by the companies is that bonuses are necessary to retain talent. But the extraordinary talent, retained by millions of dollars have failed to bring in [...]

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Occupy Wall Street (Los Angeles) – Why, what, where, when, who & how, in their words

I first saw the news about #occupywallstreet about 6 months ago, but I ignored it. Some folks were protesting about something related to politics, so I moved on. Then soon my Twitter feed started picking up a number of mentions about the protests.   The protests which I thought were localized to NYC, quickly became #occupydc, [...]

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A road trip to a cheap (luxury) rental car

When we got married we were strapped for time and money. So instead of going somewhere far, we decided on a road trip close to home. After all, paying an exorbitant amount to live in California should have some perks. We decided to take the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to Redwood National Park, [...]

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Managing our time : The myth of multitasking

Texting and driving, talking on the phone while walking, Facebook, Twitter, work, email, IM, Pandora. Multitasking has become the way of life.   Right now, as I type this, I have 23 tabs open in my Chrome browser. I also have the following applications open – Excel, InkScape, PowerPoint and Live writer, each of them with [...]

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