The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
The Internet
You know what is really dangerous about the Internet? How easily it can take you off task.
Assignment for the E-commerce class is to sign up at Secondlife.com , hang around for awhile and then be able to talk like an informed and intelligent person about it in our class discussion. We are graded on this.
So I go to the site to make my person that will run around this virtual world. Make up a name, and appearance and an outfit. This took an hour, people. An hour. I could have completed the entire assignment in an hour. But I wanted to make my virtual character have a cute pair of shoes. And now I am wasting more time by writing about it.
Damn Internet.
About Those Reusable Shopping Bags
Some stores are really into it, and some are just giving it lip services.
Whole Foods is doing a great job. They give you 10 cents off your total purchase for every bag they don’t have to give you. In addition, they have both paper and plastic and don’t appear all judgy if you use them. They are, however, pretty smug in their eco-whateverness.
Half Price Books, as I mentioned, has the reusable bags, with logo, for sale at their store for 98 cents. When they don’t have to give you a bag, they donate a nickel to some Earth-friendly charitable organizations. Not sure I like that because the green fanatics scare me, but points for putting your money where your mouth is.
I took my bags to the Jewel today. Standard grocery store. Have you noticed that you can’t buy real food at Whole Foods? Coke, for example. So I do not accept that one can live on Whole Foods alone. Anyway.
I hand my bags to the cashier, asking that they be used first. She looked at them like she didn’t know what they were. Once she figured out that I had the nerve to use NotJewel Reusable Bags at the Jewel, we got on with it. When they were full (over-full if you ask me), she asked whether I wanted paper or plastic for the rest of my purchases. Paper. I used paper bags for my recycling at home, anyway. As I am walking out, I see that the paper bag was placed inside a white plastic bag.
I realize this isn’t “mission critical” for the grocery store, but really. If you are going to get on board, get your people on board, too.
Let’s Discuss the Weather
Typical Night at the Library
I pulled into the parking lot at the library last night, and had a hard time finding a space. That’s good – mean’s they’re busy and more likely to generate sales for the Used Book Store.
I walked in and looked at our downstairs shelves. We keep the children’s books closer to the circulation desk with an assortment of books for adults. The people traffic is better down there, but we can’t keep an eye on the space so it gets messy sometimes. Also, people have to go back upstairs to pay for any books they choose to purchase. I spent a minute straightening up the shelves and then went upstairs.
The first things I do upon arriving at the desk are booting up the computer and getting a box of new donations from the back closet. There are always two or three piles of boxes, each about four feet high, filled with books.
When I logged in to our Amazon account, I saw that two books had sold online. I listed one myself and knew right where to find it. The other was in the closet. We have had trouble in the past with listed books disappearing, so I set them aside for our director to mail on Friday.
Going through donations is like Christmas for me. A couple of weeks ago, I found a hardcover copy of The Poe Shadow, written by Matthew Pearl, the guy who wrote The Dante Club. A book that I wanted to read, but not enough to pay retail for it. So when we had a copy that Amazon vendors are selling for a penny, I bought it straight away. I mentioned that last week I listed a strange book for $125 – that was exciting. And sometimes a “classic” from my childhood comes by – you know, like Miss Nelson is Missing.
Here was the odd thing about last night – I had actual in-store customers interrupting me! If I do $10 in sales on a 3-hour Thursday night shift, I consider it a good day. Last night was $14.25. And I didn’t buy anything!
I went through three boxes of donations and five books were worth listing. Not bad. I wonder what the Friday morning shift thinks each day when they see these huge piles of books on the floor that say “To be shelved”. Do they hate me?
Adventure at the Refuge
Hard Lesson in ECommerce
I allowed advertisements on this site to see if it might be used as a small fundraising tool for the two organizations with which I volunteer. AdSense places “relevant ads” in the two places I dedicated to them – one down the side and at the bottom.
Today, I saw an ad that said “Puppies for Sale”. I am mortified. I volunteer at an animal shelter. I am very against the sale of .. I can’t even type it again, for fear of generating more “relevant ads” to that effect. Maybe I should have typed it backward in the firstplace.
I clicked around Google and couldn’t figure out how to block such ads. I figure that by the time I work it out, the ad will be gone anyway. If the problem recurs, I will get serious. In the meantime, to balance my karma, here is my official position:
There are so many homeless pets in the world. If you are ready for one of your own, please visit Petfinder. This is an online network of shelters where you can search for the perfect pet for you. Here is the post of my foster parrot, Manu.
Now I have to go think of something else to write about…
March Madness
Chicagoland Pet Expo
Advertising
The last line item in our blog assignment was “Decide if you want to add advertisements and if appropriate do so”.
After reading about it in the lecture material, and finding the Google Ad information in the content layout, I gave it serious consideration.
My independent spirit-whatever was against it. But the theme of the blog is about how I am fitting the volunteer gigs into the rest of my life. And the two organizations with which I work are in constant need of funds. So shouldn’t I use the assignment as an opportunity?
In my own market plan for UBS, I said that we should be getting creative and using the technology vehicles that are all around us. So I am getting in the spirit of “practice what you preach”.
So if you will please click the links, I will promise that whatever pennies Google sends to me will be divided equally between a Refuge for Saving the Wildlife and Friends of the Glenview Library.
Thanks for your participation.
…was that too preachy?
Paper vs. Plastic vs. Trying to Sell Me Shopping Bags
MSN had a thing on Paper vs Plastic the other day.
It was some interactive stuff and some survey stuff and some consumer response after San Francisco banned grocery stores from distributing disposable plastic bags. Most people said, “I reuse those bags” whether they were talking about paper or plastic, which is kind of where I have been.
When Whole Foods invaded Chicago, the reusable bag frenzy hit, too. I shop at Whole Foods occassionally. Not for actual grocery shopping, but the “what’s for dinner tonight”? The soup is good. Whatever.
I find the organization very smug. I am the Whole Foods shopper that searches the produce section for “conventional” because the “organic” label irritates me. It’s pretty hard.
My point was about the bags. Whole Foods did a pretty smooth thing in offering up 10 cents for each bag they did not have to give you at check out. 10 cents is a joke on a Whole Foods order, but I appreciate the concept. I still refuse to buy the Whole Foods reusable bags. I bought mine a Half Price Books. I have two and they were a dollar each. When you are only shopping for two, those two bags go a long way. And a dollar is not much of a commitment, which is really good for me.
I don’t know from what the bags are made. To papery to be cotton, to fabric-y to be paper. What is that stuff?
I have been using these for a couple of months, and while I am by no means a fanatic of the cause, I am impressed that these companies got an inherently careless shopper like me to participate.
Of course, I forgot to bring them with me to the regular grocery store this week…
The Next Dark Age 