[thelist] help! client bought Photoshop!!

[Luther, Ron]

Hi Joshua,


Sorry - gonna have to call you on this one.

Their "knowledge-base" may be different from yours | ours ... 

Their experience and expertise may be in areas that don't overlap yours |
ours ... 

But it's a tad harsh to label them as "idiots".  I know, for instance, that
we have a lot of very bright people around here who don't know crap about
the web. [Some days I even think I'm one of them!   ;-)    ]


<personal example>
I ran a very very very simple "exit" survey for a telephone company.  [It
was pretty much "Hi - you used to buy this dedicated line service from the
phone company - now you don't. How come?" ... with responses captured
verbatim.]   {A very simple yet valuable study!}

As I was reading through the 300+ responses I came across one that said "Cuz
you raised the price!"  Which was odd - since for this particular product we
hadn't raised the price in over seven years.  I figured he was "an idiot"
and moved on.

I came across a second response that said "Cuz you raised the price!"  I
paused.  Once could mean a respondant is "an idiot", twice might mean that I
was "an idiot" for imprecisely wording the question.

By the time I finished the analysis I had five different "Cuz you raised the
price!" responses ... which worried me because it meant something was going
on that I didn't understand.  

Fortunately, the very last response provided the answer to the puzzle.  That
respondant noted that someone from the phone company had determined that the
"mileage" was wrong - and that the new mileage increased their monthly rate
- so they cancelled their service.  [Dedicated leased lines are {or were}
often priced by distance.]

Now I knew what was going on.
</example>

The point is that *sometimes* the ignorance is ours for not taking the time
to understand what *they* are trying to tell us.


Sorry for the rant - hopefully a tip when i get back from vacation!


RonL.




-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua Olson [mailto:joshua at alphashop.net]

Users are, in general, idiots, ...