Friday, June 3, 2005

On seeing, "seeing", and marketing

Had my follow up 1-week optometry appointment: 20/15 in both eyes. I am truly bionic :-)

Seriously though, one reason why I see so much better, he explained, is that previously, with a -5 prescription, my glasses were reducing everying in size by 40%. So now I'm seeing clearly, and everying's bigger by the same proportion.

I'm also a great seer of another kind, as I finished Psychonauts the other night. I still think it's a great game and highly recommend it, but the too-typical boss monster fights at the end of the game made me lower my opinion a bit. 8-on-10 rather than 9-on-10, I guess.

I also just finished The 22 immutable laws of marketing by Ries and Trout. Mixed feelings about this one. It's definitely a second-class business book. Not the same caliber as my favorites, like Moore's Inside the Tornado. However, it's a very quick read, and it's inexpensive (~$10), so if you pick up a few things from it, what does it hurt? On the positive side, the "laws" themselves are good ones (though I'd argue they are mutable), and plenty of anecdotal examples of each one help prove them. On the negative side, they kind of pitch as though marketing exists in a vaccuum and not as part of a holistic approach to delivering product to market. They also don't explain the laws well, but rather just say "law 1. Look at these examples. See? must be true". Anyhow, you've been warned. Still more to learn than you will from a couple lattes, which is what it would cost you.

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