The New York Times reports that medical patients struggle with statistics. One patient, informed that she would either respond or not respond to a medication, asked if that meant she had a fifty percent chance of success. A Harvard statistician likens the confusion to the following scenario: “Either a woman is pregnant or not. She […]
Vancouver’s Brooks Duncan recently launched Vancouver.AskLocally.com. Drawing from the comraderie of long-forgotten Usenet groups, Ask Locally allows locals to ask other locals for the skinny on everything from airfares to zoos. (c) 2005 by Andrea Coutu. Vancouver Marketing Consultant. All rights reserved.
This past month, Vancouverites saw the launch of Dose, 24 Hours and Metro — three new daily newspapers. The short, snappy news coverage suits the attention span of commuters, although traditionalists might claim that these dailies are to news what Kraft Dinner is to Fettucine Alfredo. To be sure, some content in the new dailies […]
Last December, I mentioned that The Vancouver Sun had run a story on a little girl poisoned by GHB her father had brought home from a party. Despite a publication ban on the family’s identity, The Sun provided enough details that anyone with a web connection or a knowledge of Kitsilano could identify the father. […]
Movies for Babies and Parents. As rewarding as raising children may be, new parents often lament their childfree days, when they could dash out to a movie at a moment’s notice. For many parents, a night out at the movies would be too expensive or guilt-ridden, given the need for a babysitter. Until their children […]
Yesterday, my husband received an envelope that looked very similar to what you would receive from a Canada Post “XPress Post” courier. The envelope had instructions for CPC — presumably Canada Post Corporation — to deliver the package in accordance with certain regulations, much like the disclaimers you see on the back of an XPress […]
Looking for yet another explanation of the dot com bust? Metcalfe’s law is wrong, researchers Andrew Odlyzko and Benjamin Tilly claim. As I wrote last year, Metcalfe’s Law holds that a network’s value is the square of the size of a network.* If two people are connected by instant messenger, fax machines, or cell phones, […]
A reader recently asked blogger Darren Barefoot about the folly of letting a company’s IT team manage a website, instead of the marketing team. Whether left to IT or marketing, a website can be tricky business — both departments are equally capable of disaster. The important thing is to have a clear business case and […]
