James VanDyke

A few months ago I wrote a post about Royal Caribbean adding a fuel supplement to our cruise bill after we made our reservation and paid a deposit. For this I called them out as a bad company.
Well a few weeks ago they decided they were wrong and revised the fuel supplement. Now people who [...]

Speed is becoming an essential part of business today, especially on the web. This weekend I attended a panel discussion entitled “The Art of Speed” at South by Southwest Interactive.
Here are the points I found useful or interesting:

Follow the market to where the growth is - Often companies look to attack new markets however when [...]

37signals the makers of BaseCamp and RubyonRails shared some changes to their work environment recently. Here are three interesting ideas.

 4 day work week - If people rest for 3 days, they will be refreshed and do better work in four days rather than 5 days of work and 2 days of rest.
Pay for personal learning/hobbies [...]

Starbucks has announced that it will close all of it’s stores from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. today to train its employees on “The Art of Espresso”.
The unusual move will catch enough attention that if customers don’t notice better Espresso the next time they visit, the Starbucks brand will lose some trust.
Starbucks Closes [...]

My wife and I are looking forward to a cruise this spring with two other couples on Royal Caribbean. We made our reservations  last fall, including a relatively sizable deposit. The remainder of the cost is due this month.
When I went online to pay the remainder I found that Royal Caribbean had added a fuel [...]

If you’re going to start a business or launch a new product you should be able to answer in numerical terms how big your market is.

As the year 2007 ends our minds turn to the inevitable - taxes. This year SMU wanted to offer it’s alumni some assistance in beating the December 31 deadline for tax write offs.
Click here to view the show.

Ikea, the low cost furniture superstore, ensures that you have the right perception when you walk into their store.
When visiting yesterday, the first products we encountered were glass tea candle holders for 29 cents a piece.
That first impression of a great deal, lasted through out our visit, even as we passed more expensively priced goods.

A friend of mine has begun his quest to procure an iPhone by using the only logically solution, an donation website and blog.
Check out his quest at: http://buybenaniphone.com

The Associated Press is reporting that Robert Alan Soloway, described as one of the World’s most prolific spammers, has been arrested.
Soloway was arrested Wednesday on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. Prosecutors say Soloway has sent millions of junk e-mails since 2003 and continued even after [...]