My personal diary…

At least once a day, I experience life without use of an internet. Right now, I’m posting an article for Helium. But later on, I will continue working on my follow-up novel using a Dell laptop with no internet capability. While emailing manuscripts is less expensive than mailing manuscripts, I’m a writing purist. I prefer word processing over searching for obscure sites featuring European porn.

Life with no internet would cripple governments overly dependent on their military. They would have primitive, missile-guidance systems that lack targeting mechanisms, fail-safe codes and overrides. We would be limited to be as civilians in World War II London. You can’t defend effectively by using air-raid sirens and relying on underground tunnels for shelter. You can’t launch WMDs using gigantic slingshots or Medieval catapults.

Life with no internet would be social death for lonely singles. For internet daters, uploading pictures and inputing data is much easier than meeting someone in a dimly-lit bar and sipping $5.00 henessey and cokes. Internet dating is for the widowers, the two-time divorcees, the mother with three kids or the baby daddy with three baby mommas. Internet dating is for everyone with character flaws such as being overbearing, controlling, self-absorbed or just plain weird. When you type about yourself, you can create a believeable lie. But, telling that lie in someone’s face is more difficult than people imagine.

If there was no internet, banking protection would be a fantasy. Wire transfers would be simple to hack into for computer beginners. There would be no “firewalls” to stop security breaches. On the flipside, there would be less identity theft crimes because hackers couldn’t pick through social security numbers, addresses and consumers’ bills online. People have made the internet their personal information “dumping ground”. Of course, there would be no way to do online, background checks for job applicants and people wanting to apply for bank loans. But, criminal background checks are public information at any courthouse in the United States.

If there was no internet, the term Homeland Security would be a running joke. The F.B.I couldn’t “hear chatter” from suspected, sleeper cells inside our borders. They couldn’t track the financial transactions from Muslim organizations to alleged terrorists. Our nation’s safety would be in severe jeopardy.

If there was no internet, forget about having a GPS system in your vehicle or in your phone. No one could “triangulate” your location using cell phone towers. Cars, trucks and SUVs (sports utility vehicles) would have no OnStar service. If you get into an accident, those broken appendages better get to walking along that desolate highway. You would have to wave down a passing vehicle because no internet means no cell phones to call 911 from wherever you are.

The internet allows for simple tasks to be simplier and difficult tasks to be easy. The internet is continuing to advance our present society through its technological age. Unfortunately, we have come so dependent on “logging on” we are forgetting about what brought us to this point of advancing our civilization.

There’s no doubt about it; occasionally the customer is not always right, and indeed a few should be sacrificed because their demands are more debilitating than their custom is worth. Small businesses need to be especially aware of the cost to keep some customers satisfied when they have no intention of ever being satisfied with any of their suppliers. Some people are so focused on their advantage that they will push for every last penny, regardless of what that means to the supplier.

A good business deal in one in which the players feel has been good for all parties, and these rarely result in bad feelings. It’s a different story when a single client’s unreasonable demands start to affect the level of service provided to other customers. A company can be so determined to please the customer that it looses sight of the insidious cost implied. A really belligerent customer can divert scarce resource away from total business development and growth, before it dawns that a specific client is sucking it dry, and that there is no up side to continuing the relationship.

Customer service representatives see it as their job to keep the customer happy, and it is difficult to accept that they can’t always do that. Companies rarely draw a policy line to prevent getting into no win situations, but that’s what eventually has to happen in certain cases. It should not be surprising that the unsatisfied client has that same relationship with most of its suppliers, and asking around can help justify the decision to terminate the relationship.

There are cases when the customer actually needs a product more than the supplier realizes, and sometimes awkward clients realize they’ve crossed the line. Relations can be renegotiated going forward to everyone’s satisfaction.

A company, especially a small one, should be careful not to be too reliant on a few customers, especially large ones that can inordinately skew the business strategy. If the strategy is to grow broadly, dependence on one client can jeopardize profits and increase vulnerability. It is difficult to resist a significant client, but a small company must understand the implications of sleeping with an large angry bear.

The customer is always right, except when he’s wrong. Wise managers understand this, and that it’s often better to cut bait and fish in another lake, for the sake of corporate integrity and opportunity.