I’ve never taken a business class and come to my own conclusions on business practice based on my own direct experience. But shee-ooot, what do the folks in Harvard have in mind?
A few months ago, I got a letter from Northwest Airlines– I used them about 4 years ago for a flight to Michigan, and picked up a few thousand frequent flyer miles. But I’ve not flown them since, and see little chance of using them again, so I took up their offer to trade in my miles for a pile of magazine subscriptions.
I got PCMagazine, Outside, Time, a nature magazine, something for my wife, and for some forgotten reason, the Harvard Business Review.
HBR was a stretch, but maybe I was thinking about a recent article I read online about “Crap Circles” (Don’t bother clicking if you are not a subscriber, another brilliant business decision) about the idiotic use of circular diagrams in business logos and presentations. I as hopeful for some good articles in innovation, design, etc.
But here is the rub.
On the day the first issue graced my mailbox, so did one of those little reminders in a separate envelope, encouraging me to renew my subscription for “only $119”. Is time running out already? Isn’t that a bit presumptuous to think I would renew my year’s subscription, a year in advance, before I read the first one?
What kind of business model is that?
That’s what I get for not going to Harvard, I guess.
I had a similar experience with This Old House magazine. I show them, tho. I got it cheaper! 🙂