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Thegroup assessed their overall chances of survival and determined that unless a vehiclewas to pass by within a carefully calculated period of time, there would be no chance of147survival; i.e., the “point of no survival.” They calculated the point in time at whichsurvival was extremely unlikely. They agreed to a plan to monitor their surroundingsand signal potential vehicles up to that point of time.Most of the time, the team discussed and planned the events after the “point of nosurvival.” They agreed to reserve a specific quantity of food items for that event andplanned a ritual to share their anticipated communal demise. The team presentedspecific ways and roles in which they would share their last moments and support eachother through the final moments of their lives.Jeorg Schmitz, 2012, extracted from [60]A5: Oh, Audi, How Could You?Marketing missteps in naming cars quickly become legendary. There's the urban myththat the Chevrolet Nova failed in South America because in Spanish, “no va” means"won't go." (It's not true.)But now it turns out that Audi may have committed a blunder in naming its line ofelectric cars e-Tron.
Especially since they're about to be shown at the Paris MotorShow.As one Francophone just pointed out to us, the French word étron is a particularlyunfortunate choice in that language. Online translation tools give French synonyms forétron that include caca and excrément. Or to put it a tad less delicately, in English, itmeans "crap, dirt, droppings ... muck, poop ... shite, turd".Yes, it appears Audi may have named its entire line of electric cars after ... errrr ... dung.Sigh.148French seems to pose frequent problems for automakers in naming cars. When Buickfamously rebranded its midsize sedan from Regal to LaCrosse for 2004, its marketerswere mortified to learn that in French Canadian slang, lacrosse was used by Québecteenagers to refer to the practice of masturbation.Thus, in Canada, the midsize car otherwise known as the Buick LaCrosse was sold asthe Buick Allure from 2005 until the 2010 model year.
In an effort to unify global Buickmodel names, Francophone Canadian buyers will now have to be willing to say theydrive a LaCrosse. Quelle horreur.Other such gaffes globally include the Mitsubishi Pajero (in Spanish-speaking countries,pajero is a slang word for masturbator) and the Ford Pinto, which in Brazilian Portugeseslang turns out to mean "small penis." And there are more.Over to you, Audi.John Voelcker, Sept. 2010,www.greencarreports.com, Copyright 2011 High GearMedia, extracted from [60]A6: French Railways change timetableMajor engineering work will disrupt train services in France until at least 2015, theSNCF (France’s National Railways Company) has warned in June 2011.Some 85% of train times were due to be revised when the new winter timetable comeinto effect on December 11, to meet the regularity requirements set by the state whileallowing enough time for works to be carried out.
SNCF’s website explained: “This isunprecedented in the history of the railway in Europe. 160 000 workers are mobilizing149now to meet this challenge on behalf of four million passengers daily choosing the train.A train that we all want safer and more punctual.”The timetable changes ranged from a few minutes to a quarter of an hour on somejourneys.
SNCF president Guillaume Pépy said some connections would be "destroyed"and others created. The overhaul is necessary because the SNCF is entering what it callsa "particularly delicate" phase in its improvement works.Track operator Réseau Ferré de France (RFF) is spending €13bn on replacing ageingtracks, many of which are more than 25 years old. The works are mostly carried outovernight, late in the evening and at weekends. RFF shed light on the project: “ It willmake the network more efficient, but also improve the circulation. With the so-called“in-sync timing”, schedules will be more readable, more frequent trains and moreregular flow of goods.”The “in-sync timing” has already been proven in many countries.
It aims to organizeand coordinate schedules rail. The principle is to have the trains at fixed times andintervals on the network: trains to the same destination will have the same lap betweenthem, e.g. 10:13, 11:13, 12:13 etc. The result is a network performance multiplied by abetter synchronization on the whole.A complete rethink of the current timetable has also been prompted by the launch of anew "Rhine-Rhône" TGV link from Mulhouse to Lyon later that year, which shouldhave a knock-on effect on other rail services across several regions.The changes was supported by a €10m advertising and information campaign in Fall2011.SNCF was aware the change might create havoc and had appointed a mediator tosmooth relations between the state company and the passengers: “We upgrade regularly150our schedule so you can communicate as soon as possible.
SNCF manages over 15,000daily trains over 37 000 slots: some have not yet got their final timetable. A mediator ofthenewtimetablewasappointed,moreinformationcanbefoundonmediateurnouveauxhoraires2012.comJerome Dumetz, 2011, extracted from [60]A7: International finance and trustIn their monthly meeting in June 2006 the board of a major US investment bank basedin Manhattan, NY , is thinking about launching a new product to raise revenues andincrease shareholder value. After a fruitful discussion they decided to do somethingspecial and create a fund with a variety of high risk papers.
Once they finished theformal IPO process they discovered that the distribution of those papers appears to bedifficult. The customers seem to be reserved because of the high risk.Facing this problem the marketing department came up to the idea to foster the revenuesby strengthening the customers trust into these papers.They knew that an expensive marketing campaign with glamorous material wouldprobably not be the right way to succeed in this case.
They needed to create a safeenvironment supported by persons or institutions with high reputation.So they asked a professor of finance from Varthar, one of the most prestigiousUniversities of the country, to write 1-2 pages about this fund in a popular financejournal. For his efforts the investment bank offered him the amount of $ 80.000,-.Having this generous remuneration in mind the professor doesn´t wanted to be impoliteand asked the bankers for the outcome of “his” opinion.
He received the “right”information and wrote the article in a scientific and for the bank satisfying way.With this article the investment bankers went to the well-known rating agency, Stich, to151rate this fund. The rating agency is usually neutral but trusted in the opinion of anindependent specialist, like the professor.
As a result of this trustfulness, Stich didn´tinvestigate as much and rated the fund better than the equity of the papers.With the rating and the article the investment bank created a marketing package andoffered their fund to banks all over the world.The banks, which relied in the status of the investment bank and also in the statementsof the professor and the rating agency didn´t check the fund at all and ordered.The investment bank takes the sales commission and carries no responsibility of aneventual crash of the fund.By Dr. Rainer Wehner, Würzburg-Schweinfurt University of Applied Sciences,Germany, extracted from [60]A8: A bag’s time« San Francisco is a fantastic town, on the West coast of the USA.
It is know for manyfeatures, such as its proximity with the Silicon Valley, it's tolerance towards minoritiesand illicit products (San Francisco is the birth place of the beat generation), but also itscable cars (tramways pulled by an underground cable) and its steep roads.San Francisco is also famous for its bicycle messengers, also called couriers. Since theend of the Second World War, thousands of daredevils have rushed down the steeproads of the city. They carry their parcels in a messenger bag, designed with a singlestrap that wrap diagonally across the chest so it can be swung around the messenger'sbody to allow access without removing the bag.152While working in the city in the late 90's, I fancied cycling to go to work during thewarm days.
I equipped myself with basic, second-hand equipment (helmet!) and boughta bag from a company specialized in such product. The company, called Timbuk2, isbased in San Francisco, and is proud to assemble those bags in the USA. They are madeof Cordura water resistant nylon, a very tough material. Not too cheap, they are verygood quality bags. Under the nametag, you can read "Made in USA - lifetimewarranty".I left the Bay Area and my bicycle behind but kept the bag. It has become my "bagwhere-I-stuff-everything" for about 15 years.
It accompanied me in the hot sands ofEgypt, in the humid forests of Costa Rica or in the cold winters of Russia: a tough lifefor a tough bag!The bag is nearly intact save for the plastic buckles that close the strap. They broke, oneby one, giving up to the extreme temperatures and use encountered by the bag."Lifelong warranty" usually means a product is fixed or exchanged as long as it is stillproduced and it has been used normally. Some manufacturers of quality tools andhardware are famous for such policy, and exchange broken tools often withoutquestions.
I was in the same situation so, around 2008, I decided to contact thecompany, back in San Francisco.I did it for the fun of it. Glad to tell how their product had become by companion for thelast 10 years. I asked about the buckles, whether they could send me some new ones. Iwas ready to pay for the delivery of course.I received an enthusiastic and vibrant answer from their sales department: " Thank youso much for your loyalty.
10 years using the bag, whoah! Isn’t it time to change it and tobuy a one? ".153Speechless, but amused, I decided to look for the buckles nearby, and bought a pair ofthem, in Germany, for 50 cents each. Indeed, the concept of Lifetime warranty isn'tshared equally around the world! »Jerome Dumetz, 2012, extracted from [60]A9: Trust in the supermarketPractically since mankind started making, trading and selling products, businesses havelooked for ways to cut costs, so that profit could be increased (assuming that revenuedid not go down). A smart way for businesses to cut costs is by letting their customersdo actions that employees needed to do before.There are many examples of this. The recent spread of digital technology has catapultedthis phenomenon. We can think of self printing airline tickets, pre checking in forflights, all cost cutting measures of actions in the airline industry that used to be aservice done by personnel, now by customers.
Another example is pumping gasoline ata petrol station (up until forty years ago the pumping process was strictly done byemployees). A later development was a gas station where there is no personnel at all.Everything is done automatically, paying in advance with a credit or debit card, thengetting the gasoline oneself.In all these processes companies have to deal with the concept of trust.
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