Michael Maoz

All I wanted was to order a replacement cartridge for my ink-swilling HP OfficeJet 5610, standard issue. I went to the site where our company has a corporate account. Nice search feature. But I wonder how much this cartridge costs versus a competitor? Now THAT would be interesting. But 692 reviews of a product that [...]

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I was in an endless loop of telephone branching logic last week, uncertain whether to Press 2 for this, 3 for that, 4 or 5 or…. Then I forgot what Press 2 was for and got into another branch of logic and dead ends. I finally did what I often do: I tried #0, then [...]

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One of the first discussions parents used to have with their children as they emerged into teenagers might have been dating, jobs, savings, and responsibility. But it wasn’t mine with my oldest daughters. It was not about the person they are, but about the persona they want to be known by on the internet.  As [...]

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I’ve gotten nine automated calls from Sallie Mae. I don’t know Sallie. My name is not Erica (that is who they are looking for. I’ve never taken out a student loan from Sallie Mae. I’m in the guise of a modern day Mephistopheles – having helped companies move their processes to self service, the devil [...]

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One great part about summer is the spike in non-work related conversations. Weekends at the shore, dinner with friends, tennis with university and graduate students from near and far. I can’t leave well enough alone, though, and usually start asking questions about how others use technology, and specifically their use of mobile devices and the [...]

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If there were 100,000,000 leaders, would anyone be a leader? I’ve thought about this since beginning the process of having an occassional weblog. Every now and then I get a stinger email from a reader that includes a reference to the head of someone elses religion (mine has no head, which likely explains why I [...]

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My last blog brought out the brickbats from IT professionals who, to a person, said, “Hey, don’t blame us: we’re powerless.” Funny enough, I took that point of view when I wrote the piece the first time. Then I thought of the calumy that would be heaped upon my poor head. Dare I say IT [...]

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The joys of home ownership. Mortgages, cleaning services, lawns, plumbers, roofers, electricians, carpenters – it’s like you have hooked up a powerful vacuum cleaner to siphon off your cash from a declining asset class. But it does give a person a view into the world of consumer retail operations from the outside. It’s not that [...]

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As I listened to the US President Barack Obama answer questions about healthcare reform Wednesday night on television, my mind kept going over the scenarios from my own family: on forms submissions, claims to insurance companies, incorrectly-cancelled services, failed notifications, denials of coverage, faulty claims codings, failures to inform or support – that my family [...]

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After 11 years living in the United States, I moved homes. There is a lot to learn about deceptive business practices from realtors and bankers, and about insurance companies that automatically raise your rates because you have a less-tony postal code (but 11 years without a claim).
What really struck me during the move was the [...]

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