We are sincere to service to you!

Yes, that was the title line of an email I got from a company that I bought some charging cords from. And just to emphasize their sincerity, the body of the message included:

DearFrank

We provide lifetime warranty, any question about our porduct, please feel free to contact us directly. We will serve for you wholeheartedly.

Let me just note that these cables cost a bit under $6, and I have no intention of ever asking for service on them, because I value my time such ($2/minute) that if I'm on hold or talking to their customer-to service-to-you-representative for more than 3 minutes, that amount of time is worth more than $6.

Here's the first email I got from them.

I should also note that August is Psoriasis Awareness Month. So anyone who reads this and was previously unaware of psoriasis, you are now informed.

I'm sure it's the official month for other things as well. There are only 12 months and so many things! I've had breast cancer awareness month drilled into my head so many times that the idea that awareness is any kind of issue at this point seems ludicrous. Maybe breast cancer doesn't receive the attention it deserves for some quarters, though I kind of doubt that, but I don't think awareness is the issue. It's more along the lines of "do I care?" And that's okay- many people, myself included have had their lives touched by breast cancer and do care. I'm just wondering if they should be focusing on something deeper than mere awareness.

I was about to write that awareness is easy, and it is the easiest part of marketing- the first step in the sequence of Awareness-Interest-Trial-Adoption that takes you from knowing that something exists to making it part of your life. But if recent history has taught us anything, it's shown us how fleeting attention can be. Oh, and by the way, I hereby promise to never use the phrase "if history has taught us anything" again. But i'm wondering if the current age of distraction has changed the balance here- since it's harder to get real attention, maybe the bridge from awareness to interest has become smaller. Oh, and I also promise not to use "age of distraction" again either.

Finally, I haven't yet written the next installment of my reboot story, but let's just say that I've gotten involved in an important project at school, which is a first for me. One of the results is that it is all but impossible for me to walk down a hallway without someone wanting to say something significant to me. I have no problem with this; in fact, I really like and appreciate it and have even gone so far as to attend meetings as a result. The one thing I need to keep in mind, though, is that it now takes me twice as long to get down a hallway or in and out of the building than it used to. A weird little artifact.