Rocky Smolin
rockysmolin at bchacc.com
Wed Dec 4 11:15:54 CST 2013
Arthur: Here's my observations about Canada vs. the U.S. when you're trying to do business: All the time I was marketing my software in Canada I sold only one system there in spite of many leads and much conversation. I found that Canadians will study the smallest decision to death and in the end decide not to make a decision. They seem very bureaucratic - and very unwilling to take risks, even small ones. Whereas, the typical American company will tend to fit the resources needed to make a decision to the size of the product or service being considered, make a decision and get on with the job. Cultural difference I assume, mediated I think by the more Socialist orientation of Canada's political culture - which tends to dissociate one's activities from the efficiency or profitability of those activities and evaluate them more along the lines of whether or not they have satisfied some standard operating procedure. My product cost in the neighborhood of $3500 and after two conversations with a Canadian company I usually took them off my follow-up list. And never completed the RFPs they would send with 5 pages of questions obviously crafted by a mainframe systems analyst, 80% of which was irrelevant to my product. Because I knew that the evaluators were more interested in satisfying their superiors that they had done a thorough job than actually finding a product that would solve their problem. My conclusion is that Canada has oil, coal, timber, and other natural resources which support its people at a level of affluence that allows them the luxury of this mindset. Generalizations, I know, but based on 30 years of trying to conclude any transaction with a Canadian company. Perhaps you are running into the same thing. Rocky -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 8:22 AM To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Way OT but I love you people so I'm posing thequestion. Jim, I can only speak from personal experience, and that is not much evidence. But something strange has happened to me in the past year. A bit of back-story first. I am 66 years old and have previously declared myself semi-retired. I love in Canada. My last three contracts have all been with firms in the USA. Granted that the USA comprises about 90% of the continental economy, this is hardly a position on which to bet. But the point I am trying to make here is that I have way better luck with obtaining contracts with American firms than Canadian. I cannot explain why that is. One of the last three derive from a book I wrote about MySQL. The other two happened because of my involvement in AccessD and DbaSQL. You should understand that this is not a complaint.I just find it interesting that Americans are interested in hiring me but Canadians are not. I have no idea why this is the case. On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 10:55 PM, Hans-Christian Andersen < hans.andersen at phulse.com> wrote: > From a radio show I was listening to, I think they said that Norways > government has a policy of selling all the natural gas and oil and > putting all the profits into social system and also into a nice big > fat bank account, so that they can use the money wisely in the future. > They didn't want to suffer the "Resource curse" that many countries > seem to suffer when they suddenly strike rich. > > Wikipedia has a good article about it: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse > > - Hans > > > On Dec 3, 2013, at 7:00 PM, Jim Lawrence <accessd at shaw.ca> wrote: > > > It is interesting to note that Norway, a country who actually > > products > and subsequently sells oil has the highest car fuel prices while Saudi > Arabia has the lowest? > > > > Jim > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Hans-Christian Andersen" <hans.andersen at phulse.com> > > To: "Discussion of Hardware and Software issues" < > dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com> > > Sent: Tuesday, December 3, 2013 2:32:36 PM > > Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Way OT but I love you people so I'm posing > the question. > > > > I'm only surprised Denmark wasn't among the top 3 most expensive > countries. > > > > We're number 5! We're number 5! (or 6, if you buy Diesel) > > > > - Hans > > > > > > On Dec 3, 2013, at 1:59 PM, Jon Tydda <jon at tydda.plus.com> wrote: > > > >> Well I'm stunned. You've managed to find somewhere that petrol is > >> more expensive than the UK! > >> > >> I found this site: http://www.fuel-prices-europe.info/ which has > >> some > nice > >> comparisons in Euros and the local currency... so I'm paying about > double > >> what people in the US are paying. > >> > >> > >> Jon > >> > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com > >> [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of > Salakhetdinov > >> Shamil > >> Sent: 02 December 2013 22:21 > >> To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues > >> Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Way OT but I love you people so I'm posing > >> the question. > >> > >> Hi Jim -- > >> > >> I have been in the the East-South Italy Salento region this summer > >> - I > can't > >> say prices somehow differ (/are lower than) from Paris or Amsterdam > >> or > Ghent > >> or Brussels, where I have been last year November. And gasoline is > >> very expensive - 1.7x EURO in Italy ( http://www.energy.eu/ ) ), > >> even here > in > >> Russia it's now "just" ~1USD+/liter. Well, ordinary everyday good > >> wine > costs > >> in Italy are low (up to 3EURO per 0.7l bottle) as well as prices > >> for > some > >> Italian local fruits and vegetables but that's it AFAIHF. > >> > >> Thank you. > >> > >> -- Shamil > >> > >> > >> Monday, December 2, 2013 12:25 PM -07:00 from Jim Lawrence > >> <accessd at shaw.ca>: > >>> Italy would definitely be a good place to go...considering > >>> Italians > have > >> been running things for around 3000 years, first the Roman Empire > >> and > then > >> the Roman Catholic church...so they have hordes of culture from > everywhere. > >> Then there is a bit of a recession going on in the country so the > >> prices might also be excellent. > >>> > >>> ...And anyone that can build the Ferrari, Maserati and Lamborghini > >>> to > name > >> a few... > >>> > >>> Jim > >> <<< skipped >>> > >>> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> dba-Tech mailing list > >> dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > >> http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > >> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> dba-Tech mailing list > >> dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > >> http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > >> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > dba-Tech mailing list > > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > > dba-Tech mailing list > > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > _______________________________________________ > dba-Tech mailing list > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > -- Arthur _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com