Jim Lawrence
accessd at shaw.ca
Wed Dec 4 17:58:40 CST 2013
Canadians are as much small "c" conservatives as they are small "s" socialists, in that they are very cautious and frugal. I think it is as much to do with the climate and in many cases sparse populations. The Canadian debt has increased dramatically in the last twenty years but remove housing debt and debt almost disappears..."a penny saved is a penny earned". Another note is that Canadians tend to be stubborn...really stubborn...I think it is also a climate thing. Add stubborn to the other characteristic of "once crossed never forgotten". (Wrote a paper on, in University on the Canadian psyche, got an "A" as I remember but had to argue a long and hard.) ;-) Another point is that the country to the most part is controlled by many giant monopolies. These companies control most assets and if it was not, for the most part, a partial government which has worked as referee between the civilians and corporate interests balancing profits fairly, there would be no country. (A friend when he was in University, taking a Business Commerces course wrote a paper similar to above...now he is a strong Libertarian but thinks Ayn Rand was a fool.) In addition to those very admirable qualities, we are also extremely pleasant. Jim ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rocky Smolin" <rockysmolin at bchacc.com> To: "Discussion of Hardware and Software issues" <dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com> Sent: Wednesday, December 4, 2013 1:32:03 PM Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Way OT but I love you people so I'm posingthequestion. Sorry - small s socialist. Or socialistic. Don't be offended. It's only my personal observation based on my anecdotal experience. I have found confirmation among other people down here. But that doesn't mean anything. Not a large enough sample to draw a statistical conclusion. R -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Peter Brawley Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 11:42 AM To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Way OT but I love you people so I'm posingthequestion. On 2013-12-04 11:15 AM, Rocky Smolin wrote: > 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. Why the capital-S in 'socialist'? Over the 25 years or so that Arthur & I have been selling software tools & books, Canadian sales have always been way less than the 9% of US sales you'd expect simply from the 10-1 population ratio. That's been so whether sales were based in Canada or in the US. Canadian sales of our current book have been just 3% of the US total. Ditto for free, open source downloads. Why would being a bit more socialist, cautious, communitarian, cooperative, traditional & loyalist than USAmericans discourage Canadians from downloading free software? Why would being a bit more socialist, communitarian, cooperative, traditional & loyalist than USAmericans discourage Canadians from buying books? On the whole, Canadians read more than USAmericans, not less. Your explanation for your Canadian sales failures doesn't hold water. Here's a plausible alternative: your sales pitch didn't persuade quite well enough, but rather than just shut you out, your polite Canadian interlocutors thought to give you another chance. > > 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, More like non sequiturs. PB ----- > 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 > > _______________________________________________ > 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