project ideas

[tris-]

its come to a point now where i need to think of something to research for my dissertation next year. problem is, i dont know HOW to start thinking of ideas.

i know a couple people here have or are doing projects now, how did you come up with your idea?

 

[- English -]

its come to a point now where i need to think of something to research for my dissertation next year. problem is, i dont know HOW to start thinking of ideas.

i know a couple people here have or are doing projects now, how did you come up with your idea?

course?

my bro suggested a project i can do when it comes round to the time, but thats for computing

 

[tris-]

consumer science and law

 

[swords]

Consumer science? hmm.
Go political, food is big!

GM crops.

 

[Cadelin]

What about a research project into he ways people are targetted by advertising.

You have adverts that match your searches when using google etc.
but recently they have banned that advertising thing facebook were doing which used your personal details/private conversation to target adverts.

There are a whole range of ways in which companies try and get information on us some of which I am sure are legally dubious.

 

[Sharma]

Change in advertising practices in the past century.


You'd be suprised at the sheer amount of racist/sexist adverts there were from 1900-1950.

 

[tris-]

sorry guys i got impatient

ive decided on "the effects of contract law on the consumer".

split into 4 parts so far. and no doubt i will be calling upon the fh population to help me. one part i plan on surveying the consumers knowledge of their rights and awareness.
another part involves suverying managers of business who deal with the public, to asses what knowledge they have on consumers rights. too many times ive over head managers saying "you cant return that you havent got a reciept" or some other rubbish.

i reckon their (lack of) knowledge will be passed onto the consumer.

 

[Varna]

The customer is always right!

 

[tris-]

The customer is always right!

except for when theyre wrong

 

[Sharma]

The customer is always right!

I wanted to nut the people who quoted me that when I worked in Makro.

Generally the customer is a fucking idiot.

 

[tris-]

I wanted to nut the people who quoted me that when I worked in Makro.

Generally the customer is a fucking idiot.

i do wonder where that saying come from.
i may well include it in my questioning to see how many believe its right.

 

[Mey]

Google

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The customer is always right

Meaning

The trading policy that states a company's keenness to be seen to put the customer first.

Origin

the customer is always rightSeveral retail concern used this as a slogan from the early 20th century onward. In the USA it is particularly associated with Marshall Field's department store, Chicago (established in the late 19th century). The store is an icon of the city, although it is set to lose its name in 2006 when, following a takeover, it becomes renamed as Macy's. In the UK, Harry Gordon Selfridge (1857-1947) the founder of London's Selfridges store (opened in 1909), is credited with championing its use. The Wisconsin born Selfridge worked for Field from 1879 to 1901. Both men were dynamic and creative businessmen and it's highly likely that one of them coined the phrase, although we don't know which.

Of course, these entrepreneurs didn't intend to be taken literally. What they were attempting to do was to make the customer feel special by inculcating into their staff the disposition to behave as if the customer was right, even when they weren't.

The trading policy and the phrase were well-known by the early 20th century. From the Kansas City Star, January 1911 we have a piece about a local country store that was modelled on Field's/Selfridges:

[George E.] "Scott has done in the country what Marshall Field did in Chicago, Wannamaker did in New York and Selfridge in London. In his store he follows the Field rule and assumes that the customer is always right."

Whether the phrase was coined by Field or Selfridge it is fair to call it American. What we can't do is credit them with the idea behind it. In 1908 César Ritz (1850-1918), the celebrated French hotelier is credited with saying 'Le client n'a jamais tort' - 'The customer is never wrong'. That's not the phrase that people now remember, but it can hardly be said to be any different in meaning to 'the customer is always right'.