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The Berenstain Bears has entertained kids since 1962 and can still be seen on TV stations like PBS in the US and Treehouse here in Canada.

My kids love the shows.

As parents we’ve found the episodes to give some teachable moments to discuss with our kids and we normally do not even worry about them watching TV if these are the shows they are watching. They are normally “safe” shows.

Unfortunately there are exceptions. Or at least one exception which have lead to a small nightmare for our family. After hearing another mother tell me today that she rushed to turn the TV off when realizing what was happening I decided it was worth writing about.

Berenstain Bears is no longer a safe show in our house. The kids still watch them, but my youngest ask me to stay with them at the beginning of every show to make sure it is not the “Green Eyed Monster”.

It all started just before Halloween last year. My son, 4 1/2, who never had been afraid of anything, was watching Berenstain Bears while I tried to get some household activities out of the way.

Suddenly I hear him screaming. I rush back to the living room, thinking he must have hurt himself, and find him sitting on the sofa - shivering! His sister, 3 years older, who had watched the show with him was trying to comfort him.

I’m not sure how the producers screen the content for these episodes. In this case I think they must have forgotten to look at the impact of the show on the kids and what this actually mean to us as parents.

For some reason this episode made a lasting impact on my son. The topic was “envy” and Sister , as far as I understand, was having a dream about envy in for of a Green Eyed Monster.

My son no longer dears to go to his room on his own, even a request for him to walk 12 feet to get his shoes results in the “But daddy, I am scared” response. Even after nearly 6 months this is an issue. My son requires to be able to see me (or mom) t be able to go to sleep.

The bottom line is that he is really scared. For some reason this episode hit his imagination hard.

We talk about these things with our kids, and have tried to explain that it was a movie and that the Green Eyed Monster is not real but pretend. It doesn’t matter. As you might imagine this has turned our lives quite a bit upside down.

As a parent I did not expect this from a Berenstain Bear episode. While I still believe it is a good show, I’m thinking they failed us as parents by releasing this episode.

This week they showed the episode again. My son was at daycare. They were watching TV. That night he hardly slept - neither did his mom (Thanks Dear!).

This blog entry will be e-mailed to Treehouse, PBS and Berenstain Bears with a request that this episode will be pulled. As a parent, my expectation is that the Berenstain Bears will continue to entertain and give us teachable moments - and I hope they will remove this “nightmare” episode.

roar at roarweb dot com

Jan 2 2006

roar at roarweb dot com

Jan 2 2006. Sunset photographed from the Imperial Landing walkway in Steveston, BC.

roar at roarweb dot com

Christmas is a time full of “customer experiences”.

- shopping
- wrapping of presents
- preparation of food
- time with friends and family
- giving and receiving of gifts
- church
- eating
- returns
- sales

For many they all go together in a blur. Christmas is a busy time for many and their “customer experience” in one area really depends on what happened in other areas.

- Making food, wrapping and giving gifts are dependent on shopping.
- Receiving gifts and eating of food depends on …. shopping
- Returns depends on shopping
- For many, sales means shopping

So, does it all boil down to shopping? It might look that way from the examples above and for some it does. Even the time spent with friends, family and at church sometimes depends on how the shopping has gone.

While shopping for many has become the main activity around Christmas, there are others that try to focus on other things. Convention organizers at a local hotel had the hotel take down all their Christmas decorations as it reminded them about the commercialization of Christmas.

Shopping has become an important part of this holidays here in North America. And our experiences when shopping impacts how we feel about this time of year. Poor service and long lineups make this a stressful time for many.

This stress follows us through the holidays. We’re late for church - standing room only. We’re trying to squeeze in another few friends for a get together - people we can see all year round, but “have to” see during these few days. We’re busy! And to this we add more shopping when the sales starts!?!

Christmas is a great example on how things are interconnected. Our experiences when shopping or preparing food often impacts how we feel about other parts of the holidays.

This interconnection is there year-round, but the additional stress at Christmas time makes it more obvious.

This interconnection impacts us both as a consumer and as a business.

As a consumer an experience in one area will impact how we feel about an experience in another area. As a business we’ll see customers react to what we offer of products and service(s) based on what they have experienced other places.

We need to keep this in mind when looking at experiences. When a customer has been treated poorly somewhere else you might have to increase your service level to achieve the same satisfaction level as before. That the last customer yelled at you does not mean you should yell at the next one in the line-up.

To help create a positive customer experience we all need to work hard to break the cycle of stress and negative feedback. First then will the experience improve - both for customers and the employees trying to serve them.

Want to look at inter-connectivity from a different angle? Imagine a glass half full of water. Then you start adding more water - one drop at a time. If you do nothing else the water will eventually overflow. While many will say that it was the last drop that made the water overflow, I urge you to look again. Have you ever tried to find that last drop in the water? Is it still in the glass or on the outside? Does it matter?

The glass of water overflowed because of the combined volume of water was larger than the glass could hold. So is it with customer experiences. Each little item impacts the larger picture. Too many “irritations” and you might “spill”, too many complaints and the response from the store clerk might be very negative.

Next time, let’s keep this interconnection in mind.

By the way. Christmas is not about shopping. For me it’s about a Gift of another kind. A Gift that is free to all those that ask for it. While I still shop for food and gifts and still stress more than I should, no shopping is needed for the true meaning of Christmas!

roar at roarweb dot com

After struggeling to make Blogger do what I wanted to do with my Blog I gave up!

Blogger just does not cut it when it comes to hosting a business blog. WordPress demanded a bit more setup - and I needed my own host (which I already had) - but it now gives me access to features I did not get with Blogger. For example, categories was one of the features I was longing for!

On Monday November 28th I posted live from a seminar to my Blogger account and then used FTP to upload to my own domain. I also made a similar post to a test I was doing on the hosted version of WordPress . In checking - two days later - my Blogger entry had not been listed on Technorati, but my WordPress.com (hosted) had. It was really scary. End of Blogger for me.

It took me a week or so to move. I wanted to move my Blogger posts with me. There are scripts, but I could not get them to work properly. And having only 40 posts or so I thought I would just copy them manually. I also decided to leave the Blogger posts in my directory, so I made a change in the HTML showing only one link from each post - back to my new WordPress PHP driven homepage.

I’m sure there will be other updates I will want to do, but at least all my posts are now migrated and my FeedBurner links are implemented.

roar at roarweb dot com - reporting live with WordPress

I’m a winner!

While I’ve long known I’m a “lucky guy”, with a great family and good friends, I’ve now graduated from the “Super 7: One Free Play Winner” circle to be the winner of an iPod nano. In about a week I will be able to pick up my black iPod nano from the offices of e-hosting.ca.

I’ve been considering a new web host lately. I guess I should look further at e-hosting.ca’s plans $9.95 for 500MB with lots of extras doesn’t look that bad…

Hey, e-mail from MyPoints just came in - looks like the Gap is given away another nano + a chance to win $10,000 ) hmm…

roar at roarweb dot com

Note This post moved from Blogger December 6, 2005

Cadbury Schweppes plc | our brands | find a brand | Search Results

BITTER LEMON

How I miss this drink.

It’s funny though how this british company doesn’t know the product is sold in England!

roar at roarweb dot com

This post moved from Blogger December 5, 2005

Caramilk Bars - The Biggest Secret In The Universe

Frozen … which explains why they taste so good straight out of the freezer.

Just try it!

roar at roarweb dot com

Tickle me …..

A while back I took a free IQ test from Tickle.com. The result … well, let’s just say I was on the “right” side of the curve.

As I’m a bit sceptical to this kind of testing, I did not buy the premium analysis …

Today I was offered a free copy - as long as I was willing to check out some offers from some of their partners (”free” gas card etc.).

The report was “interesting”. I’m a “Visionary Philosopher”. And guess what, they even issued me a Certificate of Intellectual Achievement”!

From the report:

You’ve got tons of strengths. It wouldn’t surprise us if you:
- Think of the “big picture”
- Can anticipate and predict patterns
- Are good at context clues
- Can see similarities in seemingly disparate things

Who wouldn’t be pleased with this?

It also gave me some help for my job search )))

Some of the careers they suggested:

- Archaeologist
- Detective
- Sculptor
- City planner
- Chief executive

Quite a range to choose from. I could have told them that without taking the test. I’m sure my mom must have told me I could be whatever I want to be!

roar at roarweb dot com

I was in the process of telling a friend why I though he might benefit from joining my LinkedIn network.

He runs a wedding photography business on the side of his day job, and I used the example that my contacts might be searching for a photographer.

That made me think that I already have two photographers in my LinkedIn contacts, and I decided to pass these web site addresses on to my friend.

I sent him to Kris Krug and Victor Aberdeen’s sites.

To make sure I had Victor’s URL right I went to his site.

Both Kris and Victor knows my friend Ean Jackson. And I guess this is what made my heart beat faster when I opened Victor’s site.

Victor shows some of his most recent photos on his home page. When I opened it up I saw a photo with the caption “Jackson”. In it you see 2 search and rescue technicians doing their work.

Ean is an ultra-runner, and you never know what he might be up to. A while back he ran for 43 HOURS and 50 minutes, completing the 180 km long Sunshine Coast Trail NON-STOP!

So, it would not surprise me if Ean needed some Search and rescue help somewhere.

Jackson turned out to be a dog. A black lab that had just fallen off a 50 ft cliff.

I’m glad it wasn’t Ean, and happy they rescued the dog as well.

Have you donated to your local Search and rescue group lately?

roar at roarweb dot com

NOTE: This post moved from Blogger to WordPress December 6, 2005