Soundbites

Old-fashioned travel bargains

Bargain on-line travel sites, also known as aggregators, are no longer always the best route to a cheaper hotel room or vacation flight, Doug Garr writes in Backchannel’s weekly e-newsletter.

Relying on sites such as Expedia, Travelocity or Trip Advisor won’t necessarily offer you the best deal. In recent years, as mergers in the online sector have driven up prices, hotels have worked at finding new ways of selling rooms without paying fees to electronic middlemen.

“The price control pendulum is swinging back toward the hoteliers,” he notes.

When it comes to travel bookings these days, the old technology may serve you best, he concludes: “Just pick up the phone and call the front desk.”

You can read the entire article at this address: https://backchannel. com/why-bargain-travel-sites-mayno-longer-be-bargains-979e8bbf47a8

Fail often, fail fast

I believe in failure. Fail often, fail fast, fail cheap. I’ve probably had more failures than anyone else, but the key is to keep them small enough. I’d be doing four things at once, one of them would kick in and do well, and people would think, Jim’s a genius. What they forgot is three of them fell on the floor and didn’t work. — Jim Estill, owner of appliance company Danby, in The Globe and Mail

Give us this day

This is the beginning of a new day. God has given me this day to use as I will. I can waste it or use it for good, but what I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something that I have traded for it. I want it to be gain and not loss; good and not evil; success and not failure, in order that I shall not regret the price I have paid for it. — William David Thompson

Sure, I’ll let you in

Traffic was dense on my way to work. A construction blockage had created a bottleneck. I was in the lucky lane, next to the one with drivers anxious to zipper their way in. I always let one or two cars in. It makes drivers happy, maybe even sets their day on a better course; and it delays me only 20 seconds or so. But more than that, it eases the entire traffic enterprise. After all, I am not just a sole driver in a thicket of vehicles; I am part of a vast creeping movement of people heading for work. My little concession, if writ large, would move all of us forward, together, for the good of all.

Kind of like my company. I’m not there just to make a profit and earn a livelihood. I’m there to provide goods, services and jobs that make society work. I’m there for the common good. — John Canus in Going Public: Business for the People