The idea of these “What I Learned” posts is certainly not something original, just the content is. I certainly didn’t create this category, and I have seen more and more of these types of posts and emails out there. So before I get into this week’s, I ask – do you find these useful? Feel free to add a comment to this post or contact me. In the meantime, here’s what’s cross my personal dashboard, in some cases literally.

• If IKEA is the crown jewel of the flat-pack, build-yourself furniture market, then I just found the court jester in Monarch Specialties. I finished putting together a new desk for my daughter which, in the end, looked as nice as the pictures of it online, but was an unbearable experience to build. To begin with, the instructions were extremely tiny, even with a magnifying glass combined with my reading glasses. The instructions also took major “leaps” on each page – rather than step-by-step, several steps, some which required an extra person or fancy maneuvering, were combined together. I could go on, and I just may with a not-so-flattering product review.
• The Nielsen/Norman Group is a consultancy on online usability and user experience and is well-known in the Web space. Their recent article on Privacy Policy and Terns of Use pages on Web sites can be summed up in 3 words – they all suck. Note those are my own words, and you can read the article for yourself if you are so inclined. With the increased number of international privacy laws, coupled with people trying to bypass them, those pages likely won’t get any better.
• Though it was a Merriam-Webster word of the day a while back, for some reason flibbertigibbet didn’t resonate with me then, as I read them daily. But it has stuck with me now as it was the title of a recent episode of the news analysis podcast No Agenda.
• Posts of the picture of Dignity,, a large, unique monument in South Dakota stated appearing recently on LinkedIn. However, Dignity was installed several years ago. I wish I had known about it before and on my family’s road trip that way last year we would have taken a different route to see it.
• My friend Nick Rhodes’ photo booth service OutSnapped now offers a virtual component. And not surprisingly to me, it has a great user experience and creates some great pictures – check it out for yourself and try it for free. If you are hosting a virtual event and want something other than the usual Zoom / Brady Bunch grid, check out OutSnapped.
• I recently ventured over to High Cliff State Park here in Wisconsin. The entry booth is no longer staffed and even the automated pay stations are disabled, thus leaving buying a pass online as the only option. But it has to be an annual pass, not a daily pass. But the extra funds go to a good cause, right?
• A local small business that I have used extensively since we moved here, Donaldson's Cleaners, went delivery-only as a result of the virus and closed its 2 retail stores. As I never visited the stores and as an indicator to send me monthly statements with inserts like this announcement in their customer system was not checked, I didn’t find out until I saw the story on a local newspaper’s Web site. That being said, it has had no impact on me, in the quality cleaning of clothes or their service level.
• If you buy a hitch cover for a trailer hitch on your vehicle, don't forget to buy a hitch lock pin, which is most always sold separately.
• When looking for a place to stay for some form of a real vacation this year, I found the Web site for a hotel that had the interesting description above for its non-existent business center.

As I was editing these I was listening to DJ Liquid Todd on SiriusXM’s BPM channel. I had a déjà vu moment as I recall listening to him on WFNX in Boston back when I was in Boston and there was still a WFNX.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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