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One of my Twitter acquaintances and I recently had a conversation about our mutual love affair with online shopping. When I asked him why he liked shopping online, he replied that it is easy, there is more choice, and online shopping gives access to more information than traditional 'brick' shopping. This post, on the sheer amount of information available when shopping online comes directly out of that one micro-conversation.

One of my favourite authors, Barry Schwartz wrote a beautiful book entitled "The Paradox of Choice" in which he argued that too much choice can become debilitating. I am currently in the market for a notebook and let me tell you, I think Schwartz was talking about the notebook market. There are literally hundreds of models available that would meet my needs. Rather than let the sheer amount of choice become debilitating, I have chosen to turn the internet into a powerful ally in my quest for 'the perfect notebook'.

Earlier today, I was lucky enough to stumble upon a very interesting article, written by an electronic payment processor called First American Payment Systems. I have been following First American Payment Systems on Digg for awhile - in that time, I have learned many interesting things by watching the articles that they Digg. However, this article deserves special mention as it explains exactly how the transaction industry works.

http://fapsmarketing.blogspot.com/2009/03/understanding-credit-card-transactions.html

On March 17, Shane Gross wrote an interesting article in which he looked at some of the statistics behind identity theft in Canada. In the course of writing this article, Shane referenced a wonderful report entitled, "Measuring Identity Theft in Canada: 2008 Consumer Survey" written by Susan Sproule and Norm Archer of McMaster University's eBusiness Research Centre.

Since Sunburn Gross and I come from different backgrounds, it is no surprise that we both focus on slightly different aspects of the report. While Shane focused more upon the raw numbers, I got hung up on a few very interesting sections.

I work in User Experience/Customer Relations at NetSecure Technologies. In that capacity, one of my major tasks has been to prepare and execute support materials. A security product is useless if customers cannot or will not use it, so teaching people how to use the product is especially important.

Psychologists have argued (quite effectively) that different people employ different learning styles. Personally, I learn best when I can read something - give me a book and I can become an expert fairly quickly (strangely, I have much more difficulty absorbing information if I read it online). Other people learn best when they can hear something. And still other people learn best when they can actually try something out. Customer support is about supporting people the way they need to be supported - there is no room for ego, and no room for, "well, this works for me" thinking. So, I have tried to employ as many different learning styles as possible in all of my support materials.

My Dad spent over forty years in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Over the course of his career, he was stationed through F-Division (RCMP-speak for 'Saskatchewan'). Being RCMP brats, my little sister and I were lucky enough to live in some very interesting places.

One of the more interesting places we lived was a vibrant little town called Carlyle. I was seven years old when we moved there and the whole town quickly became my playground. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Carlyle was its proximity to other little towns, like Arcola, Kisbey and Forget. One of my parents' good friends lived in Forget, so we used to spend quite a bit of time in that beautiful little place with its fascinating history.

Don Power, our Sales Manager, is originally from Newfoundland, so he has been closely watching news about the tragic helicopter crash that took the lives of 17 people. When I asked Don about the tragedy, he wrote the following in an email:

"I just read that thousands are expected to pack the largest church in Newfoundland for a memorial service for the victims and their families. They did the same thing a hundred years ago after every spring seal hunt and again in 1982 when the Ocean Ranger oil rig went down with all hands aboard. Go to any community in Newfoundland and there are often memorials and plaques in homage to people who have lost their lives on the sea. Whether or not you ever plied the ocean yourself, this becomes a living breathing part of your makeup when you are a Newfoundlander. Where else could three friends grow up together and two of them become bonafide ships' captains? I'm the computer nerd in that group of 3, so directly or indirectly we Newfoundlanders ALL have a profound bittersweet identity with the sea and at times like these we mourn not only for these victims, but the hundreds (thousands?) who've gone before and the inevitable, unfortunate folk who will meet a similar fate in days yet to come." (Don Power, March 18, 2009)

Author's Note: Dan and Shane wrote some pretty wonderful articles yesterday, so I am feeling pretty nervous about this one.

NetSecure Technologies' security guru, Nima Sharifimehr and I were having a conversation about this blog and some articles we hope to write together. After a particularly enlightening conversation on fields like privacy, social media, information security, and sidejacking methods, I asked him for a list of things that he would teach every internet user in the world about security.