Britannica – no longer if anymore, but WHEN

Great blogger – www.chartreuse.wordpress.com had a great piece about Wikipedia putting some one two’s together on sleepy old Britannica. Look for this battle to get ugly fast for Britannica as per the reasons in the post.

One of my first jobs in High School was selling Britannica – 1986 – big OY. I never got the good “Glengary” leads, my mentor Check Chan (you don’t forget this stuff) got them. He was a Britannica legend in Toronto. He taught me much about sales. There were endless summer days spent at malls with a Brittanica booth trying to set up appointments – offering a free desk reference set – if they would let me into their home to pitch the Brittanica books – really just a payment plan.

Believe me, it actually worked.

The biggest objection from the “smart asses” at the time was that they could get it on CD’s. FREAKIN CD’s.

Check would just mumble something in Chinese – man I learned a lot of Chinese words for PUTZ – and generally argue. Who knew that the granola’s were right. What Google does not do, Wikipedia will finish. If not now, real soon.

I hope my buddy Check Chan is moving on.