Folly in business

US businesses are now taking advice from psychics! According to an article in Newsweek (http://www.newsweek.com/id/142632/output/print) some are now paying $10,000 per month to keep one on call.

The good news, I think, is that most of those foolish enough to waste money on this are too embarrassed to let their names be published. According to Newsweek “… almost all [the clients] who spoke to Newsweek … requested anonymity out of concern for their reputations.”

Of course this is hardly the only way that businesses pay for unproven advice. A good deal of management consultancy is equally unproven if a good deal more logical (and I write as a management consultant). But it’s one thing to seek advice from someone with knowledge and experience of your field; quite another to ask someone qualified only by ignorance and beliefs that defy reason.

This is another US trend that we can do without.

My thanks to Marketing Fray marketingfray.blogspot.com/), the blog of Copernicus Marketing, for alerting me to this nonsense.