I met with a friend for coffee this morning and we discussed coaching/consulting. I plucked an analogy from the air, that he really liked, but I couldn’t think where to write it down–so I don’t forget it.

I’ll share it here, so anyone can use it.

A consultant is a tugboat at a busy harbor. The ship (client) could eventually find its own way to the dock, and may even manage to pull into a slip. However, the tugboat is there to give gently nudges in the right direction, ensure the ship avoids any shallow dangers, and actually berths at the right slip.

So says Andy “the tugboat” Beal.

OK, now for today’s Picks:

It looks like privacy concerns have put Charter Communications ad targeting plans on hold.

As we reported last month, ISPs are sitting on a wealth of personalized data, but lawmakers have expressed concerns over the methods used to tap into that data–especially "deep packet inspection."

The pressure has obviously become too much for Charter which, conveniently, spins the suspension of its ad plans into a mere pause, while it listens to customers.

"As we do with all new service launches or initiatives, we conducted focus groups well in advance, which told us that most broadband consumers would look upon this service favorably," Charter said on Wednesday.

Just in case anyone out there was having a crisis of faith, the Opinion Research Corporation has good news for you: search engines are still the preferred method for conducting product/service research. In a survey of 736 adults released yesterday (PDF), ORC found that not only do most people prefer to use search engines for product research, they also read “online customer feedback” heavily.

That THAT, totally skewed Pew findings!

61% of respondents said they read “online reviews, blogs and other sources of online customer feedback before purchasing a new product or service.” Even more impressive, 83% said that “online product evaluations and reviews had at least some level of influence on their purchasing decisions.” (But only 32% reported posting online feedback themselves. Lazies.)

Remember when I wrote about little known search engine, Searchme, earlier this month? They had just announced another round of funding and in my post I waxed a bit poetic about the “The Beauty of the UI”. Some of the naysayers commented – “Nice, but not practical”.

Two things you should know about investors. First – they typically don’t throw a boatload of cash at zippo. Second – they play to win. So, it was a safe bet that the high profile group of investors must have seen some features they liked prior to anteing up another $12M. Two of those features were revealed today.

Searchme Stacks

Searchme Stacks extend visual search into the bookmark space and across the Web, allowing users to assemble and share collections of their favorite web pages in one.