Around the watercooler

DYNAMICS OF DORM DECOR: Ikea, the Swedish furniture retailer, recently surveyed 600 students to better understand what's going on in their dorm rooms and found there's a correlation between their surroundings and the decisions they make.

"What we found is that it seems the more comfortable people felt in their environment ... the fewer signs of anxiety we saw," said Ikea spokeswoman Janice Simonsen.

For example, the survey said that women who didn't have desks in their rooms were 70 percent more likely to drink often than those who did. And women who didn't have a couch were more likely to miss their families than those who owned one.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION: There's at least a million reasons to live in Minot, N.D. instead of Palo Alto, Calif., according to real estate giant Coldwell Banker.

The Parsippany, N.J.-based company recently released its annual study showing that a 2,200-square-foot home with four bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, a family room and two-car garage was worth $119,000 in Minot and $1.23 million in Palo Alto.

Coldwell Banker spokeswoman Gabrielle Sertich said the index offers homeowners a way to determine how much house they can afford in various parts of the country.

The company compared the prices of homes in 307 markets, including Puerto Rico, and posted the data on its Web site, www.coldwellbanker.com.

NO FURY LIKE A CONSUMER SCORNED: Consumers have few qualms about avenging what they believe is a breach of corporate trust, a study shows.

Of 1,252 adults surveyed in a poll by M Booth & Associates, a New York-based public relations agency, 96 percent have taken one or more steps to air their beefs if a company lets them down.

Strongly worded letters, boycotts, defecting to other brands, and urging family and friends to stop using a company's products and services are among the tactics consumers preferred to use to vent their dissatisfaction.

"Implications for corporate leaders are clear," the firm's president, Margaret Booth said of the study.

Lousy customer service, a decline in the quality of goods and services and questionable corporate integrity have driven consumers to lash out, the company said.