I was at a local breakfast chain (Chez Cora’s) over the weekend and there was a table with two children literally hanging off the wall and climbing anything they could, as children are apt to do. It was apparent that, aside from the food (and the colouring pages), there wasn’t much of anything for the kids to do but climb around their seat. For some reason this made me think that if only there was something that would capture their attention and keep them seated, if only long enough for their parents to relax a little and have a nice breakfast.

Then it came to me. Themed booster seats! Read more »

I was reading up on some of the VizThink 2008 session summaries that people have been blogging about, and there was one bit from Jim Haudan’s Drawing the Big Picture: Strategy Alignment and Deployment Using Visualization session that sort of stuck out at me:

“Gallup polls indicate that 300 billion is lost in productivity as 25% of a typical organization is disengaged, 50% is ambivalent, and only 25% are agents of change. This lack of engagement results in the fact that 66-90% of strategies that are developed don’t get executed.”

An interesting stat in and of itself, but what happens if we think of this not in terms of productivity within an organization, but rather, from the perspective of a company and its customers:

“…$300 billion is lost in revenue as 25% of a typical organization’s customers are disengaged (buy the product service, but are not satisfied with the level of service or quality), 50% are ambivalent, and only 25% are agents of change (excited about your company/product, and tell their friends). This lack of customer engagement results in the fact that 66-90% of customer service efforts targeted at your customers, don’t succeed.”

Now the numbers in my scenario are completely made up, but if that were the reality - and certainly, it could be in a crowdsourced model where your customers are your employees; what would you need to do differently in your customer service strategy?

…And the best thing about getting engaged with your customers, is that it doesn’t cost you 3 months salary!

(photo credit: rmrayner)

I’m typing this post from my newly resuscitated iBook (2005 vintage). Over the holidays, someone accidentally stepped on the end of the AC adapter, crushing the metal shielding and bending the center pin beyond repair (I tried to bend it back slowly and it snapped off).

After the initial shock, I thought, oh well, I’ll just order a new adapter. More shock. The official G4 iBook AC adapter is $100 at the Apple Store. Read more »

A few weeks ago I read an article about a rather iconic maker of parkas that I’d never heard of before. The company is called Canada Goose. They’ve made a name for themselves outfitting polar explorers and now produce very durable, warm and fashionable parkas. Naturally, I thought “if these parkas are so great how come I’ve never seen them before???” Read more »

While I typically like to focus on customer experiences from the customer side, this post is a win-win from both sides. For anyone that’s been a server or a waiter in a restaurant, these should, for the most part be common sense, but you’d be surprised at how often people get them wrong. Put these into action, and you’re guaranteed to see your tips improve - unless, of course, the food is just plain terrible. Read more »

So yesterday was Macworld and Macophiles from all corners of the known universe descended upon San Francisco with cult like devotion to hear High Priest Steve Jobs preach the Gospel of Mac. I listened fairly intently to the keynote and one thing struck me as worth writing about. No it’s not the Mac Book Air or the Apple TV Take 2 or the Time Capsule for that matter. Read more »

Starbucks is, by definition about creating remarkable experiences and going that extra mile. They’ve built their entire reputation on it. So why is it that the store experience doesn’t quite translate whenever I try to make that “perfect” cup of their coffee at home?

Read more »

Yesterday I was over at Seth’s blog and read his article basically advising marketeers not to dumb down their messages because doing so attracts dumb customers. Then I thought about it, and something about it bothered me. So I thought about it some more, gave it time to digest but it just didn’t sit well because I completely disagree with the whole notion of a “dumb customer”. There are no dumb customers, only customers with different needs. Read more »

You have been bitten by a vampire, so and so’s added some innocuous application that you really could care less about, add this application to spam and alienate the few friends that you have left. This is just a sample of the garbage that now populates the Facebook mini-feed (cynicism aside of course). What was a once a rather gratifying exercise in voyeurism has now turned into a something resembling a flea market escapade. Then there’s the wall which went from elegant simplicity to becoming the equivalent of an elementary school art project and the mini-feed, which is now full of mostly junk interspersed with the occasional treasure of friend related gossip. Read more »