theIdeaStudio (Customer Crossroads)

Forgotten Space Blogfest - 2008 version

    In the past couple of years I've been an avid writer (and one of the initiators) for the annual Bathroom Blogfest -- cleaning up the ladiesroom experience.

This year, the mandate has expanded to forgotten spaces. You know the ones we mean -- the foyers, the parking lots, the change rooms, and every other space where the customer is theoretically "off-stage", except they aren't.

Water, water everywhere

My own continuing beef is about public washrooms where there is water everywhere, because the towel dispenser or dryer is so far from the sinks. This creates unnecessary labor costs, of course, because someone has to constantly be mopping up. A huge waste you see everywhere from your mall to the airport.

Well I saw something recently that was really clever. My new gym folds a towel and puts it in front of the sink. It's not for your hands, it's clearly a drip catcher. And it works like a charm. The towel catches all the big drips as you sweep your hands towards the paper towel dispenser / air dryer.

I'm guessing the entrepreneurs that run this place got tired of cleaning up, so they figured out this expedient solution. So while we wait for the designers to come up with something, you might want to try this.

Other blogfesters have brought their own unique take to the topic. All great, but here are a few that caught my attention today:

Maria Palma at Customers Are Always  likes this interactive bathroom wall

David Polinchock at Experience Economist has always been an honorary blogfester. Stopping by his blog this week I saw the funniest video about what would happen if a client/agency were charged with designing a stop sign. He has also discovered SitorSquat.com, a site that lets you locate a decent bathroom wherever you are (in USA and UK that is), and lets you upload or comment on bathrooms. Like a travel community site, just really focused on bathrooms. And on mobile access, which of course is a necessity for something like this.

Stephanie Weaver at Experienceology has some excellent posts about airports, and how public art can take a cavern and make it inviting.

C.B. Whittemore at Flooring The Consumer reminds us that the forgotten spaces are frequently a buffer zone between the personal and the public. In a shopping environment, the foyer, for example, is a transition zone. It sets the whole tone and pace, and can get you to slow down or speed up. Intead of being an afterthought, these spaces need a plan. CB is also pretty much the energizer bunny as far as this blogfest is concerned, and deserves the credit for this year's successes. 

Kate Rutter at Adaptive Path has a wonderful analysis of the bathroom experience from a designer's perspective. Well worth the read.

Other blogs that are part of the blogfest:

Katia Adams at Transcultural Marketing
Shannon Bilby at Floor Talk!
Laurence Borel at Blog Till You Drop
Jo Brown and the blogging team at Kohler Talk
Lisbeth Calandrino at Lisbeth Calandrino
Sara Cantor at The Curious Shopper
Becky Carroll at Customers Rock!
Katie Clark at Practical Katie
Iris Shreve Garrott at Circulating
Ann Handley at Annarchy
Marianna Hayes at Results Revolution
Elizabeth Hise and C.B. Whittemore at The Carpetology Blog
Claudia Schiepers at Life and its little pleasures
Carolyn Townes at Becoming a Woman of Purpose
Sandra Renshaw at Purple Wren

Kudos to everyone for taking the bathroom out of the closet.

Where customization is going

I've been searching for the perfect planner for years. The hidden hope is that somehow the right system will help me stay on top of things better. One result of this is that I am on the mailing list for various planner outfits. Over the years I have used Daytimer (my first love), Prenote from QuoVadis, Priority Management, DayRunner (only a brief fling), Franklin Covey, and Levenger. And like a lot of planner junkies, I have also created my own pages when I couldn't find what I wanted. (Yes, I was looking for something more customized to my needs.)

It's a good way to have a look at the whole notion of customization, a trend which continues to pick up speed, thanks to information technologies.

The paper planner business hangs on, I believe, because some of us just are not linear enough to deal with an electronic calendar. Or we just like the fluidity of paper and pencil. Electronic calendars have relatively little in the way of customization ability -- you pretty much have to deal with the interface the way the software designers planned. 

The Old Way

Proprietary systems, special binders, expanding layout options support the drive to differentiate

Some systems have almost no customization options, such as Priority Management's paper planner system, below:

You can buy fancier binders, but that's about the extent of it.

Quo Vadis has pretty standard guts as well, but offers a great selection of good looking covers.

Daytimer, one of the granddads of this category, has a massive selection of binder options. And they also have quite a wide variety of page formats as well as a few colorful themes:

 

Franklin Covey goes much further on the theme options, as you can see in this shot below from a recent e-mail advert:

 

The New Way

Custom printing lets people create their own unique style

Sadly, the planner that you can design yourself doesn't really quite exist yet, unless you are a do-it-yourself kind of person. But it can't be far off.

I can print business cards at MOO with a different picture on the back of each one. Pictures that I upload, or pictures that MOO has.

 

I can print custom sneakers for myself, again, using my own designs that I upload, or using a set of patterns and colors the company makes available to me. Yup, there's a hefty price premium. But why not? I haven't been able to decide what I really want, or I'd be sporting my own pair already.

If I really want to build my own planner, there is a web-site for me and my community where I can download templates -- or upload my own designs! DIY Planner has templates and designs you can use to build your own planner. Users upload images of their planning and calendaring systems, share tips, and demonstrate a zestful commitment to meeting their own needs instead of being forced into a template that's not-quite-right.

 

This is what customization looks like. Options built for one person. Not a pre-printed theme -- a me-theme.

Virtual sampling lets you try before you buy

Miro Slodki pointed me to this interesting development from Cathay Pacific: a 3d virtual environment that lets you try out their cabins.

I thought the demo would only show me the luxury cabins. But brilliantly, it lets you experience all classes of travel, from economy to first. You can walk around on your own, take a tour, or watch an avatar take your place as you. It's pretty engaging (and certainly makes me want to fly Cathay Pacific!)

And of course doing something like this has amazing viral value. I'm not sitting here writing about another luxury airline, am I?

So you launched an improvement and nobody came?

It took me almost two years to learn that the car dealer nearest my house had Saturday hours for repairs. I wanted Saturday hours, so I went to a dealer a long ways away. It was completely by chance that I found this out.

We are often so absorbed in our own category and our brand that we fail to connect with customers on fundamental benefits. Or we make a single announcement, and assume the message is out.

Ged Parton makes a similar point in this story by Aaron Barr of MediaPost's Marketing Daily: If Obama is Nokia then McCain is Diet Coke (25 Oct 08)

If one is a venerable brand whose only strategy has been to focus on yourself, there has to be something tangible for consumers to latch onto to change opinion. "If you want to change perceptions in people's minds, you have to demonstrate how you're going to change things," Parton says. "It's the tangibles that legitimize mind changes. Without the tangibles, you're only asserting."

Mr. Parton is referring to a Synovate study of the brand attributes of Obama and McCain. But of course this is true for brands generally.

You may think you have the best customer experience. You may have the surveys to show it. You may even be advertising those surveys. But none of this is going to help non-customers understand what is great about this experience unless you tell them.

Brand advertising is a good thing. But support points are good things, too. Find them and use them. Especially is you have something people might not know about.

Smart pens usher in an era of paper computing

I was at the QRCA conference last week, and in a discussion heard about something called a smart pen. Being a gadget loving girl generally, I went straight online to find out the scoop.

My new pen arrived two days ago, and is already proving itself useful. If you click on this link, you'll see a "pencast" on the Livescribe site. A pencast I wrote just a few minutes ago. There are many other pencasts that users are sharing.

This fantastic device is clearly the product of very thoughtful examination of users needs and creating something that is materially better than what they are using now. Way to go Livescribe!

 

Trust

I had a coffee one day at Timothy's under TD Centre, reviewing my notes before a meeting. This table -- the one with the cell-phone -- was empty for at least 30 minutes, maybe longer. No idea where the person was. But no-one took the phone, it was still there when I left.

This kind of surprised me (hence the picture).

But maybe everyone who works in the financial district already has a phone.

Many neighborhoods would not have this kind of trust. In fact, my new gym has a sign about ensuring you lock your locker because they have had theft problems.

On the other hand, no one picked up the phone and tried to call the owner. That occurred to me, but would have seemed intrusive. A cell-phone is a pretty personal object, and touching someone else's without permission is an invasion of personal space.

Some things are so pervasive and foundational, we don't really think much about them. But when you are thinking about customer experience, you need to watch for anything that is odd, different, or interesting. And then ponder.

Creative fun with Kodak

Who couldn't use a few super-hero tricks this week? You can turn yourself into a super-hero at the Kodak "Make Me Super" site.There's a little video with a song -- customized with your name even! And you can order fun accessories.

It's a promotion, yes. It's not world changing. it's just for fun.

There's a nice piece on this campaign by blogger Karen Hegmann. I like her point about the use of narrative, and giving people permission to have fun. When so many things seem to be going wrong in the world, fun will take on a lot of importance for people.

Cool new tools that enable feedback

I went looking for one thing online, and found a bunch of other stuff. Don't you love doing that on a Friday morning? So of course I wanted to share...

There are just such a variety of interesting online applications for assisting collaboration now. If you can add some others to the list, please do. If you have used any of these tools and have comments about them, please add your thoughts as well.

Mapanno Markup

This markup tool lets you invite comments from others on an image or a project. It feels a lot like Google Maps, where you can add an icon and comments, and stick it to a specific place on the document. Here's a screen shot that gives an idea...

Review Basics

I have actually tried out this tool on a demo basis at least a year ago, and it looks even better now. like Mapanno, it is currently free. But it has a broader range of functionality, and was designed more specifically with marketing folk in mind.

Here's a screen shot of what the markup environment looks like. There are bubbles that you can use to enter text and a variety of marking tools as well.

 

Review Basics also supports common video formats, as well as Word, PowerPoint, and PDF files.
I'm itching to try this out with a research project, but I think it could be really useful on a team internal basis as well. Right now, it's free, just like Mapanno.

Vyew
Vyew is one I just learned about, thanks to GeekBlog. I haven't had time to demo it at all, but it positions itself as a competitor to WebEx and GoToMeeting. In addition to those services, however, there is the potential for asynchronous involvement by multiple reviewers who can mark up documents, and view each other's comments.

Here's a comparison chart that may help.

There are some interesting case studies on the site as well, that make it clearer how one might use such a multi-featured application for things other than web conferencing. Like the other tools mentioned, it is currently FREE, and does not require software installation. There's a review by Guy Kawasaki

Concept Share

This service is specifically targeted to graphic designers. I haven't tried it out, but it looks pretty appealing. There is a free-premium model in place which affects the number of projects you can use, and the amount of online storage you get. Huge amounts of storage are available, which is needed for graphic files.

 

Basecamp

I've been using Basecamp for a few months now. Although it's not perfect, it's a very useful and low cost collaboration tool. I haven't figured out a way to use it for research projects yet. But you can store files, there are whiteboards, a really good messaging function that beats running things on e-mail, and some project management tools.

This stuff all just continues the flattening process where little tiny organizations have access to tools and technology as good as the stuff the big organization's have. Sometimes it's even better.

If you want to read about even more of these tools, here's a reference article from GeekBlog. And their handy comparison table.

Understanding people by cultivating a sense of empathy: OR there's a reason we call it a deep dive

If you want to get deep insights into people and what they are up to in the great canvas of their lives, you must cultivate a very good sense of empathy. Good in the way a microtome slices off a tissue sample that is so fine, if you touch it, it disappears. And also good in the way of large earth-moving equipment, with the ability to shovel a lot of data around. This is industrial strength empathy.

It's different than the kind of empathy of people who are natural empaths. Most people with an MBTI feelings preference have a pretty strong sense of empathy. It's often a sympathetic empathy, it seems to me -- a Kleenex tissue of empathy, a warm hug of empathy, sometimes a down jacket. A lovely thing to have around, it's warm and protective and frankly pretty useful in a great many situations.

A good researcher needs the other thing.

Which is why, no doubt about it, the people who have truly world class empathy of this analytical kind are a bit strange. I have talked to a few. They acknowledge that they have lost, to an extent, the ability to interact with the world in the way others do, unaware of themselves interacting. The watcher is always watching, just a little bit.

Now I don't claim to be one of these world class empaths. But I'm always studying, taking my earth-mover out for drives and practicing manoeuvres. I'm taking the night classes, as it were.

There are times it feels like dangerous work.

For example, yesterday, I was doing a little exercise called "illumination" that Synectics has. I took home an insight about our consumer, and created a little talk to bring it to life. Having thought about it for several hours, (on top of the days of work already into the project), I gave my five minute talk to our creative team in the voice of our consumer. It was intended to be amusing but informative. And suddenly the real person I'd been envisioning crashed right through. I felt the weight of all her worries, all her hopes, all her dreams, just for an instant, the reality of her life. It was like something on an old Star Trek episode. Almost overwhelming.

How much easier to think of consumers as cardboard cutouts.

I've learned, for the most part, to avoid detailed stories about detainees in some godforsaken place. I want to bear witness, but I also know that I will take in a little too much. And I can't extract those experiences from memory as easily as they go in.

Which is why I'm kind of not thinking too hard about what people are going through right now with this financial crisis. The ocean of human experience is over the seawall, and the storm is still raging. Dreams are being battered, people are hanging on to broken things just for the sake of hanging on to something.

These are difficult times. We haven't even really seen the extent of the difficulty. But it's also a time of new dreams, new heroic ideas, and that is an exciting thing to witness.

One thing is certain. There will be diving.