White Noise

Whole Foods Experience

The other day Jackie Huba from Church of the Customer asked What should Whole Foods do?  They recently released earnings that were below the previous year.  John Moore at Brand Autopsy

did a very good job of looking at some of the economic things that Whole Foods could do.  

What I want to tell you is what Whole Foods is doing right. I realize I am propbaly one of 10 people in the world that have not been to WF.  That changed today when my wife and I went for the first time.  

1. Baggers: this used to be a constant at supermarkets now it is more of an oddity. They had them and they did a great job

2. Clean Store: Generally I think most stores are clean but the WF store was immaculate.  The floor shined and I am sure I could eat off of it.

3. People who actually retrieve the carts from the parking lot: This is my pet peeve.  Stores go to the effort to put carriage holders in the parking lot and then leave them there for the customers to get on their own.

4. Really helpful staff: Seems like an obvious thing but how many times have you been in a store where there was no help or they could not careless if you need something.

5. Amazing prepared food: I guess another obvious thing in a supermarket but their prepared food is incredible.

 

Confusing the Market

... and I would argue lowering the bar.  I have to question AT&T's decision to take over the Cingular brand identity.  For the last two years Cingular has grown their customer base and launched a successful ad campaign around the concept of raising the bar.  Two weeks ago Apple announces the new iPhone product with a multi-year exclusivity contract with Cingular.  Just about three days after that, out of the blue  the decision is made to move back to the AT&T identity. I have to ask why ? 

Why would you squander all the money and time that has been spent on advertising ? 

Why would you go back to a company name that many younger people have never worked with ?

Why would waste all the free publicity from the iPhone announcement ?

Why would you confuse a sector of the market that has already seen brand loyalty questioned?

AT&T it not too late to go back.

When things go wrong

Today I was cleaning out my closest and found several old coffee cans filled with change.  The thought about having to roll all of it mad em queasy.  I remembered that my local Stop and Shop had a coinstar rolling machine.  Recently I saw that if you convert your change into gift certificate you do not have to pay the 8.9% fee. I checked out the site and they have affilitae realtions with a lot of stores including Apple iTunes,Timberland® and Starbucks to name a few.  I opted for Amazon and started the process.  When my change was finished being counted the Coinstar booth dialed out ( you could hear the modem) and tried to connect to Amazon.  After 3 attempts it did not and I was a little concerned.  Then a message popped up on screen apologizing that they were not able to create the certificate I wanted but in exchange they were going to give me a cash slip and not charge me any processing fees !    I walked over to the counter , handed the woman my slip and she handed me back $187.54 in cash. 

This situation could have created a negative expereience but instead it was a great one.  Thanks Coinstar for doing the right thing before someone asked you to.

Impressive

This week Apple opened its latest store in New York on Fifth Avenue.  It is a 5 story glass cube that is surrounded by skyscrapers. The building is very reminicscent of I.M. Pei's Pyramide du Louvre.

The store is actually underground and going to be open 24 hours a day  7 days a week.

Just a very cool building !

Bonjour !

Last weekend I bought a new laser printer for my home office.  I wanted something that was fast quiet and affordable.  While I have always been an HP fan I decided to try a Brother printer based on the great consumer reviews.  One of the things that attracted me to the printer was the built in networking (USB and Ethernet).   

The day I set the printer up I cleared my slate assuming that this would be a several hour effort.  The printer was very straight forward, removing tape and inserting the toner cartridge. Time spent : 5 minutes. Next I attached it to my Apple Airport Express via the USB cable and went to add the printer in the preferences panel.  I opened the interface and the printer was there - I did not need to do anything ! Apples communication protocol called Bonjour (formerly known as Rendezvous) did all the work. I sent a test page over and it printed.  I was blown away.  Time spent: 5 minutes.

Now I just had to get it to work with my Dell work laptop.  The Dell is also on the Airport Express network and works fine but I had no idea how to get the remote printer working.  I vaguely remembered reading something about Bonjour being offered for windows.  I did a quick Google search and it lead me to the Apple downloads.  I got the file, ran the setup and the printer appeared in the Bonjour panel.  I downloaded a current print driver for Windows XP and sent a test page to print.  Time spent : 5 minutes. 

In under 15 minutes I was able to network 3 different hardware manufacturers, 2 different operating systems across 1 wireless network. I would love to see more devices connect like this.  This is the kind of integration all companies should strive for.

Auto Industry in the Lead

To continue to my exploration or rant on recycling.  It alarms me a little that the auto industry that has been so reluctant to deliver cleaner car emissions or hybrid cars may actually lead in environmental issues.

When I buy new tires I pay a $5.00 disposal charge for each tire to insure they are properly disposed
When I buy a new a new car battery it is more expensive if I do not trade in the old one.
When I get an oil change at the car dealership there is a fee for hazardous waste disposal

So how come when I buy paint why can't I bring my used paint cans back to the store ? Or how come when I buy a new computer I can not send my old one back for recycling ?

 

 

 

Environmental Loosers

I live in a community where we recycle.  We are not hardcore about it but we separate
paper/cardboard, cans/plastic, metal and yard waste.  It is amazing how much you can reduce your trash by doing this.  The problem comes with the odd items...propane tanks, appliances etc.  We are lucky that out local transfer station allows you to drop these items off. In some cases there may be an added expense but overall they are all very fair.  The other day I had some large rechargeable batteries that were dead.  I could ship them back to the manufacturer but with the weight it would have been about $25.00.  The manufacturer recommended a local Sears that accepts car batteries...they were rejected there. I went to the dump (transfer station) and asked if they recycled them and what the fee was....rejected there as well.  Though I could have thrown them in a Hefty bag and put them in with the household trash it just did not feel right .

Sprint can you hear me now?

Some where along the line during the merger Sprint and Nextel failed to remember what their most important asset is.... their customer! Since I switched to Sprint a year ago, I have been very happy with the connectivity and their pricing of their plans.  Today my opinion has gone down a few notches.  I have a Palm Treo 650 which I really like.  Recently it started locking up on me so I called the store today and explained the problem and asked if it could be replaced if necessary.  They told me to let one of their technicians look at it but they were confident the problem could be resolved.  I drove 25 miles to the store and checked in.  Once the paper work was filled out they told me to come back in 2 hours.  I asked if I could wait and they said yes but it would be 2 hours and there was no place to sit.  I left and went to a local bookstore to kill time.  When I returned I expected they would have swapped the phone out since I had the Total Equipment Protection policy(TEP) and I had several issues. 

I spoke with the customer service representative and he told me the technician could not reproduce the problem and handed it back to me.  I read the steps he used to correct the problem and they were the same one that I had also done...baiscally a soft reset  I asked if they could swap the phone out and I would pay the deductible on the insurance and he handed me a brochure and told me to call this other company and they would send it to me in 5 days...like that was going to help me.

 

Storing your Life

Recently my wife and I began parsing through items in the house trying to create more space and be more organized. Though our house is only 15 years old there is not a lot of closet space so what we have we need to use better.  I have been looking at all of the closet systems in an effort to buy and not have to build one of my own.  My sister let me know that The Container Store was having their annual big sale on their systems.  I checked out the sample systems and was impressed.  Then I saw the opportunity to create my own system online.  I registered and the web site walked me through a set of questions to gather information about the size and use for this closet (storage,clothes,supplies).  The survey is very thorough.  If you have asked for hanging storage it asks you how tall you are, if you have asked for shoe storage it asks how you prefer to store your shoes, in boxes or shelves.  When you are complete it asks how you would like to speak to the designer.  I opted for them to call me and it gave me a set of dates and times available.

Think Different - Be Different

One of my favorite ad campaigns of all time is the Think Different campaign Apple ran.  The use of the unique historical figures and the message about not following the masses was perfect to show the uniqueness of working with an Apple computer.

In the past two weeks I have found two references to people/services to allow you to modify your mac to be more personal and more unique. Modding macs has been around for a long time but these examples take it to a new level.

Etchamac is a company that will laser your design or pattern on to your power book or ipod for a price.
This takes personalization to a new level in my mind.  I have often thought about why PC makers do not inspire this type of external love for their products. Stickers on your PC are one thing but this takes it to a new level, and the detail that can be achieved here is amazing.

TUAW.com  pointed out an article on MAKEs website where Phillip Torrone put the Tarsier from the O'Reilly book on vi on his powerbook.  The image is incredible.  So along with Thinking Different now Mac enthusiast cab be different as well !