I saw a lady returning an Acer LCD monitor at Walmart today. Both the lady and store clerk weren’t familiar with the product. The monitor wasn’t properly packed in the first place (it was brought in a plastic bag) and the clerk was trying very hard to forcefully stuff the monitor into its original box. From the looks of it, the screen would probably end up being scratched by the cables.
So I was thinking, that as companies design their retail packaging, how simple a product can be re-packaged for return by someone who is not an expert is often overlooked.
– How easily can someone open the package and put it back together?
– What if the packaged was “ripped” open?
– What if the person threw away the packing materials?
– How do we avoid the product being damaged during shipping if it’s not packaged properly?
– How do we make it so that it’s nearly “impossible” to not package the product properly?
It probably won’t be a game-changer, but something that could add a little extra to your product (marketing) and perhaps save you a lot RMA cost.
Supermarkets should stop having those express lanes for customers who purchase the fewest number of items. It doesn’t really make sense, in this case, to award your worse customers.
Instead, they should turn those express lanes into lanes which customers are only allowed pay with gift cards.
In order for restaurants to sell more prepaid gift cards, they should also put the people with gift cards ahead of those without, for reservations, seating, whatever.
Same goes for movie theaters. The people who purchase tickets with gift cards should be prioritized, shouldn’t they?
I usually don’t like gift cards as gifts. I find them thoughtless and lazy. But by adding just a little extra value to them, at the very least, I would feel like I am getting something more than merely a different form of cash.
Smashing Magazine is one of my favorite places to read and learn about website design. As I write this, they have over 200,000 subscribers to their website/blog, 9,000 Facebook fans and 120,000 followers on Twitter — without a question, a very successful practice in the Social media world.
Social media isn’t that complicated, and I think you can probably take something away from what SmashingMag does.
First, what not to do?
If you are only using social media to announce your daily specials, new product launches or press releases, you are probably not doing nearly enough.
Step one, declare your business objective(s).
“Our aim is to inform our readers about the latest trends and techniques in Web development.” Simple, clear and straightforward.
Then make it happen.
Aside from their incredibly insightful blog posts everyday, SmashingMag updates their Facebook status every 2 hours (once per hour on Twitter) with a useful link to someone else’s website to inform their fans/followers about “latest trends and techniques in Web development.”
The image above is from Duck Tape Marketing. It’s a screengrab from the author’s iPhone while using an augmented reality feature of the Yelp! iPhone app called Monocle.
Why is this important?
Because Not too long ago, this image would probably only appear in a science fiction movie instead of in the palm of your hand. But now, combining the high resolution cameras which come standard with most of the smartphones in the market, and the ability to perform searches using the images taken with the camera could create such powerful transformations (and disruptions) for many industries in our foreseeable future.
- Point your camera at a house to talk to the listing agent, get the listing price or learn more about the neighborhood.
- Point your camera at a restaurant to make a reservation, check the menu or find out more about the chef.
- Point your camera at a book to email the author, buy it online or post a review on Amazon.
- Point your camera at a picture of a person to find all the ways (that he choose to publish) to reach him or read his LinkedIn profile.
- Point your camera at a car to search for the best deals available within a 50 mile radius or negotiate with the seller directly.
But why should we stop there?
What about the microphone on your phone? Hear a song you like? Record it, search it and buy the album on iTune music store right on the spot.
The future is more exciting and brighter than ever, wouldn’t you agree?
IE6 was designed and built for the Internet in 2001 — that’s almost a decade old! In Webage, 10 years is an eternity. Heck, Facebook or Twitter didn’t even exist then.
Simply put, there are at least 142 known vulnerabilities in IE6, 22 of which are not yet patched. And yet as of January 2010, 1 out of every 5 Internet users (20.07%) still use IE6 to surf the Web. Strangely alarming, isn’t it?
I guess maybe people don’t really care about their online privacy and/or security as much as they think they do.
Granted, this is just a concept and Google isn’t really planning to tie their tablet OS to just one device. Nonetheless, I am already excited to see two brilliant companies going head to head — not by trying to copy each other’s concepts and selling them at lower prices, instead, by constantly coming up with fresh ideas to outclass the rest of the competition.
If you have been living under a rock for the past 72 hours, Apple has just announced their brand new iPad line last Wednesday. The jury is still out on this one, but there has already been complaints about it not having USB, camera, HDMI, external SD support, optical drive, etc.
Problem is, people who make those complaints are not Mac people anyway. In case you haven’t noticed, most mp3 players cost much less than the iPod but have more features; PC laptops cost way less than Macbooks with the same “computing power”; even iPhone has its limitations. But do Mac people care about all that? Not really.
I like the iPad for two reasons:
#1) Its portability. MacBook Air was designed to be the most portable laptop, but it wasn’t a huge hit. I am excited to see that Apple has decided to push even more toward the edge on the portability of the iPad. “Do one thing”, but do it well.
#2) Bragging rights. Apple always does a great job giving their fans bragging rights. I don’t care what people are saying now. In 2 months, if someone sees you using an iPad, at the very least, they will stop for a second and check it out. It will create conversations, and you will get an opportunity to showcase just how cool it is. And that alone will be worth the price for some people.
If there is something that you simply don’t know how to do. Accounting, photographing, programming, sales, marketing, whatever.
The advice you should probably considering following are: hire the best you can find, even it means that you can’t afford them, and then get out of the way.
It’s funny how most of us have thought about doing the former (but most likely have settled for something a lot less), and can never seem to do the latter.
A friend sent me this video today and said, “Watch this. He is good.” And indeed, he is (over-15-million-hits-on-YouTube good).
If you (or your product or your marketing or your business) are good, then you will be noticed and talked about in this hyper-connected Internet world.
If you haven’t been noticed, it’s because you aren’t good (enough).
The trick is to not spend too much time and effort on getting noticed, instead, spend most of it on getting better.
Here is the unfortunate truth: when it comes to (easy) money, you can’t always count on some people to do the right thing, regardless of how unethical it may seem. The same applies for the tragedy in Haiti.
If you are looking to make a donation, here is a list of websites from CNN where you can help.
However, please also be on the look-out for charity scams. Here is an article from CNN with some very useful pointers.
#1) Be skeptical if someone e-mails you or contacts you through social networking sites claiming to be a quake victim or a government or charity official and asks for donations, the FBI says. Also, the agency says, do not click on any links within those e-mails. And do not click on attached files labeled photos or video because they may contain viruses.
#2) It’s OK to be suspicious. Ask for the name, phone number and address of the charity. The American Institute of Philanthropy says honest charities encourage you to know about them and respond to your questions. Also, request that they put the information in writing.
#3) However, do not give them your personal or financial information, because that may leave you vulnerable to identity theft.
#4) Don’t be misled by a charity name that “sort of sounds familiar.” Scammers may change one word in the title to trick you.
#6) Ask what percentage of the money you give actually reaches the needy. You also can designate how your donation is to be used.
#7) Don’t ever donate cash. Make the check out to the name of the charity, not the person asking for money. And get a receipt with the name of the charity on it. Do NOT give your credit card number to telemarketers or use it on a Web site of a charity you have not checked out.
#8) If the person seeking your donation asks you to give more, that may be a sign that something is wrong. Legitimate charities are grateful, not demanding.
I have nothing against television, except for the fact that I don’t have one, but isn’t it strange that Youtube seems to have far more inspiring videos (like this one) than television does?
You should have a vision of where your business, marketing or personal life is going.
And it must be crazy and spectacular. You should get excited just thinking about it. It might even be world-changing.
You don’t have to shout it out to the entire world just yet, although it doesn’t hurt if you do so.
I have heard some people who are reluctant to envision where they want to go with their lives and their businesses because they don’t think that they’d have the time to get there.
I think they have it backwards. First come up with a crazy plan — something that no one in the world would expect you to accomplish, then find the time to do it. You probably won’t end up reaching your goal, but so what? It was a crazy plan — nobody expected you to.
Sure you don’t have much free time right now. But the question you should ask yourself is: would you know what to do with it when you finally get the time?
I have some “friends” who only talk to me when they need some favors. When that happens, my first thought usually is: “how much trouble do I need to go through in order to help?” Based on that, I would then make the decision of whether I could help or not.
I have some other friends who hardly ever ask me for anything. On top of that, they would constantly offer to help me out. Of course, these are the people whom I would go out of my way to help.
There is no question which group we all would like to belong in someone’s network. That’s not the point.
The point is, relationships, the good ones at least, take time to build. If you do someone one favor and expect some kind of return, then that’s close to a business transaction than it is to a friendship. People don’t care about business transactions.
We also shouldn’t be spoiled by the generous people around us (online or offline) and forget that the generosity should be returned.
Most importantly, when you have been generously giving for a long period of time, don’t be surprised that people will gladly buy something you sell or recommend without asking any questions. That’s the trust you have earned when you become a friend.
…not if you are a small website/business anyway. To use automation or lack thereof as an excuse for not doing something is flat-out being lazy.
Example: if your website isn’t capable of allowing your users to change some status on their own, post your email/phone number on your website and make it clear that there is a real person on the other end who is capable of making the changes for them.
Automated or not, people want their problems to be solved. We are generally forgiving even if you have some glitches in your products, as long as you are willing to fix them for us. What we can’t stand is an unresponsive corporate who hides behind its walls to avoid interaction.
Here is how you can help with the tragedy in Haiti.
- Make a donation here.
- Helicopters!
- Satellite phones!
- Donate medicine, food, blankets, supplies … anyone with in-kind products to donate can write to procurement@pih.org
- Lend your time and skills — trauma surgeons, pediatric trauma surgeons, burn specialists, nurse anesthetists, trauma nurses
- Solar chargers, generators, fuel for generators
- Water purification that does not require electricity
- Transport
- Donate at http://www.pih.org/home.html.
Courage is hard to find these days, especially when it involves millions and millions of dollars. I am guessing that you, me or probably anybody that we know wouldn’t possess that kind of courage to shut down a multi-million dollar business operation just because it goes against our principles.
So when Google threatens to shut down Google.cn and potentially all of their offices in China because they are “unable to achieve the objectives outlined” by them in the first place, I find that both admirable and remarkable.
Action (still) speaks (much) louder than just words.
When it comes to websites, many things matter. Design matters; traffic matters; links matter; SEO matters; color and fonts matter; the list goes on.
However, in this Internet space, the size of your business rarely matters to the visitors of your website.
Here are some facts about Craigslist.org:
- It has more than 20 billion page views per month.
- It has about 50 million visitors from US alone per month.
- About 50 million new posts are published by users every month.
- It has more than 120 million postings in 100 topical forums.
- It ranks #7 worldwide in terms of english-language page views. - It has less than 30 employees.
30? Yes, 30. You see, as long as your website works as it should, nobody really cares about how big your company is.
So please stop spending time on making your website “appear as professional as a big business”; instead, focus on how to make your website “solve your visitors’ problems” as well as it’s capable of.
According to Dan Buettner, the keys to live a longer life are the following:
- Move naturally.
- Right outlook.
- Eat wisely.
- Connect (with the right people).
Do all of the above your entire life, and you are guaranteed to live longer.
I bet you can’t do it.
It’s just too damn hard. It requires too much work for too long. To most people, long term investment only works when it doesn’t require a lot of work over time. Otherwise, if the investment doesn’t yield return right away, it’s simply not worth doing. Sound familiar? It should, because businesses act like this all the time.
I think Hugh said it the best: “What people say they want and what they’re willing to work their ass off to get are two different things.”
