It seems that I got quite a bit of comment spam regarding a texas holdem site being promoted by Andy Hoffman. I just thought I’d return the favor by promoting him a little bit. Thanks Andy.
Andy Hoffman (andyhoffman2005@yahoo.com)
phone: 6524513646
Fax:6524513646
Malibu dr. 19
Panama, OR 98532
US
In May last year my early experience with gmail prompted me to post google will eat yahoo’s lunch
Now after some preliminary experience with Google Maps I think that google is going to end up eating everyone’s lunch. With some rare DHTML skills they have built a useful, usable, thoughtful interface.
By thoughtful I mean things like, as you move around the image of the map it redraws itself from the center point outwards, rather that the default linear redraw from the top left to bottom right. It’s what I like to refer to as empathic design. Design with empathy for the people using it and is only ever seen in products that have had tremendous thought put into them.
i think google is leading the way in the technology world in what I would call “big balled” product management. In other words product managed by someone who can make the tough decisions to focus on what matters most and not what the management “thinks” will matter most.
Business Design, Service Design, and more specifically Service Branding really are next frontiers. It’s interesting how slow frontiers seem to move when you have some inkling of there coming and how fast they seem to go once your past them.
The discussion of Business Design here and the problem outlined in this quote are what I have heard characterized as “service design”
“The influence we have as designers in the course of a patient experience in a health care situation is relatively limited,” he said. “Really what affects the patient experience in a health care institution is what happens in the interactions between you and the professionals, the doctors, the nurses, and the administrators.”
“Business Design(TM): The New Competitive Weapon is the topic of this year’s Rotman MBA Business Conference. The conference examines the importance of design in the business world and its relevance to present and future generations of business leaders. Other speakers include Kathleen Taylor, President, Worldwide Business Operations, Four Seasons Hotels Inc., and Meg Whitman, President and CEO, eBay Inc.”
Napster, the poster child of peer to peer disintermediation (management speak for replacing the middleman), has formed the basis for a new term. Napsterization, and this is a site dedicated to talking about that concept.
Most of the examples of napsterization IMHO is simply about redefining the customers role in the value chain, of the idea of “employing your customers” in a different way. I would suggest that ikea making the customer responsible for “delivery and construction” is as good an example as napster is making the customer responsible for “music distribution”
Technology is just making it easier to employ customers in different ways, as amazon uses customers intellectual capital, as netflix employs customer reviews to make its service better to other customers.
American Airlines latest advertising tagline, apart from being slightly creepy, ie. “we know what you did last summer” it is also totally undermined by there actual service. The whole “we know why you fly” is supposed to represent how “customer intimate” American Airlines is.
They’ve demonstrated this lack of customer intimacy removing “milk” from coach and replacing it with non-dairy powdered creamer. I loath that stuff, and even noted to the attendant recently “that stuff is nasty” to which she replied “I know.”
There tag line should be “we know why you fly but we don’t know why you wouldn’t want non-dairy powdered creamer in your coffee”
BTW if you complain enough they will get you some from business class. Last time an attendant did that for me, when said “this is your lucky day” before parting with the rare substance. I didn’t feel very lucky that’s for sure, i felt distinctly unlucky to be on American Airlines.
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