Year: 2007

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Airline Customer Follies, Episode #7,325

United Airlines (via Joseph Jaffe):

“United – The Thinking Airline – has decided to drop snacks on flights less than 2 hours (which PS equals about 5 hours when you factor in travel and wait time)

According to the geniuses at United, they figure this move will save them $650,000 this year. I guarantee you they’ll LOSE more than $650,000 with passengers that choose alternative airlines in the process.”

American Airlines (via Mary Trigiani):

“Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, is a heavy piece of melodramatic fiction. Or so I thought. Then I was stranded two weeks ago in O’Hare Airport. I realized about six hours into my 18-hour ordeal that one of the themes of the book — the decline of the railroad industry — was coming to life before my very eyes. Only this time, it was an airline.”

On the other hand, Shel Holtz calls Southwest one of his favorites.

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Steve Rubel Joins The “Newvoices” Movement

Edelman’s Steve Rubel has jumped on the “newvoices” bandwagon that we started a while back. (Welcome, Steve!) In case you had missed the original post regarding the “newvoices” tag, which appeared here in July, 2005, here’s what I proposed:

At least once a week, do a very simple thing. Find someone to whom you’ve never linked before, link to them, and tag the post with the following tag: newvoices.

Then, either in your aggregator, on your MyYahoo page, or wherever you want, subscribe to a feed of newvoices-tagged posts. Here’s what’ll happen: the good, emerging folks will come to you. Now for the really cool part.

This is a self-dampening system. It can’t evolve an “A-List,” since once you’ve linked to someone and tagged that initial post with a “newvoices” tag, that individual ceases to be a new voice for you. The next time you link to them, don’t tag the new post in this way, since for you, it’s no longer new. However, the really smart, cool, funny insightful folks who emerge will gather a lot of “newvoices” tagged links as they become visible. (N.B. Even if someone else has pointed to somebody with a newvoices tag, you should too! It’s not a contest to see who’s first…it’s an endorsement of someone to whom you haven’t linked previously.)

When I originally proposed the idea in July of ’05, here were the stats for posts tagged “newvoices”:

  • None on Technorati
  • None on IceRocket
  • One on del.icio.us.

Now (Jan2007) there are over a hundred on del.icio.us alone, and at least a few dozen on Technorati and IceRocket.

Let’s keep this going!

Thanks to Dan Greenfield, whose great marketing blog is Bernaise Source, for the tip! (Dan is my newvoice for the week, by the way.) Dan also writes about speedblogging, which can be thought of as a complement to the newvoices tag.

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Business Connection

David Armano, on how to connect: “Know something about me—find some common ground and strike up a conversation. Just like in life, chances are I’ll be receptive and we’ll end up talking.”

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The Hugh Two-fer

Hugh McLeod hits two out of the park. Read ’em both.

On Blogging (excerpt): “If your goal is to have a large, influential online readership, I’d say give yourself five years. That’s how long it took Om Malik. Some do it in less, of course, but they seem to be quite exceptional.”

On Being An Entrepreneur (excerpt): “Write the following on a piece of paper, have it framed, and stick it on your office wall: ‘Have you hugged your customer today?'”

Great stuff.

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Thank You, Typepad

The nice folks at TypePad had some very nice things to say, and featured this blog as their “Blog of the Day.” Thanks, y’all!

Socialcustomer“Featured Typepad Blog:
The Social Customer Manifesto

Christopher Carfi is the CEO of Cerado and he’s looking out for customers, and not just his own. He’s interested in the technology and trends that are turning customers into marketers and putting them on the front line between businesses and potential new customers. His site, the Social Customer Manifesto, offers a simple list of customer desires — from "I want to do business with companies that act in a transparent and ethical manner" to (my personal favorite) "I don’t want to do business with idiots." Indeed, if Carfi’s manifesto were to become the expected baseline for business in the 21st century, the consumer world would certainly be a much, much better place. And Carfi knows that it won’t be easy. He spends a lot of time posting about the victories and setbacks for like-minded customers and the smart businesses that are courting them. So if you’re a business blogger looking for smart talk or a fed-up consumer looking for a sympathetic ear, take a minute to read the manifesto. It just might change your outlook.”

Thanks, SixApart. You’re too kind.

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Sticking With The iPhone

DwallaceDavid Wallace, the Lifekludger, asks:

“Is the ‘multi-touch’ screen dependent on using an actual human finger to ‘touch’ it? Will my mouthstick work the ‘multi-touch’ or a pen, or a plastic stick…? Is it a ‘multi’ touch display in terms of ‘multiple ways’ of touching or merely ‘multiple finger’ touch?

Did anyone at Apple actually think of people who don’t have full use of their fingers? I truly hope so.

Anyone at Apple listening? Want someone whose fingers don’t work to test it for you?”

O black-turtleneck-sweatered one, are you listening?

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Mine…Mine…Mine…Mine…

MineOne of the core tenets of the emerging notion of VRM is that we, the customers née users, should be in control of our own information. That is, we should decide what we tell to whom, under what circumstances. Additionally, we should be able to hold onto our own info (and, if a third party needs to hold onto our info on our behalf, we should be able to export it and move it elsewhere, easily).

Mike at Techdirt points to an article about how to create a personal health record (PHR) that gets to this idea in, of all places, the slow-to-change U.S. healthcare industry.

From an abstract, theoretical perspective, the PHR idea makes perfect sense. However, there are so many aspects of this that (I think) would be hobbled by the notoriously risk-averse healthcare industry. In particular, a number of questions come to mind, including:

  • Will doctors accept the information in a patient’s PHR at face value, or need to re-run all test results to “cover themselves” for liability reasons anyway?
  • What are the implications if someone gets ahold of my PHR? For example, can the information in my PHR be used to discriminate via insurance premiums?
  • What if an unauthorized third party gets ahold of my PHR? What are the consequences of the theft of one’s medical history?
  • More broadly, how does one select which portions of a PHR to share with which caregivers? Do I want everyone to have access to everything? (I think the answer is “no.”)

Anyone out there experimented with this at all? If so, would love to hear your stories.