Doc Searles comments that expensive hotels aren’t offering valuable amenities to their guests. Reminds me of my previous thoughts on how Hotels could improve the guest experience: If a Sign is Needed, Something is Wrong. Cost of Stolen Towels Comes Out of Marketing Budget
Category Archives: Worst Practices
Picky Customer or Circling Vulture
Jen and I went to a mall on Saturday. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a mall on a Saturday afternoon. I left buying nothing and feeling extremely uninspired to shop. I now know why Target sold Marshall Field’s last year to May Department Stores and why May Department Stores is praying …
If a Sign is Needed, Something is Wrong.
In his Roads Gone Wild article for Wired, Tom McNicol describes a new mentality in traffic control: fewer signs = fewer accidents. From this perspective, traffic control signs are actually a poor band-aid for an unsafe environment. At best, they keep accident rates constant, at worst they actually cause more. This phenomenon is not unique …
How to Stifle Teamwork – Part 3
The news reports that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfled had an opportunity to inspire, motivate the US troops during a recent question and answer session in Kuwait. Based on this exchange, I can’t say he succeeded in addressing the troops concerns let alone inspire them to go back into battle. That is unfortunate. “Why do …
The White Collar Revolt, Part 1
Related to my earlier post about saying ‘No’ (Some of the Passengers, Some of the Time) fed up computer programmers at Electronic Arts are suing their employer over “extreme job stress and health problems”. NPR had the story this past weekend on Weekend Edition. Employees are gaining more control over their work conditions with each …
Some of the Passengers, Some of the Time
“Go back in history. One of the first decisions an airline had to make was, Should we carry passengers or cargo? Whenever an airline came to that fork in the sky, they took both forks…” – Doc Searles Doc makes an excellent point. Very few companies can successfully be all things to all customers. The …
How to Stifle Teamwork – Part 2
“Rating and ranking engender competition, not collaboration” – Esther Derby, An Alternative to the Yearly Performance Review I always felt annual performance reviews existed for disconnected management to reinforce hierarchy. To know that their prime purpose (in employees’ minds) of securing an individual salary increase actually incents people to not collaborate is doubly disheartening. Compare …
When Brand is the Bottleneck
Recently, a collegue and I went to lunch at Pancheros, a 14-year old burrito chain started in Iowa City, IA. I’ve spoken about the power of lunch before as well as the lunch experience. Always enlightening. This time was no exception. I’m a big fan of Chipotle, they’ve taken the Subway model and transferred it …
How Not To Do Customer Research
We do quite a bit of customer and employee research here at Working Pathways. From in-depth 1-on-1, deep dive, interviews to quick email surveys to observational studies – our expertise runs the gamut. Whatever the study, each participant involved is 1. screened and qualified and 2. receives some level of compensation for their time and …
How to Stifle Teamwork
As an appetizer for an upcoming Work Better article on collaboration techniques, I’m pleased to present these team work worst practices from Ester Derby’s Software Managemet Process Improvement weblog: A clear strategy to stifle teamwork Establish two classes of membership on the team [WP NOTE: i.e. developers and testers, employees and contractors, or people with …