Last night I found a 50% off deal for custom created calendars. I thought it would be a good idea to buy one and customize it with my photos from China. I believed it could make a great present for my parents for Christmas, as they are always asking me for pictures and we don’t see each other so often. (Sometimes is hard to be so far away from home.)

I was all enthusiastic and started to look through all my pictures in order to find the best 12. I uploaded the pictures and double checked everything for printing. According to the website I should pay €7.99 as the calendar is half price. I went on and decided to start the checkout steps:

Step1: Input my details ( name, address…)

Step 2: I was being asked if I would like to order any other objects with my pictures printed on them (mugs, key chains,  mouse pads…) I said fair enough, they are trying to sell their products / giving me more options. As I only wanted the calendar I just decided to move on to the next step

Step3: Some more objects with my pictures on them. (This is getting annoying. I thought I’ve been over this step before.)

Step 4: I was offered a customised email address (I still don’t know what this has to do with my pictures and my calendar)

Step 5: I am asked to recheck my details

Step 6: I am being showed an invoice and asked how I would like to pay: through PayPal or by credit card. The invoice is for €12.98. I check it again and I see that a Photo Calendar Upload Fee of €4.99 has been added. I don’t know what it is or why I have to pay for it but I decided that €12.98 is still not that bad as I believe my parents will really enjoy the calendar so I chose the credit card option and move on to the next step. (by this time the steps are not traced at the top of the page anymore so i have no idea how many steps are left in the process)

Step 7: Insert credit card details. (finally a ray of hope that I could be almost done)

Step 8: I am being asked how long I am willing to wait for the parcel to arrive… I am being given 4 options from 21 days to 1 day with prices ranging from €5.25 to over €12. ( I am getting frustrated… I am almost giving up… this is the 2nd extra amount that is being added to my bill and I am not too happy about it)

Step 9: I am being asked if I would like some ‘Christmas Return Address Labels’ with my name and address printed on them. (this is getting painful… all I wanted was a calendar) I scroll down and I finally see two invoices; but, to my amazement, none of them match either the €7.99 that I thought I was going to pay for the calendar or the €12.98 that I was announced I have to pay because of the €4.99 Photo Calendar Upload Fee or the €18.23 amount which included the €5.25 Shipping and Processing tax.

The first invoice was for €22.06 and the second one for €30.46. As I wasn’t going to pay any more than I had to, I went through the €22.06 invoice again:

• €7.99 – calendar
• €4.99 – Photo Calendar Upload Fee
• €5.25 – Shipping and Processing (Slow 21 days)
• €3.83 – Tax (I thought this was already included in the prices that I have been given)
• Total: €22.06 (almost 3 times the amount I thought I would have to pay at the beginning)

At this point I closed the browser window and gave up!

‘We are in an economic downturn but an innovation upturn.’

And from here it gives seven ways of focusing on the opportunity for innovation than on the downturn and the dangers it poses. One of the best advices Paul Sloane gives is to become a change agent.

Make suggestions. Introduce ideas and recommendations. Look for ways in which your department could bring in new products, business processes or partnerships. Ask yourself – is there a better way to meet the needs of our customers? Anticipate trends and suggest ways of changing the department to exploit new opportunities and new technologies.

The other six advices are as follows:

1. Adopt a positive attitude.
2. Listen to customers.
3. Watch the competition.
4. Be sensitive to office politics.
5. Don’t insist on the glory.
6. Be prepared for rejection.

If you are interested to find out more about these steps you can take towards ‘maximising your chances in the change maelstrom’ you can read the rest of the article here: ‘Survive the Recession’. What are your thoughts on this? What are your steps to survive the recession?

Picture by Jacques Strappe

The other day I received an email from a website I registered with, asking me for feedback. The website provides training in different technologies and a lot of times they have special offers and even free courses that I am more than happy to take.

I consider asking for feedback as being a good example of service design. It shows that the company is looking to improve and they are open to suggestions. They want to learn what their customers want in order to implement the changes and perfect their services to fit the customers’ needs.

Most of the times this goes well. People like to be asked about their opinion: this gives them confidence and the feel that their opinion matters. In my case, I know if I was the one asking for feedback I would like people to respond and this is why I usually reply to the feedback questioners.

There are a few things that make me ignore feedback requests and this email had one of them: spelling and grammar mistakes.

After some introductory phrases which were more or less grammatically correct I was asked to answer the following question:

Would you mind answering a simple question for me?

If you could recieving training the you wanted it, what would it look like?

And this is an example of service design that went wrong. At first I felt good for being asked for feedback and I genuinely wanted to reply. I even ignored the spelling and grammar mistakes in the introduction but when I arrived to the first and only question in the survey I gave up.

I know that there are dyslexic people and even foreign people which have a difficulty with spelling and grammar (and I am one of them) but when it comes to the image and credibility of a company they should be aware that most of the email services provide a spell check and if not, Microsoft Word has an integrated spelling and grammar check.

What is your opinion on this? Do you usually give feedback when being asked? What makes you ignore the feedback questioners?

Perhaps the first question should be whether “standard” and “innovation” should even be in the same sentence. However, I feel very strongly that there are certain systematic approaches to managing innovation that might not guarantee you’ll end up with a string of guaranteed innovations, but you’ll stand a much better chance of success if you apply some best practice.

Every day we hear calls to innovate our way out of the current crisis, but there is little practical, step-by-step how-to for organisations to apply. It was with great enthusiasm that I participated within a group to help the NSAI draft a National Workshop Agreement on a Guide to Good Practice in Innovation and Product Development Processes. It’s not a perfect document. How could it be after two day-long meetings? It is a start and highlights the need for a practical approach and more practical tools.

The document was launched last week at a seminar that featured a diverse line-up of speakers. For those of you that weren’t able to attend, all the presentations are available below. The most thought provoking and entertaining had to be Finbarr Bradley’s presentation which was based on his book, Capitalising on Culture, Competing on Difference: Innovation, Learning and Sense of Place in a Globalising Ireland. He urges us to recognise the natural resources that are unique to Ireland as a differentiated core to our innovation efforts. The book is on my nightstand.

1. How Standardisation Helped IONA Become a World Leader, Dr. Chris Horn, IONA Technologies
2. Innovation, Learning and Ireland’s Smart Economy: Why Culture Matters!, Dr. Finbarr Bradley
3. National and International Developments in Innovation Standards, Linda Hendy, NSAI
4. Innovation from the Point of View of a Development Agency, Dr. Eddie Commins, Enterprise Ireland
5. Innovation and Standards in Medical Device Approvals, Dr. John O’Dea, Crospon Ltd.
6. Managing Innovation, Jim Rice, Schneider Electric

The Event brought together over 200 attendees from different backgrounds but most of them  having a common goal for the day: gathering information about starting up a business.

In my opinion the event was a success as it covered everything from Licensing Agreements to HR, from Founding to PR, from research to product management to increase profitability. I firmly believe that even though the information was presented at a high level there wasn’t one person present that didn’t learn something new on the day. I know I returned with pages of notes.

One of the best presentations I attended, even though it is pretty hard to differentiate as they were all really good, was ‘Are you too nice for your own good? The dangers of bad HR.’

Sheena Clohessy’s message to all the starting companies was: ‘keep the HR management in your own hands’. She explained that a wrong choice of an employee will cost you over 60% of his yearly wage.

The 3 rules of HR that Sheena underlined are:

• Rule1 – Selection:
  • getting into your company needs to be a challenge. When someone comes for an interview don’t be afraid to ask them the tough questions like: ‘what is your biggest failure?’ or ‘What is the best/worst team you worked in?’
  • have a job description
  • do a reference check BEFORE hiring the person
  • use the 6 month probation period
  • Ask yourself these 3 questions:
    • Can they do it? = Their Ability
    • Will they do it? = Their Motivation
    • Will they fit in? = Their Attitude
• Rule2 – Fair Procedures:
  • When you hire someone you have to tell them how they can get fired – give them the reasons for dismissal
  • Have a disciplinary procedure
  • Get everything in writing – document everything
  • Don’t be overly tolerant
  • Be consistent
• Rule3 – Decide to lead:
  • Motivate people – the two key words here are ‘Achievement’ and ‘Recognition’

Another interesting and useful talk was Anton Mannering’s presentation about ‘The Power of Networking’.

Here are some of the points he addressed and that I added to my ‘Keep in Mind’ list:

- Use peoples’ names - I really think this, depending of your culture, might be easy or hard to get used to. Coming to Ireland from Romania, I always thought it was an Irish thing but I found out that there is more to it. By using a person’s name in the conversation you give them recognition; you are acknowledging them; and you show them that they are important to you.

- Listen – the other day I heard a story about the wise old owl living in an oak. The more he saw, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard.

- Ask Questions – by asking questions you show interest and you also learn a lot.

- Nobody is a nobody – give your time to everybody. I could associate this to ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’

- Empower the others – share your knowledge! A friend of mine used this in a presentation also. She said that you have to go through life with one hand up and one hand down. You will find people in life that will be willing to help you and pull you up, genuine people like Anton for example; but don’t forget about the people behind you also, and give them a hand when they will need it.

- And finally, Focus on making Connections and not Sales.

There were a lot of other informative and eye opening presentations at this event, like Siofra Flood’s presentation about ‘What to put in the small print – top tips for end user licensing’ or ‘PR on a shoestring’ by Pat Phelan. Unfortunately I can’t cover them all here but I have good news. They were all recorded and they will be soon made available on the BizSpark website. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I did.

At this stage there are lots of software companies which provide Real Time Energy Monitoring Systems and there are a lot more which are planning to enter this market.

During the last months I’ve been researching software that allows a company to monitor their energy consumption and here is what I found:

• Most of the software provides real time monitoring and alert systems.
• In order for that to happen, the companies providing the software will install their own meters.
• They store historical data in a database which can be accessed at any time through their software.
• They send alarms every time the energy consumption rises over a certain value.

These sound like really good systems that can help any company save some money from monitoring their energy consumption. At the same time they are a step forward from where we were 10 years ago, but here are some questions that I think deserve a little bit of attention:

Why can’t these companies use the existing meters and monitoring systems from a plant? We live in a world where technology evolves really fast and companies shouldn’t have to change their meters/hardware every time new software is released on the market. Imagine changing your computer each time a new version of Windows is released.

What is the software doing with all the data that has gathered throughout the years?In today’s society holding data is not that important any more. The most important thing is what you do with that data. Having access to information doesn’t make you better or stronger, but how you use that information does.

And most importantly why haven’t we evolved in the last 2, 3 or 4 years?At this stage the functionality diagram of each company that provides this kind of systems should look like this:

I found this by mistake today and it put a smile on my face because it includes all the functionality that I would expect from an Energy Monitoring System and all the functionality I was talking about in the last few months.

It looks like there still is some hope left and finally a system was developed which will challenge the other companies to rethink their products and evolve.

Dale Fahnstrom, IIT Institute of Design. Photo: Jordan Fischervia Core77

I would have liked to have been there to judge for myself, but Nico McDonald penned this review of the Institute of Design Strategy Conference 2007. The topics and level of presentation sound marvelous. Nico correctly calls out several questions that went unaddressed.

Which skill sets or approaches, if any, were working or being applied in the areas which design is now claiming? If the case for design is so strong, why isn’t it being adopted more by corporations, organizations and governments? And to the extent it is being adopted, are other motives driving this adoption, and might their impact derail delivery?

I’ll also note the list of usual suspects from Steelcase to Phillips to Roger Martin to Hasso Plattner. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with their approach and you’ll find their quotes and case studies sprinkled throughout this site, but where are the representatives from smaller organisations that resonate with the SMEs we primarily work with?

Cost and quality are commoditized today, merely the price of entry to the competitive game. Design and design thinking—or innovation if you like–are the fresh, new variables that can bring advantage and fat profit margins to global corporations. In today’s global marketplace, being able to understand the consumer, prototype possible new products, services and experiences, quickly filter the good, the bad and the ugly and deliver them to people who want them—well, that is an attractive management methodology. Beats the heck out of squeezing yet one more penny out of your Chinese supply-chain, doesn’t it? Let me emphasize this. I think managers have to BECOME designers, not just hire them. I think CEOs have to embrace design thinking, not just hire someone who gets it. I think many business schools have to merge with design schools, not just play poke and tickle with them.

Where is this nirvana? India, where companies are falling over themselves to employ designers as a means of generating competitive advantage.
Does this sound like Ireland? Well, no. Not yet anyway. Most of the brightest and best still find the only way to work is overseas. The future of a successful design industry in Ireland is demand-led; and it can’t come too soon.

There have been many examples of people openly protesting organisations that blatantly destroy the environment. Could this be the first example of a peaceful campaign to urge a manufacturer to adopt sustainable practices? I was astonished to read earlier this year that Apple ranked lowest in a study of environmental practices by 14 electronic manufacturers.

Greening your products and services is a point of differentiation today. Will it be a cost of entry in the future?

Green My Apple website