Just Another Customer

Columbia 2.0

Let’s hope someone is paying attention and is ready to take a cue from recent events in DC.

I moved to Columbia, MD about 5 years ago with my wife and then 4 month-old daughter. It happened very much by chance as I had recently completed graduate school, gotten a job with USDA in Beltsville, MD and just happened to stumble upon Columbia while driving in the area. It was one of the best choices I have made.

That being said, there is always room for improvement. Just today, a neighbor came by to get permission to do some exterior renovation on his property. Columbia has some fairly strict rules about what can and can’t be done (and I know that some people really chafe against these) and part of the process involves getting a certain number of signatures from neighbors. Regardless of any feeling I have about the necessity of this, I was struck by the fact that this process was of almost no benefit to anyone else considering similar improvements. With some creative thinking this process could be used to do much more than enforce rules and regulations. For example, by creating a Web site to Vet Improvement Projects you could:

• Allow homeowners to post videos, images etc. about their potential plans and permit authenticated users (neighbors) to vote on the plans and/ or ask questions
• Maintain a directory of contractors that permitted commenting, rating and multimedia examples of past work
• Develop mapping tools that showed where permits had been granted 
• Integrate geospatial and mobile applications so that citizens could look up information about past or current projects in mobile browsers

The ideas above represent a very narrow example of what could be a much greater and more significant project. The point is that we need to find ways to let the many creative and talented people in our community leverage the Web and the currently available social tools in the name of the greater good. The potential of this approach was shown very clearly by the recent Apps for Democracy competition sponsored by the Office of the Chief Technology Officer of Washington D.C. Some amazing tools were developed at a fraction of the cost and effort of using traditional methods. One estimate calculated the ROI for the contest at 4000%. I am hoping that there were people in Columbia watching that contest and taking notes. Columbia is a great place, let’s find a way for everyone to pitch in and make it even better.

Microawareness: Perfecting the Customer Experience

I am looking forward to smart stores that can finally provided the optimal customer experience

This weekend, I had to run to the local home improvement store to pick up a few items for home – a new trash can, trash bags, air filters and a grill cover. I decided to go to Lowe’s rather than Home Depot because 1) our local Lowe’s is newer and better and 2) it was closer to some other errands I had to run. The decision to change stores was not as clear cut as it should have been as I knew that finding the items on the aforementioned list would take additional time at Lowe’s.

I could not have been more correct. All in all, and even after bringing myself to ask for help, it probably took an extra 20 minutes for me to track down everything I needed. I don’t really find this acceptable anymore and have a few ideas about how this could be remedied.

• In-store dedicated “Twitter”applications with hashtags - Why couldn’t large box stores provide free wifi with a dedicated microblogging system that recognized a list of hashtags for common items and would spit back relevant information?
• Text messages -  I don’t use text messages that often but I know for many people they are essential. How about a text system similar to the twitter idea above?
• iTarget, iWalmart, etc. applications - Why don’t the big box stores develop iPhone or other smart phone applications for clients that allowed for in-store applications?
• A “store-aware” iPhone application - Even better than a store-specific application, how about a generic app that recognizes a wide variety of stores.
• Carts hooked into an RFID system - How about carts with search tied to RFID databases and inventory?

There may be some very good technical reasons why these may be difficult to achieve, however the upside seems huge. Imagine if Target had a dedicated mobile app that could not only help people find what they wanted but also could deliver targeted ads and discounts. The buzz alone for something like this would be worth the effort. Let’s hope we see something like this soon.

Change is Coming…

I have been fortunate recently to have social computing gain greater prominence in my professional life. Simultaneously, and somewhat paradoxically, I have less workplace access to the sites and applications – Twitter, Facebook, etc. – where most of this activity takes place. This puts increased pressure on my time away from work to investigate and participate in this constantly evolving universe. In a strategy to help cope with this problem and in a bid to rejuvenate my regretfully neglected blog, I plan on modifying the focus of Just Another Customer. In lieu of commentary on general customer service issues, I intend to focus on how and when emerging Web technology and social computing can be used to improve customer service and the customer experience. Wish me luck!

Its the Small Things

Very moving and worth the time to watch.

Reasonable Expectations in the Web 2.0 World

Organizations with critical responsibilities have a responsibility to make their information as “liberated” as possible

This past week, I have been doing my best to get up to speed in my new position. As a part of this process, I have been visiting the Web sites of organizations doing related work to see what information they have available and what options they provide for receiving updates. I have been very surprised to find that there are many organizations that still have not embraced RSS as a mechanism for syndicating critical updates and information. Moreover, I have come across several instances where Web sites publish updates to a unique url, thus making it very difficult to link to the most up-to-date information.

In my opinion, Web managers have a duty to think about how best to manage, organize and publish their information so that the information is as “liberated” as possible. I have been able to find some workarounds to get much of information that I need (change detection being one of the useful tools I use) but the process would be better for everyone if the sites I used were syndicating their content in a more effective manner.

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