How a 10-Cent Lid Could Put You Out of Business

There’s a coffee shop right up the street where I get my daily mor­ning dose. They’re always busy, but that’s okay, ’cause the people who work there are incre­dibly effi­cient. That’s their thing.

Another of their USPs is the lids they put on the to-​go cups: Solo Traveler Plus, the pre­mium ver­sion of my favo­rite coffee lid. It is a double layer, with a little slider to close the cup entirely. Great both for pre­ser­ving heat and pre­ven­ting spills.

The deluxe ver­sion of my favo­rite coffee lid. (To be fair: This model costs about a dollar a piece on Amazon. But you can buy decent lids online for less than a penny a piece. So a dime for a good lid isn’t unrealistic.)

One mor­ning recently, how­ever, the line was par­ti­cu­larly long. And instead of wai­ting, I thought I’d give the new café on the block a shot. (Yeah. I’m a whore when it comes to coffee. But it seems like a nice place, and I’d love to see them make it.) read more

A thing or two about QR codes

Suddenly QR codes are eve­rywhere. Not all that many people use them, but if they want to, they’re there: A pile of squares put together to make a fancy bar code. «Everyone» uses QR codes these days.

Don’t get me wrong, QR codes can be a very powerful tool, if you know why or how to use them, but it is quite obvious that most people have no clue. One example:

I was wai­ting for a subway in Oslo, Norway, last Christmas, when I noticed a QR Code among the time tables and fare information:

«This infor­ma­tion»? What information?

I didn’t exactly under­stand what infor­ma­tion I was being offered, but Ruter, the com­pany that ope­rates the subway in Oslo, is a fairly trustworthy orga­niza­tion, so I let my curio­sity get the better of me. The result?

Oh, this information …

I was taken to the Breaking News sec­tion of Ruter’s web­site. Sigh … What’s wrong with that? you may ask. Well, quite a bit:

First: The site is not opti­mized for mobile devices – I had to pinch and zoom and scroll to figure out what site I’d arrived at, and decide that there was not­hing there for me.

• First rule: QR codes are almost exclu­sively for use on mobile devices, so make sure they deliver mobile-​friendly content.

It actually doesn’t cost much, by way of time, money or resources, to make your web­site mobile fri­endly, but it will pro­bably pay off. Some pro­ject that mobile web sur­fing will over­take com­puter sur­fing in 2012. And Ruter.no is exactly the kind of web­site people visit when they are on the move – whether to find out what has hap­pened to the bus that never arrived, or how to com­plain about the conductor.

Anyway: The site I arrived at had no con­tact or traffic infor­ma­tion. Instead, there were three films about the new pri­cing struc­ture, links to various pdfs, a story about a Ruter emp­loyee whi had been arrested, and some other links. None of the con­tent on the page was rele­vant to me, but I was struck by how opti­mi­stic it is to think that people will down­load movies on ticket prices on their phone while wai­ting for the tram.

• Second rule: Get to the point. People don’t have a lot of time or pati­ence when they’re sur­fing out in the real world.

Looking closer at the site, I could not find any­thing that delivered on the pro­mise from the expla­na­tion next to the QR code. The notice told me I’d get «this infor­ma­tion» directly to my phone. I don’t know what kind of infor­ma­tion they were refer­ring to, but next to the actual QR code were con­tact infor­ma­tion, the url to a mobile fri­endly web­site and a plug for an app with traffic infor­ma­tion in real-​time – three things mobile users might actually want.

• Rule three: No sur­prises, please. QR codes is all about trust. Unlike URLs, QR codes are impos­sible to read for ordi­nary people, so we have to trust that they point to a place we want to be. Do not break that trust.

A couple of bonus rules:

• Rule 4: Take advan­tage of the opport­u­nities. Internet on mobile phones opens up end­less pos­si­bi­lities – you have access to all infor­ma­tion, photos, music and people in the world from your pocket. Don’t waste it on sen­ding people to an insig­ni­fi­cant website.

• Rule 5: Track it! QR codes are par­ti­cu­larly easy to measure. Make sure each QR code you use is unique, and you can see how many people use them, when they use them and how they use them – among other things. See what you find out.

For goodness' sake! Try to look the part.

Would you buy a suit from someone who looks and acts like they’ve never worn one? If it’s cheap enough, perhaps…

Would you buy a tuxedo from this guy?

It’s not enough in this world simply to know your stuff. If you want a chance to prove it, you need to look the part. Because the facts are that people do judge books by their covers, and covers do say quite a bit about books’ content.

Besides, it’s hard to trust someone who won’t take their own advice, use their own pro­duct or eat their own dog food.

Creative Help Wanted Ad

If you can peek under the hood of the internet and know what you’re looking at, you’ll appreciate this help wanted ad from Norwegian clas­si­fied ads site Finn.no. They’re always looking for good fron­tend devel­opers, and knew exactly where to find them: roo­ting around in Finn’s own source code.

As long as they keep the ad up, you can see it by going to Finn.no and hit­ting View Source. But if they’ve taken it away by the time you get there, or you just don’t have the pati­ence to go looking into other website’s source code, here’s what it looks like.

Help Wanted: Finn.no is looking for fron­tend devel­opers. A rough trans­la­tion: Curious? Curious about the code? Are you one of Norway’s best fron­tend devel­opers, and want to work for Finn.no? Contact us.

It’s even better if you rec­og­nize the face in the ad from the tv ads that made him famous. A bunch of other sites, led by major news sites Dagbladet.no and VG.no, quickly followed suit.

I’ve never seen this before, but I sus­pect this has been done before? Does anyone have any fun examples?

Embrace complaints

It’s really uncom­for­table to get com­pla­ints. Restoring a good impres­sion and cor­rec­ting any mis­takes you may have made takes a toll – on your time and your bank account maybe, but mostly on your pride.

But don’t be fooled by the high pricetag. Most com­pla­ints are worth far more than they’ll ever cost you.

More people will drink a corked bottle of wine than send it back. But they’ll never buy that wine again. Photo by Odisey via Stock.Xchng

Not only is a com­plaint a sign that what you do mat­ters – that people actually give a damn – but it’s the most valuable feed­back you can get.

Most dis­sa­tis­fied custo­mers will never tell you about it. They’ll tell their family and fri­ends about it, they’ll warn their cow­or­kers about you, they’ll talk about their poor expe­ri­ence with anyone and eve­ryone … except you.

Anyone who gives you a chance to right your wrongs, cor­rect your mis­takes and straighten out any mis­un­der­stan­dings (even if they make their com­pla­ints known in the most obnoxious way ima­gi­nable), deserves that you go an extra few miles and thank them for the excersize.

Hard to swallow, I know. But there’s a silver lining. If you can make a dis­sa­tis­fied customer happy again, rese­arch tells us that she’ll be more loyal and a better ambas­sador for you than the customer who was happy all along.

So know this: If you’re ever made to feel like your work is no good, there’s no better time to shine.

Next Page's Jazz Philosophy of Business

One of the first things I decided when I started Next Page, was that we should work like musi­cians – jazz musi­cians, specifically.

Thelonious Monk

Musicians don’t com­pete – at least not in the busi­ness sense of the word. They may be up against eachother at the ticket booth and in the iTunes store, but that’s not where the magic hap­pens. Good musi­cians feed off eachother, rather than on eachother.

For example, other musi­cians wouldn’t have been better off wit­hout the «com­pe­tition» from Charlie Parker or Miles Davis. They’d be infi­nitely worse off. By devel­o­ping new styles of music, reaching new audiences, and inspi­ring and ment­oring gene­ra­tions of musi­cians, Parker and Davis baked a much bigger pie, for eve­ryone to enjoy.

Musicians col­la­bo­rate – and jazz musi­cians seem to col­la­bo­rate more freely than anyone. They get together and inspire each other, teach and learn from each other, chal­lenge each other, spur each other on and build on each other’s successes.

Jazz pro­bably does this better than other genres because it relies so heavily on impro­vi­sa­tion – anyone can join in if they have somet­hing to con­tri­bute. And where there’s room to con­tri­bute and room to impro­vise, there’s room to soar as well.

I once saw a clip of John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk that blew my mind. (I wish I could find it again.) At one point, Coltrane starts pou­ring his soul into solo and Monk gets up from behind the piano and starts dan­cing in a style that’s all his own.

As Coltrane keeps blowing – tur­ning a deep red at first, then increas­ingly purple as the min­utes go by – Monk keeps dan­cing. It’s clear that as long as Monk’s dan­cing, and not at his piano, Coltrane is playing wit­hout a safety net. There’s no soft lan­ding in sight, but that doesn’t seem to scare him. He just plays harder.

After what seems like an eter­nity, Monk mozies back to the piano, giving Coltrane a place to put his heavy load. The per­for­mance was as awe-​inspiring as any­thing Cirque du Soleil could come up with.

Imagine playing on a stage like that, along­side people who have the guts and skills to create somet­hing ama­zing when they could just as easily coast on rou­tine, and along­side people with the savvy and con­fi­dence to get out of the way and enjoy it when their own brand of genius is not needed.

That’s the stage Next Page should be.

Disclaimer: I don’t know nearly as much about jazz as I should. I have the impres­sion that jazz and its legacy is about the meeting of genero­sity and crea­ti­vity, but the real his­tory off jazz may not sup­port that interpretation.

Gratis ebok: Annonsere på Golferen

Gratis ned­las­ting: Effektiv Annonsering på Golferen.no

«Effektiv annon­se­ring på Golferen.no» er ment som en rask gjen­nom­gang av noen ting det kan være lurt å tenke på når man skal annon­sere – noen enkle råd for å få mest mulig ut av reklame­kro­nene sine.

Den er også ment å være et levende doku­ment, som skal utvikle seg basert på spørsmål og inn­spill, og etter hvert som verden for øvrig går videre. Ikke minst er den ment å være til hjelp.

For å lykkes (og for å vite at vi lykkes), er vi avhengig av til­bake­mel­dinger og spørsmål. Bruk kom­men­tar­feltet under for å la oss vite hva du synes, eller stille spørsmål du ikke får svar på i boken. Nyttige kom­men­tarer, spørsmål og svar vil inkor­po­reres i frem­ti­dige versjoner.

Siste ver­sjon er fort­satt ver­sjon 1.0.

For å laste ned denne boken må du være regist­rert og logget inn på denne nett­siden. Du kan logge inn med en Facebook-​, Google– eller Twitter-​konto eller regist­rere en ny konto. Det gjør du her.

Seeing things differently

Something else.

It’s a cliché, iro­ni­cally: True inno­va­tion is looking at the same things as eve­ryone else, wit­hout seeing the same things as eve­ryone else. There are some ama­zing inno­va­tors out there, and luckily quite a few that are giving their vision away freely …

Have a look at some of the best street art of 2010.

Being The Flower Girl

Imagine that you spend every mor­ning in a field, in a park, picking wild flowers. You are careful to choose only the most beaut­iful ones, and the ones that look like they will live and keep their beauty a long time after being picked.

Then, in the after­noon, as other people hurry home from work, you stand on a busy street corner giving the flowers away. Not in a creepy, crazy way, but in a way that spreads hap­pi­ness and warmth. Day in, day out, you go to the same park and the same street corner. You do the same things in the same places.

What would happen?

Not only would you learn a lot about both flowers and people, but it wouldn’t take very long before you’d be known as The Flower Girl (or Guy).

And that – being The Flower Girl – is a thing of real value.

Who do people turn to when they want flowers? Some may, of course, go pick their own bou­quets, but many would ask The Flower Girl. Who do people ask if they need infor­ma­tion about flowers? Smart people would ask The Flower Girl.

It would be dif­fi­cult to ruin it, and make your fans turn their backs on you, but it’s entirely pos­sible. The best way to ruin it, of course, would be to focus your atten­tion on somet­hing other than flowers – like ham­bur­gers, or profit – and let the flowers suffer. Soon enough you’d loose your Flower Girl title to someone who really cared about flowers.

It seems so easy and so obvious, doesn’t it? How come, then, so many seemingly smart people get it wrong?