Yesterday I learned that it is possible to be a burdensome customer, a total knucklehead and a recipient of great service nevertheless. The secret? Be nice.

Arriving at Salt Lake City for a family vacation, my daughter dropped her mobile phone outside the gate and didn’t notice until we were miles into our shuttle to Park City. I called the phone and the gentleman who answered, Sefik, was kind enough to walk the phone to the Delta Baggage Service desk where I was told that a woman named Victoria would keep the phone until we could pick it up. One week later, I showed up on the return trip to recover the phone. Having “vacated” my brain for a week at high altitude, I gave a wildly un-useful and even erroneous description of the phone. The staff tried their best to find the phone, and even let me look through the lost and found items. Oh my, there is a reality show in there somewhere. I saw HUNDREDS of orphaned phones and electronics, plus all manner of larger items, all dutifully catalogued and binned by date. At this point Victoria joined us to help out. She checked the safe and called some colleagues, but had no luck. Boarding time approached and I told Victoria that we had to give up. I finally actually wrote down some useful identifying information with my daughter’s assistance and handed the note to Victoria and said a heartfelt thanks. I was potentially bothered by the loss of the phone, but I was genuinely impressed by the courtesy and energy of service we were receiving. I think I was especially surprised because I had come to be an airline snob, choosing Virgin and other trendy airlines over the legacy carriers any time that I could. But here was Delta, working for me like I was their first customer.

Victoria asked our flight time. I answered and she responded, “That’s too soon. There are massive lines. You’ll never make it.” Then without hesitating, Victoria said politely but firmly, “Follow me.” Zipping through special lanes and flashing her credentials repeatedly, Victoria escorted us directly to the security scanners and wished us a good flight, which we would now make due to her efforts. I decided to talk to my daughter about what had happened. “I forget things all the time. Try to get a system for yourself and all your stuff and it will get better. And even though we didn’t get your phone, we got on this flight because that woman Victoria is really nice and we were nice to her. People complain about travel and especially about the service in travel. Travel is something that happens, not something you control. But service is different: you get the service you deserve. Today we deserved and got great service.”

After a few minutes, Victoria appeared at our very crowded gate, phone in hand. She had said, “I’ll keep trying” and did she ever. I asked Victoria if I could take her picture, and I told her that she was our vacation hero.

Rule #8 of (getting) great service (this one is for customers): You get the service you deserve.

I have lost every gym locker I have ever owned.  They don’t let you keep it on a locker overnight at most gyms and health clubs, so you have to bring it back and forth every time.  And it’s just small enough and just forgettable enough to be misplaced or lost when you’re throwing your gear together in the morning.

But for some reason, at the Downtown Pittsburgh YMCA, they’ve all figured it out.  Everyone just snaps their lock to these beat-up, otherwise unusable shelves.  It’s such a simple idea, and almost obvious in retrospect, but I’ve never seen it anywhere else. 

What makes this interesting to me as a designer of complex systems is that the person who made that shelf couldn’t possibly have anticipated that it would be used this way.  In fact…it is no longer a shelf…it’s a lock rack now.  And we’re talking about shelves and masterlocks here, relatively simple creations.   

No amount of thoughtful design can prevent resourceful people from using it in a way that serves their needs.

From a research perspective…little stuff like this can reveal opportunities for design.  The way people “hack” their environments in clever ways often brings to the surface needs we didn’t know we had.  If you asked 15,000 people at the gym “What do you need at the gym?” I’ll bet you $1000 that exactly 0 of them would say “a lock rack.”  But as soon as one person starts using a shelf that way, everybody else in the whole YMCA is suddenly a customer. 

If you took this exact same shelf, and called it a “lock rack,” and sold it as such, you would probably make money.

Sometimes, cobbled together solutions from everyday folks can make a designer’s job a little easier.

PS Try to take a camera phone picture in a locker room sometime.  It doesn't go over well.

 Working women of 1970-2000 focused on breaking the glass ceiling. Now she has a slight majority in management positions and getting a lot of attention for it, but there is an obvious point at the next level where women drop from 51.5% to 14.4% of the total represented. Is this a reflection of gender discrimination or of the 'mommy track' or of an entirely new set of goals for Gen Y?

The cast and creative team of NBC's Community were at PaleyFest in Hollywood.  At the Saban Theater they previewed an episode and spoke about their sitcom ....annnd it was hilarious.  Obviously.  

Whatever.  You're a designer and you HATE it. It's ridiculous the way the 'c' has that tiny eyebrow. But, if it's so wrong how did Comic Sans become so popular?  Why do I keep seeing the font in laundromats, bathrooms, and schools everywhere? Why are there so many websites dedicated to hating on it?--seriously, google "Comic Sans" and see what comes up.  
Personally, I blame the content.  You can imagine someone thinking, "but I want it to look friendly" before committing the typographical sin. It's sort of the perfect choice for an annoying 'friendly reminder.'  In fact,  scroll through PassiveAggressiveNotes.com and prepare to be amazed.  They even have a "Comic Sans Alert" tag.  
All this negativity is breeding a wave of ironic Comic Sans usage.  Get ready for more album covers and t shirts using the font as it becomes considered "alt."  To quote a friend on Facebook, "Wrong is always right, especially in Comic Sans."  

Reaching new heights: One of our Continuum employees who is "vertically challenged" goes to great lengths to keep the brainstorm session going.

I was having lunch in Coolidge Corner, Brookline, MA  when my waitress said "You have to go next door - they're giving away TOYS!!!". 

She wasn't lying.

Yahoo! had 4 reps standing at Magic Beans cash registers from 1pm - 5pm ringing in customers items. At the end of the transaction, they surprised customers by explaining that Yahoo! would be paying for their purchase - up to $250- as part of their "How Good Grows" campaign.  And they only asked that customers "pay it forward" and do something good for someone else.  Really.

Check out this video  that shows the customers' reactions.  Talk about surprise and delight.

In an effort to shed the words "Starbucks Coffee" and make its new logo more iconic, it seems that Starbucks lost some brand equity. When you squint your eyes and look at the original logo, do you see a siren? No, you see a black circle within a green circle. To me, that's the icon of the brand.

Who doesn't want 5 million euro to invest in new green technologies? That's how the Science Gallery at Trinity College in Dublin got people to take part in their Green Machines exhibit. Brilliantly simple. They gave each participant coins and a score card to rate each of the displayed inventions. The point? To show ordinary people what it really means for a product to be green. And most importantly, to make it fun.