Get Lost
Get in your car today and get lost. Go to an area of your city, state, province, etc. where you have never been before. Bring a camera and a notebook. Snap away, take notes, draw what you see. No, not the flora and the fauna. The signage. The specials listed in the windows. The colors, the lighting, the way a place invites you in (or doesn’t). The way the staff and other customers inside a business interact with you.
Bring a map, because I want you to come back (and comment).
Where can you go?
Far enough that what you’re seeing is out of the ordinary for you.
- A far more upscale area than you usually go
- A far more downscale area than you usually go
- A far more remote (rural) area
- A far more congested (suburban sprawl or urban) area
- An area with far different industries (factory, farming, mining, tourist,…) than your neck of the woods
Each has something to offer you when you get lost. Businesses thrive and fail in each. You can find inspiration in ethnic, social, and economic differences.
What are you looking for?
- Phrases that grab you
- Typefaces you’d never thought of
- Colors/ color combinations that inspire you (or depress you)
- First impressions (write them down before you think too hard)
- What turns you off (and how you can avoid doing it)
- What compels you to stop (make a list) at a business
- Your observations when you do try a new business in this unfamiliar area (friendlier or less so? speed? smells? atmosphere? clientèle?)
What if you can’t drive off and get lost?
(Get on a bus, a train, a bike, go with a friend. I want you to take a real, physical trip if possible. If those fail you…)
Get on the Internet. Pick a difference that inspired you above, and “get lost.” Restaurant owners: look at manufacturers’ websites . Blog writers: look at department stores’ sites. Designers: look at websites for apartment complexes. Attorneys: look at resorts’ websites. (Americans: look at sites in languages you can’t read.) Good and bad, there are lessons everywhere. Get the picture? Get lost.
This is a day trip to make your business more profitable. Get inspired to try something really new at your company, by seeing the best and worst of another world. And write it off. It’s a business expense, not a vacation!
How did your trip go? What inspired you? Inspire others by leaving a comment here!
Grow and be well,
Kelly Erickson
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24 February 2008, 12:56 pm
Kelly – this is one of my favourite games – my wife and I do it, I call it “I wonder what’s over here?”
We sort of did this on our vacation last year, in New Zealand. We didn’t do anything in the way of organized touring. Just explored, got lost in the suburbs like we usually do and relied on direction sense to get us back…
We might do this again today (locally, not in NZ!) and if we do, I’ll report back!
PS – see, told you I’d be back to post a comment.
Brett
24 February 2008, 2:31 pm
Brett,
I used to do it a lot more often. I have the reams of pix to prove it. It’s still one of my top to-dos when I get a new project—I like to look at things upside-down first.
Two things that amaze me, in greater Philadelphia, are how easy it is to do (don’t have to go far to be someplace where it’s wildly “new to me”), and how myopic we get, thinking of success in such rigid terms. There are thriving businesses in all sorts of industries, economic groups, and populations, making Customer Experience work beautifully for their Ideal Customer.
It’s another method of forcing myself to look at things with fresh eyes.
I hope your little ones are feeling better now. I can understand wanting to get out!
Regards,
Kelly