Hot Trends in Customer Experience
Colors, Themes, and Bandwagons to Jump On and Get Inspired By
Having railed recently against the don’ts of dated design concepts, I couldn’t leave you all hanging. Herewith, the ideas that are shaping business right now. With a pencil and your Moleskine, take this list and brainstorm: How does Project Runway relate to what you do? Can the unbelievable viral phenomenon of Free Rice or Webkinz take your business to the next level? What are hot librarians doing to revitalize a staid non-profit model—is it a Meatball Sundae or a real reinvention?
How can you make these trends timeless, and make them your own?
In no particular order:
Trust (Short-termism at Trust Matters, How to Make Your Tuesday Super at Chaos Scenario, Bad Customer Service at Men With Pens)
Customer Engagement (hint: work on the human aspects of Customer Experience first!)
Project Runway (you get it or you don’t)
Turner Classic Movies (esp. TCM Underground Fridays, their web design, and graphics)
the 1940s
blush
linen
peacock (this just in: very slick use of peacock at the redesigned Chris Brogan)
silver
pewter
lemongrass
tomato
cordovan
table tennis (Olympic trials in Philadelphia)
librarians (check out Library Crunch and David Lee King
dark chocolate
Webkinz (much to my chagrin)
Canadian bloggers (Buzz Canuck, [one of the] Men With Pens, and IttyBiz, for starters)
giving back (pros from Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, more pros from Fast Company, and cons from Thomas Sowell.)
tech backlash
sharing your PowerPoints with the world
Moleskine notebooks (Paul at Idea Sandbox has them systematized)
and finally, for everything I missed, The Essentialist
Let’s hear from you: What fresh breezes are helping you build your business right now?
Grow and be well,
Kelly Erickson
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24 March 2008, 12:04 am
Dark Chocolate, Dunkin Donuts, and ME? Awesome!
Slightly more serious - thanks for noticing!
24 March 2008, 7:26 am
David,
Absolutely. I wrote a little piece on Super-Custom Experiences a while back, and I remembered hearing your blog mentioned as a hot one. It took a while to track you down (and I discovered the cool world of library/librarian blogs in the meantime), but I bookmarked you that time, and I’ve just been dying to put out a list of “Do”s, so there you are. I love the blog and the design. Keep it up!
Regards,
Kelly
Oh, and psst…
I’d love to hear a few things that you think are new, now, and going to last… care to add anything here? I’m sure you’d have a very different perspective from most of my readers.
24 March 2008, 3:05 pm
One of the…?
What’s up with this peacock and lemongrass, too?
24 March 2008, 4:01 pm
James,
The other Man With Pen is in LVNV… Unless Harry’s decided to take his cats to the Great White North, which I’m having a very hard time imagining.
Check out Chris Brogan’s use of peacock. I’d already written this when I saw the redesign, and it fit right in. Very now, yet not “trendy”… these are ideas meant to last, not fall out of favor in six months.
Gee, lemongrass looks a little like one of my faves here at MCE… not quite intentional. : )
Try it, maybe it could spiffy up your place.
On second thought no, everything the Men have going would clash with lemongrass. Ne changez pas une chose. (How’s Babel Fish doin’? No testing with Quebeçois turns of phrase, I already heard it’s lousy on that.)
I’d love to have your input. What’s shaping business writing right now that we want to know about? Finally trending away from “sales-letter-style”? Is SEO (still) all you get asked about, and do you think that’s a long-term thing, or are people getting the hang of writing like they speak?
Your comments would be spot-on here.
Regards,
Kelly
P.S. Did you enjoy commenting w/o the captcha? Much more gentle, eh?
25 March 2008, 8:09 am
I loved commenting without the captcha. Very cool. Very good for my patience levels.
Now, if I just had subscribe to comments… As is, I have a post it note to remind myself to come back and comment.
What’s this blog called again? Maximum Customer Experience?
(nag nag nag)
25 March 2008, 8:20 am
I blow kisses in your general direction. It’s on its way.
(fingers in ears)
27 March 2008, 12:40 am
James does this with the subscribe to comments thing. He did it to me, too. At the time I thought it was sweet. Now I realize he probably developed the plug-in himself and is single-handedly nagging the blogosphere into adopting it.
I will happily be included in a list that includes chocolate and Make My Logo Bigger Cream.
27 March 2008, 7:31 am
Naomi,
Thanks! He’s been after me for a while, keeps chasing me around the kitchen table with a bottle of Quebec liquor in one hand and WordPress for Dummies in the other, saying, “Look! It’s for Dummies! You can handle that!”
Umm, no, because I am no dummy. That series is so Not Hot.
(No What’s Hot from Naomi? C’mon, you’re one of the most fabulously opinionated ladies around!)
Actually, TypePad has half-installed a subscribe to comments, which is invisibly here right now (I am not making this up). This would obviously be very, very beta, since they actually gave me WARNINGS before allowing me to sign up to try it and since, well, it’s [insert swear word of Naomi's choice] invisible.
We are now working on just why it’s invisible, but since they’re sick of me they are slower than they used to be in responding. I just got their theory last night and
I’ll probably test tonight.[UPDATE: How's that? Comes in RSS flavor only, which doesn't make me happy as an accessibility advocate, but not too shabby.]
It won’t stop me thinking about moving, because I want James’ Comment Luv plug-in. He knows it, TypePad knows it, and TP is not budging. They don’t approach people; programmers must come to them and hand them things on a silver platter, bow, and say Thank You. (Clopen Source, to borrow an excellent phrase.) Grrr.
Regards,
Kelly
P.S. James (who I know isn’t subscribed to these comments but may wander back), who also chased me yelling something about removing the captcha whips and chains… I see that has made a great difference in your commenting…
P.P.S. Naomi’s blog really is awesome, everybody. Instant stress relief. Get right over there to ROF and MMO but remember, NSFW.
27 March 2008, 11:44 pm
@James: Stop tormenting the women.
28 March 2008, 6:30 am
Harry,
*sniff* It is sad when you find out you’re not the only one… I mean he never said he was exclusively torturing me, but y’kinda hope… I guess liquor-totin’ WordPress evangelists just don’t know how to settle down. *sniff*
Are you testing my comment feed for me? Hello, Twitterbug. (Is this thing on? 1-2-3, testing, 1-2-3.)
Should I put an update on my rant Why TypePad Doesn’t Want Your Comments and say at least they made the invisible, visible, or should I leave it ticked off like it is? The rest is still valid….
BTW, readers, it isn’t James’ CommentLuv if I left that impression. In fact I’ve been in a state over wanting it since before the Men With Pens got the plug-in. They’re just the latest in a series of WordPress blogs making me jealous with that particular value-adder.
Later,
Kelly