Maybe you knew it all along. It’s been said right to my face, yet I never quite believed it. Liz Strauss has just confirmed it, and I have to hand it to her for telling it to me straight. (Liz would never tell it any other way.)

I’m officially an SOB!

Do click on over to meet the other SOBs this week. I’m proudly displaying a little badge (see it down there at the left?) to let you know that I count myself among Liz’s Successful and Outstanding Bloggers now, and that is a very fine birthday present for this Little Blog That Could.

If you aren’t subscribed to Liz’s Successful Blog, well, why not? Her site is a great resource for improving your blog, your other social media skills, and often, for thinking about how to weave this brave new world together with the old, “real” world. Despite being 46% addicted, she keeps this 2.0 thing wonderfully in perspective, which is one of the many reasons I never miss an article.

Now that I’m an SOB, there’ll be no BS at MCE. I reckon I’ll keep on doing things just the way I do, telling it to you straight.

I would never tell it any other way.  

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

(With a Special Request for You, Dear Reader, in the Post Script)

One year ago today, Kelly Erickson boldly sent a little post out into the world, launching the Maximum Customer Experience Blog.

Twelve months have flown by, and my world is forever changed. Lucky, lucky me.

Experience Design. What is it all about? And why do you need it? That’s been the mission of MCE, to answer those two questions, one little tease at a time. If you get the essence of your blog-writing down to two sentences you will never wonder what to write about, I guarantee you. In a year, I’ve rarely strayed.

Without further ado, the lists of twelves.

Note: I get a great number of searches, perfectly pinpointed to our discussions, coming here for exactly the right things: Customer Experience, Experience Design, Pain Points, Growing Your Small Business, and others. Let’s not talk about those, because they are not silly enough and it’s a birthday party!

Hang on a minute, I have to put my partyboots on. Yes, friends, as some of you have long suspected, I really own purple suede boots.

12 Long Tail Search Terms That Real (Strange) People Used to Come to This Site

1.  “kelly erickson” “paws” (He or she spent over 8 minutes on the site, people, because y’know, I am all about paws here! Can you say “sticky search term”?)

2.  navel angst (Glad I could help… I think…)

3.  open fire grow maximum client (Chestnuts roast there sometimes, too.)

4.  when you are still a wimp as an adult (Grow balls. I have no other advice.)

5.  handsome Canadians (I get way too many hits for this term—is it so difficult to walk down the street and see one?)

6.  papier mache dragon trophy (When I’m not all about paws, I am all about papier mache. Oh, yes.)

7.  poptarts/make your own poptart (I am all about… Oh, forget it.)

8.  what happens when libraries close on weekends (Umm, you can’t get books.)

9.  what is the number for brand riffs (If I even knew what you were talking about, this is one I’d consider answering.)

10.  share kelly erikson (I wish you would! Then maybe I could gather more strange terms for my next birthday post! But SPELL IT RIGHT, please…)

11.  sales of mclobster (Brett, you did this to me)

12.  pictures of a person growing to a next level (This frightens me in more ways than I could possibly name)

13.  BONUS: arnie’s artic cat in novar, ontario (HOW can I possibly come up in a search for this?)

12 People Who Would Never Believe I Get Search Engine Traffic From Their Names

1.  Dave Balter (Okay, he’d believe it, I did a couple of posts discussing his brilliance)

2.  Chris Brogan

3.  Naomi Dunford

4.  The Other Kelly Erickson (*sigh,* still #1)

5.  Bill Gates (#2, in number of folks coming here after searching for something about him)

6.  Bob Hoffman

7.  Guy Kawasaki

8.  Brett A. Legree (Is that your middle initial, Brett?)

9.  Taylor Lindstrom

10.  Gordon Ramsay

11.  Lou Reed

12.  Mr. Rogers

12 Topics You Should Never Write About (Unless You Want This Kind of Reader, in Droves)

1.  Giving away the milk for free

2.  Dead mice

3.  Harvey’s

4.  McDonald’s

5.  Peeing on electric fences

6.  Leonardo DiCaprio

7.  Toupees

8.  Never falling in love again

9.  Ersatz anything (Friar…)

10.  Bowling balls (see #7)

11.  Kid Rock

12.  The Yellow Pages

12 People Who’ve Made the Last Twelve Months Funnier, Sweeter, Smarter, and More Inspirational for Me and MCE

(No pushing in line—alpha order, folks)  ::hugs:: and a link to my favorite Customer Experience posts

1.  Amy, Write From Home

2.  Brett, 6 Weeks

3.  Caroline, Caroline Middlebrook and Life Should Feel Good!

4.  Friar, The Deep Friar

5.  Glenn, Customer Service Experience

6.  Graham, Strong White Papers

7.  James, Men With Pens

8.  Janice, Painting a Day

9.  Sonia, Remarkable Communication

10.  Steph, In Other Words

11.  Steve, All This ChittahChattah

12.  Wendi, Life’s Little Inspirations

13.  BONUS 1 (You know I can’t stick to thanking 12 people): Brian, Copyblogger (I’ve said it before, MCE wouldn’t be here without him)

14.  BONUS 2: The Kid

15.  BONUS 3: Mom and Dad

And to all the other folks who really should get a mention here, because I am devoted to you and thrilled that you are devoted to me, a *big, big thank you.*

As a blog author, you, dear reader, are my customer. I strive every day to remember that this “business” is all about you.

The minute I chose to start a blog, I made that choice. From readability to information to entertainment (c’mon, it has to be fun, at least some of the time, right?), I’m here for you. Without each and every reader, this would be nothing more than a diary.

We create Maximum Reader Experience every day, together.

As I blow out the candles on this twelfth month (237th post, for those of you who are keeping track, with a beautiful 2,315 comments), let me tell you what I’m wishing.

I wish for daily Tweets and a million Stumbles.   *ahem* No, seriously…

I wish for wonderful word-of-mouth growth in readers; I wish I could have conversations with more of you here in the comments and as I learn about you back at your own blogs; I wish to help you to flourish in your workaday life, to create the Experience you want for yourself, your colleagues, and your customers. I wish to get your head nodding and to give you an occasional grin.

I wish for your business, your heart, and your mind to grow, and I wish for your person and your family to be well.

My very best regards,

Kelly Erickson

P.S. Writing a birthday post, it seems to me, should be done by a guest poster. At my 100th post I jumped right in with gusto. Here at twelfthmonth, Happy Birthday to Me seems to be causing me fits of self-examination angst, which is nothing like navel angst (unless it is?).

>>So I would love it if you all, my devoted readers, would put a link in your comments today mentioning your favorite post here at MCE. It would be a lovely birthday gift to see what has touched you, helped you, or made your laugh the most. Thanks in advance!<<

Think about connections, connectedness, being linked together, synchronicity, serendipity, community, oneness.

Liz Strauss asked. I thought about it. Amy Derby asked again. I thought about it.

“Connected” used to be a metaphysical thing to me (which I agreed with, in my zen-like way). Now it’s so real. Email anyone, anywhere, anytime!

Sometimes, more connected than I want to be. Sometimes businesslike, sometimes personal, sometimes, even raw. Yes. We are all connected, and I try to keep my emails as full of my personality as if I were there to shake your hand or touch your shoulder before speaking.

For me, it starts with the subject line.

In 25 Words:

Email subject like a bow on a present
My feelings summed up in keystrokes, commanding you:
Smile! Laugh! Miss me?
Open with a grin, dear.

Are you connected, too? Find your own way to say it in exactly 25 words, then visit the 25 Words That Connect Us Project to join in!

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

Do you Dream BIG?

Apparently this is hot again. Ameriprise Financial used the phrase as the theme for their 2007 top-producers to-do. My Yahoo! search for the term “dream big” this morning turned up over four million hits for the exact phrase.

In 2002, Oprah Winfrey masterminded her Big-Dream Contest, and I first heard the phrase “dream big.” The winning essayists would have Oprah’s help starting on their way to fulfilling their Big Dream. I didn’t enter. I was a seven-year victim of domestic violence then. I wrote three drafts for my entry. I took my copy of the September issue (I think she’s great, but it’s still the only O Magazine I’ve ever purchased) off my shelf and read and re-read about the first winners, read the rules for the second contest.

I dreamed BIG. I wanted to own my own firm again. I thought about bringing all my skills together to truly lift small firms up. I wanted to create a multidisciplinary firm where great design is a partner to great strategy, and a servant to growing businesses. I wrote, I dreamed, I wrote, then I hid what I had written, because that was what I had to do. Now never mind the hubris of this, but I felt I couldn’t enter, because what if I won? How much trouble would it cause? I couldn’t risk it.

I keep the issue in a special place to remind me, and that cover still gets me: Dream Big.

Not once in those big plans, did I discuss getting out. At that time it was inconceivable, and not yet even desirable. I wanted my intellectual freedom, and that’s what I wrote about, not my physical freedom.

I am now a survivor of all those years of d.v. It’s not an achievement, really, so although I am HAPPY, I don’t think proud is exactly the word I’d choose. I still Dream Big, and I still believe each of us business people must.

Make Dream BIG Work for You

My work dreams center around growing my business (and this blog!) so I can reach out to more businesses in need: Dream Big, and follow three simple rules: Execute, Execute, Execute. (If it were that simple, I’d never write again!)

The difference between dreaming big, and getting there, is all in the attempts. When all I did was write about Experience Design, and hide the drafts in a magazine, I got nowhere, and no one heard me. Now I shout it all the time, and I get to be in on all sorts of Big Dreams as a result.

Oprah did reach out to me that year, even though I didn’t write to her at the time. When I thought hard about my professional goals I put myself on a path to move right through and past my personal hell.

Maybe your story is nothing like mine (I really hope not), but how can you position yourself to move past a barrier, and will you chart new growth for your firm as a result? I believe in lists and planning, even if you hide yours in copy of Fortune or Inc. Write it down! Dream Big! Improve it! Then start shouting the Dream out loud!

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

Twelve bucks for a movie. Seventy for your cable bill. A hundred for a rockin’ haircut or an awesome pair of shoes. Fifty for a massage, twenty for a facial. Fifty or (a lot) more to see your favorite sports team. CDs, DVDs, a night on the town…

All so you can smile for a while, entertain yourself, maybe feel one with the world.

I got you beat.

You ARE going to have a marvelous Monday and rock another Customer’s Experience right now

Here’s what you do:

Get in your car.

Drive to your local McDonald’s. Get in the drive through lane.

Go healthy like I do if you want—order a plain bagel. No guilt later about Mickey D’s breakfast.

Pull out your debit card to pay, and here’s the important part:

Say to the cashier, “Hey, can you do me a favor? Swipe that card twice. I’d like to pay for the person behind me.”

There will be consternation. First they’ll assume it’s a friend of yours. You’ll explain that you’ve never seen the person before; you feel like being nice.

Then they’ll think you’re trying to pick the person up. You’ll smile and say nope, just felt like it. I knew it would make her day, and maybe someday she’ll do it for someone else.

They may ask if you’ve won the lottery. Just say, “It’s a McDonald’s breakfast. How much can it set me back? I wanted to give someone a smile.”

I’m not saying they’ll be reluctant. They’re making small talk. Because believe it or not at some McDonalds’ doing this will require a password, that the manager has to come type in. Do not ask me why.

Pay, get your caffeine and your bagel, and drive off. You’ll never see the person again. But the person you gave the smile to—surprise!—is in your car right now.

It might be half an hour before you think to look at the receipt. It’s a McDonald’s breakfast that you didn’t eat, and it’s going to give you longer-lasting joy than the last concert you went to. Wondering if she’ll tell a friend when she gets to work. Wondering if you’ll start a movement. Oh, those eyes are twinkling, and then you take a look:

$1.90.

The best money you ever spent.

Now you go off and be a mogul. Lead your own business, and rock your own Customers’ Experiences. It’s a lot easier with a twinkle in your eye.

Go on, I dare ya. (I know you love a dare.) Then come back and leave me a comment. I want to hear how it went for you.

Have a marvelous Monday.

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

Because everybody loves a good bed-headline once in a while.

I frequently suggest folks keep a pen and paper handy by the side of the bed for middle-of-the-night ideas. It cuts down on insomnia if you can just write down the Earth-shattering concept and roll over. Blogging friends Paul and Nick are big proponents of the pen and paper, also. Do they recommend turning on a light?

One potentially interesting title, no blooming idea what the subject was.

re: what?

Grow and be well lighted,

Kelly Erickson

Have you found the post where I make a reference to my age yet? Boy, do I want to give away a prize, but there’s only four days left to claim it! Why not click here to read the rules, and take a Whack at it?

Okay, but just this once

Since I never do memes like Cam Beck’s 4 x 4 Meme, like Naomi Dunford’s “I Never Called It a Meme,” Meme, or like Brian Yerkes’ “Business Cards of Bloggers” Meme, I’ll play, just this once twice thrice. But only because Brett, whom I adore, got the ball rolling, then Ellen, whose call is irresistable, said hey, and my pal Matt, who calls ‘em like he sees ‘em while visiting Rogue Ink, tapped me on the shoulder again. Is this a hint? If y’all don’t think I’m revealing enough of myself all around the Internet, well, Janice knows that I did my share of revealing before the ‘net came along.

With all that link love, if you can read the paragraph above you win a prize.

8 Things

Since James Lipton is never going to have me on Inside the Actors’ Studio, I’ll start with three questions I’d love to be asked by him:

1. What turns you on, creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?

People who love their kids (Happy Mother’s Day, everyone!); suits/well-dressed people generally; great writing; ambition; a sharp sense of humor; scent; art; foreign accents; intelligence (not necessarily in that order)

2. What turns you off, creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?

Dumbing down; bad grammar; condescension; “letting yourself go”; prejudice; cigarette smoke; violence in life or on-screen; meanness

3. What professions other than your own would you like to attempt?

Acting; genealogy; long-haul truck driving; professional miniature crafting

And the rest:

4. I love rain. Walking in it, listening to it, the scent of a rainy day… I’ve even written bad poetry about rain. Some of my poems have been published—none of the ones that were about rain.

5. I share my birthday with Rod Stewart, and I love love love that fact.

6. My nickname was “Tigger,” for a short time as a teen, because I’m (sing it…) bouncy-bouncy-bouncy-bouncy, fun-fun-fun-fun-fun! No kidding. I hate when people call me “Kel,” or frankly any nickname. “Tigger” was quashed rather quickly, though I still love the reason for it.

7. People whose work I adore: (use your favorite search engine ‘cuz I am just not providing a link to each one)

Ken Burns

Leslie Cabarga

Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar

Bob Geldof

Cedric Gibbons

Tricia Guild

Al Gore

Jim Henson

Katherine Hepburn

Steve Jobs

Betsey Johnson

David McCullough

Hattie McDaniel

Kevin McHale

Barnett Newman

Michael Osborne

Andrea Palladio

Robert Parrish

Gordon Ramsay

Zandra Rhodes

Fred Rogers

Mark Rothko

John Saladino

Franz Schubert

Carlos Segura

Kiki Smith

Stephen Starr

Adam Tihany

Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

Bennett and Judie Weinstock

Vicente Wolf

What do they all have in common? Determination. Vision.

8. I am photo-phobic, meaning I avoid having my picture taken like it’s torture, which it is for me. I have an aunt with the same phobia. Even when I’m trying to get a good shot I’m impatient and probably impossible. I think it shows…

The shoes couldn’t make faces.

That’s it. Though most of my pinstriped suit is still on me (see legs, above), I think we’ve gotten plenty personal today. No more tag for a while, okay? I’m all worn out.

Though I’d love to come up with 24 people to tag, for the three times I got hit, there are only three who I’d really like to hear from. I’ll call it one for each hit. I don’t know if any of them will come and play, so here goes:

Amy, Write From Home

Charlie, Ignite Living

Paul, Idea Sandbox

Tag, guys. If you feel like getting a little frivolous, you’re it! Here’s the rules, stolen from Brett’s blog:

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.

2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.

3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people (oops!) and include their names.

4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’ve been tagged, and to read your blog.

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

What have I added to my busy schedule? I’ve been having a great time, wearing out the shoe leather, interviewing local Delaware/ Pennsylvania business owners for the first article in the Maximum Customer Experience Blog’s 2008 Interview Series. (Sorry, national/ international readers. You will love the results, but getting in on this is strictly for those I can talk to in person.)

I hope this little pre-announcement whets your appetite to discover what small business owners like you are really thinking, right now—and if you’re wondering, the word “recession” hasn’t come up once!

Brand Propheteers:

10 Ways to Get the People You Already Know to Rave About Your Firm

Part One - Golden Opportunities and “I’ll Have What She’s Having”

Part Two Is Tricky

Part Three - Grand Concepts, Practical Advice, and the One Great WoM Story

Coming soon:

If I Knew Then What I Know Now:

Hindsight Series

Interactive Experience 101:

Your Secret Weapon

MCE DE:

Twenty Companies That Rock the Customer Experience Right Here, Right Now

How to Have a Breakout Year:

Small Businesses Talk Strategy for Big Growth

Check out these articles and more at the Maximum Customer Experience Blog.

Read, subscribe (it’s free!), and be a part of the Maximum Customer Experience Blog in 2008.

Have a suggestion for the MCE Blog? Write to me: kellye@visionpoints.net. I’d love to hear from you!

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

I’ve never been to Paris. Then again, a lot of people I know who’ve been to Paris have never been to the city they expected. No encircling fog, no Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron (or at least Keanu Reeves and Diane Keaton). I’ve heard the experience was hollow for some: Yes, the cafés, the cigarettes dangling from mouths, the trying-too-hard-to-be-unhurried elegance was there, but no deep, soul-tugging romance. Such high expectations, and then the experience is that of a city like many others (with a unique style, mais oui).

Perhaps this is the fault of those expectations.

When I was a young adult, living in New Jersey, I used to go to New York City to party with friends on a semi-regular basis. Since this was usually more about the friends than about the party itself, there were plenty of grungy low-rent apartments (“arty” of course), dive bars, and long walks (who could afford a cab?). They weren’t “the best days of my life,” but they were great days, the sort of memories you are supposed to store up for nostalgic looks in the rear-view mirror.

I remember one breezy night in October. It was a rare night when we drove everywhere: windows rolled down, music perfect, full of ourselves. We began the evening at a friend’s favorite bar on Staten Island; made our way to Soho and drank some more; went on to an after-hours club in Brooklyn, and after that we drove around, looking out at the silent streets of 3 a.m. for the next thrill. (Hugh McLeod could back me up on this. I think he has similar whisky-soaked memories of foggy New York streets and after-hours parties with delightfully spy-like ways of getting in.)

In spite of the hour, the lights were blazing in a little shop on a corner, under an elevated train track. It was a bakery, and through the open windows it filled the whole car with the scent of fresh bread. We parked, and four of us got out. I think we just wanted to have a look, but who am I kidding? After the night we’d had, we were starved.

There was a small door propped open, and a baker dragging a cart of bread through to a waiting truck. “Go on in,” he said. Their display shelves were only partly stocked, but with the kitchen door open the scent was incredible. Typical of New York, you could hear conversations in several languages going on back there, none of which we could understand. It was like a scene from a movie—a dozen employees, rushed but happy, smiling out at us but far too busy to stop and ask what we were doing there.

The baker, a small man with a thick eastern European accent, came back in with four smallish loaves of bread. “Two dollars,” he said, “and have a beautiful morning.”

We left the car there for a while, walking, warming our hands with the hot loaves, and munching away. When we came back their shelves were nearly filled with all sorts of goodies, and the little man waved at us as we piled in and drove away.

I never drove back to that area with those three friends again. Wouldn’t I love to tell you that I became their most loyal customer, and give you their name! It was absolutely a Maximum Customer Experience, after all. Over the years I’ve tried on my own to locate that corner under the tracks without success. If you reach back I think you’ll find you also have a memory like this one. The Experience was created in part by a lack of expectation; by desires we didn’t know we had, being fulfilled. It was all the wonder and discovery and the romance of Paris—our own “secret” discovery right there in NYC.

Welcome and truly understand all your customers.

Q: When Is the Experience of New York All You’d Expect From Paris?

A: At 3 a.m., in the rear-view mirror.

How can you create an Experience for your customers that lasts like this?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

Dear readers who are also bloggers,

Please get yourselves over to peach before 29 Feb 2008. They are looking for your submissions for a book they’re publishing through lulu.com (how ironic, I just wrote about them), entitled You’re Not the Only One, to benefit WARCHILD.

We would like you to submit a written piece about something you’ve been through from any aspect of your life that you want to share. It can literally be about anything: your relationships, your past, a road not taken, being a parent, an illness or your regrets etc. We’ve called it “You’re Not The Only One” to reflect the camaraderie of blogging.

I submitted a piece that’s been sitting completed for months, just a bit too personal for this business blog. I found where it belongs.

I’d love for you all to read it, but first it’s got to get accepted and printed, and that will be for me to promote in a later article. For now, get something special out of the drawer and email it to peach, because time is running out!

UPDATE: Apparently there’s been a bit too much boo-hoo in their beer over at peach, so if you’ve got a funny article sitting around, that’s the one to drag out and send. Better chance of getting it accepted. They had this idea that there’d be a bit of balance, and everyone’s gone and sent them the personal stuff that’s too intimate for their own blog or some such. Go figure.

: )

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson