Call me Jeffrey - Blog, Work & Events of Idea Powerhouse, Jeffrey Kalmikoff

Radio silence

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:55:53 -0500

I haven't been writing here very much because we're getting ready to move to Colorado next week. I plan on posting at least twice a week once I'm out there. See ya soon!

Talking Your Customers In Circles 101

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:35:49 -0500

Yesterday someone graciously pointed out to me that both of my tail lights were out. Fearing there was some more major electrical problem going on (especially because it's a brand new car and I already had my A/C overhauled a month ago because it wouldn't turn on), I took the earliest service appointment they could give me. I brought my car to the dealer this morning and had the following conversation with the service manager...

Me: My tail lights mysteriously stopped working, and I'm concerned it's an electrical issue - especially because of the A/C problem I also recently had. It's a new car.

SM (service manager): I doubt it's an electrical issue because your middle brake lamp still works. Your tail lamps probably burned out.

Me: Both of them at the same time? That seems pretty odd.

SM: No, not really. I see this about a hundred times a week.

Me: A hundred times a week? Wow, that seems like a pretty major issue!

SM: Not really, it's a pretty common problem.

So, what did we learn today folks? Apparently, common problems aren't problems at all! Granted, I'm sure the "hundred time per week" was a little exaggerated, but even if it was only ten times per week I'd hope the repetition of the issue was being reported back to the manufacturer. Seems like a silly problem to ignore when "a hundred people per week" seem to be having it.

Show 'em what you got... but why?

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:43:10 -0500

I usually have no issue with how people spend their money, but there's something about the notion of conspicuous consumption that is totally baffling to me. Case in point: Louis Vuitton sweatbands and towels.

If there's one place where it certainly doesn't matter who you are, it's the gym. Everyone is there for the same reason, and there's something nice about a place that levels life's playing field. I can't imagine why someone would find it necessary to spend that kind of money on something your body is just going to make disgusting, much less feel the need to quietly convey your "status" in a place where no one cares anyway.

If I was in charge of product development for Louis Vuitton, I'd see how far I could push it. If people are willing to drop large sums of money on "high class" versions of everyday items, I'd take it all the way and add items like cotton swabs, tampons and toilet paper to next season's line! At the very least, my customers would have the metaphorical experience of seeing where their money is going.

UPDATE: Apparently the product developers at Louis Vuitton read my blog!

Not bad company to keep

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:02:37 -0500

Tom passed me this great article about asymmetrical competition, written by Umair Haque. The focus was on Obama, but he was kind enough to mention Threadless in his examples.

So where do we see asymmetrical competition happening in the corporate world? The real question is � where don�t we see it happening. Here�s a short list of asymmetrical competitors: Tata, Embraer, Ryanair, American Apparel, Whole Foods, Cipla � and, of course, players like Google, Apple Craigslist, Wikipedia, and Threadless. (emphasis mine)

Permanent vacation

Mon, 26 May 2008 07:50:50 -0500

Jen and I spent the last few days in Colorado. This trip was the first time that I noticed Boulder starting to feel like home. I now know my way around (sorta, heh), and we're starting to hit up the same restaurants and shops for the second, third, fourth time, and we met a few really nice people. One of the purposes of this trip was to meet with our architect and contractor to see their ideas and pick a direction to move forward with on our house. It was a strange feeling knowing you own something that has absolutely none of your personality in it, so now that we have the direction for the remodel set, it doesn't feel like a stranger's house anymore. It's becoming so much harder to leave Colorado now when our trips come to and end. It's like being on a vacation where you know you'll be able to stay forever, only not quite yet. Each time we return home, I feel more anxious to plan our next trip back. I do love Chicago and all the people and experiences that have come with it, but I'm ready for our permanent vacation.

Holy moly!

Tue, 20 May 2008 10:51:03 -0500

This has started to make it's rounds online, so I'm feeling pretty comfortable posting this on my blog. Taking myself out of this equation (even though I think it's pretty cool to be on the cover!), I'm so proud of what Threadless has become. We truly have the best team out there. Check out the article here

Arrived safely on the bandwagon

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:12:34 -0500

I really don't feel like writing too much about this, as I'm still formulating my opinion on how it works, but I've started using Twitter. The most recent in my feed is displayed to your left.

Good products don't make up for bad service... but they help

Thu, 01 May 2008 07:05:45 -0500

Note: I got rid of the blog I posted about this and am replacing it with the article I wrote for Vitamin. It's just a re-written version.

April 30th was my birthday and I took the day off. It was supposed to be a relaxing day. It began by making pancakes with my wife, then playing video games for a while. Soon after I went to get a massage followed by some lunch. Lunch threw my day off. We went to a new-to-the-neighborhood, upscale, sit-down sandwich place called Jerry�s. Their menu is gigantic. I figured that deciding what to eat would be the biggest problem I�d have there. I was wrong.

After we ordered, we noticed three new tables of people seated at various times. We also noticed that about 20 minutes had passed without food. Again, we�re talking sandwiches, not exactly the type of food you�d expect to wait a long time for. A little more time passes and our waiter comes out to tell us that he�s sorry, but our order was �stuck behind a giant take-out order�. This changed my mood from anxious to frustrated �

� and now a tangent on how my mind works:

If someone walks into a sandwich shop to place a giant take-out order, they can safely assume they�ll be waiting a for awhile. If my wife and I sit down in a sandwich shop and order two sandwiches, we assume it won�t take very long. If the kitchen would have understood these common assumptions, they would have realized that the length of time added for the person waiting for the take-out order by having two additional sandwiches made (ours), would have been minimal compared to their overall wait time for their �giant order�. In reality, the take-out customer would likely not even notice the extra time. Instead, the restaurant left two different sets of customers waiting for the same amount of time for two drastically different-sized orders.

My point? Scientific thinking in the kitchen doesn�t always have to yield foam and/or crunchy, flavored air � it can lead to a better experience for the customer.

Back to the story. To make matters worse, after waiting for almost 45 minutes, the three other tables that were seated after us got their food before we did! Once our food finally did arrive, something interesting happened: my sandwich was so good that the frustration I felt for having to wait 45 minutes for it was calmed significantly. Significantly, but not completely � hence this article. If the food wouldn�t have been worth the wait, then this would be an entirely different story. At the very least, their food was great, and that�s a start. However, like in many businesses, the product is only part of the experience.

Before I continue, I�d like to point out that I�m well aware that this restaurant may not have any ongoing problems with their customer service. Our bad experience could easily be, and most likely should be chalked up to �sometimes, shit happens�. I�m an eternal benefit-of-the-doubt giver, but the experience did get me thinking about how this relates to the type of business I�m in.

Remember our server who apologized for the tremendous wait? He didn�t make sure the customers waiting the longest got their food first. The lesson here is to back up your apologies with actions; don�t just apologize to your customers because you think you should, or worse � to make yourself feel better.

In his book �The Last Lecture�, Randy Pausch points out that �a good apology has three parts: �1. I�m sorry�; 2. �It was my fault� and 3. �How do I make it right�. The last part tells about your sincerity.� Consolation is a vastly overlooked area of customer service, which is essentially Randy�s third part of a good apology.

At Threadless, if something goes wrong that�s our fault, you�ll get a coupon code for money off your next purchase. It�s a great way to say to your customer, �We�re human and we�re sorry but sometimes these things happen. So, here�s something we hope will help soften the blow�.

Consolation could be your only chance at a do over with a customer. Take that chance.

What else could anyone who handles a product-driven, customer-service-related company learn from my experience? First, know that simply having good products won�t retain your customers (but it does certainly help). At Threadless, we�re well aware that the impression between product and customer is fleeting, while the impression between company and customer is long-lasting.

Next, recognizing an issue or problem on the approach is almost always better than reacting to it at the intersection. At the point of intersection, the damage has already been done and the only thing left to do is play damage control. In most businesses, it�s usually two different teams of people who handle the �approach� (strategy/planning) and the �intersection� (customer service). A huge part of being on the �approach� team is understanding, and more importantly � caring, that every approach you miss, the �intersection� team has to clean up for you.

So, as a customer, does this mean that I�ll go back to Jerry�s? Sure I will. Their �product� is great. Only next time, I�ll probably just get it to go.

How does stuff like this still happen?

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 07:57:27 -0600

Last night I was roaming around online looking for places to get a large sectional couch for our new house. To not leave out any options, I headed over to the La-Z-Boy site to see what they have to offer. I assumed that if anyone knows how to make a gigantic, all-about-comfort, family-style sectional, it'd be them. That may be true, but what I found is that La-Z-Boy has no idea how to sell their couches online.

You go to their site, and you click couches. Then you click sectionals. What you'll get next, I thought was an error. 64px by 64px. That's the size of the images you're given to try to find a style you like. No options to make images larger. 4,096 total pixels. Take it or leave it. 100 pixels are equivalent to 1 inch in real life. What they're doing is the equivalent of printing a catalog where the images are just shy of 3/4" by 3/4". Are they trying to convince you to shop elsewhere? This is the brick-and-mortal equivalent of forcing their customers to look at furniture through the wrong end of a telescope.

It's amazing to me that when a company's sole purpose is to sell furniture, they can be so incredibly bad at doing it online and still stay in business.

Ebay loses negative buyer feedback, my respect

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:49:09 -0600

According to this article on BBC news...

Online auction site eBay has said it plans to overhaul its feedback system and will ban sellers from leaving negative comments about buyers.

EBay said problems were occurring, and slowing down trade, when buyers left negative comments about sellers who then retaliated with their own views.

There's no question that I'm a community-minded dude, but I can't see how Ebay would consider their actions as a good idea. Did anyone think this through? Because a few sellers were giving retaliatory negative transaction ratings to buyers, all sellers can no longer warn other sellers of a potential bad transaction? True, you could argue that a seller could be wary of a buyer with minimal positive feedback, but that now puts pressure on a seller to give someone positive feedback. What happens if the buyer doesn't deserve positive or negative feedback? Without a completely balanced and open way of rating a transaction, the lack of response can (and will, I assure you) be misinterpreted as a negative experience.

It concerns me that either Ebay doesn't know or doesn't care that by tipping the scales in favor of buyers, they're poisoning the well of data, thereby potentially nullifying the purpose of ratings altogether. If it was me, I'd simply associate each transaction rating with the corresponding rating from the other party - whether it be positive, negative, or non-existent. I'd also publish the date and time of the rating, so a buyer or seller could assess for themselves what ratings are genuine and what ratings are revenge. But like I said: I'm a community-minded dude. I'd rather give my users the best data possible to make as informed of a decision as possible, and not let a few bad apples spoil the bunch.

Too cool for customer service

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:52:48 -0600

The lines to get to the observatory at the Empire State Building are pretty long. This is what I learned from my first trip to the Renegade Handmade store in Chicago, the consignment shop spin-off of the Renegade Craft Fair. I learned this, because this is what the woman who sat at the counter was talking about on the phone while she ignored the four of us. We were walking around the area scoping out spots for our new Kids' store, and wanted to drop into Renegade Handmade not only to inquire about the area - but to buy stuff. The conversation that she should have been having was with the customer who was trying to get her attention to see what she could do to keep the six prints he wanted to buy from getting wet in the rain. And yes, that customer was me. One of us did buy something, and he managed to get a question in during checkout. The cashier didn't bother to put the phone down. Nice.

Mostly, I feel bad for the artists who trust Renegade Handmade to be an outlet to sell their goods. I hope they're not putting all their hand-painted eggs in one hand-woven basket.

I don't care what you think unless I know you

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 07:42:46 -0600

Yelp.com really bothers me. It's not so much that it exists, it's that they make no effort to give one user the ability to seem more credible the next. Their system is so easily exploitable, it ruins the purpose of the site for everyone. Does Yelp not realize this, or simply not care? Either way, here's some free advice for the makers of Yelp:

Have reviewers tag a review as positive or negative before posting. Do a word count, then weight the usefulness of the review. Try to write a useful negative or positive in less than 10 words. "Dude! Best/worst pizza ever, whoa!" is noise, not a useful review.

Create a trust network. It's kinda like a social network, but not lame. Allow users to set how many degrees of separation they trust. Sure, it'll vastly decrease the content for certain users, but (1) they've chosen that so it's OK, and (2) it'll add a whole new facet of the site for users who just want to share/discover services with the people they know.

Let people quietly mark posts as suspicious. Just having a general "flag this review" doesn't do anything. It's entirely too open, so it's inferred use is "tell us if this is offensive to you". On a review site, offensive is the least of your worries. Harsh language in a negative review is exactly inversely proportionate to the type of language usually found in a positive review. This is no reason to flag. C'mon, who's steering the ship? Give your users options so they learn the different flagging reasons you're looking for. Receiving a flag from a user who's suspicious of a reviewer using a fake account is way more useful than wasting your time addressing an F-bomb.

"Was this review useful/funny/cool?". Oh, grow up! None of those things matter! Allowing users to review reviews without fixing the credibility issue is spiraling further out of control. Simply put: it's 100% exploitable. And "funny" or "cool"? You'd get more useful data by inviting your users into your co-lo facility and encouraging them take a dump on your servers.

In the end, the whole point of the site is ruined if it allows people to exploit the most obvious weakness of all: the fake account. Not only am I suspicious of the one shining review in a collection of tarnished ones, I know for a fact that business owners post fake reviews and/or encourage other people to do it for them. So, Yelp... in the interest of your users, the fake account issue needs to be fixed ASAP - but, I'm not giving the solution to that one away for free. Sorry, but I don't know you.

We were all pretty close to being pickle pushers

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 08:17:34 -0600

This morning I was thinking about pixels, and I realized that I had no idea where the term came from. I checked it out on wikipedia, and this is what I found:

A pixel (short for picture element, using the common abbreviation "pix" for "pictures") is a single point in a graphic image.

This information makes me thankful that the people in charge of naming had the good sense to consider "graphic" slang. Something tells me that web design just wouldn't be as desirable of a career if people were referred to as pickle pushers!

Are we racing towards The Running Man?

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:02:31 -0600

When I was a kid I remember reading Stephen King (as Richard Bachman)'s The Running Man - the futuristic story about the most popular TV show in the world where criminals play a life-or-death version of American Gladiators for their freedom. A lot of garbage on TV makes me wonder just how far we really are from that being a reality?

I recently started seeing commercials for a new Fox game show called The Moment of Truth. The premise seems simple enough: answer a few questions honestly for a chance at a half-million dollars. Before the show is taped in front of an audience, including the contestants friends and family, each contestant is hooked up to a polygraph machine and asked the questions they'll be asked while the show is being taped. This way the producers know what's true and what's not. Easy enough, right? Well, Fox being Fox, they wouldn't just make it that easy. In fact, they've managed to make the show downright sadistic.

The version of the commercial I saw showed three vignettes. The first was a man being asked "would you give your father a kidney to save his life" while his father looked on in horror from the audience. The second was a man being asked "have you ever touched a co-worker inappropriately" while his really-pissed-off wife shook her head in disbelief. The last was a young woman being asked "do you see yourself still being married to your husband five years from now" while her husband sat sadly waiting for the answer.

While participating on this show may not end a contestant's life, Fox is certainly promoting the idea of the possibility of ruining it. And for what? Money? Congratulations! You're an asshole. Here's your consolation check.

Sadly, millions of people will tune in for the promise of witnessing an emotional beat-down on "The Moment of Truth". Millions more tune in on a regular basis for the promise of a physical beat-down on the fastest growing televised "sport" in the United States, the UFC. I'm incredibly curious about how long it will take for life to imitate art, and for Stephen King (and tons of others, I'm sure) to say "I told you so!".

A thought about intuitive design

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:59:45 -0600

I was reading the Consumer Reports review on my car out of pure curiosity, and something bothered me. It got low marks for the controls not being designed intuitively. Being a designer, I'm certainly on "team intuitive design", but that's because the web is a place where intuitive design really matters. First of all, I beg to differ about my cars controls being counter-intuitive, but that's just me. Certainly a few things took some seeking out. I'm not seeing this as a big deal. Anything I didn't get right away, I learned quickly enough. It took me maybe 3 days to fully understand all the ins-and-outs of the car, including the navigation UI. Maybe CR is reporting intellectually to the lowest common denominator consumer.

I'm failing to see the use of reporting on how intuitive the controls are when there's no realistic expectation of fully understanding the whole car in 30 seconds. If you're purchasing a car, it's not beyond reason that you'll have the vehicle for at least 12 months. The whole point of something being intuitive is so that you understand it right away. This, for example, is very useful for the web because you have casual users coming and going. You make things intuitive so they can get around easily, resulting (hopefully) in a longer stay. In that case, intuition is something to consider.

As I see it, the only way having vehicle controls being counter-intuitive as negative is if you were renting a car. In this case, it could be argued that time spent in the vehicle, much like the time someone would spend on a website, is far more finite therefor it would be a larger issue if you couldn't just "get in and go".

For me, the decision to buy a car (or not) usually breaks down to about 75% passion and 25% usability. In many cases passion can (and should) outweigh usability. If a car is sexy enough, who really cares - for example - if the radio volume knob is under the seat. How long would it really take to get used to that? In the 90s, a Saab's ignition was part of the center console. That counter-intuitive design certainly didn't result in a shortage of those ugly bastards on the road.

In my humble opinion, information that should be included in the evaluation of a car should only be things that matter in the long run: gas usage, reliability, warranty, service records, etc. Whether or not something is designed intuitively seems to be purely objective. It makes about as much sense as scoring a car lower for being ugly.

Happy New Year!

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:41:31 -0600

Jen and I are off to Copper Mtn., CO to spend New Years with Jake and Shondi. Jen's never been to Copper, so this should be a fun trip... assuming we can even get there! It's supposed to snow 10" today and we're driving to Copper from Denver. Wish us luck! We're also spending a few days in Boulder afterwards getting some stuff done for our house and also hanging out with my brother Josh. He'll be in town for a day with my dad while they check out CU. Fun times! Until next year...

Fun from space, aggrivation from earth

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:25:38 -0600

Last night as Jen and I were driving home from a friend's house, some ass hat started throwing gang signs at me as I drove by, just as we entered our neighborhood. At first I chuckled at it, but then I realized that I had the hood of my red hoody up. For f's sake, I'm so over our neighborhood. That incident made me realize that we have absolutely no business in a place where a normal personal has to remember to not wear their hood during the winter for fear of upsetting some dumb ass who strolls around the neighborhood at 11pm looking for trouble. Not that the whole neighborhood is like that, because honestly I've never had an issue there before. I guess it's just like the surfer who has their first encounter with a shark. You always knew they were there, but it's easy to let it slip from your mind when it's never been an issue. It's just really frustrating, and it makes me worry about my wife's and my own safety. I can't wait to move.

In other news, I got Sirius in my car and it's ridiculously awesome. I highly recommend it!

If you happen to find a $1000 bill on the ground...

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:01:21 -0600

Then buy these...

via BLTD

And so it begins...

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 16:54:14 -0600

It's really hard to figure out where to start when you haven't written in a while, so I'll just start from right now. Jen and I just got back from Colorado, a trip we took to close on the house we just purchased. It's so awesome. I'm sure everyone thinks their first house is awesome, so I guess I'm no different. I'm not saying it's better than anyones - just that it's awesome - for me. While we were out there we visited Jake and Shondi's house, which is currently being built. Their house is awesome too. I can't wait until both our places are done and we're all out west and settled in. That's the point of this, I guess. The waiting game is something I've never been very good at. I generally set my mind to something and figure out a way to defy all time lines to achieve it. In the case of the house, the move... these things have to happen on their own time. I'm excited about this. It's fun for once to know that I can't hurry it along and it's forcing me to enjoy the suspense.

To help it along, I'll focus on working pretty closely with our architect on redesigning the interior. We're only doing a few major projects and a bunch of smaller ones. I'm super stoked on our architect, as he works for a firm we'd never be able to work with because they don't do projects as small as ours (and we probably couldn't afford them anyway!). We really lucked out on working with this guy freelance, as he was brought to the table by our contractor.

Anyway, I'll be updating here with the happenings of the house renovation and stuff like that. Also, Jake is helping me add a "Work Blog" which will replace that dusty old useless work section that never seemed to work anyway. I'll keep that updated with all the stuff I'm working on for skinnyCorp.

Hopefully it won't take me 3 months to post again...

O'Reilly has a sense of humor, maybe.

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 08:45:16 -0500

I was checking out my contact's pics on flickr, and came across the image to the left in Tara Hunt's photos. Now, maybe I'm reading into this too much, but did O'Reilly really put a cougar on the cover of their "Women in Technology" book? My reaction is pretty much the same whether they did it on purpose, or if it just didn't occur to them what they were doing - "haha".