Perfect customer experience, answer questions before those are asked

I was reading Trendwatching latest issue on (R)etail (R)evolution and they mentioned Threadless in their article. I went to their website, because of interest on cool concepts and T-shirts.

Living in Finland has one disadvantage, often the new cool stores don't deliver to here. Often you need to go through the whole website to find out if they deliver here and what it costs.

I was so pleased, when after skimming 10 seconds of skimming thought the website, I noticed that they answered to my question before I even asked it.

As a customer experience fanboy and product manager, I just love what they do. This is the perfect way to serve a customer. Surprise customers with answers they haven't yet even asked. Thanks to Threadless.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Me learning words: Rad

My ultimate source on being somewhat aware what the native english speakers from U.S really mean with slang words is Urbandictionary. I was once again searching for a word I noticed somewhere and I was so amused with this explanation that had to share with you.

Word: Rad

really cool, but in a more subtle way. as opposed to extreme or awesome. one of the highest compliments you can give someone. being rad is like being cool without having to work for it. it's like a natural coolness.

I love the wording "being cool without having to work for it". That defines so well many of the guys who are cool, but they really have to work for it. Then there are guys, who just are rad, cool without having to work for it.

I bet you native speakers might not find it hilarious, but it really made me smile. Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Inspiring ways to connect social media with real life

In a motorshow in Amsterdam Renault had Facebook passes (cards with RFID) that you could register your Facebook accounts to and use those tho "like" their cars in that show. That was a really cool new way to get people to share their experience in that show and also get free publicity via social network. Here's the whole story as reported in Springwise.

Couple months ago I blogged about Shoes as your social media tools, which was a school project where they used shoes to be able to check-in to places using special carpet. That was another way to connect social media with real life.

I've seen couple of similar ideas in couple of other occasions and I believe there's a trend there. Real world and social media is getting more and more connected. Foursquare, FB places and other location based services have taken the first step, but I wouldn't be surprised if we would soon jump out of app world to integrated world of things. I bet some of the clothes makers are already planning to integrate social media chips to their clothes or something similar.

I can already imagine people tagging to like something with their jacket sleeves, wrist bands or rings. This trend could start with similar liking as it is now, but soon there could be also "hanging with out with these guys" type of check-ins or likes. There you would be checking in also with people, not only with places or products.

It would be easy to say that phones will play an important role on these type activities, since those are still most often carried with, but I still believe these type of activities could work even without a display. You could sign in to your equipment (cloth, jewelry, key chain or whatever) and then just touching something with that one does the one action it is meant to do. Dead simple and cool.  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Really cool video - year in 40 seconds

From @eirikso cool and beautifully produced video of year in one location.