Random: Name Tags

I don’t like name badges and I very rarely wear them; only at someone’s specific request. I’ve been to many conferences and meetings and whenever one is given to me I either throw it my bag or leave it on some table. I understand that the badges are meant to help people make introductions to one another, make identification in a swarm of people easier, and help with security-related matters. As for the first two reasons, I don’t believe it helps facilitate the best introductions. I’ve watched the interactions over and over again. You approach someone with a name badge and instead of looking at the person, you’re looking down at their name badge. It is very awkward. This behavior is so ingrained that I often find people looking at my chest area as they approach and I have to tell them that no, I don’t have a name tag and then say “Hi, my name is Traci Thomas and you are?”.  Name badges bring an unnecessary formality.  People are at these events to network and get to know one another. Why do you need all the information in advance? Isn’t that why we make introductions? To learn more about the other person?

The other reason for my disapproval is that I generally find name badges unappealing. I don’t want to put adhesive on or a pin through my clothes and I don’t care to wear something around my neck that is dangling from what looks like a shoe string. And yes, if I must choose I prefer the clip-ons.

It only takes one bad experience

My trip to Portugal via Madrid was probably one of the single best decisions I made this year. It did me well to extract myself from my current environment and experience something new. Europe is not new to me. I’ve been to Spain and Portugal before. But I haven’t traveled overseas in years, make that about four long years. My flight to Madrid on AA was pretty uneventful. Well, I should say entertaining. I sat next to a Spanish TV producer who recounted his month-long vacation on the east coast and his troubles with women. I was even given an exit seat, meaning more room, to accommodate a family with small kids.

My airline troubles started on my return leg. My connecting flight from London to Chicago was canceled. I had the option to either stay the night in London and arrive in Chicago really late the next day or continue on to NYC and arrive the next day in the morning. I opted for the NY leg. I was told that my luggage was on the NYC flight but when I landed my luggage was nowhere to found. The worst part was not understanding where to go and what to do after. I was accompanied by other passengers in the same boat and we circled the baggage claim area, stopping to ask airport employees, and each of us getting conflicting information. So I was told I couldn’t file a missing luggage until I got to my final destination. Then there was the incredibly long wait to get a hotel and meal voucher. When I say incredibly long, there were times I felt that I could just sit on the floor and sob. No one came out to say anything about the wait and there were only a few agents manning the desks. I flew out on Delta from NYC to Chicago. This was the itinerary that was arranged for me when my flight from London was canceled.

CVS ExtraCare Rewards

I’m more loyal to CVS than I am to Walgreen’s. There are two reasons for this: 1. I am from Boston where CVS has a major presence and 2. There is a 24-hour CVS where I currently live. I actually use my rewards and they’re great when I remember to use them. That’s another blog post topic. Today though I walk into CVS to use my 30% of-my-entire-purchase-coupon. When I’m at self-check out and proceed to swipe my coupon, my discount was less than what it should’ve been. It wasn’t the first time this has happened. I’ve become quite adept and calculating percentage discounts on the spot. What can I say, I like to shop sales. So I tell the store employee and she says “oh if you use “those” coupons you have to go to the register because the system doesn’t take off the right amount”. With the level of automation we have achieved, not to mention the complexity of these self-check out kiosks, I found her response completely incredulous and it left me confused. Certainly, these systems tally and track all of our purchases, but cannot calculate a simple discount?!?!. So there I was waiting in-line to scan all my items a second time. All is could think about was that there is a terrible design flaw that needs to be fixed and what horrible service I was receiving.

Zappos vs Piperlime

About six years ago I had to sever my relationship with Zappos. The site had become an utter train wreck breaking all cognitive human factor principles. It was information and sensory overload by monumental proportions that ultimately led to an unpleasant experience. It was a long break up. I thought it was permanent until I started seeing new changes on their website, watching their funny commercials, and listening to the brouhaha about the young, bad-ass CEO.

I reinstated my relationship with Zappos two weeks ago. I was heading to Portugal for a friend’s wedding and needed to buy some stylish walking shoes. Zappos had the Puma Zandy’s I wanted and on sale!  Zappos said it would take about 3-5 days to arrive but I got it in two. I’m wondering if I had not ordered them during the weekend if would’ve gotten them the next day. When my shoes arrived much earlier than anticipated, it was an OH SNAP moment!

I want to tell you a story.

I wrote the following story for a fellowship I intended to apply for. Things got in the way. This was close to my final draft.

They warned me to be careful…very careful. It’s a beautiful country, but it can be dangerous. Don’t wear any jewelry, always wear a money pouch and exercise common sense. I walked down to the busy market in downtown Pelourinho in Salvador Brazil and stood in front of a woman. I needed help. The only thing that connected us was the dark color of our skin and her son with whom I had a very brief encounter days before in this same market. During our brief encounter when he spoke to me in broken English, he was fascinated by my hairstyle and couldn’t believe that I didn’t speak Portuguese and was not Afro-Brazilian. After nearly two weeks of traveling along the coast of Brazil with my Brazilian friend and her family, my lifeline to communicate in Portuguese was severed.  They had already left to return to Sao Paulo. As I wrestled myself through the market to find his stall, I worried about how I was going to communicate the help I needed.

Service Design & Non-Profits

On March 3, 2011, I gave my first service design workshop in collaboration with Byron Stewart from Dramatic Diversity. It was a great way for me to only get involved in this area that greatly excites me, but also to articulate in my own words what service design means. The workshop was meant to expose service design to non-profit organizations. Byron and I felt that fundamentally this makes sense since what non-profit organizations as their underlying mission is to serve people and their communities. It was as much a teaching experience as it was a learning experience.

Reflecting

I participated in the Chicago Service Jam this weekend and had a ton of fun doing it. As a team we were all committed to working on our theme “Super Heroes”, figuring out what it meant to all of us, decide on a direction, and create a new and compelling service.

Chicago Service Jam 2011

On Friday March 11, Chicago participated with nearly 50 cities around the world for the first ever Global Service Jam.  We worked for 48 hours to design new services over a shared theme “Super Heroes”. This was an event to learn more about service design and service design techniques. The Chicago team jammed hard, long, and proud at Conifer Research. I was a Design Coach at the event and was happy to see the level of involvement that went into designing  our new service Swoop!

Check it out!

Prototyping

In its environment

Wow, wow, and wow! It has been well over a month since I’ve made a post. School is in full swing and time management still proves to be an unwieldy beast. But I promised myself I’d get back to my blog since there are a lot of updates. I finished out the first session of my semester and wanted to return to a subject of a previous post. Prototyping. In my prototyping methods class, I decided to use lighting as my topic and specifically desk lighting that was integrated directly on the desk. After getting some rough idea sketches, it was time to franken-prototype. I realize that when I like to “test” things out, I like to start small, really small. I could put my head around doing a full scale or even a half-scale prototype for the first round. Working with my “miniature” prototype still helped me to understand the functionality of my desk. The one functionality that caused me the most headache was the movement of the lamp. How would I get the joints to move? And how was I going to keep the lamp up? Is this even possible? I became frustrated quickly but I realized the prototype was doing what it was intended to do: ask a lot questions and show where the weak points are. That franken prototype led to an inspiration mood board and a final full scale mock-up that eventually removed the movement functionality. I had to chose my battles wisely!

sketch

Small prototype

Full scale prototype

Harold’s Fried Chicken Service Model

Ok. I have something to admit. My favorite “fast food” is fried chicken – chicken wings to be more exact. I also LOVE  Jamaican jerk chicken. I could eat this everyday…no joke! It’s not fried but roasted over pimento wood. When I go home to Jamaica, my family already knows what I’ll be having for dinner the first night. After a visit to the duSable and SMART museums in Hyde Park, I made a stop at Harold’s fried chicken to indulge my fast food craving. I actually first learned of Harold’s when I moved to Chicago and heard Kanye West shot his first music video at one of these franchises. I’ve been to just a few and the bare bones set up is pretty much the same: red and white interior, a counter, an overhead menu, and eating booths. But this one in Hyde Park was particularly worthy of a blog entry because it was really different from the others I had been to.