Sorry for the awful long silence... It's been a furry, oops I mean flurry of actvities with the project team. I've come to think that perhaps a Facebook account will work better with quicker updates but the lazy cat in me has been procrastinating... Someone give me a kick! =P
I wanted to blog about a 2-month old news release by the US Department of Agriculture. Do you remember the food pyramid on the food labels as a guide for the proportion on the type of food for a balancer diet? I vaguely remembered that carbohydrates and such form the base of the pyramid. Can't remember much else besides that! Who can remember what's in it?! So, finally someone thought of a better visual reminder to help us better remember how to make our food selections. The solution? Junk the pyramid and bring in the plate! http://www.choosemyplate.gov/
(wanted to paste the graphic here but can't seemed to do it via my iPhone. I need an iPad!)
Anyway I thought it was a brilliant idea because it made it so much easier to know how much of what to eat... This simple graphic seems like common sense. Like, duh, how come no one thought of it before?
Now, this is what I call user-centric... Innovation or maybe just plain common sense?
Now, think about myplate the next time you think about what to have for lunch! Happy healthy living! =)
Sunday 14 August 2011
Saturday 25 June 2011
Benjamin Zander on music and passion | Video on TED.com
One of my all-time favourite video! On experience and more importantly, on possibilities that we allow ourselves to hold.
Benjamin Zander on music and passion Video on TED.com
Benjamin Zander on music and passion Video on TED.com
Food for thought
It's finally the weekend! Time to sleep in... time to bum... time to chill... and perhaps time to go for a yummy meal at brunch. =) I think brunch is a good invention. First you get to save some calories because you are having two meals in one sitting (provided you don't eat both breakfast and lunch portions), but more importantly if you can have brunch, it means you don't have to be at work! That's why I like it... hyukhyuk.
Thinking of eating reminds me of an article in an old issue of Metropolis, which has an interesting passage on a meal:
"...The little Italian place fosters romance; the burger joint makes for family togetherness; the sports bar promotes male bonding.
Take the Italian place. At the door, the smell of roasted garlic fills with you an ache of explicable well-being combined with the brute urgency of hunger. You are happy (tantalized), yet unhappy (ravenous). You see people eating and glowing, yet you enjoy a solidarity with your fellow unseated patrons outfitted in the customary fresh clothes and perfume. As you wait, patrons exit, exhausted by overconsumption, exuding the overenjoyment of satiation. Suddenly you want a table more than anything else in the world. When you get one, relief and relaxation produce a different series of stimuli. Visual cues take over: you read the menu, assess the table setting, appreciate the red velour walls, and the candles flicker a mellow light on your date's face.
Finally you eat. If the food is good, the textures amplify the flavors. You drink red wine, which melts inhibition and makes you express affection, candor, and self-revelation. Your date reciprocates. Intimacy deepens. In fact, the deepening intimacy of your fellow diners fill the room, and you feel a strange bond with them as well. The togetherness of dining, 20 tables of two, heightens everyone's senses. A communal glow, fueled by invisibly secreted pheromones, burns off the perfumes. The air gets hotter. Time stands still. Only after you finish dinner and walk outdoors into the raw evening air do you realize how completely you had been transformed by multisensory manipulation."
I like the passage because when I first read it, I felt like someone waiting there. But more than that, it was because the illustrative description of the entire dining experience made me think about the all the times I've dined out and how often, or rather, how rare I've enjoyed the experience of eating.
If you reflect on the times when you enjoyed a dining experience at a particular venue, what was it that contributed towards that? For me, a recurring factor is in the ambience of the place - be it the local rustic feel of Old Airport Road hawker centre or the soothing casual setting of Casa Verde at Botanics. This aspect of reaching out to our emotions forms the central theme of the article cited above, with the closing words from the author:
"Deep design milks the affective aspirations of people and places by starting off with the same questions: What are the real emotions we're trying to tap? How do we reach them via the senses? Everybody is a vast reserve of emotive potential... The design problem will be using that power to inspire people to do good things for each other - deep things."
Food for thought? =)
Thinking of eating reminds me of an article in an old issue of Metropolis, which has an interesting passage on a meal:
"...The little Italian place fosters romance; the burger joint makes for family togetherness; the sports bar promotes male bonding.
Take the Italian place. At the door, the smell of roasted garlic fills with you an ache of explicable well-being combined with the brute urgency of hunger. You are happy (tantalized), yet unhappy (ravenous). You see people eating and glowing, yet you enjoy a solidarity with your fellow unseated patrons outfitted in the customary fresh clothes and perfume. As you wait, patrons exit, exhausted by overconsumption, exuding the overenjoyment of satiation. Suddenly you want a table more than anything else in the world. When you get one, relief and relaxation produce a different series of stimuli. Visual cues take over: you read the menu, assess the table setting, appreciate the red velour walls, and the candles flicker a mellow light on your date's face.
Finally you eat. If the food is good, the textures amplify the flavors. You drink red wine, which melts inhibition and makes you express affection, candor, and self-revelation. Your date reciprocates. Intimacy deepens. In fact, the deepening intimacy of your fellow diners fill the room, and you feel a strange bond with them as well. The togetherness of dining, 20 tables of two, heightens everyone's senses. A communal glow, fueled by invisibly secreted pheromones, burns off the perfumes. The air gets hotter. Time stands still. Only after you finish dinner and walk outdoors into the raw evening air do you realize how completely you had been transformed by multisensory manipulation."
- Deep Design in METROPOLIS, August/September 2002
I like the passage because when I first read it, I felt like someone waiting there. But more than that, it was because the illustrative description of the entire dining experience made me think about the all the times I've dined out and how often, or rather, how rare I've enjoyed the experience of eating.
If you reflect on the times when you enjoyed a dining experience at a particular venue, what was it that contributed towards that? For me, a recurring factor is in the ambience of the place - be it the local rustic feel of Old Airport Road hawker centre or the soothing casual setting of Casa Verde at Botanics. This aspect of reaching out to our emotions forms the central theme of the article cited above, with the closing words from the author:
"Deep design milks the affective aspirations of people and places by starting off with the same questions: What are the real emotions we're trying to tap? How do we reach them via the senses? Everybody is a vast reserve of emotive potential... The design problem will be using that power to inspire people to do good things for each other - deep things."
Food for thought? =)
Thursday 9 June 2011
Trying out
After my earlier (2nd) post, it dawned upon me that we go through so many experiences (the process or fact of personally observing, encountering, or undergoing something) as customers every single day. But I often wonder how much thought organisations have put in to think about (1) what they want their customers to experience their product/service and (2) how they intentionally design their product/service offerings, processes and environment to make that happen. If you are like me, you are likely to be shaking your head now too.
So when I heard that some of my friends are embarking on a project in their organisation to create a beautiful learning experience (see my first post), I thought it would be quite neat to invite them to share their thoughts now and then as my guest bloggers as they go through the progress. Out of respect for them, I will maintain the anonymity of their organisation since they are doing it as a pilot project now and are just trying a new methodology. Rest assured though, that they do exist!
These folks are from the training and development industry. Recently they have decided to take a second look at their customers' learning experience. They want to find out what their customers go through, how they feel and how well do they learn when they attend their courses and events, and how some of those aspects can be improved to really serve the needs of their customer and making the experience beautiful. In doing so, they are trying out an approach called design thinking (DT).
I've looked up this design thinking approach and my simple understanding is that it is about applying design principles to look at a problem, i.e. diving in to understand the customer's deeper needs (applying empathy) and trying out quickly and early (prototyping), so that you can learn from your mistakes and make sure you fix them before going live. To me, it sounds like that's just going back to the basics of focusing on the customer (aint it supposed to be so in the first place?). Maybe that is really needed because we've gotten lost in the busyness of "doing" and increasing our efficiency. So this shift back to the customer shouldn't be too hard to do, right? Or is there more beneath the surface? Hmm... I'll find out more and share about it some other time. In the meantime, go on to the next post for some of my guest bloggers' thoughts about what they have done so far!
~ Susie
So when I heard that some of my friends are embarking on a project in their organisation to create a beautiful learning experience (see my first post), I thought it would be quite neat to invite them to share their thoughts now and then as my guest bloggers as they go through the progress. Out of respect for them, I will maintain the anonymity of their organisation since they are doing it as a pilot project now and are just trying a new methodology. Rest assured though, that they do exist!
These folks are from the training and development industry. Recently they have decided to take a second look at their customers' learning experience. They want to find out what their customers go through, how they feel and how well do they learn when they attend their courses and events, and how some of those aspects can be improved to really serve the needs of their customer and making the experience beautiful. In doing so, they are trying out an approach called design thinking (DT).
I've looked up this design thinking approach and my simple understanding is that it is about applying design principles to look at a problem, i.e. diving in to understand the customer's deeper needs (applying empathy) and trying out quickly and early (prototyping), so that you can learn from your mistakes and make sure you fix them before going live. To me, it sounds like that's just going back to the basics of focusing on the customer (aint it supposed to be so in the first place?). Maybe that is really needed because we've gotten lost in the busyness of "doing" and increasing our efficiency. So this shift back to the customer shouldn't be too hard to do, right? Or is there more beneath the surface? Hmm... I'll find out more and share about it some other time. In the meantime, go on to the next post for some of my guest bloggers' thoughts about what they have done so far!
~ Susie
A national pastime
I can't help but reflect from my earlier post about the waiting time in queues. Have you ever wonder how much time we spend in queues everyday (and could have saved)? Sometimes I wonder if we have a secret penchant for queues. In fact, I think it can take a spot next to our top national pastime of eating! Just think back to the Hello Kitty queues, the Roti Boy coffee bun queues, the Koi (ok, now maybe Gong Cha) bubble tea queues and the many queues outside restaurants... Each time a popular product is launched, there seems to be an invisible itch that will cause us to be united in one purpose - to wait in line till we get our hands on it! ;)
I did a quick google search and found out that there's even a theory on queues called the queueing theory. Mr Wiki says that it's the mathematical study of waiting lines. I dont want to go into the technicalities and jargons here but it makes me wonder - especially when I'm waiting longer than my expectations - if the people who design the queue system have thought deeply about their choice. Through my careful and often frustrated observations, there are three types of queue systems commonly used:
So, the morale of the story is that it's important to think about what your customers are experiencing and make sure the implementation is consistent!
~ Susie
I did a quick google search and found out that there's even a theory on queues called the queueing theory. Mr Wiki says that it's the mathematical study of waiting lines. I dont want to go into the technicalities and jargons here but it makes me wonder - especially when I'm waiting longer than my expectations - if the people who design the queue system have thought deeply about their choice. Through my careful and often frustrated observations, there are three types of queue systems commonly used:
- The supermarket system: Many open counters; many staff; fast moving chop chop queues
- The one-man-show system: One counter; a few multi-tasking staff; be prepared to trudge along slowly
- The bank counter/airport's airline counter system: A few open counters with one central waiting line; fairly fast-moving because you are served by the first available counter
So, the morale of the story is that it's important to think about what your customers are experiencing and make sure the implementation is consistent!
~ Susie
Friday 3 June 2011
Hello!
Do you know that on average, people squander forty days annually compensating for things they've forgotten? It's true! So that's why I decided to start this blog. I thought that instead of trying to rummage in my mind everytime I need to recall my curious thoughts, this will be the perfect place to hold them. This is also where i want to spark off your curiosity, share some curious (and sometimes random but potentially brilliant) thoughts and hear your curious ideas. So, hello and welcome to my blog! =)
Before you think I'm an obsessed fast food junkie, the question on my mind was how MacDonalds got their act together in serving their customers, across all their different outlets? On a related note, how did they create a consistent and happy experience for many people? If you've been around long enough, you would remember the TV advertisement where a grandma told her grandkid that "bringing you out is very troublesome" and the next thing you know it, she brought her grandkid to a Macs and stuffed him with fries. I thought that was a classic advertisement because kids always link happy memories to Macs (ok, maybe getting a Happy Meal toy helped too). If the toy really helped in creating a magical moment for the kid, I'm sure that kid will always associate Macs with happy memories from then on even till adulthood. So what then helps to create positive experiences and memories?
Hmm, I heard a bunch of my friends are looking into creating a beautiful learning experience. Maybe I'll go talk to them to find out more, and ask them to drop a note or two here!
By the way, if you want to know where the little fact about forgetting things, check out Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshure Foer and you'll know I kid you not! =)
~ Susie
* * *
Just the other day, I had a craving for fried chicken and decided to swing by Popeye's (sorry to you KFC fans out there). Much to my horrors, there was a snake line of people queuing behind just 1 counter! I was appalled. How could you just have 1 counter at a peak hour?! Fainted. If not for my craving, I was very tempted to turn my back and troop off... I can't help but think about how the queues at MacDonalds always clear pretty fast. In fact, I recently happened to be at a Macs outlet when they switched from the breakfast menu to the lunch menu. As the hour hand hit 12, there was a sudden frenzy of activities - the menu signs and counter signs were flipped, new counters opened, and the number of staff behind the counters doubled. All these done in less than 5 minutes! The more amazing sight was that the number of customers in the queue increased to a troop almost instantly. (If you don't believe me, just go into a Macs at 11.45am and watch them switch!)Before you think I'm an obsessed fast food junkie, the question on my mind was how MacDonalds got their act together in serving their customers, across all their different outlets? On a related note, how did they create a consistent and happy experience for many people? If you've been around long enough, you would remember the TV advertisement where a grandma told her grandkid that "bringing you out is very troublesome" and the next thing you know it, she brought her grandkid to a Macs and stuffed him with fries. I thought that was a classic advertisement because kids always link happy memories to Macs (ok, maybe getting a Happy Meal toy helped too). If the toy really helped in creating a magical moment for the kid, I'm sure that kid will always associate Macs with happy memories from then on even till adulthood. So what then helps to create positive experiences and memories?
Hmm, I heard a bunch of my friends are looking into creating a beautiful learning experience. Maybe I'll go talk to them to find out more, and ask them to drop a note or two here!
By the way, if you want to know where the little fact about forgetting things, check out Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshure Foer and you'll know I kid you not! =)
~ Susie
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