I can’t wait for online television to kill off cable. Cable companies run rackets and have terrible customer service.

That said, I can’t wait for online television to get it right.

I’m cheap and don’t want to pay for online television, but I will once it eclipses cable (and it is at the tipping point).

Fox is one company that is hurting the experience for those who don’t want to pay by delaying the availability of new episodes for an extended period of time. The result? Increased piracy.

The annoying thing is that the solution is already available. The value of online ads has to surpass the value of a general commercial on the old telly. With online television I get my shows when I want them, and Fox should be able to send me extremely targeted advertisements. The market will eventually realize the value of those advertisements, ergo Fox gets its money, there is less piracy, and I get my shows when I want them.

Boom.

Natural resources are becoming more valuable as their availability continues to dwindle. The war to own everything on the planet does not stop with oil. Although fossil fuels and natural gasses are essential to modern day life, water is still the most important resource when it comes to basic survival. As our needs as a civilization have evolved, so have our systems of obtaining water. Irrigation systems and water treatment plants have both matured in order to provide us with water when and where we need it. The value of water has become apparent to private interests who believe they could better serve the community than a local municipality. Private companies have been able to arrange contracts with local governments to handle an area’s water supply. The ability of a company to own a public resource has been the root of some controversy, including what is eligible to be privatized. This dilemma is complex due to its potential effect on political, economic, and environmental systems.
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A few weeks after Gap’s logo debacle, another iconic brand is attempting to give itself a new image. The YMCA unveiled its updated logo this week, and I am definitely disappointed to see the old design go.

While it certainly isn’t as bad as Gap’s flop, I still cringe at the idea of ever changing a brand’s most recognizable and public feature. Starting a new ad campaign or attempting to adapt to an ever changing market does not require a logo redesign. Especially a redesign that tries to capture a fleeting trend, like many “Web 2.0″ logos attempt to do. The designs that fall into this trap are doomed to look dated entirely too soon; a truly great logo should stand the test of time.

I don’t mind the new logo at all, but I do question the motivation behind it.

I wanted to talk about the genius that is Lockerz. I hate to call this a scam really, because if I would have been able to produce something like this I definitely would have. Check out the video below.

Today I ventured into the real world with some errands that I imagined wouldn’t be any trouble. I needed to do some printing, I needed some type of voltage converter, and I needed to purchase a gift. Today I was also given three different examples of how to turn customers away.

I started my journey at a local Kinkos. Actually, I had called beforehand to ensure that I would be able to print something from the internet, rather than downloading it onto a flash drive. What the representative neglected to inform me of, was that printing online costs 5x more than printing from a flash drive, and there is a per minute usage fee to even use the computers. Annoyed, I left without printing a page.

Lesson: Inform your customers, it is everyone’s responsibility within a company to make sure your customers are knowledgeable about your services, and to clear up any possible misconceptions that the customer might have. Go above and beyond yes or no answers.

Next, I made my way to Best Buy. Being the leader in electronics, I assumed they would be able to accommodate my need for a voltage converter. I was presented with two options, with one being about $15 more expensive. The employee gave me a half-hearted anecdote about how the less expensive item didn’t actually work very well. Having previous poor experiences at Best Buy, I decided to call Radio Shack and ask what their offerings were. As it turns out, they had several more options, and the employee was able to explain to me exactly what I needed and was extremely knowledgeable.

Lesson: It is important to focus on gaining your customer’s trust. Employees can build that trust by being an asset to customers. Also, if customers aren’t convinced that they are getting the best deal, they will look elsewhere. The damage is compounded when the customer is right about getting a bad deal; what reason do they have to come back?

Finally, I reached my last destination, a local sporting goods shop. I picked up my presents and was greeted warmly at the check out center. My payment method happened to be two gift cards, which I had been carrying around since my last poor experience at this particular location. I was unpleasantly surprised to find out that I was once again the victim of a “computer error” in their system, which was making it impossible to take my payment. After about 15 minutes, they decided to try and simply type in the gift card’s number instead of repeatedly scanning it, and it worked. What a novel idea!

Lesson: Make it as easy as possible for your customers to buy things from your store. As crazy as it sounds, the easier it is, the less sales you will lose because of your inability to process a sale.

Let my frustration be yet another reminder that marketing is more than television and radio ads. Marketing includes creating a positive experience to encourage customers to not only make a purchase, but to make a raving fan out of a anyone that walks in your store.