See Change Happen

Success might come from making things easy

Last week a big bin showed up in our building from Wearable Collections. What a simple but brilliant idea: clean out your closet, put everything downstairs and the people at Wearable Collections will recycle the clothing, and donate the money raised to charity.

 

Hertz takes on Zip Car (and might be winning)

 

Living in NYC is a pain if you are used to having the convenience of a car parked in front of your house, ready when you need it. The subway system here is great for the day to day but there are so many exceptions and times where getting around NYC is just plain miserable.

The biggest challenge for me is getting out of the city. After being banned from my local Hertz (long story), I've found a different place to rent. But the prices are insane and 3 of 5 times, I've reserved a car online the car wasn't available when I tried to pick it up.  It's a crappy and unreliable system.

Zip Car is the perfect alternative. The model is brilliant and I like just about everything about them but, (and this is going to sound REALLY lazy), it takes 2 weeks by mail to process the Zip Car application or requires a trip to somewhere in Midtown so you can show your ID. And every time I think to get a Zip Car, it is always last minute and I can't be bothered to take the train to fill out paperwork. So, until recently, I've been stuck with the "maybe we will have a car" Hertz in the West Village.

As much as I like the start-up model and ideology of Zip, I'm admittedly tempted by the free online sign-up for Hertz's version of Zip called Connect By Hertz. The site is user friendly, the cars (according to what is online) are good city cars, with lots of hybrids. And if the local Hertz manager doesn't try to have me arrested (more of that long story) and if the cars are available, it seems like a pretty good choice.

Although these sorts of things happen all the time, it does seem a little unfair for Hertz to steal Zip Car's business model. Hopefully Zip will retailiate by improving their application process.

The Hybrid Revolution

In "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid," Bill Bryson describes the massive automobile boom of the 1960's and sums up the American psyche at the time with, "Happily, we were indestructible." 

Unfortunately, we've since learned, we were not.

After reading a recent story in Wired about Hyundai launching a hybrid vehicle, I tried to piece together the history of the hybrid over the last 10 years. It appears, the massive increase in gas prices combined with the widespread concern over global warming has created an environment where consumer demand is driving car innovation, rather than the other way around. I love it when the consumer influences the products companies create.

For example, the Hummer enjoyed about 5 profitable years before the flurry of critiques began to overshadow the car's merits. Remember "Fuck you and your Hummer too"  http://www.fuh2.com/, where people posted pictures of themselves giving the finger to Hummer?  I once worked with an editor who gave part of his paycheck to charity because he felt so badly about cutting together the ads. Outside of Texas and rap videos, it has become incredibly uncool to drive a Hummer.

And thus, sales have rapidly declined. Last month, the Dallas news reported, "sales of the brutish H2 are in a free fall – they dropped from 28,898 in '04 to 12,431 last year. No one saw all of these changes coming," Mr. Walsh said this week at the Dallas Auto Show. The segment five years ago was very strong. I don't think anyone could have foreseen all these shifts." 

Seriously, no one could see it coming? No one noticed the increasing negativity towards Hummers?

Last week, the NYT did a story on GM trying to officially sell off their Hummer division to "Gulf Investors." It felt like a consumer victory.

Anyway, the boom and bust of the Hummer (and the rise of the hybrid) is indicative of a rapidly changing, increasingly agile, consumer driven marketplace.

Everything from the economy to life stage to choice in web browser now influences purchase decisions. And, with the proliferation of information, consumers are accessing and processing data that contributes to these decisions faster and more frequently than ever before.

Corporations, which once were able to define the world for the consumer are part of a paradigmatic shift towards prioritization of the customer need. While this may be the norm online, the offline world is just catching up.

But, accordingly to this time line of the Hybrid models, it is happening quickly. 

The electric car is resurrrected

Who Killed the Electric Car be dammed. BMW is rumored to be bringing back and electric version of the Isetta. Design-wise, it is far superior to DaimlerChrysler's Smart Car. Harrington is also working on an entriely electric vehicle but regrettably,  the Harrington BB can only go 29 MPH and averages about 50 miles per charge (with a 9 hour recharge time) but is apparently very easy to drive (especially if you are used to driving go-karts).

Simple Technology from Amazon

The technology to buy things via SMS has been around for awhile but I rarely hear about it actually being used. I was excited to see that Amazon has taken the plunge with Amazon TextBuyIt. This is a good example of a company constantly reinventing the purchasing process. But then again, maybe I'm biased since I'm still excited about  Amazon Prime

Shouldn't the boarding pass should be reinvented?

Invariably, while traveling, there is a moment just after security before boarding the plane when I think I've lost my boarding pass. Prior to the TSA requiring me to undress and partition my personal items across 4 different plastic bins, I didn't have this problem. But now, I simply can't find a good place to keep my boarding pass.  So, I loved this guy's solution: put the boarding pass in your shoe. It's plain view, readily available, and allows the guy to relax pre-flight.

I was wearing high heels so his system didn't work for me but it made me think there's been innovation around how to obtain a boarding pass (print it from home, airport kisoks etc.) but no innovation around the boarding pass itself. We are still required to carry a piece of paper up to the gate. Digital technology should be able to fix this, right?

NYT on Innovation

Good story on innovation from the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/business/30know.html?em&ex=1199422800&en=1761b12e4a3cebd3&ei=5087%0A

A woman named Ms. Rabe is quoted a number of times in the story but one time, on the second page of the story, her name is written as "MS. RABE"  in all caps, . Because of the unexpected format, I not only paid more attention to her name, I went back and reread the paragraph a couple of times wondering whether the format was a typo, scanning the story for any other names written in all caps.

It made the think a lot about the power of the subtle or unexpected.

Would you like that latte supersized?

Advertising Age recently wrote about McDonald's push to launch a premium coffee line to compete with Starbucks. http://adage.com/talentworks/article?article_id=121995. Although I'm not a big fan of either company, launching a premium coffee line to canabalize some of Starbucks' market share seems wise. With 'billions and billions served' there must be a sizable number of people looking for decent coffee at a lower price point.

Ticking Clocks

One of my friends is in labor as I write and a couple of other friends have babies on the way, which means I'm going to a lot of baby showers and starting to pay attention to innovations in the baby world.

GDiapers is a great example of a new, legitimately green product, that serves a specific need in a category that has been stagnant for years. They have a simple website that explains how the diapers are made and you can buy them online. (Or at Wild Oats or Whole Foods.)