I have reached a point where I am (gasp!) considering making the Montreal Canadians, and not the Leafs, my favourite hockey team. I was born and raised a Leafs fan….so this move is serious business for me, and comes after prolonged deliberation. It is not just the performance of the Leafs– any team can have a bad season or two (and somebody has to be at the bottom of the league), but rather, it is my perception of value associated with the team, which is driving me away. I should also say that I am a ‘casual’ fan, so I welcome any errors in my logic below from those more knowledgeable than I.

In the economics of sport, it is generally in the best interest for any league to have a ‘balanced’ level of competition; that is, the outcome of any game is in question, and any team can be considered a contender for the ultimate goal of championship. This allows each team to promote itself as providing a high level of quality of play, and therefore, a high level of entertainment for consumers. In the case of the Leafs, they have not won the Stanley Cup in my lifetime (not since 1967!) and generally fail to come close. This essentially means that critical elements of the brand promise are simply not being met, nor have been met for a long time. We fans would like to think that our team is a contender- that our community of fans may have the opportunity to watch our team in the playoffs (or, even better, participate in a great street party once the championship has been won!). Sadly, it is been a long time since ‘consumers’ of the Leafs have been able to enjoy this pleasant daydream.

This performance is strangely coupled with a serious imbalance of supply and demand (the Leafs sell out every game), means that it is very difficult for non-seasons ticket holders to get seats. Certainly, one can engage in the ‘valuable’ services of a scalper, but this means taking a family of four to a game should run somewhere in the $500 range for rather poor seats…..and as such, the value of the experience is very much in question. When I think about the vast array of entertainment choices for a night out and the value associated for each, the Leafs are no longer an attractive option, especially if you are part of a large family.

Thinking about all of the factors in my relationship with the Leafs, and the performance of the team in the league, this has an impact on the satisfaction I have with the team in general. For most businesses, we would expect that solid product or service performance leads to satisfaction, and highly satisfied customers tend to be more loyal. Over time, this loyalty translates to more money spent on the organization as customers return for more of the same product or service again and again over a length of time, meaning that an investment in improving the customer experience can ultimately be very profitable. Therefore, it is very much within the interests of the Leafs to perform well, and keep me a happy purchaser of tickets and merchandise.

However, it is a question of both customer satisfaction, and more importantly, loyalty, which forces me to reassess my relationship with my favourite hockey brand. Normally, we would use a number of measures in our research to understand how a customer feels about a product or service experience; overall, I would consider my ‘satisfaction’ with the team is fairly high: I have a lot of history with the organization, and from what I can tell as a casual fan, it looks like the right kind of effort is being made by the individual players. However, the perception of value is quite low….as is my ‘likelihood to continue use’ (the idea of loyalty is very complex, and cannot be captured with just one measure).

To further complicate the matter, multiple studies in a number of industries have shown that customers in the middle range of satisfaction are just as likely to defect as those at the ‘highly dissatisfied’ extreme of the scale. This essentially means that the Leafs (and other service organizations) cannot rely on customers who are merely ‘satisfied’, but rather, needs to push consumers into the realm of ‘delight’ in order to shut the back door of defection. In the case of my relationship with the Leafs, I am pretty far from delighted.

Not sure if you heard, but there was a recent move by RIM (blackberry) founder Jim Balsillie to buy the Phoenix Coyotes and move them to Ontario- possibly Hamilton.  Ultimately, this move was stopped by the NHL, with the league taking the position that ‘the right channels were not followed’.

The issue which was not talked about is that the Leafs are the proverbial golden goose for the NHL – the most valuable team in the entire league. Team value, revenue, operating revenue are all significantly higher than a decade ago…while player costs remain flat. Plus, an average (pre-scalper) ticket price of $97 dollars in Toronto…..versus $55 and $67 for the second and third most valuable teams (New York Rangers and the Montreal Canadians respectively). The Leafs have raised ticket prices by 3.5% this year, and have the highest ticket price in the entire league. To me, this is the equivalent of a Honda Civic having the same price a Rolls Royce.

Hence, I wonder if the move of the Coyotes was really stopped to prevent the legions of dissatisfied/merely satisfied consumers in the GTA a choice of where to spend their hockey dollars, and preserve the artificially high revenue for this team, (revenue that appears to have no relationship with the actual performance of the organization). There are reasons why the league would do this; certainly to appease the voice of such a powerful stakeholder as the owners of the Leafs (primarily the Ontario Teacher’s Pension), but also, the league revenue-sharing program in place means that some of the substantial revenue of the Leafs is shared with teams that are operating in the red. I however, feel that the pain caused by the organization is now greater than the barriers to defection…..so away I go. Vive les Habitants!

The Charter for Compassion is a cooperative effort to restore not only compassionate thinking but more important, compassionate action to the center of religious, moral and political life. Compassion is the principled determination to put ourselves in the shoes of the other, and lies at the heart of all religious and ethical systems.  The notion of “informed empathy” is also at the core of Idea Couture’s innovation’s process.

One of the most urgent tasks of our generation is to build a global community where men and women of all races, nations and ideologies can live together in peace. In today’s world, everybody has become our neighbor, and the Golden Rule has become an urgent necessity.

The Charter for Compassion is not simply a statement of principle; it is above all a summons to creative, practical and sustained action to meet the political, moral, religious, social and cultural problems of our time.

The Charter for Compassion Text:

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and put another there, and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the center of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

Those who have affirmed the Charter include the Dalai Lama, Sir Ken Robinson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Paul Simon, Deepak Chopra, and over 9500 others since yesterday, including me.  To learn more, check out: The Charter for Compassion.

]]> http://www.ideacouture.com/blog/2009/11/13/the-charter-for-compassion/feed/ 0 http://www.ideacouture.com/blog/2009/11/12/us-interstate-map-meets-the-london-underground/ http://www.ideacouture.com/blog/2009/11/12/us-interstate-map-meets-the-london-underground/#comments Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:31:38 +0000 John Lally http://ideacouture.com/blog/?p=3147 In an age where we have Google and Microsoft mapping technology available that allows us to see such voyeuristic details as the front door of a building or a bird’s eye view of a celebrity’s backyard, it’s sometimes refreshing to look at a road map with a different lens, one that only reveals the country’s main travel arteries in a simple, but very effective fashion.

Sydney-born, Portland (OR)-based designer, Cameron Booth has illustrated today’s US Interstate System in a mashed-up map style that’s comparable to the elegant design of H.C. Beck’s masterful London Underground diagram from the 1930s.  Suitable for framing.

Check out a full size of the map here:  Flickr.

With few dedicated bike lanes, sparse parking facilities and a passive aggressive car vs. bike culture relationship, it’s amazing that people in this city even cycle at all. But we do – and particularly at Idea Couture, we have strong group of dedicated cyclists. So – for all the devoted cyclists out there who have cursed when unable to find a decent parking spot for one’s 2-wheeler, this innovation from Japan will delight in its ingenuity – solving practical problems such as theft, space constraints and weather.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2009/nov/05/bicycles-japan-bike-tree

Kind of makes you look at the world a little differently.

Full article at Iconeye. Thanks to John Fairley for the find.

http://www.thewandcompany.com/

Care of @springwise (Original Post)

When was the last time we saw an innovation in the “fan” product category? This guy gives a quick demo.

I love love this product. http://www.dyson.com/fans/

The Dyson Air Multiplier™ fan works very differently to conventional fans. It uses Air Multiplier™ technology to draw in air and amplify it 15 times, producing an uninterrupted stream of smooth air. With no blades or grill, it’s safe, easy to clean and doesn’t cause unpleasant buffeting.

How do you see the future of multitouch heading? Something more along these lines? I’ve personally found touch desktop all-in-ones to be somewhat pointless, and the only time I use the touch feature is for switching my media.

Check out this amazing video, you’ll be amazed.

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

Here it is: my crazy summer project to reinvent desktop human-computer interaction.

This video examines the benefits and limitations inherent in current mouse-based and window-oriented interfaces, the problems facing other potential solutions, and visualizes my proposal for a completely new way of interacting with desktop computers.

There’s more information at http://10gui.com .

San Francisco-based designer, Mitchell Heinrich has created a new form of street art using scent.

Since early human cave wall painting, graffiti has remained largely unchanged as a medium.  The style, tools and purpose have evolved over the centuries, but still nobody has successfully broken free of its visual nature. From this line of thinking “smell graffiti” has emerged.  Harnessing modern chemistry and appropriating technology invented for industrial purposes, Heinrich is pursuing new ways to make a statement in a public space that delivers a graffiti experience for the nose rather than the eyes.

Scent is a very evocative medium—it is interpreted by the human limbic system which is very closely tied to emotion and memory. This fact has led Heinrich to believe that interacting with people using scent can potentially be a much more powerful medium than paint since people experiencing it can’t help but react to it. The goal of his scented street art project is to realize the potential of smell as art and to explore different ways of using it to interact with people.

For the scent compounds,  Heinrich uses essential oils, mass-produced esters, isopropyl alcohol as a thinner, and refillable atomizing spray cans, which can be pressurized with a standard Schrader valve and an air compressor or bicycle tire pump.

Heinrich introduces incongruous smells such as dirt and grass into urban spaces. With the aim of uplifting and embellishing repellent spaces, he believes scent can be an artistic, if only temporal force—the aroma usually dissipates in 20 minutes to an hour.

Bakeries have long used scent to coax customers into their stores, but an intriguing possibility that could be used by other marketers would be to combine  “smell graffiti” scents with paint in the same cans, so that ink and scent were simultaneously sprayed.

Scented markers have been around for a long time. What about scented spray paint?

What if Krylon’s “Cherry Red” spray paint really smelled like cherries? Would that be a more attractive innovation for Safeway? For Sherwin-Williams? For graffiti artist Banksy?

Hu2 line of designs includes inspirations from the British graffiti artist, Banksy, and several other designs that can turn a plain space into something more fun.

Many of the designs also have a functional purpose, such as these usable chalkboard stickers (chalk not included).

Where these get even more interesting is Hu2’s ability to  make custom stickers from your own images.  The potential applications for these labels is endless, and they could be a very cool gift or great way to personalize an office in some interesting ways.  Zazzle or Cafe Press would be wise to offer something comparable.