Why blogs matter: Reason #236

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Let me preface this by saying –again– how much I like Hy-Vee. Our local store is working hard and making a big investment to give us an even better shopping experience.

Over the noon hour, I posted about trying to take a photo in our newly remodeled store. No biggie.

Fast-forward less than 10 hours: I search Technorati (a blog search engine) for “Hy-Vee” and get 5,000+ results. My post was #3 on the list.

Technorati

How many will see my post? Who knows. The point is…in 2007…every customer can be heard. When they walk out of your store, they can sit down at a computer and talk to the world about their experience with your company. Do you know what they’re saying?

No pictures! No pictures!

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Hy-Vee DeliMy favorite Hy-Vee Supermarket reopened today after a year-long renovation and expansion. I stopped by to get some lunch from the deli (where I get 90% of my hot meals) and took a photo. I would have taken more but one of the corporate neckties came running over to tell me I couldn’t take photos. You can see half of him in this picture.

“It’s okay,” I told him, “I’m a regular. My wife’s out of town on business and couldn’t be here so I’m gonna send her a photo.”

“There will be ‘approved photos’ in the local newspaper. I have no way of knowing what you’re going to do with any pictures.”

I’m sure that…let’s call him “Phil”…Phil has every legal right to tell me I can’t take a photo in his new store. Underlying his panic at the sight of my little Casio, however, is his lack of trust in a customer. He assumed I’d do something nefarious, like race down to Gerbe’s (a competing store)…

smays: (Pant, gasp) “I’ got ’em! I got ’em! Photos of the new deli at Hy-Vee!”
Gerbe’s Store Manger: “Quick, let’s see ’em. We’ve got to plan our strategy!”

As I was checking out, one of the local Hy-Vee guys came over to ask what was going on and I explained.

“What?! (exasperated sound) He’ll be gone tomorrow. You can come back and take as many photos as you like.”

Trust.

So, “Phil,” this post is for you. I’m thrilled to have a bigger, newer, better Hy-Vee and plan to spend even more time and money in your great store. Give my best to the guys in marketing and public relations.

Newspapers better at web video than TV (and radio?)

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That’s the conclusion of Kurt Anderson in an article on the New York Magazine website. My first-read take-aways:

“The lessons seem obvious: Don’t do Web video if you don’t have anything interesting to show, and don’t compete with TV unless you can do something they can’t or won’t. In other words, use the medium.

The passionate, improvised, innovative reinventings, as opposed to the final, fully professionalized reinventions, are often the coolest moments in cultural history. Think of movies in 1920, TV in 1955, or public radio in 1980.”

A few years ago I was concerned that newspapers could so easily incorporate audio on their websites. It didn’t occur to me that they’d jump straight to video.

XM, Sirius merger?

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The New York Post is reporting the long-awaited merger of Sirius and XM may be announced today. Combining Sirius and XM would result in a single satellite radio operator with more than 12 million total subscribers. A deal would also marry Sirius content, such as Howard Stern, Frank Sinatra and Nascar with XM’s Oprah Winfrey, Bob Dylan and Major League Baseball. More important, analysts widely predict that a deal would also save the two companies nearly $7 billion annually.

Total radio silence from XM Ben on this story. And XM and Sirius have to get this just right to keep me. I’m spending more time with the nano and less with my XM. If they don’t make the merged service better/cheaper… I’ll be gone at the end of the contract.

In-flight sex: Urban myth?

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Countless people saw the story about actor Ralph Fiennes allegedly having sex with a flight attendant in the bathroom of the plane (The flight attendatnt says there was no sex). But nobody gets more comic air miles from the story than Scott Adams:

“How horny do you have to be before you’ll follow a flight attendant into an airline bathroom, knowing that she actually has to use the bathroom? I mean, does that move ever work? I can barely convince myself that ANYONE has ever had sex in an airline bathroom. And that includes the best-case scenarios where:

1. The couple are already lovers
2. Neither person needs to actually USE the bathroom at that moment
3. Neither person is on an STD awareness tour
4. Both lovers are blind, noseless people with disposable shoes.

Adams/Dilbert fans are sure have have mixed feelings about the news that Chris Columbus (the man who directed Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rent, Mrs. Doubtfire, Home Alone and a score of others) has picked up the theatrical rights to Dilbert.