Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

There's something special about "chocolate chip cookies"

Since the last couple of days, I have been on the lookout for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. So I treated myself to this enormous chocolate chunk cookie from Starbucks after a sumptuous dinner. 

This got me thinking about my best experiences with this sinful treat. Turns out some of best experiences with cookies have been when I received these free. Back in 2009, while checking into Doubletree San Diego I received a "warm welcome" with a perfect chocolate chip cookie. This was my first experience with the hotel and I kept thinking to myself "Wow what a great hotel, what hospitality! What a fabulous treat!". Since then, every time I make a hotel reservation I look out for a Doubletree. A few fun facts - Doubletree serves 30,000 chocolate chip cookies everyday. They started the tradition of serving cookies back in the 1980's when hotels reserved this treat for VIP customers. The Doubletree cookie recipe has been a trade secret for many years now. Checkout some cool Doubletree cookie facts.

I had a similar experience with Frontier airlines. As we all know almost all domestic airlines within USA are frugal, extracting every dime they can. Frontier air is probably no different, but boy the only reason I remember this airline is for the wonderful chocolate chip cookie that they serve mid-flight.  Originally this tradition was started by Midwest Airlines and the tradition was carried forward when Republic Airways acquired the company.

Clearly both these brands have done a great job using cookies as a marketing tool. These brands understand that creating a great first experience is critical and they nail it by treating visitors to a warm and delicious chocolate chip cookie. Now once a customer has received the "GREAT COOKIE EXPERIENCE" they are transformed to a repeat customer who craves for this experience. They have managed to differentiate themselves, created brand loyalty and sweet memories.

 

Life Long Learning

Lifelong-learning-on-a-chalkboard

Last night was an interesting revelation. I realized that some of the happiest phases of my life have been associated with learning &

discovering. Of late, I am the happiest when I am learning the nitty gritties of the iPhone SDK (mostly at the Dojo). Other notable phases include - solving the rubik's cube, learning about Insurance at Guidewire, profiling the oDesk community in South America, Mobile & Pervasive computing at CMU, my first bike riding lesson (yes I took a bike riding lesson when I was 25).

To ensure continued happiness, I have made a commitment to life long learning. You - with me on this?

Solving Rubik's Cube

Rubiks_cube
I solved the rubik's cube this weekend. Thanks to Nico who gave me a mini beginner's tutorial. I managed to crack the remaining code from some very helpful videos available on Youtube.

This was a real fun exercise and made me realize more so than ever before as to how the Internet is revolutionizing education. We no longer need to rely on tomes or giant manuals to learn anything new. We no longer need to rely on one person or one expert to answer a question for us or to teach us. The Internet has made it really easy to reach out to communities of experts and these experts have a desire to help others. The future of education and learning is interactive, its online and its here.

 

Lower Friction

It seems a ton of successful products and technologies have gained widespread popularity because they lowered friction for the user in some form or other. 

Consider the following:
1. Instagram - Eases the friction around making a picture  (taken through a mobile phone) visually more aesthetic. No longer do you need to connect your mobile phone to a computer, run Photoshop filters to make the pic look more appealing. 

2. Amazon 1 click Ordering :
Did you know that 41% of shopping carts get abandoned because the checkout process is too long. Amazon's genius idea of one click ordering  - a streamlined checkout process with almost one click addresses this consumer pain. Net benefit - consumers are happy resulting in more sales which in turn keeps amazon's business roaring.

3. Online Bill Pay:
How many times have you loathed paying a bill using a physical check because of the number of steps involved in the process - write the check, find an envelope, affix the adequate postage on the envelope and mail. Online Bill Pay has reduce this friction tremendously and speeded up the bill payment process. 

These are just examples of products and trends in the online world, but the same can be said for the offline world. Ever thought why mixers, juicers and food processors are so popular? They simply lowered the friction in preparing food. Same can be said for fast food chains..The list goes on and on.  Want to share your favorite product that has lowered friction?