My new favorite artist is a vacuum.
I love this collection of light art photos taken by a few creative folks with a Roomba iRobot Vacuum and a wild imagination.
The folks who built Twitter never imagined it as a real time news gathering tool. The makers of Jif didn’t foresee it’s use as a furniture polish. Steve Jobs and company didn’t set out to build a better menu, textbook or diagnostic tool when they were creating the iPad.
What unexpected ways are people using your product? There may be a great marketing story waiting for you.
Nothing tells your customers “Please, don’t contact us–ever” quite like using CAPTCHA on your website. Sure, CAPTCHA is an effective way to weed out those annoying bots jamming your order system, but it also weeds out frustrated prospects and customers.
Do you really want to create a barrier between you and your customers just so you can stop a few spam bots?
Maybe it wasn’t your decision. Maybe is was the folks in IT working to keep your inbox clean and clear. Are you going to let the IT department make your important customer service and brand experience decisions?
Do your brand a favor, and more importantly, do your customers a favor: Kill the captcha.
Post script - Several folks have commented via social media that this post is naive or ignores the challenges that led companies to use captcha. I’m not saying spam entries aren’t a problem. I saying it’s not your customer’s problem. You can’t solve your IT challenge by transferring your burden to the customer.
You may want to take a look at areyouahuman. They are a startup out of Detroit that is taking a unique approach to captcha and add a little fun to the process. While I think it’s a big improvement over blurry words, it still place the burden on the customer.
we are relentless
a sea of endless blue and silver
loud and proud
the roar heard around the world
home in the dome
a twelfth man a million strong
we’ve been beat and battered and bruised
but never broken
we always believe
we are eternal optimists
we’ve had to be
we’ve seen flashes of brilliance in the long dark night
Layne and Lane
Barney and Baker and Blades
Sims and Spielman and Sanders
Morton and Moore
but even our shining stars could not end the drought
it was only once we hit bottom that we could begin our ascent
and so we rise
we’ve gone from “Fire Millen” to fired up
from heartbreak to hopeful
from cinch to clinch
Suh and Stafford and Megatron
and a new pride of Lions that don’t know how to quit
even when zebras steal our touchdowns and catches and gains
we’ve never given up
we’ve fought back from impossible deficits
and we’ve made flags rain down like a ticker tape parade
but still, we march
forward, down the field
we are relentless
and this is our time.
We love football.
We love Detroit.
We love our Lions.
#roar
Download a relentless wallpaper over at flickr in Blue or Silver.
Sacred cows are fattened on the conventional wisdom. Don’t be put out to pasture with the herd.
Question. Challenge. Test. Poke. Prod. Provoke. Go. Do. Innovate. Change. Win. Rewrite. Repeat.
The world needs more purple cows. The world needs more WOW!
Don’t just make it work. Make it remarkable.
#makeithappen
Download the Sacred Cow poster.
Download the Purple Cow poster.
Read (or reread) Seth Godin’s Purple Cow.
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