Starting later this month, Uber will allow customers in downtown Pittsburgh to summon self-driving cars from their phones, crossing an important milestone that no automotive or technology company has yet achieved.
Source: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month – Bloomberg
I normally don’t post things like this here on the blog, but this was too good a story to pass up. Here’s what great customer service looks like.
Over a year ago, I was upgrading my luggage and travel kit, knowing that I was going to be doing a lot of it 2015-2016. I have a soft spot for really good bags, and one of the companies that I had been watching and reading reviews of was Tom Bihn. Years and years ago I had bought one of their Ristretto bags that I used for traveling with my iPad, and it had become one of my favorite things to carry. But I’d resisted buying more from them…I had gotten the Ristretto during a big sale, and the regular prices were a bit much for me to swallow.
But now that I was going to be traveling professionally, I wanted something that was going to be the perfect 3-5 day carry on. I went back to looking at Tom Bihn and decided to pull the trigger on a few accessories that would make packing easier. I bought a few of their Stuff Sacks to make wrangling cables and such easier, and decided to go with one of the Spiff Kits as a toiletry bag.
Bear with me. We’re getting to the customer service bit.
The one I bought has this little shelf at the bottom when you unfold it that is covered in the loop side of velcro, and small screw-top bottles that fit on the shelf came with hook-sided stickers that you affixed to the bottom of them. They stuck to the shelf and were thus able to be used for hair gel or medicine or whatever you needed. Clever and useful.
Except that…the stickers didn’t really stick. They didn’t adhere to the bottles very well, so over the course of using the Kit I found that the bottles, one by one, lost their velcro. And while I kept using the Kit for all my travel, I found other solutions to using the bottles, and they went in a drawer at home.
Here’s the customer service bit.
Last week, I got an email from Tom Bihn telling me that they had gotten some customer service feedback that the velcro didn’t really work they way they wanted. And they had found a better solution, new stickers that really did work and that they had tested, and since I had ordered a Spiff Kit from them literally over a year ago, they were going to just send me the fix, free of charge and without me asking for it. The email thanked me for my business with them, and had a tracking number for me to use.
And then, sure enough, a few days later an envelope showed up, and it had not only the velcro button stickers for the bottles, but one of their Mini Organizer Pouches as a “sorry we messed up” present.
To review: I bought a thing I was perfectly happy with, and worked well. It didn’t work exactly like the manufacturer wanted, but the issue with it wasn’t one that bothered me. They were unhappy enough with the fact that it didn’t do what they wanted that they sent me a fix, without me even having to ask for it, as well as a token of their appreciation for being a customer.
That is amazing customer service. Making things right, not because they were asked or because they had to, but because they wanted their product to do what they expected of it.
Consider this a hearty endorsement of Tom Bihn. If you’re looking for a laptop bag, new luggage, or just a way to keep your knitting organized, they have you covered.
After spending much of 2015-2016 spread between home here in Sewanee and my residency as a Fellow at Harvard, this summer has been a much-needed break from work travel. That break is just about over, however, and I’ll be doing a few trips in the Fall that I thought might be of interest to some. If you’re going to be around at any of these, please say hello!
If you are someone who is currently looking for a speaker for an event or conference in 2017, now would be the time to take a look and see if I might be a good fit for your needs. I love speaking to groups about the future of libraries and information, innovation and how your organization can become more flexible and responsive, privacy and information security, and a lots of other topics. Please feel free to contact me and let’s see if I’m a good fit for your group.
The most exciting trip this Fall is undoubtedly going to be doing the Opening Keynote at the 3rd International Congress for Information Management (Congreso International GID) in Cali, Colombia. It’s a rare opportunity to meet and learn from international librarians from all over Latin America, and I’m so very excited that I have the opportunity to work with Los Profesionales en Gestión de la Información y la Documentación de América Latina to make it happen.
I’ll be traveling a lot in September for Measure the Future, working to make sure that our first three installations are going well and answering the questions that people want answered. And I can’t say much more than that until I get to that point, but keep your fingers crossed for us.
For the first time in a few years, I’m attending Internet Librarian! It’s the 25th anniversary of the conference, and early in my career it was really important to me. IL helped me in so many ways, from getting early presentations under my belt to meeting people that would turn out to be lifelong friends and vital colleagues and collaborators. I’m doing two different presentations there: one on Blockchain and what it might mean for digital information, and the other on Measure the Future and what room-use analytics can do to improve your services to your patrons.
If everything goes according to plan, these will be the months where Measure the Future is being evaluated and polished for launch at ALA Midwinter 2017, because oddly I don’t have any speaking engagements for these months yet. If you’d like to talk to me about a workshop or presentation for your library or library system, get in touch! I’d love to work with you.
Printing hair is revolutionary, because—in addition to being incredibly delicate—each strand has unique properties and can be customizable, says Jifei Ou, a Ph.D. student at the MIT Media Lab Tangible Media Group and the lead author of the paper.
My friend Nathan Freitas was a guest on TWiT‘s Triangulation this week, and was kind enough to give a little mention to both myself and The LibraryBox Project in his intro of The Berkman Klein Center at Harvard. To be mentioned in the same breath as his Guardian Project and Amanda Palmer (not to mention Zittrain and Benkler and Tufekci and the rest) is quite an honor. Thanks, Nathan!
I’ve queued the video below to the beginning of his discussion of Berkman Klein, but obviously the entire discussion is worth watching.
So, in short, Master Plan, Part Deux is:
- Create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage
- Expand the electric vehicle product line to address all major segments
- Develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning
- Enable your car to make money for you when you aren’t using it
To mark the 47th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon-landing mission, the Smithsonian has made available a high-resolution 3-D scan of the command module “Columbia,” the spacecraft that carried astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon. This highly detailed model allows anyone with an internet connection to explore the entire craft including its intricate interior, which is not possible when viewing the artifact in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. The Smithsonian is also making the data files of the model available for download so it can be 3-D printed or viewed with virtual-reality goggles.
Source: 3d.si | Apollo 11 Command Module
Disney Research has been on a serious roll with its 3D printing innovations and 3D printing patents. From high-res 3D printing processes, to replicating reflective properties onto 3D printed surfaces, to 3D printed wall-climbing robots, it seems as though Disney is looking to redefine how movie merchandise is made using 3D printing technology. But their latest study shows that they are also keen to bring 3D printing principles to other industries, for they have developed a new compiler that lets knitting machines behave like 3D printers and easily produce customized objects.
This morning I woke to a few “remember the day” emails that I thought were worth marking here on the blog for future reference. The first was that it was almost exactly 2 years ago that I officially left my position at UT-Chattanooga, walked away from an associate professorship and tenure, and went out on my own to try to start an independent business. So far, I’ve been very lucky and able to continue in this self-employed mode, although the downside is that it means I’m always looking for a job. 🙂 If you have a consulting need, workshop or training need, or are organizing a conference and want a great keynote….feel free to contact me. I’d love to work with you.
The second is that one year ago I became a Fellow at the Berkman Center, and spent the academic year 2015-2016 mostly living in Cambridge and enjoying the intellectual fruits of Harvard and MIT. I cannot speak highly enough of the amazing group that I was a part of…I learned so much from everyone there, and they are the most caring, careful, and thoughtful group of academics and scholars that I’ve ever been affiliated with.
And now, today, I can say that I am overwhelmingly pleased to be included in the 2016-2017 Berkman Klein community as an Affiliate. This means I get to continue my association with this amazing, wonderful community of learning…although from a distance, as I’ll not be in residence in Cambridge. I am going to be visiting as much as I can manage, though, because I have to get my 23 Everett Street fix occasionally. I’m also really pleased to be in the “transitional” class, the last to be Berkman Fellows and the first to be Berkman Klein, and to see how the Center evolves under the new nom de guerre .
To those in the incoming class at Berkman Klein: buckle up, you’re in for an amazing trip. I hope to meet all of you in September at the opening of the Center for the year.
And to everyone in the library community: I’ve got big things brewing this year. This Fall will see (finally) the launch of Measure the Future, and while I still can’t share all of my news about the project….it’s gonna be big. I’ll be doing some announcements about that over the next couple of months, including information about how your library can get involved. Soon!
The jobs of nearly 90% of garment and footwear workers in Cambodia and Vietnam are at risk from automated assembly lines – or “sewbots” – according to a new report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
