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• 10 Common Mistakes In Logo Design http://bit.ly/ghzkS #
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• reading @ducttape Local as Differentiator http://bit.ly/qSM01 #
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• RT @KathySierra Please businesses don’t DO “social media” Do “user happiness” which may/mayn’t require heavy/light use of social media tools #

Last summer, one of the wine stores^[1] that I frequent most announced that it would be moving later that fall. Since the name of the shop included the street name where it was located, they would be changing their name — and they were holding a contest for customers to suggest a new one. The winner got a $250 store credit, so I was keen on winning… but my suggestion, La Dolce Vino, didn’t win (maybe someone else can use that). When the relocated store opened earlier this year, I was quite surprised to see what did win. Personally I found the new name uninteresting (maybe that’s sour grapes!), but the bigger surprise — and mistake — was the unintentional brand association.

Without giving away the name of the shop, it now shares its name with a certain pop star’s surname. Meanwhile, the shop itself has gone a little more upscale in keeping with the new location, and has done a fine job of it. But back to the new name, and logo… which has a large purple circle as its main feature. Hardly on the scale of the Lisa Simpson 2012 Olympic logo fiasco, but it reminded me of a vinyl record or a CD, perhaps partly because of the pop star association. To make matters worse, the url for the new name was obviously unavailable, so the store’s new web address advertised large on the side of their company vehicle includes the name of the owner plus the name of the pop star, as in “www.joespopstar.com”.

If nobody else had said anything, their creative team should really have told them. Simply put, it’s a mistake to allow your brand to be tied to a pop star, especially (as in this case) one who is a little to the, uh, unpredictable side. There’s no telling what kind of unintentional associations are going to be made with your brand in the future, and they’re all outside your control. Besides which, in this case the association has a big disconnect with the more upscale shop. Even if it does have “wine” in the title. I’ll still shop there, but every time I do, I think they’ve made a major branding mistake.

Lesson: screen more carefully… and if you really must go with it anyway, at least adopt a logo that doesn’t reinforce the association, but puts some distance to it.

• New Post:: Which Social Media Site: Twitter or Facebook? http://bit.ly/uviUu
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• 49.82 -97.20 http://tinyurl.com/nkhc7b
• enjoying starbucks customer service
• Rt @gtdguy Clutter is in the eye of the beholder. Me: has anyone seen my office???
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• The only reason more Americans don’t own an elephant is they’ve never been offered an elephant for $1 down + easy weekly payments. - Mad Mag
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Just skimmed The Startup Entrepreneur’s Guide To Risk Management: good piece. I always knew my background in risk management was an entrepreneurial asset, but it’s often little-appreciated in context. Tidbit: there’s a 35% chance you’ll be killed by one of the survive all ten items you have a 90% chance of getting right.

Malcolm Gladwell interviewed in The Independent: “‘One day, I’ll write a really nerdy book’… but until then, Malcolm Gladwell will be the rock star of non-fiction. As he embarks on a British tour, the author talks to David Usborne about plane crashes, Gordon Brown – and why Obama’s election was a true tipping point”

As I tweeted this morning, I was appreciating Starbucks customer service. But it didn’t start that way. I ordered a Venti Pike Place and a low-fat blueberry muffin, and paid with my prepaid Starbucks card, but the coffee hadn’t quite finished brewing. No problem, at least it’d be fresh. The barista was going to bring out my coffee when it was ready, so I took a seat in the comfy armchair and opened up The Whuffie Factor, which I’m still reading and enjoying. I dug into my book, thinking after a while that my coffee must have been ready a while ago. I admit I was a little annoyed… the last time I had to wait for a coffee at Starbucks, they told me it would be complimentary. I was impressed with that — different location though.

Now I should say that I’ve never been much of a fan of their coffee… it always tastes over-roasted to me, with too much aftertaste. I’ve found I don’t mind the Pike Place blend though, and Starbucks is ubiquitous, so although I still opt for an independent shop when I can, I finally caved and began to learn the Starbucks lingo. (Since when is “Tall” a small, and why do the other sizes have to be non-English?)

Well. I returned to the counter, where the same barista asked to take my order: not a good sign. I reminded him why I was there, and he asked if I’d been sitting and waiting that whole time (about 15 or 20 minutes — I was reading, after all). Apologizing, he presented me with a “Recovery Coupon” as well as my coffee. No harm done, I figure, and an appropriate response for a company like Starbucks. I’m not going anywhere anyway — not until the tire is repaired on my car across the street, anyway.

So maybe these “recovery coupons” are old hat for Starbucks regulars, but it was new to me. It’s a 5¾”x5″ foldover card (to 5¾”x2½”) with a cutout to show the coffee-colour through the lower half of the cup. (Click these to enlarge; mine are bilingual Eng/Fr, I found these online.) A little while later when I was back sitting in my chair and enjoying my book, my muffin, and my coffee, Mr. Barista creeps around the corner and apologizes one more, thrusting another Recovery Coupon into my hand. And that’s when I was impressed, because I actually thought about it.

The profit margin on coffee is astronomical… almost as much as bottled water, so the cost to the company is next to nil. But the goodwill… heck, here I am blogging about it. You can’t buy that without having it backfire. But here are the two key points: (1) the coupon (both of them) is offered by the front-line staff with no management approval. It appears that all the staff are empowered to give away the product when they screw up. And (2) the coupons are attractive, ready for distribution, and include instructions on reaching Starbucks Customer Relations department. Having them at the ready makes sense… because they know they’re going to screw up, eventually. We all do — but they’re ready for it, and know how they’re going to handle it. Ill will thwarted right off the bat. Good move, Starbucks. And the fact that the coupon is redeemable for product of greater value than the one on which they transgressed? Nice.

Lesson: Don’t scrimp on customer retention. It’s always cheaper than acquiring new ones.

A Website Magazine article covers Free/Open Source alternatives to software from Microsoft & Co. It’s a little Ubuntu-centric (I’d recommend Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, OpenSuSE…) and misstates one point: OpenOffice is not Ubuntu’s office suite, it’s Sun’s, and is the office suite Ubuntu commonly uses.