The impulse to touch and its long-term effects as remnants of previous touchers touching serve as an invitation

Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, November 2008

Kyoto, Japan, January 2008

Also see previously: Friction Never Sleeps

Without donuts being part of the plan when I travel, they seem to show up with some regularity. While Krispy Kreme and Dunkin’ Donuts seek to provide a consistent experience across geographies, there are also very unique experiences available in the very same category. The notion of donut is rather broad and is reinterpreted in some engaging ways. There’s something about the pure pleasure of a donut that also invites a fun approach to all aspects of the experience: the flavors, the environment, the presentation, the messaging.

Here’s a few I’ve documented. Please leave recommendations for other donuts-shops-to-experience in the comments.

Randy’s Donuts, LA (Amazing site, donuts are pretty good)

Voodoo Doughnuts, Portland, OR: Rex Diablo and Ol’ Dirty Bastard (fun to choose, less to eat)

Murciano in The Marais, Paris (the best thing I’ve ever eaten)

Fractured Prune, Washington D.C. (didn’t get to try it)

Roti Donat, Bali, Indonesia (definitely not good)

Mister Donut sign and exterior, Taipei, Taiwan

Mister Donut Simpsons promotion, Kyoto, Japan (I don’t remember what I got but it was good!)

I’ve uploaded nearly 1300 of my Japan pictures to Flickr. For reasons I’m sure you’ll understand, I haven’t added titles or tags or descriptions proactively, but please add comments or questions on flickr and I’ll gladly offer a story or explanation.

Meanwhile, I’m including some of my faves here, as well as part 1 and part 2.

I’ve uploaded nearly 1300 of my Japan pictures to Flickr. For reasons I’m sure you’ll understand, I haven’t added titles or tags or descriptions proactively, but please add comments or questions on flickr and I’ll gladly offer a story or explanation.

Meanwhile, I’m including some of my faves here, as well as part 1 and part 3.

I’ve uploaded nearly 1300 of my Japan pictures to Flickr. For reasons I’m sure you’ll understand, I haven’t added titles or tags or descriptions proactively, but please add comments or questions on flickr and I’ll gladly offer a story or explanation.

Meanwhile, I’m including some of my faves here, as well as part 2 and part 3.

It’s fascinating how most successful products lead to an ecosystem of supporting products. The Crocs fad has provided the fan-base to support charms, little decorations that attach to the holes on the shoe’s surface and let the wearer further establish their individual identity within the trend of people who have established a unique identity by wearing Crocs in the first place.

Acknowledging that following a trend has a very different meaning in Japan, we bring you the Crocs family, who we saw on a bus in Kyoto, each with their own charms.

Dad

Mom

Son

Baby

In addition to aftermarket personalization, many trends also generate a safety backlash meme (iPod muggings, anyone?). In Taipei, it’s dangerous to wear Crocs on escalators.

Manufacturers like Apple are very savvy about creating/controlling their aftermarket, but I wonder about the backlashes. Are PR people planting those stories or doing damage control or not realizing their significance?

Update: Karl Long on the Crocs backlash (safety and others) here

Steve in Tokyo, 2000

Although we’re still recovering from Bali and Taipei (more pictures and stories coming soon), we’re headed back to Asia at the end of this month. If any folks out there would like to meet for hot-coffee-in-a-can or biiru in Tokyo (Dec. 25 to Jan 2.) or Kyoto (Jan 2. to Jan. 5), let me know.

Andrew points out that Kyoto and Osaka are near each other and that was probably behind the offers from Expedia that I had complained about. Helpful info that I didn’t have, but unfortunately, it got worse.

A few days later I received email from Expedia

To: Steve Portigal
Subject: Steve, here is your itinerary confirmation for your 01/02/08 Osaka trip
[deletia that makes reference to our Osaka trip multiple times]

Even more concerned than before, I wrote them and received this message

Dear Expedia Customer,
Thank you for contacting us.

We regret that your experience with Expedia.com was not satisfying. Comments such as yours are read by numerous people within Expedia and help shape our policies and practices as we learn and grow.
If you have further questions, feel free to reply to this e-mail or contact Expedia customer services at 1-800-397-3342 and reference case ID 36793797.

In other words, I submitted a complaint and they aren’t going to act on it, unless I submit it AGAIN. Okay, I do that.

The next message is even worse.

Dear Expedia Customer,

Thank you for contacting us.

Kyoto, Kyoto-fu (Change name) Expedia.com itinerary number: 121380781812

If you have further questions, feel free to reply to this e-mail…

No actual communication. Is anyone out there? I try again.

Dear Expedia Customer,

Thank you for your immediate response.

Please accept our apologies for the misunderstanding with your hotel reservation. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Your itinerary serves as a confirmation of your purchase, and we’ve sent an updated copy of it in a separate e-mail. You can also access your itinerary online at any time. Here’s how:
…

Again, no one is addressing my key question: why does my Kyoto reservation keep getting referred to as my trip to Osaka? Once more into the breach…

Dear Steve,

Thank you for your reply.

Please accept our apologies in regards to the misunderstanding with your reservation. We regret any inconvenience that may have occurred and would like to assure you that every reservation is important to us.

Your problem may stem from incompatibility between your browser and our system. We have already escalated this technical issue to the appropriate department.

In the interim, your hotel reservation at the Hotel Monterey Kyoto is confirmed while the “OSAKA” tag line have caused you such inconvenience, the printed itinerary of your reservation is still binding and a confirmed reservation for a hotel in Kyoto, Japan and not in Osaka.
…

So somehow my browser is causing them to send me email messages about a different city? The crucial piece of info (thanks, Andrew), that these are nearby cities, never appeared, and a spurious technical issue was blamed (it’s not a browser issue; perhaps they want to blame the model of car I’m driving for the emails they are sending?) but at least a human being intervened and confirmed that what I thought I bought was indeed what I bought.

Great job, Expedia people! Ridiculously poor support to go with a rather silly system! Let’s hope we don’t have an actual problem at any point.

We’re sorting out the accommodations for our Dec/Jan trip to Japan, and I noticed this distressing bit of interaction with Expedia.

After booking our hotel in Kyoto, we get an itinerary named (loosely) Kyoto, and details of the hotel (including its name, which has the word Kyoto in it), and just generally good confirmatory feedback.

Further on down the page comes the upsell.

Osaka? But we’re not going to Osaka?! This caused a definite brief panic verifying the rest of the information in the itinerary to be sure that Expedia didn’t just put us in some other hotel in some other city.

Tip: if you provide automated upsell information that appears to reflect some contextual understanding of your customer, make sure it’s right, or you will cause them distress and extra work, reducing confidence