Keeping finnish industries competitive by design thinking - Herrmans

As a bicyclist I was thrilled to see a Finnish bicycle part manufacturer Herrmans seeking for a industrial designer the other year.
Not only that at some point I had spotted that the company might use some design thinking, but in the end because my good friend and extremely talented designer Mikael Heikkilä got the position.

I have been eagerly waiting to see the results of his design efforts and it really starts to have an effect on the brand previously known for OEM manufacturer.

I just replaced original Specialized grips with these Endorfin 3D grips.
I love the tiny detail and the caring thinking in how he has marked the left and right as well as the up directions. Marking these directions means that I can push them with ease and confidence to the bar and that just makes me feel good. -A feeling that is sometimes hard to justify in the R&D meetings, but makes a significant effect on the customer.

 

Design story - Gässling underwear

Marketing sometimes fails to deliver the original design intent to the customer. Since the contradiction between design and marketing has been intriguing me, I was really exited when I had the chance to discuss with Joakim how a garment that now supports a whole new underwear brand Gässling was designed and is now marketed.

I wish all the best for Joakim and I just checked that you can still order some treats for christmas ;)

The name
In short, Gässling is a Swedish underwear brand that makes premium eco underwear for style conscious men. From the very beginning we wanted to create a brand based on Swedish values that was primarily focused on an international market.

We knew that we wanted to use organic cotton and that they should be manufactured in a responsible manner and we needed a brand name that could reflect this as well as look Swedish. The name should fulfill these criteria; be Swedish but not look strange in English, speak of nature, have a local connection to Malmö where we’re based and to be easy to remember.

We started to analyse different traits of nature and eventually we got hooked on the goose. We thought it was a good animal for us because there are lots of geese in Malmö and it has very sympathetic traits. For instance if a goose gets injured during flight, another goose will stay behind until it gets better or dies. It took about 1.5 months and a lot of debating to come up with the name Gässling, which means gosling in Swedish (goose baby).

The product
It’s usually said that in order to break into a saturated market your product need to outperform the competition tenfold.
I wouldn’t say that our underwear is ten times better than other underwear but we have done our very utmost to create some killer garments. We tried to list all available pain points and address them one at a time. Some details that are worth mentioning are that we don’t have a care instruction tag inside, but they are instead printed for better comfort. The waistband is covered in fabric for a smooth feel and there are no seams in the back or sides of the garment to make it as clean as possible.
Our second - more aspirational product is the first ever (as far as I know) tight fitting boxer with an openable waistband. To give it an extra exclusive look we used fabric covered buttons that were all custom made to match the color of the main fabric.

What’s next
We have now been online a few days and even though we are still very far from sold out we can see that the main traffic is coming from outside of Sweden and predominately from the US. This tells us that we probably made some correct decisions when creating the brand. Now we need to turn those page views into purchases but if we succeed with that is another story. 

Introducing oneself

Sitting in a meeting - listening what people have done and how experienced they are. Does it feel waste of time for you?

Listening people introducing themselves as experienced and noteworthy in meetings or seminars feels more or less useless. Instead of retrospectives, it would be more interesting to hear what people have on their desks right now or what are they interested in. That information might tell more about the personality of the person. But the personality is unfortunately sometimes our best kept secret. That might be the reason to rely on list of experiences.
The fact is that a person might turn out to be incompetent despite the long list of experiences. Next time you introduce yourself, make a decision do you want to turn this into your advantage or play it safe ;)

GrapePeople held an training that I participated for facilitation of creative work and they had a nice idea to do the introduction by telling a short story or incident from that morning or from the way to work. Even that can tell more about the person and the way of thinking. -Try that next time you facilitate a meeting.

Negative criticism = Opportunity to engage

While learning about contemporary marketing theories and consumer goods touch points from Hanne, I ran into this video where Avinash Kaushik from Google discusses how seizing negative critisism can be turned into opportunity.

What we have learned is that customer can become even more loyal when errors are corrected promptly and smoothly.  Having a personal presence in social media can be a huge asset.
Instead of being worried about having negative content on the web, one can have negative content AND show how well complaints are taken care of and criticism is used to develop the service.

Use the link for the right spot (1m42s), or watch the whole clip.
Winning the Zero Moment of Truth - Ratings and Reviews: Word of MOT

There is a side track here also. You might remember the Talisker case. -The story took new turns after my post.
It actually makes a good example here, since we you all could already know how things are if their media policy would include the presence in the blogs.. 

Work of Art?

Valio (Finnish dairy producer) has a ongoing campaign where famous Finnish artists designed prints on milk jugs standing on Finnish tables.

Finnish design legend Eero Aarnio was also asked to do his magic. I was pretty disappointed when the result turned out to be just an add for his previous designer furniture and not much else.

This makes me wonder about the situation when somebody in Valio has realized that the delivery was something else than ordered and how could it be rejected..

Complaining makes you fail?

Somebody starts complaining and hesitating in the middle of action. Wanting others to know that there lies a risk in the activity. And more the complaint is overlooked, the louder it gets.

I remember a trip to Chamonix, which ended up me wondering that do I really complain. I though I was just making notions on the circumstances.
Complaining and negativitity spread from people to others. Although the intention might be neutral, the effect might be that somebody else starts focusing on cold feet insteads of good skiing.


Hesitation and negativitity grow from fear. A fear that something is getting worse and not having control over it. -Withdrawing while still able might feel like the rational thing to do.

Working in organizational environment and extreme sports have much in common in this. Going to the mountain and making strategic decisions contain risks. In both cases the missunderstood fear can lead to not getting the run planned or failing in business. Sometimes even to fall of mighty organizations.
-Do we have the skills? What do other think if I can't?
-Are we strong enough? Can we make it in time?
-Do we have the right gear? Have we covered all the risks?
-Am I able to take care of myself? Is this getting worse?

Both in organizational environment as well as in extreme sports there are times that you to make leaps of fait. Have the confidence on yourself and on what you are doing.

There are three good anti-dozes for fear:
Experience creates confidence, that all the challenges can be tackled and all the needed skills and gear is with you.
Positivity makes you focus on the solutions - not the problems and make sure you don't spread the hesitation to others.
Finally, if there is a fear behind a complaint, treat it as such and discuss through to diminish it.
-Monsters are as frightening even if they are put under the bed.

In both environments, not keeping noise about real problems can be lethal too. Good question is that how to recognice the serious stuff? -Mutual trust maybe?

Better service through accepting mistakes?

Just like people reveal their fundamental characteristics under stress, so do services. Giving feedback to service provider creates a conflict that reveals how well the service culture is understood and cultivated in a company.

Being passionate about services I usually tell if there is something wrong - because I care. Regular customer do not usually care - they just change company. Giving feedback has offered a front row seat in observing how is feedback taken. Companies operate through individuals and their defence mechanisms usually determine how feedback is received. -This is where service culture steps in.

If a company does not take a stand on 1) how feedback should be received, 2) how and within what limits the situation is settled and 3) how the feedback is eventually processed, the employee falls back on ones own defenses or in best case builds on the self confidence, wits and positivity.

Katja Okkonen writes in Helsingin Sanomat about poor service in the article Saitko surkeaa palvelua? Tästä se johtuu.  She points out that following rules and regulations diligently and being afraid of mistakes often creates poor user experiences:
-Tuulikki Juusela calls finnish culture a culture of regulations, which could be interpreted as bureaucracy. Hiding behind rules and regulations has become common and common sense is used less and less.
- It is easy for me to agree when Juusela assumes that finnish people have gained a significant fear of mistakes. We are highly cautious for our manager or coworker to give negative feedback. Current economical turbulence has also made the fear of losing one's work very real. When customer gives negative feedback, the fear of mistake and fear of losing one's work is combined and that can create a strong need to be right.
-Janne Löytänä has written that the best way to receive negative feedback is to response promptly and personally. Löytänä further reminds that compensation is actually cheap marketing for a company. If a company is able to turn negative experience to a satisfactory, the customer becomes a 15 times more loyal than a regular customer - and that must create a lot of good reputation.
-While Juusela mentions that Finland is a true self service culture with all possible technical innovations to support it, Camilla Reinboth takes another perspective reminding that engineering culture might also lead thinking that errors in product can be fixed when they occur. With services employees need to know how to deal with mistakes before they occur.

Egolocical thinking as a strategy; Patagonia and Basecamp Oulanka

Some might say that Patagonia is crazy company when launching a campaign with the motto "Don't Buy This Shirt Unless You Need It".

For me, it made read through their values and find out that Patagonia is one of the leading companies in the world really finding ways to produce it's outdoor gear in the most ecological way possible.


Outdoor lovers use enormous amounts of different kind of synthetic fibres, plastics and composite products. It's about time that there are some leaders in making our consumption leaner so that we will not destroy our environment while enjoying it.

Another good example of ecological thinking in nature travel is Basecamp Oulanka in Kuusamo. They arrange a range of wilderness activities from extreme adventures to well-being holidays - all with high environmental, social and economical standards.
Seeing what modern wilderness tourism has done to many areas of Finnish Lapland, doing things really in the original way and minimizing operational footprint in every way is a refreshing, delightful and not a bit less fun.

Buy a Patagonia - if you really need one, and go to Kuusamo to enjoy some real experiences!

The moment of choosing a strategy

CityDeal launched itself in Finland about a year ago. It has offered quite good bargains of quality products and services, but now it seems that the revenue expectation has contradicted with the growth and the offers include items that would be more suitable for TV store.

This clearly presents a critical moment in how CityDeal builds it's customer base and who do they focus their marketing. -At least I will delete my account in near future if this starts to be another channel for the crap available from TV store.

Consumer complaint case: Talisker whisky with a fly

When I poured a glass of Talisker whisky last autumn and found a partly dissolved fly from my glass, I had a romantic vision about small distillery and scotts and I though that I'd better inform the guys in Talisker that some part of their process is not bulletproof.

After a long search for contact information I managed to get an email address through discussion group in Talisker Facebook group and I sent my mail with these pictures.
After three months of email discussion with Diageo (owner of Talisker) I was requested to send the sample with the fly AND the remaining bottle to UK to be studied.

I have to say that all the romance about Scotland and small scottish distilleries being proud of their products vanished: Diageo representative quite clearly implied that I had put the fly into my glass to hoax a replacement bottle. Any kind replacement was not even discussed, although I would have been happy for that in the beginning.

Conclusion: When you find a fly in your Talisker whiskey - don't even bother to complain.

Final report


Dear Perttu *******,


Thank you for raising your concern with regards to a fly in your 70cl bottle of Talisker. We have received a 4cl sub sample along with the bottle that you had sent back to our Technical Centre for investigation. On receipt we noted that the bottle was 40% full and the 4cl sub sample contained a fly, there was no labelling on the sub sample. We have now completed analysis with the following results: The strength measured = 45.8% (Label strength indicated 45.8%) Higher alcohol congener analysis indicated that the sample in the bottle was a genuine sample of Talisker. Higher alcohol congener analysis indicated that the sub-sample was a genuine sample of Talisker. Sensory assessment found the sample to be similar in character to the control sample of Talisker with no off notes or tainting detected. The sub sample was filtered and was found to contain a fly measuring 2.6mm in length. Conclusions: The sample was filtered and was found to contain a fly measuring 2.6mm in length. As the sample was received open it is not possible to determine when the fly entered the sample. We would like to thank you for taking the time to return these samples to us for analysis, although we cannot ascertain at what point in our process the fly could have entered the product, due to the bottle being received open. The pictures initially provided also showed the fly was in the drinking glass and not in the bottle, again we do not have any evidence to support the claim of the fly in the bottle. Unfortunately we will have to close this concern as we have do not have any conclusive evidence to support the claim.  

Kind Regards,
Customer Account Manager

To complete the story I paste here also my response.
It's quite easy to see how Diageo could have solved this smoothly and hard to imagine why they decided not to pursue user satisfaction.

I was waiting for further comments from you, but thanks for informing that you agree with my species identification.

I wouldn't have needed to ask you that though. I saw it carefully enough to know that it was not part of Finnish fauna.

I actually thought that you guys care and my input would help somehow the quality of your products. I'm quite shocked that you think I went through all the trouble just to hoax you.

I also want to remind you that I asked three times that do you really need also the bottle or would the sample be enough. And you requested to have also the bottle, causing me even higher shipping cost. -In future I suggest that you tell the policy in early phase and save a bit of customers nerves and your reputation.

It is understandable that manufacturing processes have flaws. But when policies and communication have flaws or intentional difficulties, that is totally something else than understandable.

After your latest mail, I'm relatively pissed off and I'm going to publish your response on my blog.
On the meantime, I assume that you send me back the 40% of the bottle that was left. -Not that I'd drink it, but still it's mine to pour into the sewer.

Sincerely,
 Perttu ******* 

Couple of weeks after this I received a delivery. It was quite sad moment, but mostly because I felt so bad for the company I felt so strongly before. -Somehow the whisky just wasn't that good anymore..

Meaningful feedback resulting as motivation?

Finland is a country of self service. Where this is most imminent, is cafes and restaurants. Mostly, you need to get your orders yourself and even clean the table afterwards. In a bit better places you might get service, but often it's poor or unmotivated.

Despite few exceptions it seems that service is clearly better in cultures where waiters salary consists mostly of tips. For long I considered tip based salary somewhat bad deal, but I have changed my mind.

Compared to fixed salary, tip based salary creates immediate feedback channel between customer satisfaction and waiters behavior. Furthermore, the feedback is truly meaningful to the waiter. Skilled waiters can even make a career and climb up the ladder to better places with better tips.

The experience of the profession becomes this way totally different than in Finland, where common understanding is that anybody can be a waiter resulting in that nobody actually wants to do it nor be proud of ones profession.

How to train people incompetent

"Uusavuton" is a finnish term for younger generations who don't know how to make food or clean the house. Newly incompetent might be the direct translation. (According to natives, english does not have the term, since all UK and US kids are anyway like this. ;)

I happened to read two articles below and those made me do a following conclusion:
Finnish society and individuals are over achieving in fulfilling all regulations and creating a bunch of new details to follow. At the same time there is urgent need to support new entrepreneurship. We excel in byrocracy - when we should excel in enabling creativity and business.


Unfortunately articles are only in finnish :/
Taloussanomat: Keittiö, jossa ei saa leipoa – ja muut hullut kiellot
Gradutakuu: Opittu avuttomuus