What's so special about IKEA?

My first memory of IKEA is - picking up the catalogue on a pavement in Bombay for 10 bucks and drooling over the pictures. That catalogue was like the Bible for students of interior design.

I never had seen or visited an IKEA store until recently and that first visit was an absolute delight. I am a very hard-to-please shopper. For me to like something – it should be of good quality and certainly follow the VFM (value for money) rule. What started out as an exploratory visit to the store has culminated in a fascination with the brand.

From the time I set foot in that store…it almost felt like Disneyland. One can spend an entire day in that large blue and yellow warehouse which doubles up as their retail outlet. Mock ups of rooms displaying actual merchandise lend a context to the purchase. They make it easy for you to imagine where and how you’d utilize what you buy. Where most furniture stores keep their display merchandise off limits …they actually encourage you to sleep on their beds…sit on their couches...the last time I was there I saw a couple sitting in one of their made-up living rooms, watching the tele. These are small details that create a feel good factor and nudge the customer a little more towards making that final purchase.

I have seen similar outlets in India…and what comes to mind is Style Spa which has to go a long way before their products can become competitive on price…and let’s not even talk about their designs.

What is their strategy then to deliver what has been referred to as ‘Scandinavian Designs at Asian Prices’?

“We start by deciding on a price. Then we hand over to our team of designers, product developers and purchasers for them to come up with the goods’ …mentions their 2006 catalogue – which according to an estimate has seen a print run of 160 million copies!

Business week has a very detailed write up on the subject.

To achieve that goal, the company's 12 full-time designers at Almhult, Sweden, along with 80 freelancers, work hand in hand with in-house production teams to identify the appropriate materials and least costly suppliers, a trial-and-error process that can take as long as three years

Innovation does not stop at product development…on their new store opening in the US; they encouraged customers to send e-post cards to acquaintances in return for a price off. Their cult status with consumers only helped their marketing effort. Some other off beat things they have done is – announce a prize of close to 4000$ for their first customer at a given outlet. Die hard IKEA fans have spent sometimes about 3 days in their warehouse, while others camp in caravans outside waiting for the grand store opening – creating the buzz and drawing more into their tribe.

And if you haven’t heard enough from me about their home furnishing, there is one more reason to visit IKEA…their restaurant. While I was reading about this brand – I came across the blog of this couple in Malaysia who asked their 2 year old daughter where she’d like to go for dinner and pat came the reply…IKEA! Maybe they would some day announce a contest to find their youngest fan…

For the more IKEA hungry readers…there is a theme blog started by fans or should i say fanatics !

IKEA, positive customer experience,

On Blogs, Indexing solutions and Metaphors

Some days back, I obsessed about finding a way of indexing / categorizing posts on the blog, without having to switch my blogging platform. Not that I did not contemplate the adulterous act of flirting with another service provider. I did…but something made me stay back…partly it was my fondness for this platform, partly the laziness of having to migrate content and in many ways it was that invincible annoying thought that ‘I would not take the easy way out and jump platforms…I shall stay here and look for alternatives’. Would you say…too much energy and thought invested into something so trivial…I would say maybe…but then it is my means to express myself. Don’t people invest time and money in pursuing photography or art…are those higher or better forms of self expression warranting that time and attention? Let’s leave that debate for another occasion.

So coming back to the point about indexing, I thought content on a blog is ‘dead’ if one does not have a way of indexing it. Whenever I would think about content on my blog that was un-indexed, I would feel like I have walked into a library that has books all jumbled up arranged in no particular order. Not a pretty picture in my mind. I tried a fitting in a couple of codes into the blogger template (not reducing the effort those guys have put in – in writing those hacks) – none of the ones I tried were fool proof. The fact that they can only index recent posts is known and acknowledged. But some did not even pick up the recent ones correctly.

I found an alternative in ‘tag clouds’ – though they don’t do the same job as what ‘categories’ do – tag clouds work like a surrogate for categories. It leaves you the hassle of pre-defining categories and I call it a hassle since I found it so difficult to ‘force-fit’ my posts into categories that the category called ‘miscellaneous / trivia / un-filed’ was burgeoning out of proportions. Tag clouds pick up key words from your posts and here again the method is not fool proof – but at least one can delete unwanted key words and add wanted ones and approximate how categories would work albeit with some effort.

There is no easy way to indexing posts. But I am beginning to wonder whether it’s all worth it after all – not that my love for my blog has become any less over time…not yet at least but am beginning to wonder whether the metaphor of a library for blogs is in itself passé.

Is the ‘watering hole’ metaphor then part of the dominant code around blogs? Don’t blogs today resemble ‘coffee houses’ of yesteryears? The coffee houses that dominated Europe in the mid 1600s functioned as information exchanges, centers for political or social debate and over time even acquired the reputation of specializing in a particular fields drawing clientele interested in particular subjects…says ‘The Economist’ when it talks about ‘Internet in a Cup’ (paid subscription required)

If blogs are emerging to acquire the character of coffee houses as they were or even modern day pubs, then the activity surrounding blogs would change. There would be a greater orientation to partake in recent conversations / posts rather than visiting a blog and reading on a topic of interest.

Depending on the metaphor you identify with, will influence whether you use it to ‘express’ or ‘exchange’ opinions and views; the frequency with which you post; the content that you post (topical v/s analytical); your response time to comments etc and depending on which of these metaphors become the dominant code around blogs will have a bearing on the features that publishing platforms in the future will be forced to offer.

I know I won’t be obsessing about indexing any more :)

blogs, blog metaphor, dominant code,

Straddling two worlds

On one step I hear a prayer…a chant
On the other…a blaring declaration…halleluiah…it’s raining men
A car zooms past – and a bunch of girls scream

One step reminds me of the smell of the earth in my country
On the other, an overpowering whiff from the local take-away

On the next step my feet do an involuntary jiggle
My heart leaps
And on the next – I control them and regularize my pace

With one step I see a burst of color…music…vibrancy
With the other I look ahead to see a grey…placid land

With one step I see an empty box of mangoes thrown away on the street
With the other I realize its summer time in India

On my first step I am on Cow Bridge Road East
On my next…I’m in someplace I have never been
Yet it looks very familiar…I am in my country

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Some days back I went for a long walk by myself. The I-Pod kept me company. The walk was an absolute medley of experiences. Its was like being present in two worlds at the same time. My attention would oscillate between the physical world that I was part of and the mental world I created for myself as a listened to the soundtrack of Rang De Basanti. Strange feeling!

poem, rang de basanti