Consumer Passion

Yelp's Secret Sauce

Notable article in the New York Times' Technology section, called Why Yelp Works.  Writer Saul Hansell does an about-face on his opinion of Yelp when it launched in early 2005.  Quoting Hansell:  "Who needs another another site where people review restaurants and other local businesses? It’s one of the oldest ideas on the Internet."

Well, apparently quite a few people need and use Yelp, 3.3 million users in March notes Hansell, up 87 percent year over year.  The Yelper community, it appears, is strong, and growing stronger. 

Hansell correctly identifies much of what constitutes Yelp's 'secret sauce', it's recipe for success:

• It concentrated on attracting a small but fanatical base
• it structures in motivation - the praise and attention Yelpers' reviews receive from other Yelpers
• the site has a social network/community feel

It all adds up to baking in a version of what's known as a 'viral expansion loop'.  A recent Fast Company article (Ning's Infinite Ambition) is great at explaining this little known "engineering alchemy" that enables "borg-like growth".  Yelp is able to tap into Passionate Consumers willing to share their thoughts - good and bad - about businesses they visit.  And when those consumers sign up and become part of the Yelp community, they're encouraged and empowered to share their newfound passion outlet with their network of friends.  Who doesn't want to tell their friends and family about a great new restaurant you found?  Or a dive that they simply must avoid at all costs.  And new Yelpers begin to connect with established Yelpers, and pretty soon you have groups of Yelpers holding get-togethers in cities to do 'mass reviews' (bringing fear to many businesses).  Yelp is enjoying exponential growth, without having to add a zillion employees to manage it.  What began with a concentrated effort in a handful of cities (San Fransisco the first) is now expanding across the country, and is starting to bite at industry leaders YellowPages.com and CitySearch.  Tapping passionate consumers, the real secret sauce, has its advantages.

Crowdsourcing Looking for a New Home

Techcrunch is reporting on the apparent demise of Cambrian House (slogan:  Home of Crowdsourcing).  I think the spirit of things would be better served if Erick Schonfeld's article were titled "When a Crowdsourcing Model/Business/Effort (take your pick) Fails", as opposed to "When Crowdsourcing Fails".   If Ask.com fails as a search engine model, it doesn't mean search is dead.  Google obviously owns it.  And right now, Innocentive is the leader of the crowdsourcing pack.  It's successful because it targets the right businesses (Seekers) and the right consumers (Solvers).  Rewards are lofty ... in the tens of thousands of dollars ... and the likes of Proctor and Gamble routinely use Innocentive to tap the creative juices of engineers, scientists and other 'high end' professionals around the globe.

So I submit that we have at minimum one highly successful crowdsourcing model already, in Innocentive, and pleny more on the runway trying to get airborne.  The Techcrunch article mentions Crowdspirit, Crowdspring, Fellowforce (of which I have had much involvement over the past ten months), and Kluster.  Each has it's own model, and each targets a different niche.  Fellowforce, from its beginning, had the boldest goal, trying to create an Open Innovation platform that any business on the planet could use to tap creative and passionate consumers around the globe.  I believe a vibrant and successful platform like that is still feasible.  But the kinks will continue to be worked out of all the various models and platforms and efforts, and time will tell which one(s) will join pack leader Innocentive.  Innocentive right now is trying to expand into normal business/consumer innovation challenges, and it'll be interesting to see if it can come down off the mountain and do business in the valley with common folks, regular consumers without graduate degrees, and regular businesses with nominal budgets seeking innovative ideas. 

I wish the best for Cambrian House employees, and I'm sure the Cambrian House creative community will not give up on crowdsourcing.  I look for them to filter out across the web in search of new places to feel at home.  All are certainly welcom here, and I'm sure other consumer-generated idea communities are rolling out the welcome mat as well.  Places to check out, if you're a Passionate Consumer, with ideas to share (and please share some I am not listing ... I want to make a master list of various crowdsourcing and Consumer Created Content/Creative Sharing communities and blogs): 

• Crowdspring
• Fellowforce
• Crowdspirit
• Kluster
• Spigit
• SuggestionBox.com
• UserVoice
• Innocentive
• 99Designs
• IdeaScale

** UPDATE***

Cambrian House CEO Michael Sikorsky responded to the Techcrunch article in the comment section. He basically says that yes, the original 'model' of Cambrian House is dead, but the company will live on as part of Vencorps.  Sikorsky talks honestly about the failure of Cambrian House to take crowdsourced ideas and put them into action.  These are some key points he made:

A key assumption for us, which proved out NOT true: given a great idea with great community support and great market test data, we would be able to find (crowdsource) a team willing to execute it OR we could execute it ourselves. We needed amazing founding teams for each of the ideas – this is where our model fell short.

What we learned: it would have been better to back great teams with horrible ideas because most of the heavy lifting kept falling back on us, or a few select community members. A vicious cycle was created leading all of us to get more and more diffuse.

Hence: the wisdom of crowds worked well in the model, but it was our participation of crowds aspect which broke down. Trying to find people willing or capable to take on the offspring (our outputs) of the CH model was hard and/or incredibly time consuming.

  ... The ‘rebirth’ with VenCorps goes to fix the failures I identified above. With VenCorps, the ideas don’t matter anywhere as much as the teams do.

I’m bullish crowdsourcing but how/what you can apply it to is still under-test

The Suggestion Box (SuggestionBox.com): Can It Save Traditional Media?

Numbers don't lie, so there's no denying the rapid decline of readership among newspapers large and small.  Traditional Media, the newspaper business in particular, has been bringing a knife to a New Media gunfight for years now.  Every major U.S. paper, save for USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, lost at least a quart of blood when a six-month circulation report was released last week (New York Times article here).  Smaller papers have fared even worse, with some deciding to completely shutter their print editions. The Kentucky Post, for example, ended 126 years of ink on January 1st with the launch of KYPost.com, offering user generated content, citizen journalism and a variety of local-focused news from professional journalists and wire services. 

Traditional Media is in a sprint to upgrade and integrate the online with the offline, the Brick with the Click, to capture the attention of consumers as they migrate to an ever expanding menu of choices.  Newspapers and Radio stations and their TV counterparts are launching blogs, podcasts, video streaming and all sorts of new media offerings in a frantic effort to be relevant.  And if I could offer one suggestion, for all of them, it would be this:  Embrace the Suggestion Box. 

No, not the wooden or acrylic box that still spends a lonely life on the counter of small businesses across the nation, waiting for someone to fill out and drop in a post card sized piece of paper with thoughts about the good, bad or ugly that just occurred.  And no, not a typical e-mail link on a website contact page that lets you send your thoughts into the abyss, never knowing if anyone read them, or gives a hoot.  No, I'm talking about an online Suggestion Box, a new product from SuggestionBox.com, a creative startup based in San Diego (profiled recently on Techcrunch). 

Stick with me on this, because what I'm proposing goes far beyond the simple idea of people submitting simple ideas.  SuggestionBox.com is obviously aimed at businesses ... at really any organization on the planet, from local government to barber shops to restaurants to schools to hotels to non profits to you name it.  But ideas have the potential to be interesting and compelling news and content, the kind that is especially interesting to radio station listeners and newspaper readers, since it orginates from them, and offers them a chance to showcase their creative genius and potentially disruptive ideas.

Imagine if a radio station decides to integrate a SuggestionBox.com Suggestion Box on its website.  It can be done quickly and inexpensively (about $50 per month, unlimited suggestions).  Doesn't require software integration or major IT work.  Just a simple widget dropped on the website that enables and channels ideas to your hosted Box.   

The Radio station can chat it up on the air, inviting listeners to take part in a new creative community of 'problem solvers and idea people'.  You can ask for ideas to make the radio station better.  You can ask for ideas to make the community better.  You can hold a contest for best Green Ideas.  You can reward 'best idea of the week'.  You can do humorous things.  You can position your station as the 'community idea hub', where great ideas are collected, voted on, improved, and implemented.  When people submit an idea, they become part of your SuggestionBox community, and since the whole process is transparent, they can track the progress of their suggestions and see what others think.  Businesses will love this as well.  They'll want their own SuggestionBoxes, and an idea ecosystem will emerge, with the Radio Station at its center.  Web traffic will surge, as will ideas to the station, its advertisers, and the community. 

Whether a radio station website or a newspaper website, ideas submitted to their SuggestionBoxes have the potential to become news content to be promoted and celebrated. All of a sudden, you're not just regurgitating the same boring news that every other media outlet is spewing.  And by unleashing a consumer idea river, you'll likely see a jump in other user generated content (citizen journalism, blogs, pictures, video).

SuggestionBox.com is a great choice, for one, because it has such a great brand. It is exactly what it says it is, it's instantly recognizeable, and from what I can tell so far from my own experience (I've dropped several suggestions in), it's simple and intuitive to use.  It can be used by organizations large and small, and it's affordable.  Yes, you'll have to manage the ideas, so it takes people power on both ends to make this work.   

So for the community newspaper that's struggling, what better way to ignite passion with your readers than to get their ideas flowing.  The Radio station that's trying to drive web traffic and create community offline in addition to on-air.  You have an opportunity to embrace Open Innovation with a cutting edge SuggestionBox.com Box, stoking a vibrant, transparent, interconnected conversation with consumers that could open up countless ideas and possibilities.  It's an affordable and intelligent way to jump in the Web 2.0 water.  What are you waiting for ... the competition to do it first?   

Nokia Tapping Consumers For Innovation

At Nokia's Beta Labs site, Nokia.com/betalabs, the slogan is Shaping the Future Together, a perfect description of the co-creation side of Open Innovation.  I'm surprised I hadn't heard about the beehive of consumer-driven innovation activity taking place there, until reading a Businessweek article, How Nokia Users Drive Innovation.

I'm an Open Innovation nut, so I'm biased, but it's a great article, and it spotlights the apparent great success Nokia is having since launching it's Beta Labs just over a year ago with the goal of letting its user community test the latest smartphone software.  Beta Labs' debut application, Sports Tracker, has been downloaded more than a million times. It's original intent was to enable runners and cyclists to use their Nokia smartphone's global positioning capability to record workout data like speed and distance ... and also to plot routes.  But consumers used Sports Tracker in a myriad of ways its designers had not intended - for sports like paragliding and hot-air ballooning - and offered feedback that led Nokia to make various improvements and innovations.  The article notes that reader feeback spurred Nokia to add the capability to create online groups where community members share pictures and details of their favorite workout routes.

In the 'Application Spotlight' right now is an app called Nokia Maps 2.0 Beta, which includes a feature called 'Walk', for pedestrian navigation, in addition to 'Drive', for car navigation, multimedia city guides, satellite maps and other "innovative features".  The applications claims maps of more than 150 countries and 15-plus million points of interest.  The 'world in your pocket', according to Nokia.  And since this and other mobile applications are in beta, they are in a constant flux of testing and feedback and improvement.  When they reach ready stage, they're officially launched, with normal customer/tech support.

The Beta Labs blog, which tooted a celebratory horn over the site's one year anniversary two weeks ago, notes four significant things:  1) 18 beta applications launched;  2) huge usage growth (1 million pageviews, 200,000 downloads and thousands of comments per month already);  3) a vibrant user community, experimenting with apps, sharing thoughts, helping each other;  4) early signs of a massive culture change within Nokia, towards co-creation and a beta culture.

I'll definitely be adding my voice to this community, with my new Nokia N95 acting as playground.  I might've missed it, but I'm surprised there wasn't some type of invitation or information that enticed me to check out the vibrant innovation community at Nokia.com.  There is a noticeable disconnect with U.S. consumers ... and Nokia knows this.  A vast majority of their consumer base and engaged community is based in Europe and other parts of the world.  North America is the big prize, the only market, that the Finnish handset and smartphone maker has yet to dominate.  But I sense a number of efforts on the radar screen to change this.  My recent post Nokia and Spike Lee Want YourCGC  highlights another Nokia effort, at NokiaProductions.com, where consumers are being asked to submit video, audio and digital pictures for possible inclusion in a short-feature Spike Lee film. Bottom line, it looks like consumers have more and more options in 2008 to become 'co-creators' with some of the biggest and most creative companies on the planet. It's about time! 

The Two Way Conversation via Yelp

"Yelp For Business Owners" launched this week, a suite of free features that enables business owners to engage Yelp's online community of reviewers.  Yelp Co-Founder/CEO Jeremy Stoppleman:  ""With the launch of Yelp for Business Owners we've completed the positive feedback loop, so local businesses can connect with their most vocal customers in a positive and productive way."

Many business owners may be unaware of Yelp.  Some who are might be wary of the possibility of bad  reviews.  But Tuesday's announcement had some interesting facts and examples that shine a spotlight on the impact that passionate consumer reviews can have on a business.  From the press release:

80 percent of Keetsa's total business each month is directly attributed to Yelp, whether they discover us on Yelp or utilize Yelp as a research tool when searching for the best business in the market. In fact, we generate so much traffic from Yelp that I currently do not have to utilize any 'traditional' or more expensive forms of advertising, such as radio, television and newspapers.
                                                   Joe Alexander, Director
                                                   Keetsa Mattress
                                                   San Francisco, CA

"We had never heard of Yelp before and were surprised to see people talking about our business. To be honest, we were skeptical about the site at first, but after seeing a 30% increase in our business and roughly 70 reviews later, I'm happy to say we love what Yelp has done for our business."
                                              Jacob Twig and Elaina Bender, Owners
                                              The Professionals Inc., Moving Specialists
                                              Chicago, IL

"I recently stumbled across our reviews on Yelp and noticed that some of our regular customers were writing great reviews about us. We have folks who have been shopping with us for 60-70 years, and now we're starting to see much younger customers come in through our doors. I'm sure that it's due in part to our great reviews online."
                                                   Niki Russ, Co-Owner
                                                   Russ and Daughters, Market
                                                   New York, NY

"As a small business owner there are moments in time when you realize that all your hard work is about to take hold in a big way, and the day that the Yelp community started to talk about my shop was a defining moment in the history of my business. I have no doubt that the reviews on Yelp, were an important catalyst in my amazing success."
                                                   Christopher Hall, Owner
                                                   Splitends Salon
                                                   Orange County, CA

Now, the exact opposite can happen as well, so business owners should check Yelp on a regular basis to see what's being said about their biz.  Yelp, founded in San Fransisco in 2004, continues to add to its community of passionate consumers, and counts some 2.7 million local reviews on its site.   

Your Telecom Provider Feels Your Pain

Interesting article in the Washington Post today, "An Outbreak of Caring" (subtitle:  Stung By Complaints, Telecoms Stress Customer Service).  It spotlights Tom Maguire, Verizon's new Customer Care 'Czar', hired last November to tackle the ever present irritant that everyone who lives and breathes in this great country experiences:  crappy telecom customer service.

The article leads with a blurb about Maguire being "one tough customer" himself:

When served chicken tacos without the chicken recently, he first complained to his waitress, then went online to the restaurant's Web site to fill out a survey with scathing remarks about his experience.  That accept-no-excuses attitude serves Maguire well when dealing with his own customers.  The straight-talking Long Island native knows how enraging poor service can be.  He understands that perfect service is difficult to achieve.  And he grasps how important it is that companies hear about it when they fall short.

OK, so he feels our pain, and has a no-excuses attitude, following up on his in-person complaints with a visit to offending business's websites.  Good for him.  But how does he feel about automated voice prompts?  And call center reps in India who you have to ask to repeat themselves several times?   Does he ever have to navigate the customer service maze telecom consumers endure? 

The article points to service bundling as part of the problem.  It saves consumers a little money (I'm a Verizon bundler), but complicates the heck out of billing, and heaven forbid you have an issue or question with more than one service at a time, because each separate service has a separate customer service team, which means you'll be transferred from person to person - across continents - adding time and frustration to an already frustrating situation. 

According to the article, Maguire oversees 131 call centers from Laurel, Maryland to Bangalore, India,  (I'd love to know how many are in India) some 46,000 employees handling customer service issues.  In addition, there's an elite 'escalation team' of 90 that engages customers that've either blown a gasket or figured out how to get through to top executives via phone or e-mail.   No doubt the Consumerist blog is responsible for many of the tips on bypassing automated prompts and foreign call centers.

I'm not writing this to rip on Verizon.  The whole industry is built on a philosphy that strives to eliminate customer service costs, as opposed to elevate customer service itself.  Creating Passionate Consumers seems like the furthest thing from telecom minds.  But the Post article says execs like Maguire are trying to change things.  Maguire has created a "tiered system" at Verizon, where his call centers act like "medical triage" to handle normal issues.  Complaints from Triple Play customers (Fios TV, Internet and phone ... big bucks consumers) go to a team of "personal account handlers in Florida".  Ahh ... Florida, where I assume the reps can speak English clearly.  So the average customer is sent to Bangalore, while the Fios customer gets someone in Ft Lauderdale.  Customers frothing at the mouth get sent to the escalation team, because as Maguire says ... "what you don't want them to do is leave or write up a blog or something."  Translation:  please don't rip us on the Consumerist (or perhaps Consumer Passion ... if only my readership were as large). 

If only the consumer was priority number one with telecoms, then those wonderful and innovative smart phones (iPhones, Nokia N95s, Blackberry Pearls) would be attached to service providers that are equally committed to to the task of creating Passionate Consumers.  I hope Mr. Maguire is committed to just that. 

Nokia and Spike Lee want Your CGC

USA Today has the story (from Monday's edition).  The launch part was last Thursday, in New York, spotlighting a new collaboration between moviemaker Spike Lee and Nokia, fueled by the creative passion of consumers.  In an effort to "connect with consumers" according to Craig Coffey, Nokia VP Marketing, N. America, would-be collaborators can upload original text, images, music or video at Nokiaproductions.com.

I went to the site, and here are the basics:

Spike Lee has been given the greenlight on his latest project, a collaborative film where the content you create with your mobile phone determines his final cut. He needs your work to make it happen.   Here’s the assignment:

Humanity is our central theme. Think about its meaning and how music tells our story. Over the course of production, there will be three Acts for you to interpret.

Shoot a photo or video that reflects the Act.

Produce a soundtrack to enhance someone’s Act.

Text in ideas for others to go out and film.

Upload your work and if you want, edit in other people’s submissions to create a full Act.

Vote for your favorite Acts. The winners will appear in the next Spike Lee Joint.

The whole thing is centered around the mobile phone.  Lee in his blog at NokiaProductions.com talks about how he thinks within five years, we'll be buying a ticket to see a feature length film that was created on a mobile device.  Probably something like my Nokia N95, which can stream live video to the web (via Qik.com, Kyte.tv and other platforms).  This first effort will accept consumer generated content through August 21st.  Lee will then produce a 9-12 minute film from the CGC (consumer generated content), to be shown this fall at the yet-to-open Club Nokia Auditorium in Los Angeles.  It's a cutting edge and creative idea and endeavor.  Only 200 people have signed up on the site so far, and the content I've checked out is minimally impressive so far.  I'll be checking back to see how this progresses. 

Note to Marvel: Relationship with Techcrunch Readers on Fire ... Here's How to Put it Out

It's a fast-moving blogosphere fire... a case of Old Media vs New Media ... with former lawyer and uber blogger Michael Arrington and his horde of Techcrunch readers (I'm an avid reader) pitted against Marvel Entertainment, guardian of the hotly anticipated "make it a large tub of popcorn" Iron Man movie.

Arrington invited his readers to join him for a pre-release screening of the movie, tomorrow, at the AMC Metreon in San Francisco.  He purchased all 600 seats - bascially a big giveaway -instructing those interested to reserve a seat by getting tickets at Eventbrite for a dollar, with the goal of minimizing no-shows.  Understandably, interest was immediate and fierce, and tickets were snapped up in a flash. 

Fast-forward a few hours, and Arrington receives a cease and desist order from a Marvel lawyer - a lawyer who I doubt was ready for the tar and feathering he's receiving in the blog comment thread.  Marvel claims the showing is unauthorized, even though Arrington contacted the group sales phone number on the official Iron Man movie site.  So it looks like Arrington tried to play by the rules.  Perhaps his 're-sell' of tickets for a dollar (no profit motive save for publicity) broke some 'small print' rules.  But Marvel is making a classic PR blunder.  It can be fixed ... but this is 2008.  Techcrunch is not your average blog, and its readers are not average consumers.  Rather, they are, on average, Innovators and Early Adopters ... the leading edge of the Rogers Adopter Curve.  So when a piece of hot news breaks, it doesn't just break on Techcrunch, with its 700,000-plus RSS subscribers ... it also fans out like a wind-aided forest fire via aggregators like Techmeme (this story is moving up the Tememe leaderboard fast as I type), and microblogging sites like Twitter and Friendfeed.  And when you have people like Robert Scoble, who with one simple Tweet can let 20,000 people know that something is amiss in Techcrunch land, then if you're in the PR department at Marvel, you better have your A game ready, 24/7.   

So what do you do if you're Marvel?  Well, hopefully you're well aware of the firestorm that's out there, and whether you think it's justified or not doesn't matter.  It's there, and you have to react to it.  A PR disaster can be turned into a PR victory if handled creatively, quickly, and with the focus on creating Passionate Consumers.

So even if the Techcrunch pre-screen Iron Man movie bash somehow broke the letter of some law in someone's opinion ... there are 600 extremely disappointed fans - potential movie fans - who are wondering what you (Marvel) are going to do to make this right.  And there are thousands and thousands more beyond the ticket holders who planned on seeing this anticipated movie, who are wondering what your next move will be.  And there are tens of thousands of bloggers, blog readers, Tweeter, geeks and fanboys and girls who are wondering if you (Marvel) are going to simply send out stupid cease and desist letters, via some young lawyer, on the eve of an event that bazillions of people are and will be talking about on the blogosphere. 

If you handle this correctly, and 'wow' Techcrunch and its readers and the blogosphere that spreads out like a spider web from it ... then you will turn a PR debacle into a lesson on how to turn fire breathing consumers into evangelists for your company and its products.  So do whatever it takes.  Send a second letter, apologizing for the misunderstanding.  Send some Marvel people to the event, with freebies to give to all the readers who show up.  Heck, send Robert Downey Jr. to the showing, and have him wear a Techcrunch T-shirt that says "hey, we've all screwed up" on the back.  Have a sense of humor, humility, creative marketing ... and understand that as fast as negative publicity can spread in this New Media age ... positive vibes can spread just (well, almost) as fast.

----- UPDATE 4/30 -------

Green light for tonight's show.  Arrington says Marvel has backed off its strong-arm tactics, claiming the ballyhoo was started by Oracle, the movie's promoter.  Something about a possible conflict with another screening, blah blah blah.  Arrington says he's accepted an apology from Ira Rubenstein, who's been behind the Executive VP desk of Marvel's brand new Global Digital Media Group for all of one week now.  Good test for Mr. Rubenstein, to put out a fairly major blogosphere fire.  Looks like Arrington's ire is now directed at Oracle, but I say Marvel still needs to go one step further.  Free schwag at tonight's event, some free tickets (1000 maybe?) to give away to Techcrunch readers in the next couple of weeks ... something to show he understands and 'gets' new media, and the new consumer.  Time to turn them into Passionate Consumers Mr. Rubenstein ... it's a drop in the bucket for your company, and you'll get scads of free - and positive - PR. 

Chick-fil-A founder honored at White House

From Tuesday's press release:

Chick-fil-A founder and long-time philanthropist S. Truett Cathy was honored for his commitment to serving others during a visit to Washington, D.C., earlier today. Cathy's full day of activities in Washington, D.C., was highlighted by his receipt of a special President's Volunteer Service Award, called the President's Call to Service Award, presented to those who have dedicated more than 4,000 hours of volunteer service over a lifetime.

The occasion today marked the first time that a President's Volunteer Service Award has been presented to a recipient in the Oval Office.  Cathy received his award this afternoon in the Oval Office after a brief meeting with President Bush and Jay Hein, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

Cathy has spent 62 years in the restaurant industry and recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A chain he started in 1967.  His desire to serve others extends beyond the customers of his 1,380 restaurants throughout the U.S. For nearly half a century, he has taught Sunday school to 13-year-old boys, and in 1984 he founded the WinShape Foundation, dedicated to shaping individuals to be winners through nurturing and encouragement of young people.  He has logged countless hours of volunteer time for a host of endeavors, and the 6,900 hours logged between his Sunday school class, speaking engagements and WinShape were more than enough to merit the President's Call to Service Award.

What's Cathy and Chick-fil-A's 'secret sauce'?  Read my previous post titled The Chick-fil-A Way.

Cheerios Kicks off next Spoonful of Stories Children's Book Contest

The second Spoonful of Stories contest is officially underway, and Cheerios is inviting would-be authors to submit children's book manuscripts from now until July 15th.  Book entries should aim for the 4-8 year old market.  Cash prizes will go to up to three winners, with the top writer getting his/her book evaluated by  Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing for a potential book deal.

Last year, Cheerios received close to 1,000 entries, with Nashville's Shellie Braeuner named the grand prize winner.  In addition to her $5,000 prize, Braeuner snagged a book deal.  Her winning story, The Great Dog Wash, will be printed and available in Cheerios boxes in the spring of 2009.  A hardcover version will hit bookshelves in the summer of 2009.  If you're interested, go to Spoonfulofstoriescontest.com for full details and contest rules.

43rd Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest Grand Prize Winner Nets Cool Million

Carolyn Gurtz of Gaithersburg, Maryland apparently bakes a mean batch of cookies.  Double Delight Peanut Butter cookies to be exact, crisp on the outside, soft in the center ... and tasty enough to put Gurtz atop the other 99 finalists in Pillsbury's 43rd Bake-Off contest (first was in 1949). 

Gurtz was crowned the grand prize winner Tuesday in a ceremony at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas, Texas.  Judges sampled various baked goods whipped up by the 100 finalists on Monday, and final judging took place yesterday.  Gurtz's total take:  $1,005,000 plus a GE Profile Double Oven.  The additional five grand came from a Jif Peanut Butter Award.

According to a Style article in today's Washington Post, Gurtz has submitted entires in the Pillsbury contest for 15 years.  Her Fiesta Pie, Devil Delight Bites and Very Berry Muffins paved the way for this year's peanut butter cookie smash hit.  The Post attributes the big win to Gurtz, a homemaker, "thinking like a marketer" as well as a chef.  In addition to "reliability" (every time you make them, claims Gurtz, they come out the same), the cookies were chock full of products made by sponsors of the contest:  Pillsbury cookie dough, Jif peanut butter, FIsher peanuts, and both Domino and C&H sugar.  Smart cookie, that Mrs. Gurtz.

Warrenton, Virginia Chick-fil-A Grand Opening

So my Chick-fil-A restaurant officially opened its doors to the adoring public this morning.  I think I was 'customer number four' at the counter shortly after 6:30am.  The gal in the drive thru got a chuckle when I showed up 90 minutes later, wife and dogs with me, to order breakfast for the whole family.  Their first, my second.  I told her I might be back for lunch.  Dinner not out of the question either.

The official tally:  114 hardy souls received a year's supply of combo meals, a nice reward for braving an overnight stay that included some traditional 'welcome to Virginia' wind and rain to kick off the spring season.  So what, you might ask, is the secret sauce of Chick-fil-A?  What inspires droves of rabid - and incredbily well mannered - fans to drive hundreds of miles to camp out in tents?  (one guy I intervied today has been to 19 grand openings).  It's not just the free food.  And there really isn't a secret sauce, at least not in the way you think of when referring to barbeque joints.  But I like the term secret sauce, for those  businesses that really 'get it' ... that know how to inspire Consumer Passion. 

Chick-fil-A definitely has it's own sauce. It's one part Fantastic Food, one part Unique Business Playbook (closed on Sundays an example, hard core hiring process another), one part Top Notch Customer Service, and one part Quirky Character (they don't take themselves too seriously, and their branding is funny in a goofy, homespun way).  It's amazing how you can set yourself apart by having your employees say simple things like "how are you today?" (and mean it), or "my pleasure" when you ask them for something or thank them.  The considerate and service-oriented nature of the staff is really far superior to any other quick food joint on the planet. Makes you wonder why other places don't concentrate on something that is within their control:  Treat people really, really nice, employees included.  It can be done.  Chick-fil-A is proof of that.

One last Qik.com video interview to share, via my Nokia N95, and courtesy of four tired but willing campers from Washington, DC, who I cornered while they were eating breakfast. One note:  shooting video with mobile devices to platforms like Qik require the use of cell networks to access the Net. My area is not 3G yet, and that makes for difficult shooting.  The connection will suddenly cut off, and won't stream live properly.   So this last video ended a couple of minutes early, cutting off some of the best content.  Oh well, it'll have to do.  It gives a flavor of the event, and the people.  The whole grand opening experience was a hoot, and I met some great folks.   The breakfast interview is here ... and thanks for stopping by ConsumerPassion. 

Hanging with the Herd at Chick-fil-A Grand Opening Camp Out

So I hung out with The Herd this afternoon.  Hailing from Knoxville, Tennessee, members of The Herd travel to various Chick-fil-A grand openings.  Herd co-founder Chris, in bovine apparel, led me through a parking lot tour of today's festivities at the new Chick-fil-A in Warrenton, Virginia, which opens for breakfast Thursday morning.

Chris and his buddies travelled seven hours to this grand opening, setting up tents and a small kids pool, which added some comic relief.  Actually, the whole affair is one big, laid back, hilarious jamboree.  How often do you see thirty camping tents in a fast food parking lot?  With college students tossing football and playing 'corn hole', where you toss bean bags into holes cut in slanted wooden boxes.  Kind of a cross between  horse shoes and Skee Ball.  A little rain and overcast skies did nothing to dampen the mood.  Probably helped that everyone was ramped up on fresh and free hot chocolate and sweet tea. 

I met some retired folks who travel to different cities for the grand openings.  They said they come for the atmosphere, the people, the food, the fact that Chick-fil-A employees do rare things like say "yes mam", "yes sir" and "my pleasure" ... and of course they come for the giveaways, including the pot at the end of the chicken flavored rainbow - 52 free combo meals for the first 100 in line - which many planned on giving away to relatives, friends and even strangers. A retired gentleman and former Marine on hand for the festivities told me "this is a different planet ... wish the rest of the planet was this way".  So do I.  Here's another Qik.com video clip, featuring my time with The Herd.   

Covering the Grand Opening of a Chick-fil-A

I've been anxiously awaiting this week for months now.  A Chick-fil-A is opening in my town, Warrenton, Virginia.  Chick-fil-A, for those not in the know, has:  1)  the best chicken sandwhich (or nuggets) on the planet  2)  the best customer service of any quick food chain (or just about any restaurant chain in any category)  3)  a quirky and large group of 'raving fans', who are willing to travel some distance to attend a grand opening.

All of this creates a perfectly wonderful storm for a blogger who follows companies and products that inspire Consumer Passion.  And before I head out the door to capture some video of people camping out for the grand opening - in the rain - I want to mention a fabulous event the restaurant hosted last night.

I was invited to take part in their Premier Night Dinner, a sort of unnofficial 'first serving' of food from the brand new restaurant.  Everyone was super, super nice.  Dinner and way too much dessert was served by the staff.  Free stuff was given away.  And it made me wonder if any other fast food chain does this sort of thing for openings ... or could do this sort of thing.  I wonder if Burger Kind and McDonalds and Wendy's could count on numerous people showing up, truly excited that the restaurant was opening ... truly thrilled it was now part of the community ... and truly nuts for the food.  It felt like a family reunion.  And it was a small taste of the magic that is Chick-fil-A. 

Here are two short video clips I took at the Premier Night Dinner, with my Nokia N95, streaming to Qik.com.  Clip #1 is here .... clip #2 is here.   We don't have 3G cell coverage in my area yet, so live video streaming is sketchy at best.  But Qik allows me to use my new Nokia smart phone to stream fairly high quality video directly to their platform, and it then is archived for later viewing.  I"ll be streaming additional video this afternoon, evening ... and early tommorrow morning, as the grand opening takes place at 6:30am ET.  They give away a year's worth of meals to the first 100 people in line.  Apparently, there's a number of tents already set up.  So I better be on my way ....

2009 Honda Fit makes debut at New York Auto Show

One more reason to be passionate about Honda products ... the 2009 Honda Fit makes its official debut at the New York International Auto Show today.  The show doesn't officially begin until this Friday, with a public "sneak preview", but today is a press preview day, so car makers are starting to show off their  stuff.  Sure, fast and furious cars tend to get most of the attention at auto shows.  But with gas projected at four bucks a gallon soon, 'small is big' in the mind of consumers. 

Honda, leading the pack in nearly every quality and value survey, knows how to make tiny ... cool.  Notable improvements in the new Fit include:  rear Magic Seat featuring one-motion dive-down functionality, which allows the rear seat to fold flat with the front seats in the rearmost slide position, without removing the rear head restraints;  a new hidden storage bin under the driver's side rear seat;  an available Honda Satellite-Linked Navigation System with Voice Recognition and 6.5-inch screen; a USB audio interface compatible with iPods and many USB storage devices ... and a new 1.5-literi-VTEC 4-cylinder engine connected to either a 5-speed manual transmission or an available 5-speed automatic transmission, which includes steering-wheel-mounted paddle shifters on the Fit Sport ... so you can pretend you're racing through the streets of Monaco (instead, in my case, of battling traffic and potholes in Northern Virginia).  You can pick up one of these beauties this Fall.