While in the grocery store over the weekend, I thought about picking up a little container of jelly candies. I’ve never bought that product before, and it seemed innocuous enough: all natural, no preservatives, etc. But after I checked the ingredients list, I noticed that “corn syrup” was the second-largest ingredient. Thinking this was the same as the notorious high-fructose corn syrup, I put the candy back on the shelf.

However, there’s just one problem: regular corn syrup isn’t the same thing as high-fructose corn syrup (or “HFCS”). I’m no expert on the matter, but from a bit of research, it appears that corn syrup is quite different than HFCS. Since HFCS has gotten so much bad press for its role in high-sugar foods like soft drinks and candy, I attributed these same problems to regular corn syrup when I saw it on the ingredients list.

Therein lies the problem: people make decisions based on available data, and there’s a whole lot of information out there saying that HFCS is bad. So when shoppers come across another product or ingredient that sounds the same, they’re probably going to associate the ups and downs of the better-known product to the lesser-known one as well. Needless to say, this can have a big impact on sales if your product looks like or sounds like or has similar-sounding ingredients to something that people are more familiar with.

What’s a manufacturer to do? One smart approach is to identify those potential misconceptions and address them on the packaging. In my example, they could have added an asterisk or other notation right after the spot where corn syrup appears. The text might read as follows: “Corn syrup is not the same as high-fructose corn syrup, and contains much less sugar.” By dealing with this potential objection right away, a larger percentage of the people who read the ingredient list will end up buying the product, instead of rejecting it because one of the ingredients sounds bad.

Indeed, looking back at my original example, this sort of explanatory text would have been enough to make me buy the jelly candy. And the next time I’m at the store, I probably will.

I recently had the misfortune of riding on a really old CTA train car. The model in question, which probably dates back to the 1960s, was designed with doors that open into the passenger area of the car. In contrast, the newer trains use sliding doors that don’t interfere with passenger space.

The train I rode had a few empty seats, but I was tired of sitting down after a long time on an airplane. So I decided to stand, but kept running afoul of the train doors. I finally managed to get just far enough away from the doors to avoid them bumping my legs, but this made me wonder: why don’t the trains have some sort of visual indicator of where not to stand?

Even with the old train cars, it would be very easy to show passengers which areas to avoid. Just look at the path that the doors take when opening, and paint the floor below that area with a bright and obvious color, like yellow or red. Add a little bit of text like “Don’t stand in this area” or “Stand clear of doors”, and you’re all set.

Will everyone notice this the first time they ride the train? Probably not. But as soon as they get jostled by the doors a few times, you can bet that they’ll take notice and stay away from the painted areas.

Airport security people confiscate a lot of food and drinks. From water to yogurt to fruit juice, substantial numbers of brand-new, never-opened food products are taken away for being over the three ounce limit. But where does it all go? I’m guessing the security screening people just throw the food away, or perhaps keep it for themselves. Regardless of which case is more prevalent, this is clearly a waste.

The airports, TSA and others should sit down and figure out a plan for doing some good with all the food and drinks that would otherwise disappear. Items that were already open belong in the trash. But unopened food products could be stored and then donated to local food pantries or other charities focused on feeding the hungry. At the same time, the airports should put up signage explaining that any factory-sealed food and drink that can’t be brought onto the plane will be given to people in need. Heck, they could even extend this messaging throughout the airport and provide donation bins, so that people can have a better option than just throwing the food away or waiting for it to be confiscated.

Wouldn’t this involve a significant amount of extra work? Perhaps, though the effort shouldn’t be much different than separating trash from recycling in homes and offices. And as anyone who travels can attest, a lot of perfectly good food and drinks are thrown away in airports every day. If even half of those items could be reclaimed as I’ve described, the resulting impact on food charities and the people they serve would be enormous. With just a small change in traveler and airport staff behavior, the donated food would probably be equivalent to hundreds of millions of dollars a year in additional monetary contributions.

Whenever I stay in a hotel, I’m always frustrated by how difficult it can be to locate a power outlet within the room. It seems like every outlet is subject to some frustrating issue. For instance, the power outlets might be:

– Blocked by heavy furniture
– Filled up with the hotel’s electronics, like TVs, phones and alarm clocks
– In such short supply that you can’t plug in more than one gadget at a time

With virtually everyone carrying some form of electronic device when they travel (such as a mobile phone, iPod, or computer), hotels need to do a better job accomodating travelers’ needs.

What’s the solution? Partner up with the companies that sell charging stations for various gadgets, and install one in each room. Co-brand the device to reflect the manufacturer and the hotel chain, and provide an easy way for customers to buy one for their home, office, or travel kit. Considering how rarely you see charging stations in the wild, I bet that travelers would be quite impressed with the convenience — and many of them would be thrilled with the idea of purchasing one to take with them on the spot.

During a recent hotel stay, my wife and I used the in-room coffeemaker quite a bit. The device itself was well-designed and made fairly good coffee, but it was limited to one cup at a time. So, I found myself having to repeat the process several times in order to produce a normal amount of coffee for two people.

This made me wonder: aside from business-oriented hotels where it’s typically one person per room, shouldn’t hotels have a slightly bigger coffeemaker? If the typical room has two guests, a one cup coffee machine seems a bit skimpy. By providing a larger model, the hotel would greatly improve the in-room coffee experience.

Of course, I’m not proposing that hotels install a full-size, 10-12 cup coffeemaker. Instead, something in the range of 3-4 cups is probably ideal. Alternatively, it might make sense to provide bigger coffee machines in suites and other large rooms, which are more likely to have two or more guests staying there at once. Either way, it’s clear that the one-size-fits-all approach is far from optimal when it comes to hotel coffeemakers, and a little bit of extra capacity would probably make customers a lot happier.

Even when you’re armed with a Tivo, network scheduling conflicts can be a real pain. Somehow, there’s always at least one time slot that has more than two shows I want to watch at once, and my Tivo can only record two shows at a time. Of course, it alerts you when you try to schedule a third show during a given slot. But Tivo is missing out on an important variable: whether the show gets repeated again during that week.

In short, if you have three shows that normally play at the same time, but one of those shows has an encore presentation right afterwards or even later in the week, then Tivo should be smart enough to suggest recording the additional showing. This eliminates the conflict, without requiring the user to manually look for and schedule the extra showing.

Would this be hard to do? Maybe. But all the info is already there in the program guide: show name, episode name, episode number, and so on. There ought to be a way for the Tivo to automatically record these alternate showings. Sure, you could schedule them manually or tell the system to record reruns and duplicates. But those workarounds defeat the purpose of having a Tivo in the first place. People pay for the product and accompanying service so they don’t have to worry about missing their favorite shows, which is why I’d like to see Tivo be more proactive in handling these scheduling conflicts in the first place.

Like most newer construction, the building where I live has fire sprinklers placed strategically throughout the property. The idea, of course, is that if a fire breaks out, it will be contained by the sprinklers before spreading to neighboring apartments. There’s a downside, though: whenever the sprinklers go off, a huge amount of water has to find its way out of the unit, which means a lot of water damage to that unit and the ones next door or below.

Well, that’s what I’ve heard, anyway. I don’t think anyone’s sprinklers in the building have gone off during the past few years, but the topic comes up from time to time in building meetings. This makes me wonder: if you’re constructing a building with fire sprinklers, why not add overflow drains to each apartment? These would be placed in each room that has sprinklers, with extra drains near the walls that are shared with nearby units, and the doors leading to the common areas.

By adopting this approach, the water from the sprinklers would never reach neighboring units, and the damage from water overflow would be greatly reduced. Granted, this would be very costly to add to an existing property. But it seems like a no-brainer when planning and constructing a new building, and I’m surprised that you don’t see it more often.

After I got my census form in the mail, one of the first things I did was check how to fill it out online. I was rather shocked to learn that the census can’t be submitted on the web. So, I filled out the paper form they sent me, lamenting how incredibly archaic the process felt.

Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems like the US Census form is vastly simpler than a typical tax return. Both the federal and state governments have been accepting e-filed tax returns for many years. So why the heck can’t you submit your census info online?

It seems so easy: let people enter the serial number or another suitable identifier from the printed form they receive in the mail. Answer the questions online, and you’re done. Aside from saving people time, moving the census online would save the government a bunch of money that would otherwise be spent processing all those paper forms.

Hopefully the census bureau is already planning to move things online. And I’m sure it takes a long time to transform a process that has been done the old-fashioned way for so long. With that said, the next census rolls around in 10 years. Hopefully a decade will be enough time to modernize the system.

I received at least six emails last week from some random company that insists they’ve created a free account for me. Trouble is, I’ve never heard of them and have no interest in their service. And the tone of the emails is really annoying: they insist that I requested the account and I need to activate it.

Maybe this is an effective tactic when targeting novice computer users. But if the marketer hopes to create any sort of long-term brand equity, this type of presumptuous email marketing is an even worse idea than regular spam. Why? Insisting that a prospective customer did something and needs to take action, when no such thing ever happened, it quite insulting. And I think people are more likely to remember this type of message and avoid that brand in the future, compared to garden-variety spam that never gets personal about what the recipient did or didn’t do.

Granted, we’re talking about unsolicited emails here. The companies that run spam campaigns probably couldn’t care less about how prospects and customers see their brand. But I think this advice can be generalized to legitimate companies, too. Don’t presume there’s a business relationship when nothing of the sort actually exists, or you’ll risk insulting the intelligence of the very customers you’re trying to reach.

When you’re shopping online, it’s easy to tell if a product is in stock. The site usually indicates whether the item is available for immediate purchase, and even how many are left. But when you want to buy that item in a local store, things get a bit dicier.

Some retailers are really smart about this, and offer up-to-the-minute inventory status online. You just choose your location, and they show you the inventory status at each nearby store. But what if the product is out of stock at your preferred store? Typically, your only option is to buy online, or check back later to see if they received more inventory.

I’m sure the abandonment rate is high among customers who check local store availability and hit a roadblock when the product is out of stock. Retailers should address this situation just like they do with out of stock products online. In particular, let customers select the store where they want to buy the product, even if it’s not in stock. Then, provide a way to opt-in to an email alert when the product is replenished at that store.

If that’s too complicated, here’s a low-tech approach: give customers a rough idea of when new inventory arrives, and provide a call-to-action that encourages them to check back around that time. This would probably have to be somewhat generic, to avoid tipping off would-be thieves about when big shipments are coming in. But even something as broad as “We expect more inventory during the week of July 15” is better than what customers are faced with today.