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Please visit Experienceology for blog posts from now on.

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Bathroom Blogfest 2011

Yes readers, it's that time again. Time to celebrate the wonderful world of bathrooms and how they relate to great customer and visitor experiences.

Below you'll find the list of bloggers who are writing about a variety of bathroom experiences, and how they are integrated into great brands.

Please do check out all of their blogs this week to read and learn more. And special thanks to C.B. Whittemore for keeping the tradition alive, and Susan Abbott for designing this year's logo, again!

I have photos, lots of photos.

 THE perfect solution for glossy museum buildings with poor wayfinding: gobos!

 A high shelf for extra paper...

Name	Blog Name	Blog URL
Susan Abbott	Customer Experience Crossroads	http://www.cust omercrossroads.com/customercrossroads/
Paul Anater	Kitchen and Residential Design	http://www.kitchenandresi dentialdesign.com
Shannon Bilby	From the Floors Up	http://fromthefloorsup.com/
Toby Bloomberg	Diva Marketing	http://bloom bergmarketing.blogs.com/bloomberg_marketing/
Laurence Borel	Blog Till You Drop	http://www.laurenceborel.com/
Bill Buyok	Avente Tile Talk	http://tiletalk.blogspot.com
Jeanne Byington	The Importance of Earnest Service	http://blog.jmbyington.com/
Becky Carroll	Customers Rock!	http://customersrock.net
Katie Clark	Practical Katie	http://practicalkatie.blogspot.co m/
Nora DePalma	O'Reilly DePalma: The Blog	http://www.oreilly-depalma.com/b log/
Paul Friederichsen	The BrandBiz Blog	http://brandbizblog.com/
Tish Grier	The Constant Observer	http://spap-oop.blogspot.com/
Elizabeth Hise	Flooring The Consumer	http://flooringtheconsumer.b logspot.com
Emily Hooper	Floor Covering News Blog	http://www.fcnews.net/category/b log/
Diane Kazan	Urban Design Renovation	http://blog.urbandesignrenovat ion.com
Joseph Michelli	Dr. Joseph Michelli's Blog	http://www.josephmichelli.com/blog
Veronika Miller	Modenus Blog	http://www.modenus.com/blog
Arpi Nalbandian	Tile Magazine Editors' Blog	http://www.tile magonline.com/Articles/Blog_Nalbandian
David Polinchock	Polinchock's Ponderings	http://blog.polinchock.com/
Professor Toilet	American Standard's Professor Toilet	http://www.professortoilet.com
David Reich	my 2 cents	http://reichcomm.typepad.com
Victoria Redshaw & Shelley Pond	Scarlet Opus Trends Blog	http://www.trendsblog.co.uk
Sandy Renshaw	Purple Wren	http://www.PurpleWren.com
Bethany Richmond	Carpet and Rug Institute Blog	http://www.carpet-and-r ug-institute-blog.com/
Bruce D. Sanders	RIMtailing	http://www.rimtailing.blogspot.co m
Paige Smith	Neuse Tile Service blog	http://neusetile.wordpress.com/
Stephanie Weaver	Experienceology	http://experienceology.blogspot. com/
Christine B. Whittemore	Content Talks Business Blog	http://sim plemarketingnow.com/content-talks-business-blog/
Christine B. Whittemore	Smoke Rise & Kinnelon Blog	http://smokerise-nj.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	Simple Marketing Blog	http://www.simplemarketingblog.co m/
Ted Whittemore	Working Computers	http://www.kinneloncomputers.com/
Chris Woelfel	Artcraft Granite, Marble & Tile Co.	http://www.artcraftgmt.com
Patty Woodland	Broken Teepee	http://www.brokenteepee.com/
Denise Lee Yohn	brand as business bites	http://deniseleeyohn.com/best-bit es

Steve Jobs: Failure to conform

30 years ago, I was cutting and splicing 16 mm film by hand wearing white gloves. The process was called "conforming." You had to cut the original negative, and if you got a fingerprint on it, it's ruined.

You have a print made of the original, called the work print, and you edit the film, cutting each section, taping it together, running it by hand through a reel-to-reel setup. Once you're happy with your work print, you conform the original film to it. It's an expensive and enormously time-consuming process. At that time, making a film cost, at a minimum, $10,000 a minute.

The whole class would be laboring on their films, disappearing into tiny, hot, dark rooms to work. We'd come out for air, light, coffee, and ask each other, "Are you finished? Have you conformed?"

I didn't end up working in the film industry. But I made this film in iMovie on my MacBook Pro. In about 30 minutes.

I talk to a loved one almost every night through iChat.

I shot this time-lapse sunset on a beach in Hawai'i on my iPad.

I edited this podcast in Garageband. It's available on iTunes.

The iPhone I carry in my back pocket is more powerful than all the computers I used from 1984 through 2010. Together. (Okay, I made that up. But it's probably true.)

Thank you Steve Jobs, for not conforming.

The Verizon iPhone customer experience

I waited until the iPhone was available from Verizon, and was impressed with the step-by-step instructions I got all along the way, from a "here's what to expect" guide, to shipping updates, to follow-up afterwards.

I would love to see museums adding this level of welcome to membership programs.

Storie Shop in Paris: The ideal retail experience

Yes, that's a strong statement. And of course, it wouldn't be everyone's ideal retail experience. But let me tell you why I loved this shop so much (and spent so much money in it).

 Lovely signage and appealing merchandise, things I had never seen anywhere else, led me in. It turned out that the shop had just opened that weekend, and the owner was still setting up, waiting for merchandise, and figuring things out. We didn't care, returning three times before we found them open.

 She has an innate knack for display, using found objects in a truly creative way.

 I loved how the objects were juxtaposed in seemingly random ways. For me, it worked.

 I loved the little stories she wrote on each tag.

If you're in Paris, you don't want to miss this store! It's near Blvd. Montparnasse in the 6th, about 2 blocks from the Vavin station (Métro line #4), 20 Rue Delambre.