Take a look at www.ikarma.com.

In particular, look at their Terms of Service.

Does anyone else think this is a bit extreme?

4. Violations.
In addition to any and all remedies at law or in equity, any intentional violation of the Terms shall give iKarma the right to immediately suspend or cancel Services or Accounts without further liability. Furthermore, User specifically agrees that any intentional violation shall result in immediate liability for liquidated damages in the amount of Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00) for breach of contract.

I mean, geeze guys, you’re still in beta for crying out loud. Do you think this is welcoming to new users?

Their service looks interesting, and they have a really neat graphical network view. But I can’t see taking on a potential $10k liability to sign up for eanyone’s product. I don’t care what it is.

What do you think?

Seth Godin recently posted about uniforms, and the image they present to customers and others. He asks why normal companies don’t have the office folks wear them, and talks about a secret project to begin doing just that at his own company.

As it happens, at my company we’ve been wearing uniforms for more than a decade.

One of the many things that makes QuadGraphics and their subsidiaries stand out from other companies is that we wear uniforms to work. The “Quad Blues”, as they’re often called, are your typical uniform of indestructible polyester, dark blue pants and shirt, logo on the shoulder, with our name on the right side of our chest. Everyone, from the Quadraccis on down wears them.

The pros are easy: Everyone’s dressed alike, so it’s much easier to see everyone as peers which breaks down barriers. It’s also very inexpensive, as the uniforms are a lot less expensive than suits or business casual wear. There’s no choosing what to wear in the morning. Security is a little easier – walk-ins really stand out. So do customers and VIPs. It’s both impressive and imposing to outsiders walking through.

The cons are fairly minor: Folks stop you in the store to ask where things are. It’s pretty intimidating when you’re a new employee, not having a uniform to wear, and you can’t hide your identity ;-) I remember the first time I walked in for an interview,  and saw a whole roomful of uniformed people. I swear they were sitting at perfect attention, and I thought to myself “I’ll never make it here – I’ll get canned for being late, or not sitting at attention for sure.” That was over nine years ago.

A while ago we started having Kaizen events as a way of propelling change throughout the organization. There was a strong desire to make participation in those events something to be proud of, so Kaizen participants are given orange (ok, “melon”) colored polo shirts, embroidered with our names, and some info about the Kaizen event. Those shirts can be worn in place of a regular uniform shirt, and are they are to be worn on Fridays when Kaizen teams are giving presentations.

The intent was to make Kaizen participants stand out, and to slowly see the company transform from blue to orange (I mean, melon) on Fridays as more and more employees become involved. It’s working, except for a few people like me – the melon shirts lack pockets, and I’m dead without my PDA 8–) It’s a strange sight because the blue and orange are so striking. Like the Fighting Illini have come to roost.

Overall, they are a good thing and more businesses should consider them.

But, does it help tell the story? Yes, I think it does.

We had to take our daughter in to day care for the first time today. While the place we chose is a nice facility, when it’s your child you’re leaving behind even Mother Theresa is suspect. Your eye catches all kinds of things that are wrong - a small stain in the carpet simply must be blood from some horrible accident, a dingin a piece of furniture is clearly the result of some wild child running amok, and didn’t that other kid have a bit of blood lust in his eye?

You do it because you have to, and you leave the kid behind. My wife bawled, I nearly did.

So off to work, grateful for a few jerks in traffic to provide a distraction. Later Susan calls, all weepy, with the news that the day care folks called and the baby’s fine.

Much later, she calls again all weepy, after picking our daughter up. Everything’s fine. Better than fine - the women from the center got together and made our daughter Ginny a scrapbook of her first day. They took digital photos, and one of the women apparently went out on her lunch break and got them printed. It was a simple construction-paper affair, but it couldn’t have had greater effect if all the scrap-bookers in Utah had banded together. Susan, who’s also a scrap-booker, was overwhelmed and overjoyed. Here was all the proof she needed that her daughter hadn’t been neglected, and hadn’t spent the day crying in a corner, or miserable in a wet diaper.

I believe it was the act of several caring women who knew the pain my wife was feeling, and wanted her to feel better and I’m grateful for it.

It was also an act of pure marketing genius.