E-Eyes for christmas

Just recently, as a result of work I was doing with a number of clients, I created something called the E-Eyes concept.

A similar product is already in existence but currently only available to the larger blue chip organisations who can afford it. Large consultancy groups do this on a larger scale.

In essence, it is a way of looking at a business and seeing a ‘fit’ with e-commerce and web based structure.

The biggest stumbling block for most companies is to be able to see their own business from an alternative perspective.

As I write this article, Christmas is approaching faster than I would like and I got to thinking how Christmas could be viewed with E-Eyes.

Bearing in mind that Christmas is a religious holiday and not wanting to offend the politically correct – I feel it more pertinent to concentrate on the ‘spirit of Christmas’ rather than the religious connotations.

The prospect of a free product delivery service, by its own design, is going to be fraught with problems. Not least of which the careful planning that would have to be applied to the logistics of delivering free products all over the world. It is hard enough getting around the M25 at Christmas let alone from Sydney to Reykjavik.

The first step is to analyse the demand –

Market researchers up and down the country would be asking children “would you like to receive an Elf Made toy for free once a year?” Apart from the traditional “what’s the catch?” response, I think we safely assume demand would exist for the service.

Once demand is established, we would have to look at the process for delivery.

Now as you know, there is a clearly defined qualifier for receiving the service. If you have been naughty at any time throughout the year, you do not qualify for the free toy. I myself, having been the recipient of two ‘Naughty Notice’s’ wrapped around a lump of coal instead of presents, can testify as to the pain and distress that this can cause. Especially when you don’t have a coal fire.

But what concerned me was how did Santa find out about my indiscretions until I realised that my parents themselves must have ‘dobbed’ me in!

So when applied to an E-Eyes solution we can see that the use of internet presence would be ideal. Parents can register details of naughtiness online at anytime throughout the year without having to remember at the last minute at the beginning of December.

It may be that some kind of Ebay feedback system could be utilised, where the children may have some way of responding, ‘It wasn’t me!’, ‘she made me do it!’, ‘It just fell out of my hands!’, ‘A giant bird flew down and made me eat it!’ etc.

The system can also be used for Christmas requests. Instead of letters you can now send emails to the north pole. But what about all that spamming? Now, with a Christmas web solution, it would be better to have an online form, maybe with drop down lists for present choices.

As we know Santa gets more than a little distressed seeing requests from children for ‘Aston Martin’s’,  ‘Deluxe Video/DVD recorders’, ‘Motor Bikes’, and ‘Claudia Schiffer’. Obviously he is used to receiving such requests from the adults, but the kids should be presented with the more realistic choices in a drop down list: ‘Wooden Train’, ‘New school uniform’, ‘Side of ham’ etc.

This will remove any of the disappointment that is traditional on Christmas morning.

Of course there would have to be some project management systems built in to ensure that Elf manufacture is properly structured to meet the individual demands without too much wastage. After all, you don’t want to be saddled with 2,000 green wooden trains on the 26^th December.

Visits to Santa’s Grottos would also be easier through an E-Eyes solution. Rather than have to queue for hours waiting to see Santa in the local department store, you could book a webcast. With the provision of broadband to so many homes now, it would be a simple matter to arrange Santa video conferencing and tick all the boxes at the same time.

Santa could, for instance, schedule a webcast with all children with the first name of Derek. The greeting ‘Ho ho ho, helloooo Derek, have you been a good boy this year?’ Provides the personal service while saving valuable time for Santa. 3,000 children seen in one hit, all receiving a wonderful personal experience.

A website is also an amazing information resource and information today is an incredibly valuable commodity. The service could provide carols for downloading onto ipods. Or you could stream music directly to your home computer to get into the festive mood. Then expand the service by providing music sheets, lyrics and a karaoke service for the whole family to stand around the computer for a sing song.

What about all the recipes, Christmas cake, plum pudding, roast turkey and mince pies? Recipes delivered by Jamie Oliver or Anthony Worrell Thompson, Roast Turkey basted in traditional goose fat, with a cranberry jus.

Once all the information is collated of course there will have to be quality control considerations. Each list has to be checked twice. So why not export the information onto an Excel spreadsheet and employ an macro formula to do it for you.

Even with 4 billion children it will only take a couple of hours with a decent computer. Surely that must save huge amounts of time.

The E-Eyes then look at tracking systems from initial request to Elf to Reindeer. We did consider using more traditional methods of delivery to improve organisational behaviour, but it turns out that none of the national or international carriers deliver at midnight on 24^th December.

So we are back to the reindeer.

In order to ensure prime productivity we have, of course, included a simple back end database and labelling facility to make Santa’s job easier. After all you don’t want to deliver a School uniform when the child definitely asked for Ham.

And there we have it, a website solution that meets the needs of the user and the company. Simply put, E-Eyes has the capacity to review what is needed and develop a solution that satisfies both parties.

I suspect I shall be receiving another lump of coal this year!