I have had a few interesting conversations with people over that last few months, and some interesting ideas happened because of them. Just thought I would share them because I would love to see them happen and am not in a spot where they apply right now. I will relate another one next week.

I was talking to a major Chicago retailer north of here on February 6 who has a truly elegant catalog site. A site which holds down about a fifth of their business. Which adds up to a couple of ducats. Assets are largely assembled in other departments, so the team is miniscule that produces this site. It is a very sophisticated site, most of the functionality of Targets’ very savvy site, but significantly better typography and use of space.

And that is great, it is a fine example of it’s kind, but the whole thing is basically pre-millennial. Lands End did this in 1997, minus a history of things browsed. So pretty in a cold dead way.

So I said what if... What if you could get people involved with the site? What if they could contribute to it in some way that would build a small bit of brand commitment? They don’t work for you; it has to be just above trivial to leave some record of your presence. If you ask them to write an operetta to your product you will get little response.

But this is a product based play. The artifacts are objects and this makes things much easier. What if users of the site and buyers of their products could upload pictures with a short caption of the objects in their homes. It is personal, it invests them, it shows individuality. Nuff said.