Recently my colleague Phil Kropp and I had to go to Madrid for delivering an Idea Champion Training to a group of Idea Challenge Experts at a multinational company. You will be hearing more about this project soon, but that’s not what this blog post is about.
I loved the fact that summer in Madrid apparently lasts till November. Clear sunny skies and 20ºC! But that’s besides the point as well.
What I would like to share with you is something that struck us while getting ready for the flight back from Barajas to Amsterdam. We decided to have a quick snack and we found a small airport restaurant (if you could call it a restaurant). Nothing fancy, but the nice thing was: they did have an old fashioned suggestion box! Or “sugerencias”, as this is the Spanish word for suggestions.
“That’s interesting!”
Naturally, this sparked our professional interest: Does such a small, no frills airport restaurant need a suggestion box? Apparently they think they do, and I think it’s a good thing they have it. I don’t imagine they get many ideas in (or maybe they do), but just having it there indicates that they at least give their customers the opportunity to voice their ideas.
However, when i got up to take a picture (using my iPhone, so it’s not really sharp), I noticed that the suggestion box was positioned next to the rubbish bin! This triggered a sense of: “I wonder what happens to my suggestions after I put them in the box…”
A simple tip…
…if you’re (still) using an old fashioned suggestion box: Don’t put your suggestion box next to the rubbish bin!
