Japan’s Smile Scanners a Classic Misuse of Technology

As pointed out on the Freakonomics Blog:

Japan’s Keihin Express Railway Co. has set up “smile scanners” at 15 of its stations, where railway employees have their smiles assessed by software in the hopes of perfecting a customer-friendly look.       LINK

This is such a classic misuse of technology by a corporation.  The goal of the company is to provide more positive and friendly customer service but their technique of using a “smile scanner” is going to have the opposite effect.  Nobody likes to be forced into happiness and the employees will end up resenting the scanners, their bosses for making them use the scanners and the customers for expecting them to smile.

Instead, a smart company would try to figure out how to make their employees genuinely happy so that they smile because they want to smile.  This would create endless positive outcomes for the company, the employees and the customers.

Sometimes technology can look like it provides a quick fix when, in fact, it is just an illusion.

There’s Still Life in Second Life

One of Second Life’s blogs, New World Notes, has a look at an in-world campaign for L’Oreal Paris.

“…without much fanfare, cosmetics giant L’Oreal Paris had become part of the Greenies universe, and a client of Rezzable.  You only realize this after hovering down to a house-sized lady’s purse, and discovering copies of virtual L’Oreal products waiting there for you to grab.  Since joining Greenies in late December, Rimbaud says Greenies visitors have claimed thousands of these– an impressive clickthrough rate, so to speak.”

Even better, the firm that I guess created the campaign has posted little look at what they actually did and why they did it.

“On an overall basis, we’ve managed to leverage the brand equity of L’Oreal Paris in a subtle yet effective way, with a ‘pull’ mechanic as opposed to ‘pushing’ the product or messaging to residents. And thinking more holistically, do people (residents) want to experience branded environments (islands) from real-world brands or do they want products and services that they can actually use and enjoy?”

I know everyone likes to talk about how Second Life doesn’t work, but these sorts of stories give me hope.