I had a rather interesting customer service experience recently that really made my jaw drop. I received an invoice from the accounting firm I had used last year to prepare my taxes. They had thoughtfully filed 2009 tax extensions on my behalf and had kindly charged me $41 for the service. I was bit puzzled by this, as I had prepared and filed my taxes back in February on my own and I had no contact with the accounting firm since last year. So, naturally I called their office and spoke with a kind but rather befuddled staff member.

Dole Salad ScaleWhy am I writing about pre-packaged supermarket salad mixes? Because Dole is doing something profoundly simple yet highly effective. As part of their package redesign launched last year, Dole salads now include a "Taste" and "Texture" scale on the front of each bag.

Last night I saw a commercial for the iPhone that showed the user on his phone call while launching the maps application. I believe that this ad is a direct response to competitor devices that call the iPhone out for not supporting multitasking.