Truly brilliant. So much fun. Homeplus, Tesco’s chain of grocery stores in South Korea, wallpapers a subway station with actual images from its store shelves. While consumers wait for their train to arrive, they can shop by capture the QR code for each item and adding it to a mobile shopping cart. Orders are placed on the spot, and are delivered after they arrive home. Consumers are the big winners here: After a long day, they get to look at a beautiful, expansive, mood-lifting wall of color instead of a grey wall. They re-capture other...

In years of road trips to Delaware, I have never waited in line at the sandwich counter at Wawa. Credit their ordering kiosks, which do a few things: First, the entire premise of the deli counter is a sandwich my way. I’m a “customizer.” I like that. Second, I don’t feel rushed in assembling the perfect sandwich. (My wife might feel otherwise as I deliberate but it’s a moment of time that I control completely, creating just what I want. That’s downright relaxing.) I am not hurried or pressured by someone be...

I was unnaturally attached to Commerce Bank (TD predecessor) and would start conversations with friends about banking just to plug the bank. It was the first bank in New York to open 7 days a week and have long hours. They gave out dog biscuits and offer dog water bowls in the lobby. They didn’t have giant walls of Plexiglas separating me from the tellers (in my mind I live in a small town—but unfortunately they’ve been held up more than any other bank in NY). They had Penny Lane!—a free way to turn loose change into cash bills...

I don’t get to play with too many enormous touch screen displays, so the NYC official tourist office grabbed my attention as I walked by on 7th Ave the other day (between 52nd and 53rd). A typical tourism office has walls of brochures. (Fun!) But this tourist office brings the city’s options to life with a fun process that starts with grabbing a hockey puck (a little orange disk) and ends with a video display of your selected spots to visit in NYC. I can’t assess the utility of the service precisely—I’m not really the ...