The hanoi airport (HAN) needed a water fountain in the international terminal. This is the story of how it came to be.
First, an attentive employee "Bob" noticed that people often get thirsty and installing a water fountain would be a quick and simple way to get the water that already runs in the walls of the airport to the people that need it, a commercial quality water fountain costs less than $200 and installation can be done in 2 to 3 hours at a cost of about 2-300 dollars with plumbers licensed to work at the airport.
So Bob proposed the idea to his manager "Jim" who agreed it seemed to be a wonderfully simple and quick solution to the problem. However Jim had been at this much longer than Bob and he knew that there was no such thing as quick and easy.... ever. So jim thought he had better get the facilities committee involved. The idea of a water fountain was proposed to everyone in the monly committee meeting and the coversation went something like this
"okay team, this seems like a simple fix, so I will go ahead and ask a simple question, will people even know what it is is for?"
"What, do you mean we would have to put a sign on it?"
"If we put a sign on it what would it even say?"
"Well, since we aren't charging for it, I think we should let everyone know that it is free"
"Wouldn't people know that it is free when they see it there?"
"We can't really just have a sign that says water, I think it should say 'Free Water'. It is short and to the point, wait, where would we put the sign?"
"What if we put the water fountain in a cabinet and mounted the sign on the cabinet?"
"A cabinet sounds fine but is the sign going to be big enough to read?"
"We could make the cabinet wide enough that it will fit 5 to 9 cm tall letters. That sounds easy for such a small phrase as 'Free Water'"
"We need to have two languages right? What if the cabinet gets too wide with the translation?"
"We could just add counters to the side if it is wider than the sink part of the fountain"
"I don't want cluttered counters, I hate cluttered counters, I don't want anyone putting there luggage and stuff on the counters"
"let's just put a sticker telling people not to put luggage on the counters"
"Or trash or kids or anything else! AND we don't want people putting trash or anything in the sink either"
"We'll just put stickers on the counter for all of those things, I like the type with a red circle and a slash through the middle like the no smoking sign, people really understand they are not supposed to do something when they see those"
"I agree that people know what NOT to do when they see those signs, but perhaps we should tell them that we want them to just 'keep the area clean', you know, in addition to those cool red circle things"
"I would really like to have the uncluttered stickers on top of the counter ONLY. Perhaps we can fit a note on the front of the cabinet, the letters can be smaller since we are only worried about people that are close seeing this message."
"You know, I think we should change the word 'Water' to 'Drink' they can't really take the water with them without drinking it."
"What if they don't know how to get their free drink, we better put a small note on the cabinet about how to push the button for water"
"I think you mean 'Push the button to drink' and can we add an picture next to that note showing a person drinking?"
"Okay, what's next, what about kids? How tall is this going to be? I thinks adults will use it most"
"Yeah but we should add a step to the front so that kids can also use it"
"That means that the adults will have to bend over to drink from it, can we update the picture to show them bent over"
"Looks like we have come up with a plan in record time, great collaboration on this. Any other thoughts?"
"I think this fountain and the collaboration that went into this will be a great show piece for the airport, I think we can get someone to sponsor this"
"We have an extra TV perhaps we can make this sponsorship rotate and we can sell even more ads"
"This doesn't mean we have to rethink the signs does it?"
"No, I think we can find a way to have the sign makers build a sign which incorporates space for an ad TV.
"Sounds great, I think that settles it,I will write up a memo to let Bob know his idea has been approved with a couple of improvements."
Congrats HAN on a masterful drinking fountain
Great information! For everyone who need to know about price of Hanoi to airport, pls contact with GoAsiaDayTrip - the most trusted airport transfer and day tour company in Southeast Asia.
ReplyDelete