Posted on 04/17/2006 7:13:16 AM PDT by Panerai
Apple's corporate policy for dealing with unsolicited ideas may be changing. The company held a special meeting to discuss ways to improve its cold-hearted, boiler-plate response to any unsolicited improvements or suggestions submitted to the company, after it found out that it shattered a nine-year girl's heart. According to CBS 5 News, 9-year-old Shea O'Gorman wrote to Apple CEO Steve Jobs as her class was learning about writing business and formal letters. The third-grader wrote Jobs to offer suggestions on improving her iPod nano, such as adding song lyrics so listeners can sing along to their tunes. Although it took three months, the company finally responded to her letter--although it was not what O'Gorman and her family were expecting. Instead of a polite response from Jobs, the girl received a cold, stern letter from Apple's legal counsel telling her that the company didn't accept unsolicited ideas and that she should not send any suggestions to the company.
Apple's full legal policy, designed to protect itself from protracted legal battles about royalties and licensing from submitted ideas, was available online, according to the letter received and read by both O'Gorman and her family.
"She was very upset, and kinda threw the letter up in the air and ran in her room and slammed her door," the girl's mother told CBS 5 News.
Although Apple declined to comment on the story, a company representative reportedly called the girl to offer an apology (following an inquiry by CBS 5 News); in addition, the report says that Apple held a special meeting last week to discuss ways in which it could improve its corporate policy when dealing with children.
Your disdain for human nature is certainly justified.
I'm not so sure that we would want some of the lyrics to today's songs (especially Rap music) made available to a nine year old.
The kid has an excellent idea, if her parents are smart they'd find a patent attorney.
Unless the family does something stupid like call the lawyers, Apple should just ship her a new iPod and credit for a thousand songs on iTunes, along with a letter for the parents to sign handing over all rights to their daughter's suggestion to Apple.
It's good PR damage control, and Apple's covered.
Giving free stuff for PR is standard for companies -- loyalty is everything. I got some gunk in my cereal once that almost made me throw up (total gross-out, like chewing a spider web or something) and wrote the company a polite letter asking what it was. I got a response saying it was a manufacturing mistake (platic fibers from the bag sealing process got in the bag), and I was in free cereal for a while.
She's lucky they didn't tell their record industry buddies that she liked mp3s so they could send her a $3,000 extortion demand.
I never got to go to "Bozo the Clown show" on Chicago television when I was kid. Tickets were impossible to get. My life is also shattered. Anybody know a good lawyer?
The one where the company wasn't afraid of getting sued. That said, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for American Airlines since they sent a commercial airline pilot for an entire day for my seventh grade career day, and he brought a load of freebie materials with him.
The girl ought to try sending a similar suggestion to some of the Japanese electronic companies and see what kind of response is engendered.
I have to disagree. I've been using mine heavily in weight-loss turned marathon training. Really a great product for that.
I don't particularly care if the girls "feelings" were hurt, but the policy is pretty stupid. Apple doesn't want suggestions by its customers on how to make its product better? What an idiotic corporate policy!
Apple may need to fire some PR staff. . .
I think the little girl had a good idea.
I think the brain dead morons who sent that boiler plate should be fired and forced to pay the 10 zillion dollars Apple's goodwill column lost by the incredibly bad publicity generated by this really embarrassing display of stupidity.
That was a proper response.
Years ago, cough, cough, as part of a Biology project I created, I wrote that guy who hosted "Wild Kingdom." He was in the Himalayas hunting the abominable snowman. In my letter, I requested a complete report on his expedition...HA !!
A few weeks later I received this huge "Yeti" package, with maps, photos of the Hairy one's footprint which I immediately copied in a cast plaster mold to receive an grade "A" .
Someone took the time to do all that for me....And look how I turned out?
"The kid has an excellent idea, if her parents are smart they'd find a patent attorney."
LOL - sure, then she can be named also as a defendant when the original holder(s) of the karaoke patents sue Apple -
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/search.pl?p=1&srch=xprtsrch&sf=1&query=karaoke&uspat=on&date_range=all&stemming=off&sort=relevance
Good for you. Actually, it's amazing what a lot of folks will do to answer a well-written letter from a well-meaning kid.
This is what happens when lawyers run a company.
Apple will have no clue as to how many potential and existing customers it lost because this boneheaded incident was publicized.
I would never do business with Apple, for this reason alone. They seem to be clueless about customer relations.
This is just about the dumbest thing I've read all year.
If taking a nine year old down a notch or two is your idea of a proper response, I pray you have no offspring.
While this is true, the negative impact of this episode has already been felt by Apple, which is changing the way it responds to unsolicited suggestions.
If nothing else, this nine year old got a major corporation to be aware that negative customer experiences tend to find their way into the public consciousness and have the potential to be ruinous.
Her idea was pretty good, but she's going to have to grow tougher skin if she wants to succeed in the business world.
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