Couple’s campaign for blind cord safety

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A couple from Gloucestershire whose baby daughter died after becoming trapped in the cord of a window blind have started a campaign to get certain types of cord banned in the UK.

Amanda O’Halloran and Chris Parslow believe that safety measures do not go far enough after their 17-month-old, Sophia, died in June.

The British Blinds and Shutter Association has its own awareness campaign, called Make It Safe, and says it is fully committed, along with its members, to help eliminate the risk associated with looped cords, chains and tapes used on window blinds.

Madeleine Ware reports.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24321541

http://www.makeitsafe.org.uk

Couple’s campaign for blind cord safety

A couple from Gloucestershire whose baby daughter died after becoming trapped in the cord of a window blind have started a campaign to get certain types of cord banned in the UK.

Amanda O’Halloran and Chris Parslow believe that safety measures do not go far enough after their 17-month-old, Sophia, died in June.

The British Blinds and Shutter Association has its own awareness campaign, called Make It Safe, and says it is fully committed, along with its members, to help eliminate the risk associated with looped cords, chains and tapes used on window blinds.

Madeleine Ware reports.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24321541

Colour Bravery

colour bravery

 

What’s your favourite colour? Red, Green, Yellow? Each colour we hold dear could be said to represent something key about our personalities, Purple; Spiritual, Green; Balance, Red; Strength.

If you were asked the question; what’s your favourite colour regarding your interior? Would you be so forthcoming and daring?  Would White, Magnolia or Beige be the ‘safe choice’ amongst us? maybe so, but it can definitely be said that the times they are a changing.

It was just 10 odd years ago when the TV show ‘Changing Rooms’ rocked the nation when Anna Ryder Richardson painted a room red and the homeowner hated it.  Red, yes red, we muttered amongst ourselves on our coffee breaks.  To Anna’s defence it was the home-owners favourite colour but lifting that brush and painting that wall was just one envelope push too far.  So 10 years on, what has happened, are we more open, has the influx of interior and DIY programmes, magazines and all round acceptance of things just that little bit different made us slightly more cool as an nation or dare we say it more cosmopolitan in our mind-set?

Now for the science bit, it has been said that in design, colour is the most subjective area in decoration and no amount of research will predict how two different people will respond to the same shade. At the same time, almost any generalization you can make about a particular colour can be overturned in practice. However, one truism holds true for everyone, all of us are instinctively drawn to specific families of colours which repeatedly pop up in clothes, treasured pictures or possessions, and of course on the reverse, there are colours which we will absolutely detest.

Knowing personally what we like, now is the time to embrace and apply colour to our interiors, the once trickling filter from high-end designer to high-street has gathered momentum, we have a wealth of colour to choose from.  Just have a peek at a Dulux or Crown paint chart and feast at the choices they present us.  Have a meandering stroll around Next or M&S and indulge in the key colour accessories they have. Curtain fabrics, cushions, flooring, tiles, colour is everywhere and with web tutorials, interior magazines and stylist blogs to help us along the way, we can now make educated choices and tap into our own interior makeovers.

Bland beige should be banished, the colour revolution is now.  Add mood, zest and personality to your interior.  Colour should not scare but rather be embraced.

Now armed with this knowledge, bravely go forth and add COLOUR to your life.

BLINDS.COM CEO JAY STEINFELD TO SERVE AS KEYNOTE SPEAKER AT THE UNLEASHWD INNOVATION SUMMIT OCT. 29

Jay Steinfeld did not want to change the way people purchased blinds.

He had no passion for window coverings. He did not even have a business plan.

Wait, he had a plan–to succeed in business–just not a plan to sell more blinds, better and faster than before. That plan came later. When the CEO of Blinds.com, which will sell more than $100 million worth of blinds this year, started he was just a guy looking for work.

After losing his job, Steinfeld used his wife’s experience owing a blinds shop to enter into the window coverings business. Thinking he could succeed as a small business owner, Steinfeld opened his own shop. As soon it opened, Steinfeld defined himself as a success, even before the first customer placed an order.

Educated as an accountant, Steinfeld understands the numbers. The numbers, like the blinds are not his passion. Perfection is, even without achieving it.

“Experiment and experiment without fear of failure,” he says.

The process drives him. Make it better. Try something new. Improve and try again. Aiming for better rather that a strict margin of profit, Steinfeld saw his business grow by 30 percent in the last year. Neither his recent success nor the millions of dollars of blinds sold and hundreds of jobs created would have occurred without taking that first risk. After opening a retail blinds ship, Steinfeld soon took another.

Steinfeld launched Blinds.com in 1993 when O.J. Simpson was best known as a former running back. America Online was not a household name and the words “Internet” and “Domain Name” might as well have been in Klingon. For an investment of $1,500, Blinds.com started as an online newsletter of sorts, which was as just another of Steinfeld’s many experiments. The first incarnation of Blinds.com was a one-page piece of Internet real estate that served as an advertisement for Steinfeld’s blinds business.

Blinds.com folded out in steps, and the next was ecommerce. Steinfeld did not know that the Internet would become the INTERNET when he started. It was just an experiment. Building up an online presence was part luck, but it was mostly part of Steinfeld’s core value of always improving.

“We are really a direct marketing company not a blinds company,” Steinfeld says. “We keep testing how can we make this a little bit better. It’s like Thomas Edison experimenting with his filament.”

Being first on the scene provided Blinds.com with an advantage, but being the first online guaranteed nothing. Remember Pets.com? The pet supply retailer raised $300 million, purchased a commercial spot during the Super Bowl and enjoyed a sock puppet mascot so famous that it made an appearance on Good Morning America. Pets.com burned through that money fast and quickly went away.

Blinds.com arrived before an online audience existed. It was online before Google and Amazon. But it did not survive because of the luck and foresight of arriving first. It survived the dot.com bust because Steinfeld remained customer focused instead of chasing investor dollars. Steinfeld’s blinds business still had physical stores, and he slowly built his website’s offerings.

It wasn’t until 2001 that he went 100 percent online. It was another bold experiment, but it turned out to be the correct move. For Steinfeld, going exclusively to ecommerce meant the ongoing process of listening to the voice of the customer—people wanted to shop online more, but he also differentiated his business by striving to maintain the personal touch.

Steinfeld keeps a picture of a Good Humor Ice Cream Truck in his office, and it is not only because of his sweet tooth.

“So I ask you… are you taking time to ensure you and your business are like the ice cream man?” Steinfeld asked in a blog post. “How close are you to your customers? Do you know what’s selling, whether your customers are happy, and if not, then why not? Maybe it’s time to change into that white suit and hat.”

This approach has kept Steinfeld level-headed, hungry and perhaps even a tad bit insecure. Even as Blinds.com sold millions of dollars and then tens of millions of window coverings, Steinfeld fretted over the small things- the details that that his customers cared about. After his company sold more than $50 million in a year, he worried less about building a successful business.

“It became more along the lines of we are doing pretty well now, but how can we do better?” Steinfeld says. “I absolutely did not see this level of success it has been a metamorphoses to me. I had no vision.”

Yet, in his success he developed a vision for his own future. This includes helping his employees achieve their goals by maintaining one of the best places to work in the Houston. It will also explain why he will speak atUnleashWD.

About UnleashWD
UnleashWD is the only conference dedicated to bringing innovation to the wholesale distribution industry. UnleashWD features eighteen storytellers from outside the wholesale distribution industry. Modeled after TED’s short-session format, UnleashWD’s speakers share how to add business value through inspiring presentations on topics such as innovation, leadership, business model design, and corporate culture.

For the last twenty-five years, UnleashWD Founder Beveridge has worked with more than 3,000 firms as a leadership consultant, facilitating how wholesale distributors and manufacturers can increase market share through examining and improving their relationship with customers. For more information please visit: http://www.unleashwd.com.

Hunter Douglas to launch ‘green’ roller blinds

hunter douglasHunter Douglas, a Netherland-based manufacturer of window coverings, is set to launch the first sun control system made from recycled bottles.

The GreenScreen, a new innovation in the field of light and energy control, is expected to generate regional interest, said a statement.

The new collection is developed with sustainable materials. GreenScreen Eco consists of 100 per cent recyclable polyester fibres, while the GreenScreen Revive materials were produced from recycled plastic bottles.

André Weiss, who was responsible for the development of GreenScreen, said: “Every year, around 20 million sq m of used roller blind materials end up in the garbage. These materials often contain large amounts of PVC, so their potential impact on the environment is huge. GreenScreen is a sustainable alternative, thanks to the use of PVC-free and completely recyclable materials.”

The product line offers an affordable alternative to architects and interior designers in search of a sustainable, decorative sun control solution, he said.

“The thread that goes into this fabric is made from PVC-free, recycled plastic water and soft drink bottles. To do this, Hunter Douglas works with waste processing companies in Japan and Germany, where these products are commonly separated from the waste flow. Every square metre of material contains two half-litre bottles. That’s an average of six bottles for every roller blind,” Weiss added.

All of the GreenScreen product lines are compliant with the internationally recognised Greencode classification scheme for environmentally-friendly textiles. They also contribute to the LEED certification of buildings, said the statement.