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by: Guy Kawasaki
Due to the overwhelming response to my article about bozosity, I've created the GBAT (Guy's Bozofication Aptitude Test). It is a compilation of the best indicators of whether a company is sliding into bozosity. I've included the names of the people who came up with some of these ideas. In some cases, I took their idea and altered it for my use.
by: Guy Kawasaki
Click here to see an online version of my speech, The Art of the Innovation. I made this speech on January 24th, 2006 at the Tech Coast Angels “Fast Pitch Competition” at UCLA. It is based on The Art of the Start.
by: Ilya Vedrashko
Alpha Mediaworks uses game-like virtual environments to model and demonstrate effectiveness of outdoor advertising campaigns.
Continue reading "Game-like 3D Environment for Modeling Outdoor Campaigns" »
by: Karl Long
A nice little article from the “Association of Computing Machinery” proposes features don’t matter any more and pro-ports “welcome to the age of user experience.”
by: David Polinchock
A great example of what we discussed in our recent piece at the Retail Design Dive on The Socialization of Real Estate. Interesting comments from the experts and I think that I would agree with some of the overall tone of their comments. Still a little too focused on selling music instead of creating an experience around music. The coffee shop is a great idea -- it should become a destination for more then just purchasing music and music memorabilia. It should be a place for music aficionado's to come and talk music, maybe even share music. Could be the start of something pretty wild! But, they need to step back from needing to be about selling music directly. We’ll try to follow this and see what happens.
Continue reading "Luring MP3ers Back to the Mall - January 01, 2006" »
by: Chris Lawer
Following my talk at LIFT06, I have been thinking a lot about how to build up a simplified logic for explaining co-creation, as distinct from open-source product innovation (von Hippel etc).
by: David Polinchock
I talk about this example in our presentations about the power of the consumer in being vocal about the experiences they're having, rather then just passively accepting them as they have in the past. I gotta' tell you, you should read through the whole story -- if it's all true, it is pretty scary!
by: Roger Dooley
For decades, if not centuries, product sellers have understood the importance of creating the right expectation in the customer’s mind if one hopes to have the product accepted and liked. Long before neuromarketing was in our vocabulary, ad execs were selling the “sizzle” instead of the steak. That’s not to say that product characteristics and quality are irrelevant - a tough steak is still a tough steak - but that, within some range of performance, taste, or other quality measure, a customer’s perception of the product will be influenced by what he or she knows or has heard about the product. Now, neuroscientists are providing proof of this doctrine with brain scan data.
by: Ilya Vedrashko
New World Notes wrote in December about Global Travel International, a real-world travel agency that set up an office in Second Life to help people plan their vacations and trips from within the game.
Continue reading "Second Life: Virtual Offices of Real Businesses" »
by: Guy Kawasaki
It's depressing to watch a mean, lean, fighting machine of a company deteriorate into mediocracy. In Silicon Valley we call this process the “bozo explosion.” This downward slide seems inevitable after a company achieves success--often during the years immediately following an IPO. The purpose of this article is to prevent, or at least postpone, this process in your company.
by: danah boyd
When American called me up to tell me i'd made Gold, i groaned. It was official - i spend too much time in airports. This is of course magnified by the fact that i spend too much time praying that the person sitting next to me is at least relatively sane, doesn't smell too badly, isn't carrying some sneezable illness and doesn't cry during takeoff.
by: Chris Lawer
Jim Maxmin and Shosanna Zuboff argue in The Support Economy that managerial capitalism has reached the end of its adaptive life.
by: Ilya Vedrashko
Usability specialist Jacob Nielsen predicts that "liberation from search engines will be one of the biggest strategic issues for websites marketers in the coming years." He writes that as the cost of search ads go up, marketers will increasingly rely on email newsletters, request marketing, RSS feeds and mobile features.
Original Post: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2006/02/marketers-to-turn-away-from-search.html
by: David Armano
Mappr is a neat little app that pulls photos from Flickr and displays them visually according to a Map of North America. You can broaden the number of photos you see and control the size. It's all wrapped up together in a nice pageless interface. Worth playing around with.
Original Post: http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2006/02/mappr.html
by: David Armano
The Illinois Institute of Technology is hosting a two day conference, titled Strategy 06. Here is the description:
by: Jennifer Rice
OK... after 2 computer crashes, a new computer and a trip to San Fran, I'm back in business. I've been reviewing the 8 basic human needs in Maslow's Hierarchy and discussing the implications for branding. First came Security and Connection, then Esteem. Now we're on to a need that's currently not in the hierarchy but I think it's crucial: Control.
by: Ilya Vedrashko
Dwellget (located on the Taco sim) is a Second Life store with some of the most realistic layout and merchandising. There is a strong apparent reference to the real-world Target. Just as in real life, it is important to lay out your store in a way that enhances customer experience and maximizes profits. One added dimension to merchandising in SL is the issue of usability, since an SL store combines the visual metaphors of a RL brick store with the mechanics of online shopping. Here are some of the constraints that can inhibit the shopping experience:
by: Alain Thys
One of the biggest reasons why broadcasters don't throw all of the programming they buy online, is the complaint that producers don't allow the use of their content unless the broadcaster can guarantee that the programme is only watched in it's designated territory. This cannot be done on the internet. Or can it ?
Continue reading "How European Commercial Broadcasters can Still Beat GoogleWood" »
by: Alain Thys
This is the first of a few blogposts in which I intend to focus on broadcasting and the internet. They will be short posts as I don't want to rehash the usual stories, yet try and raise a few questions that haven't yet been covered elsewhere. In the end, I'll probably bundle it in a report (if you want a copy, drop me a note).
Continue reading "Commercial Broadcasters and the Internet: A Series of Posts" »
by: Joel Makower
News, new resources, and other noteworthy items on sustainable business, clean technology, and related topics seem to be crossing my desk -- and my desktop -- at an accelerating pace. Herewith is the first in an irregular series of quick takes on items worth passing on:
by: danah boyd
Today, i did my first proper presentation of the data i've been collecting on MySpace. "Identity Production in a Networked Culture" looks at how youth use MySpace for socialization, identity production, and hanging out.
by: David Jennings
Is it just me or are all the bubbles in the podcasting lather turning into a thin layer of slightly manky detergent on the surface of internet pond life?
by: Guy Kawasaki
Blogging has flipped traditional PR on its head. It used to be that ink begat buzz. Life was simple then: you sucked up to the Wall Street Journal, one of its reporters wrote about your product, and the buzz began.
by: danah boyd
Bradley Horowitz (one of my bosses over at Yahoo!) has the most interesting things to say about the emergence of social technologies. Because we felt as though he should share this brilliance, Jeremy and i have been on his case to blog for quite some time. Now he's gone and done it! Yay!!
by: Roger Dooley
Shortly after the big game (and big advertising extravaganza), we reported on some interesting, if not highly scientific, research in Super Bowl Ads Meet Brain Scans. The experiment, in which neuroscientists measured brain activity using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) equipment is described in detail in an article by researcher Marco Iacoboni: Who Really Won the Superbowl? Some bloggers found the experiment of dubious value. Sandra of the Neurofuture blog sums up some of the questions. Vaughan of the MindHacks blog is also skeptical, noting
Continue reading "Super Bowl Ads: GoDaddy Girl 1, Neuroscientist 0" »
by: David Armano
Seth Godin is known for many things—but his true gift is articulating thoughts in a clear and simplistic way. That's why Flipping the Funnel Download flippingfunnelPRO.pdf —is such a rewarding read.
by: Joel Makower
The Palo Alto Research Center, the storied Xerox subsidiary responsible for many of the computer world's breakthrough technologies, is making a move into clean technology and sustainable products and services. It's a watershed moment of sorts: the birthplace of today's user-friendly computing wants to be the birthplace of tomorrow's clean and green innovations.
Continue reading "Xerox PARC Takes on Clean, Green Technology" »
by: David Armano
Interesting article that covers some relatively new thinking that the business world is embracing.
Somewhere after 8:40pm on Dec 1st 2005, Cory Arcangel committed Friendster Suicide.
by: David Armano
Experience is becoming one of those words that serves as a catch-all for for anything that pushes execution past mediocrity. However, there's "Experience" and then there's an "Experience". So what's the difference? Simply put, an "Experience" earns the label only when it exceeds an individual's expectations at both the rational and emotional levels. In the case of products and any area where interactivity is involved, an Experience can be achieved when it displays exceedingly high marks in the areas of usefulness, usability, and desirability. Need an example? See Experience Marriot. Nuff Said.
Original Post: http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2006/02/experience_marr.html
by: Guy Kawasaki
I admit it: I’m a user-group junkie. I got my first taste of user groups when I worked for Apple—speaking at their meetings was one of my great pleasures. Their members were unpaid, raging, inexorable thunderlizard evangelists for Macintosh and Apple II.
by: David Armano
There's a new breed of "commerce" sites out there (more like shopping experiences that mimic the real world). Kobalt Shop is one of them. It's in the same genre as Shop Composition. Essentially, what these sites do is elevate online shopping closer to what people experience offline. There is a de-emphasis of page-by-page interactions (imagine if your checkout clerk paused several times for 2-3 seconds during your checkout). Fluidity and a natural flow replace unnatural page loads. Stay tuned, there will be more examples of this coming soon to a browser near you.
Original Post: http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2006/02/kobalt_shop.html
by: Ilya Vedraschko Ads in books - not just for Russians anymore. Info Today writes today: "Citing the desire to create new revenue streams for authors, mega-publisher HarperCollins has announced the first free Web-based, ad-supported, full-text business book.
by: David Armano
Lazlo Systems has teamed up with Amazon to prototype this music browsing/shopping experience.
by: Joel Makower
An upcoming series of academic conferences will attempt to explore whether and how nanotechnology can address the principles of green chemistry and green engineering.
It should be interesting: When it comes to the environment, nanotechnology is no small matter.
by: Yann Gourvennec
I caught a glimpse of a very interesting post on CNET entitled “Expresscameras.com - Still dirtbags” today.
Continue reading "Unhappy Customers Voicing Their Claims Online" »
by: Yann Gourvennec
BPS Research published a paper on February 3rd, 2006 entitled “Why do we still believe in group brainstorming?“.
by: Jennifer Rice
Yesterday we looked at Security and Connection, the two most foundational needs (above basic survival) on Maslow's Hierarchy. I was planning to focus on another two today, but this next need -- Esteem -- is rather juicy. I'll save the other ones for tomorrow.
by: Jennifer Rice
Remember back in your Psych 101 class when you learned about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? Bet you never expected to see it again in the business world, but... ta da! Here it is.
