On this blog we assemble the world's sharpest minds in marketing and strategy innovation. People who spark exceptional insights in their field of expertise and inspire their readers to action.
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Contributing Blogs
June 30, 2007
Shiv Card
A few years ago, the American artists Tyler Jacobsen and Nathan Martin created the online application Barcode Generator that could be used to adjust the barcode on products in chain-stores (exemplified as Wal-Mart). The idea being that people should only pay what they felt was right, rather than paying the (over)price determined by the stores.
The 7 Basic Rules of Social Network Design for Marketers
by: Idris Mootee
With the rising popularity of social networks and user-driven online services McKinsey conducted a survey on how businesses are using web 2.0. Respondents show widespread but careful interest. Expressing satisfaction with their Internet investments so far, they say that Web 2.0 technologies are strategic and that they plan to increase these investments. However this is not going to be an easy one for these large corporations.Continue reading "The 7 Basic Rules of Social Network Design for Marketers" »
iBabble
by: David Armano
Laura Ries points us to an observation on the iPhone from non other than Jon Stewart. From her Origin of Brands blog:
June 29, 2007
The Future of Marketing - Part One
by: Idris Mootee
This is a presentation I often give to B-School students who are interested in marketing and advertising. It is a long one and so here's part one. Part two involves a group exercise to map out future scenarios of ad agencies and how they'll be transformed. I have four scenarios of "agencies of the future" and all require significant transformation.Nokia and Vodafone: Mobile Knowledge for Social Change
by: Dominic Basulto
One result of the popularity of Wikinomics has been the number of collaborative wikis that have been launched by organizations and corporations in order to share ideas around the world.
Continue reading "Nokia and Vodafone: Mobile Knowledge for Social Change" »
Thought of the Day
by: David Armano
"Design is so popular today mostly because business sees design as connecting it to the consumer populace in a deep, fundamental and honest way. An honest way. If you are in the myth-making business, you don’t need design. You need a great ad agency. But if you are in the authenticity and integrity business then you have to think design. If you are in the co-creation business today—and you’d better be in this age of social networking—then you have to think of design."
Original post: http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2007/06/thought-of-th-1.html
iWait - Genius Business Model
by: Karl Long
This is almost as good as bumvertising, but as I was perusing some people in line for an apple iphone at the local apple store I saw some people wearing t-shirts that said “iwait.org” on them. I asked a few folks where they got them and they said some guy came around handing them out for free.
Coca-Cola 2.0
by: C. Sven Johnson
I just got off the phone with Coca-Cola’s David Vanderpoel. You might recall his earlier comment regarding the Coca-Cola VirtualThirst campaign in Second Life that came as a result of my critique of the competition rules.
June 28, 2007
From Ideas to Strategy and Purpose
by: Idris
Mootee
A friend of mine called me a few days ago and wanted to talk about his new venture. I am happy for him. No question that it is a big decision in some ways for him. The question came up was "why", is it about money or is it about creating something. What is the strategy?
Coca-Cola Releases Trademark To Second Life Merchants?
by: C. Sven Johnson
Now here’s an interesting development. According to Second Life resident Vint Falken in a post today (Link - may be dead), the SL Exchange website claims that Coca-Cola is releasing their trademark for use by merchants inside Second Life.
Continue reading "Coca-Cola Releases Trademark To Second Life Merchants?" »
Ten Questions with Scott Berkun, Author of "The Myths of Innovation"
by: Guy Kawasaki
Scott Berkun worked on the Internet explorer team at Microsoft from 1994-1999. He is the author of a recently released book called The Myths of Innovation
In his most recent book he explores (or, more accurately, “explodes”) the romantic notions of how innovation occurs. Join me in this Q and A session as he explains the real world of innovation.
Continue reading "Ten Questions with Scott Berkun, Author of "The Myths of Innovation"" »
Building Trust: Chemical Neuromarketing
by: Roger Dooley
Much of what we write about here at Neuromarketing is research that helps explain behavior. In other words, the neuroscientists take known human behavior and use brain imaging or other tools to help understand why that occurs. Generally, magic “buy buttons” are out of the question. Some work performed by Paul Zak, director of the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies at Claremont Graduate University, and a team of Swiss researchers, suggests that some seemingly magical ways of influencing human behavior may yet be found.
Continue reading "Building Trust: Chemical Neuromarketing" »
June 27, 2007
Creative Collison - If Google Bought Adidas 2010
by: Idris Mootee
I received a
lot of emails with questions on the presentation I posted yesterday. They were
mostly asking about how industries converge and how creative destruction
happens. Not a simple question to answer but we all agree that "drawing of lines" between industry
boundaries is becoming ever more difficult (or even possible at all) in today's
disruptive technology-driven business climate.
Continue reading "Creative Collison - If Google Bought Adidas 2010" »
How to write an innovation cover story for a major business weekly
by: Dominic Basulto
Ok, so I admit it -- I picked up the latest issue of Business Week at the newsstand because I was seduced by the Children of the Web ("How Business is Cashing In on the Global Youth Culture") cover story.
Continue reading "How to write an innovation cover story for a major business weekly" »
Knowledge Access As a Public Good
by: Danah Boyd
Over at the Britannica Blog, Michael Gorman (the former president of the American Library Association) wrote a series of posts concerning web2.0. In short, he's against it and thinks everything to do with web2.0 and Wikipedia is bad bad bad. A handful of us were given access to the posts before they were posted and asked to craft responses. The respondents are scholars and thinkers and writers of all stripes (including my dear friend and fellow M2M blogger Clay Shirky). Because I addressed all of his arguments at once, my piece was held to be released in the final week of the public discussion. And that time is now. So enjoy!
Call Them Web Page Bling
by: Lynette Webb
I love this quote… not only does it so perfectly capture what they do, it also has the lovely juxtaposition of the term “widget” (which makes me think of very unsexy sprockets & spanners) and “bling”! It’s from a May 2007 Business Week article. www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2007/tc2007052...
June 26, 2007
Total Design
by: David Armano
Adam Greenfield recently penned an insightful writeup on thoughts around experience design, customer service, and the notion of control. If any of these topics are of interest—I would recommend reading the whole thing. As for this post—I'm going to reference some of my visuals as I think they may compliment some of Adam's thoughts (in quotes). Enjoy the mash up and be sure to read Adam's entire post for the full context.
CNN International: The future of virtual worlds
by: Dominic Basulto
As part of its innovation-themed Future Summit series, CNN International is running a special segment on the future of virtual worlds starting tomorrow: "CNN Future Summit: Virtual Worlds will premier on June 13th on CNN International. Originating from Singapore and Palo Alto, California, the program features creative visionaries and entrepreneurs leading us into a new age of creativity and imagination." (Hat tip: 3PointD.com)
Continue reading "CNN International: The future of virtual worlds" »
June 25, 2007
No Plan, No Capital, No Model...No Problem
by: Guy Kawasaki
Markus Frind, the founder of PlentyOfFish.com
is my new hero (James Hong of Hot or Not is a close second). Marcus spends about two hours a day in his underwear managing a free dating website that gets twelve billion page views a year. He is the only employee, and he only has one server. And by the way, he makes $5-6 million/year with Google ads.
Continue reading "No Plan, No Capital, No Model...No Problem" »
The power of "weak ties"
by: John Caddell
"Smart World," a fascinating new book by Richard Ogle, paints a carefully-wrought, exhaustive picture of how creative breakthroughs happen. The persistent myth of the solo inventor, toiling alone in her workshop, is forcefully put to rest. In vibrant examples such as Crick's and Watson's discovery of the structure of DNA, to Gutenberg's invention of movable-type printing, to architect Frank Gehry's reinvention of modern architecture via the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Ogle makes the case that true breakthroughs come from immersing oneself in the ideas of the day, drawing inspiration from fields near and far, and synthesizing something new from these.
BrandChannel.com are featuring Boomers
by: Dick Stroud
BrandChannel decided it was about time it did a feature on Boomers. If you know anything about the Boomer / 50-plus market you aren’t likely to learn very much. Lots of broad sweeping statements and the usual splattering of Boomer facts and examples.
Fashion and Innovation
by: Idris Mootee
I thought I might share this keynote presentation of mine (which is two years old) and many ideas that are mentioned in here are now coming to the market. I talked about how fashion meets technology.
Virtual worlds and the future of TV
by: Dominic Basulto
In the Sunday New York Times, Dave Itzkoff explains how and why TV networks and cable stations are experimenting with virtual worlds such as Second Life.
June 24, 2007
viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
by: Danah Boyd
Over the last six months, i've noticed an increasing number of press articles about how high school teens are leaving MySpace for Facebook. That's only partially true. There is indeed a change taking place, but it's not a shift so much as a fragmentation. Until recently, American teenagers were flocking to MySpace. The picture is now being blurred. Some teens are flocking to MySpace. And some teens are flocking to Facebook. Which go where gets kinda sticky, because it seems to primarily have to do with socio-economic class.
Continue reading "viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace" »
Game Developers chase Serious Games Business Models
by: Eliane Alhadeff
Via: Mass High tech News
The ideas for Serious Games technology -- from military simulation to personal health care -- are coming quickly for entrepreneurs, but establishing a business model is a different story.
Continue reading "Game Developers chase Serious Games Business Models" »
Serious Games: A Sizeable Market - Update
by: Eliane Alhadeff
In my previous post Serious Games, Serious Money: A Sizeable Market, dated March 12, 2007, I've tried to extrapolate a few "back of the envelope" figures for the actual size of the Serious Games market, departing from PricewaterhouseCoopers' media outlook report 2006 for the video game sector worldwide.
Continue reading "Serious Games: A Sizeable Market - Update" »
June 23, 2007
Social Networks Next Game
by: Idris Mootee
Continuing on looking at the development of social networks along its lifecycle, search is definitely the next thing that changes its very idea. Whether it's just a manual search (with automated grouping or member-recommended groupings) will depend on the concept models of how each of those social network sites. It's no question search will be the killer feature for social networking sites.June 22, 2007
The Exemplary Labrador Records
by: Nancy Baym
Absolut Noise has an interesting interview with Johan Andergård who works behind the scenes at Sweden’s Labrador Records, and is a musician in several Swedish indie bands including The Acid House King, The Legends, and (my favorite of the three) Club 8.
"Touch" is definitely the new paradigm
by: Dominic Basulto
It's not only innovative technology companies like Apple and Microsoft that are rolling out cool new touch screen applications. Ralph Lifschitz Ralph Lauren recently announced plans to roll out a touch screen application that completely re-defines what it means to do a little window-shopping.
June 21, 2007
Capturing the 'Clean Tech Revolution'
by: Joel Makower
The drumbeat of news stories, events, and other developments focusing on clean technology seems to gain strength every week. There are countless billions being invested each year in clean energy technologies, as well as technologies that more efficiently create clean water, advanced materials, or alternative transportation. The growing number of websites and magazines seem to capture pieces of the puzzle, but it's easy to miss the enormity of the clean-tech world.
Shaping Attitudes on Green
by: David Wigder
An interview with Brett Jenks, CEO, Rare Conservation
Large mammals the like polar bear have a special place in our hearts and our imagination. They make cute stuffed animals for our kids and capture our fascination when we see them at our zoos. Today, however, the ice caps are melting and the polar bears are drowning because the ice is thinning. It is a visible sign that our climate is changing for the worse, and makes for a macabre story.
June 20, 2007
ROI for Communities
By: Idris Mootee 
One big
challenge marketers face all the time is the ROI of developing online
communities or social networks. The question is what's in it for them as a
brand/company and this is always a little tricky. The second question is how
close/distant this community needs to be from the company site.
News at seven on Harry Potter
by: Yann Gourvennec
Newsatseven is a new service which compiles and delivers news to you, direct from the Web and automatically generates a youtube news show with an Avatar (named Alyx Vance).
June 19, 2007
Inside the Minds of Designers
Its amazing that the Moleskine has managed to brand and associate themselves with the great talents of our time. Don’t get me wrong as I think this is a good thing, but I wonder if this branding aspect has been taken too far. Maybe its just me, but I find that the Moleskine brand promise to be very bi-polar. On one hand the brand makes me feel superior because by using my moleskin I can be associated with such pedigree of talents. On the other hand, it makes me feel inferior as I feel that I should only use my moleskin if I am able or about to reproduce that next design classic, otherwise I should just stay away!
The Next Big (Small) Thing
by: Idris
Mootee
I often chat with my friend Scott Friedmann about radical ideas to reinvent industries and how we have no shortage of them. We talked about hundreds of ideas of reinventing the next Starbucks; the next Burger King; the next MTV and the next everything. The scary part is almost all of them are viable. That leads me to think where is the NEXT big idea that can drastically improve our way of life for the general mass??
Using a story to communicate to thousands
by: John Caddell
Even the most coherent, well-written memo (the Peanut Butter Manifesto or any of Bill Gates' company-wide missives notwithstanding) will impact a dozen or fewer people directly. But a story can reach thousands.
In the new book "x-teams," the authors relate a story of how a Microsoft marketing manager named Tammy Savage raised the entire company's awareness of a new generation of computer users she called Netgeners. And the most important tool she used was a story that described who these people were and how they were different from the customers Microsoft was accustomed to.
Continue reading "Using a story to communicate to thousands" »
'Climate Counts' Reveals Which Companies Are Walking the Walk
by: Joel Makower
At last, the climate revolution is getting -- well, consumer-friendly.
Today marks the launch of Climate Counts, a new nonprofit initiative to rate major consumer brands on their climate commitments and performance. The project, on whose board I sit, represents the first time big companies have been rated consistently on climate using a comprehensive, consistent, and credible set of metrics.
Continue reading "'Climate Counts' Reveals Which Companies Are Walking the Walk" »
Study: Taxes Aren’t Painful
by: Roger Dooley
Often, neuromarketing and neuroeconomic research seems to mostly confirm what we already knew, but a study at the University of Oregon produced results that are counter to what one might expect: rather than activating pain centers in the brain, paying taxes activates reward centers - the same areas of the brain that fire in response to food and social interaction.
June 18, 2007
Social Networks for Business
by: Idris Mootee
I was planning to compile a comprehensive list of social networking sites (complete with taxonomies) and it's quite the challenging task. I started with "business" related sites (see the list below) and soon I realized it would be hard to differentiate between a business social networking site and a business "who's who" search engine.
Building the Electron Economy Part V.2: Wind Power, Today and Tomorrow
by: Michael Hoexter
In this series on the electron economy, I’ve already reviewed some but not all of the issues related to building an electron economy, a clean energy economy that can be run using technologies available today, scaled to replace fossil fuels.
Continue reading "Building the Electron Economy Part V.2: Wind Power, Today and Tomorrow" »
"Touch" is the new paradigm
by: Dominic Basulto
Every now and then, there's a paradigm shift within an industry or field. Sometimes the change is subtle, other times, it is in-your-face obvious. The roll-out of the Microsoft Surface computer within months of the Apple iPhone launch signal a paradigm shift in the way that we interface with our digital devices.
Beware stereotyping
by: Dick Stroud
There is an article in the Telegraph about market segmentation from the viewpoint of a professor of psychology. It makes some good points and also illustrates a mega danger - stereotyping.
June 17, 2007
You Too, can Design a Better Mouse!
The Business Week design innovation section is fast becoming one of my favourite reads (Just ignore the blogs!). Recently they featured the strategic redesign of a computer mouse for Kensington Technology Group. More on my thoughts after the jump.
Partner up. Go it alone. There's no one ideal way to enter a new market
by: John Caddell
The benefits and risks of partnership are on display in the dispute between the French company Group Danone and its Chinese partner, Mr. Zong Qinghou, as outlined in a front-page article in today's Wall Street Journal.
Continue reading "Partner up. Go it alone. There's no one ideal way to enter a new market" »
Walking Vending Machine Mascot
by: Ilya Vedrashko
Don't know much about it, but it looks like this walking humanoid vending machine is a mascot of a Coke's campaign in Japan. There are a couple of videos on YouTube (here's one). Apparently, the robot is cast in a superhero role, too. (via Japan Probe)
Facebook, MySpace, and Social Burnout
by: Roger Dooley
One question online community operators wrestle with is how many communities (social networks, blogs, forums, wikis, etc.) one individual can participate in. Sure, people are spending more time online these days, but there’s a limit. If a person is spending an hour or two a day posting in one forum, is he likely to do the same in two or three others? If an active member in a community decides to launch a blog on the same topic, will she still devote an hour to creating a detailed, thoughtful post or will that content end up on her blog? While until now, the rising tide of total time spent online (number of users and hours per users) has lifted a lot of boats, but inevitably online activity will become a zero sum game. People who spend more time on one activity will cut back other online participation by the same amount. A couple of blog posts highlight this issue.
What's Wrong With This Promo?
by: Roger Dooley
Do you think there's something wrong with this promo? It's a milk chocolate circle, originally wrapped in gold foil, embossed with the firm's name, "Foot Solutions," and the image of a foot, toes and all. In Product Contagion, I reported on research that showed mere proximity of "disgusting" items like lard and cat litter can change the perception of other products in the customer's shopping cart. In looking at this promotional item, I can't help but wonder if stamping both the word "foot" and an image of a foot onto a piece of chocolate is going to generate the customer reaction the firm hoped for. It would seem that, at least on a subliminal basis, an element of disgust might creep into the customer experience.
June 16, 2007
Ethnography practioner's insights
by: Idris Mootee
Here is an interesting post on ethnography (This Blog Sits at the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics). Grant McCracken identifies some of the key success factors for an ethnographer:
What Would Charlie Do?
by: David Armano
I'm a sucker for successful communication whether it be visual, written, or oral. So take a look at this presentation from Scott Gavin titled "What is Enterprise 2.0"? It uses a persona based approach to tell a story.
Art of Innovation Online Video with PowerPoint Slides
by: Guy Kawasaki
I know that you might be sick of my Art of Innovation speech, but Zentation has created a very good way to view a PowerPoint-based speech that shows both the speaker and the current slide.
Continue reading "Art of Innovation Online Video with PowerPoint Slides" »
80% of Your New Customers Think They Found You
by: Jon Miller
According to MarketingSherpa’s Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007-08, 80% of decision makers who made a technology purchase believe that they found the vendor – as opposed to the vendor targeting them.
Continue reading "80% of Your New Customers Think They Found You" »
Venezuelan protests: blurring the line between "real" and "virtual"
by: Dominic Basulto
The ongoing story about "virtual demonstrations" in Second Life by Venezuelan dissidents illustrates the various ways that our collective notions of "real life" and "virtual life" are blurring together. rring together.
Continue reading "Venezuelan protests: blurring the line between "real" and "virtual"" »
June 15, 2007
Electron Economy News: Witricity and a Market for Used EV/Hybrid Batteries
by: Michael Hoexter
A quick post to call attention to two recent electron economy related news items:
1) You’ve probably read in your local paper, on the web or on TV about the MIT researchers that have figured out a way to light up an electric light bulb without plugging it in by beaming power to the light over a distance of 7 feet.
Continue reading "Electron Economy News: Witricity and a Market for Used EV/Hybrid Batteries" »
What's In Your DNA?
by: David Armano
Food for thought. Think about who you work for (assuming you aren’t self employed). What’s in the DNA of the company? Did your company start out as a traditional ad agency? Maybe it’s origin was in graphic design? Or it could have started out as a consulting business? How about direct marketing? Promotions? Software? Hardware? Environmental displays?
June 14, 2007
The Changing Role of Industrial Design
As some of you might know, I was recently invited to present a Design for Brand presentation at the University of New South Wales Faculty of the Built Environment (my Alma mater).
Pharma Discovers Social Media
by: Mark Rogers
A good report in Rareplay observes that pharmaceutical companies are using social media in marketing and communications. The piece cites Wyeth’s Knowmenopause resource for women seeking information about the menopause and GSK’s appointment of a social media manager.
Are You Jumping on the Ethnographic Bandwagon?
by: Idris Mootee
Marketers need to accept the fact that we live in a world of product and channel proliferation where we already have served nearly every need several times over, where there are over 100 varieties of bottled water, over 50 different features available in cell phones and 10 ways to purchase a pair of Nikes. We need to abandon the simplistic notion of the simple need-fulfillment paradigm.Continue reading "Are You Jumping on the Ethnographic Bandwagon?" »
Innovation Summit Presentation - Miami 2007
by: Idris Mootee
Innovation is a hot topic and there's no question about it. It's now on the agenda of every senior executive. I was speaking in Miami this week in a summit to demystify this subject. People often equate innovation with creativity or novelties, but not seeing it from a business strategy perspective. Innovation strategy models often follow an uninspired formula - let's encourage employees to come up with some creative ideas, conduct a few focus groups and voila! We have an innovation strategy.
Continue reading "Innovation Summit Presentation - Miami 2007" »
June 13, 2007
Evolution of the web to mobile is inevitable
by: Lynette Webb
There’s not much more to say about this beyond what’s on the slide. It’s from a recent blog post www.tripleodeon.com/?p=54 I stumbled across and liked the matter of fact tone . The whole mobile internet thing has been on such a rollercoaster ride - overhype, then backlash, then hype again… it’s all too easy for some to dismiss it.
Continue reading "Evolution of the web to mobile is inevitable" »
Delta wants your bold new ideas
by: Dominic Basulto
Piggybacking on the whole "outside innovation" trend, Delta has created a new micro-site called Experience Change, which encourages airline customers to submit ideas, tips and insights into how to make the travel experience better.
June 12, 2007
Social software is a movement not just a technology
by: Lynette Webb
Danah Boyd gave an interesting talk recently at Blog Reloaded about the significance of social software. I really like her writing style and she’s great at picking out key aspects and expressing them in down-to-earth terms. You can read the full transcript of her talk here: www.danah.org/papers/BlogTalkReloaded.pdfContinue reading "Social software is a movement not just a technology" »
June 11, 2007
Market Landscape 2007: Is Green the New Common Sense?
by: Michael Hoexter
Taking a break from my series on the electron economy, I wanted to share some impressions from the changing market and media landscape.
Continue reading "Market Landscape 2007: Is Green the New Common Sense?" »
June 10, 2007
Advertising Age - Digital - Video Report: Mobile Marketing Stymied by High CPMs, Small Audiences
by: David Polinchock
This is what's wrong with the whole advertising industry, they just won't let go of the past. CPM's are not the only way to sell advertising and worse then that, we love to take the lowest cost CPM thing and compare everything new with that. Wait, I take that back.
June 9, 2007
Joint innovation: a client perspective in real-time
by: Yann Gourvennec
A brand new version of the Orange innovation whitepaper for business services - which I have co-authored with Jean-François Fava Verde - has just been made available (click here to download).
Continue reading "Joint innovation: a client perspective in real-time" »
June 8, 2007
Opportunity Fading: Why The New Second Life Offers Less for Business
by: C. Sven Johnson
Those following virtual worlds have probably heard about recent “changes” to Linden Lab’s position in regards to how they - or supposedly their residents - will police Second Life to make it “safe, together” (Link). While I’ve been involved in the debates, there is a separate opinion I’ve formed regarding what’s occurred that I consider worth mentioning here: the less like the Internet Second Life becomes, the less reason there is for a company to stake a claim inside it.
Continue reading "Opportunity Fading: Why The New Second Life Offers Less for Business" »
June 7, 2007
What's Wrong With Social Media For B2B Marketing
by: Jon Miller
I believe social media has an inherent bias against the realities of B2B marketing. This is the topic of my new article "What’s Wrong With Social Media For B2B Marketing", now available as part of Search Engine Land's Strictly Business column.
Continue reading "What's Wrong With Social Media For B2B Marketing" »
Marketing 2.0 and Five Key Trends
by: Idris Mootee
The proliferation of brands and channels and fragmented media is forcing companies to rethink their marketing strategies. Proliferation is happening all around us everyday and I am watching the growing fragmentation of customer micro-segments. Social media has allowed the mushrooming of micro-communities everywhere. Intensifying competition and corporate desperation for growth together with the supply and demand chain innovations have encouraged today's companies to target ever more demanding customers within ever smaller segments.
10 Lessons of Innovation - Presentation
by: Idris Mootee
There are hundred of books and thousands of articles written on innovation with stories about the creation of breakthrough ideas and new business concepts. Often there is a lot of emphasis on different creativity and brainstorming approaches. But often missing is how ideas are being converted into growth businesses.Continue reading "10 Lessons of Innovation - Presentation" »
Device Measures Engagement Through Face Recognition
by: Ilya Vedrashko
A piece of news from last year's New Scientist that surfaced on Digg today: Media Lab students built a device that alerts people suffering from autism to social cues. "The "emotional social intelligence prosthetic" device [...] consists of a camera small enough to be pinned to the side of a pair of glasses, connected to a hand-held computer running image recognition software plus software that can read the emotions these images show.
Continue reading " Device Measures Engagement Through Face Recognition" »
June 6, 2007
To innovate, you have to go beyond
by: John Caddell
Struggling to grow your revenues through differentiation, competitive strategy and line extensions? You're playing on the wrong field, says Erich Joachimsthaler, author of the new book "Hidden In Plain Sight: How To Find And Execute Your Company's Next Big Growth Strategy."
Fruitful Research: Science Boosts Cranberry Ads
by: Roger Dooley
Employing cognitive science to creation of a new ad for cranberry juice may have been a key factor in the ad’s scoring in the top 10% of a recall test of over 8,500 ads.
Continue reading "Fruitful Research: Science Boosts Cranberry Ads" »
Competing on Green Accelerates Pace of Change
by: David Wigder
In today’s hypercompetitive markets, companies in categories such as computers and retail struggle to establish and maintain a competitive advantage. Given that consumer expectations are evolving, many of these companies are turning to green to differentiate their offerings by being greener than their competitors. As the basis of competition shifts to the green space, companies seem to be continually upping the ante by trying to outdo each other for being the greenest company in the category.
Continue reading "Competing on Green Accelerates Pace of Change" »
The Mixed Reality Perfect Storm
by: Gary Hayes
“Mixed Reality is the merging of real world and virtual worlds to produce new environments where physical and digital objects can co-exist and interact in real-time.” Wikipedia
June 5, 2007
FILEkit
Although traffic jams are probably here to stay, there seem to be very little art or design that address the problem in a creative way (in my work with Fiat some years ago, I worked with the highway as a playground and opportunity to generate social wireless interactions but it was purely speculative and did not materialize).
Where is the Super CMO?
by: Idris Mootee
Continuing on my last posting on the "Marketing and the CMO" topic. The short tenure of the average CMO is causing many to wonder whether this is a role that is set up for success or simply many CMOs just don't live up to expectations. So what is the job of the CMO? Is that a glorified title for a senior marketer? Or is it a new role designed to bring marketing to strategic level and into the boardroom?
Innovation that's bold, brash and in your face
by: Dominic Basulto
I almost knocked my coffee over when I read this: "Brash Entertainment, a start-up game developer that plans to focus on games based on licensed film, TV and music properties, announced on Monday that it has raised $400 million in its first round of financing, led by ABRY Partners."
Continue reading "Innovation that's bold, brash and in your face" »
The Future Of Advertising?
by: David Armano
Actually, I'm not going to speculate on the future of advertising. Truth is--I've never created an Ad in my life. Well certainly not in the traditional sense, but in many ways not digitally either. But check out what some digital heavyweights have to say in this video:
Consumer-Generated Content: An Underleveraged Opportunity for Green Retailers
by: David Wigder
Online retailers find that consumer-generated content such as product reviews and ratings have a significant influence on consumer purchasing behavior.
Continue reading "Consumer-Generated Content: An Underleveraged Opportunity for Green Retailers" »
Service Notice
As you may have noticed in the past few weeks, we've been suffering from a traffic overload (the problem of getting too popular :-). That is why this week we are moving to new -dedicated- servers.
This transition is causing us some hiccups in the back-end department, which means there should be no problem in keeping the site in the air, yet we may be slower than usual in uploading your daily articles to the site. We apologize for this, yet looking at the bright side, promise to be faster than ever once these works are done :-)
June 4, 2007
Fabbing: A Primer for Guerilla Design Strategies
I have been nursing this article since June 01, 2007. It was originally called “Who stole my design? A Primer for a Guerilla Design Strategy”, I felt the context just did not seem to be comprehensive enough as it covered only the creation aspect of the story. However but after many months of discussions with csven from reBang, (including a “date” for a chat in Second Life) I’ve decided to re-title this article as this more appropriately sets it down a path of an entire new and different way of thinking about design as well as hopefully be a new way of thinking for us designers in time to come.
Continue reading "Fabbing: A Primer for Guerilla Design Strategies" »
By the Numbers: How I built a Web 2.0, User-Generated Content, Citizen Journalism, Long-Tail, Social Media Site for $12,107.09
by: Guy Kawasaki
Because of Truemors
, I’ve learned a lot about launching a company in these “Web 2.0” times. Here’s quick overview “by the numbers.”
June 3, 2007
Tackling Claims of Greenwashing
by: David Wigder
London Goes Carbon Crazy
by: Joel Makower
To paraphrase Kermit: It isn't easy being red, white, and blue.
Arriving in London this past week was something of a shock to the system, a jolt of reality that was both delightful and disarming. The town seems to have gone carbon crazy, offering up a display of initiatives from both the public and private sectors that highlighted how far behind the U.S. has fallen. The consciousness about carbon here seems to be sky-high.
Marketing and the CMO
by: Idris Mootee
Over the last two decades, marketers liked to believe that they have significant progress in making marketing results more scientific. Furthermore, they have tended to believe that with the advent of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technologies, that they are building relationships with customers.
Design Thinking and Business Innovation
by: Idris Mootee
One of the hottest topics right now is bringing design concepts and thinking approach to business strategy. The basic idea of the design approach to business innovation is to
(i) understand the client and the "design problem" - to thoroughly understand the context and explore opportunity horizons.
Continue reading "Design Thinking and Business Innovation" »
June 2, 2007
On Failure
by: John Caddell
I've been thinking a lot about failure. Don't worry--not about personal failure, but about failure in business and what it means (like here, for example).
Harvard Business Review Case Commentary: "We Googled You" (newly interactive)
by: Danah Boyd
In each issue, the Harvard Business Review has a section called "Case Commentary" where they propose a fictional but realistic scenario and invite different prominent folks to respond. I was given the great honor of being invited to respond to a case entitled "We Googled You."
Continue reading "Harvard Business Review Case Commentary: "We Googled You" (newly interactive)" »
A double take or a double take too far?
by: Dick Stroud
This is what VW says about this campaign.
Continue reading "A double take or a double take too far?" »
June 1, 2007
Experience Design
by: David Armano
Experience Design is one of those things that if you ask 10 people what it means, you get 10 different answers. Below is a presentation in which I attempted to define Experience Design within the narrower context of the digital medium as practiced within an agency setting. It's not perfect and needs refinement—but since the presentation got over 3,000 views—I'm assuming there is interest in this topic.
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