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July 31, 2007

7 Strategies To Building Sales-Marketing Alignment

by: Jon Miller

As buyers take more control over their buying processes, building alignment between Sales and Marketing teams is now more important than ever. Yet despite the fact that they are pursuing common objectives (growth and revenue), Sales and Marketing all too often suffer an antagonistic relationship. Why can’t we all just get along?

Continue reading "7 Strategies To Building Sales-Marketing Alignment" »

Design Thinking in Business Strategy

by: Idris Mootee

I have received a lot of great feedback from many of you on my previous post "MFA is the new MBA". There has been some heated debate from our MBA strategists on whether designers can really handle the data-driven culture of board level decision making.

Continue reading "Design Thinking in Business Strategy" »

Does Your Marketing Smell?

by: Roger Dooley

brand_smell_400What does your marketing program smell like? If you have difficulty answering that question, you need to get up to speed on the powerful impact that’s possible by activating your customers’ olfactory nerves. (Web-only marketers won’t have to worry about this yet, but retail marketers and even those who use print media, direct mail, and the like can read on.)

Continue reading "Does Your Marketing Smell?" »

Repurposing the Corporate Blog to Reach Green Influentials

by: David Wigder

These days corporate marketers are launching blogs at a record pace.  According to Jupiter Research, nearly 40% of corporate marketers are planning to launch a corporate blog within the next 12 months.  Yet, consumers do not share the same enthusiasm for these blogs as corporations do: only 3% of consumers have used them to conduct product research.

Continue reading "Repurposing the Corporate Blog to Reach Green Influentials" »

July 30, 2007

Crowdsourcing Harry Potter?

by: Alain Thys

rowling_400Spoiler alert: This post gives away a key plot point of the final Harry Potter book. So if you've haven't finished the book, do not read on.

Last week Monday (at 1:30 AM) I finished part 7 of the Harry Potter series and after sat through the young man's wizardry adventures for thousands and thousands of pages, the end of the series felt like losing a friend.

Continue reading "Crowdsourcing Harry Potter?" »

The 12 Types of Ads

by: Karl Long

  1. the demo - “stain remover”
  2. show the problem - “i’ve fallen and I can’t get up”
  3. symbolize the problem - cold symptoms turn person into ogre

Continue reading "The 12 Types of Ads" »

Have We Reached a Green Business Tipping Point?

by: Joel Makower

Where are we, exactly, in the trajectory of green business? Things seem to have changed decidedly in the past six to twelve months, as more and more companies do more and more things. But what should we make of it?

Continue reading "Have We Reached a Green Business Tipping Point?" »

July 29, 2007

TV Producers Need a Business Model to Go Online

by: Alain Thys

katemodern_portal_linkimageThis week, two events caught my attention which are not that significant on their own, yet in combination made me think. First there was CBS Corp's Chief Exec who complained that his viewers were not 'helping the networks' when it comes to pretending they actually watch the advertisements.

Continue reading "TV Producers Need a Business Model to Go Online" »

Social Entrepreneurship and Venture Philantropy - WISE co-founder Etienne Eichenberger

by: Alexander Osterwalder

Today I did a webcast with Etienne Eichenberger, co-founder of WISE (and formerly at the World Economic Forum WEF), to talk about his fascinating start-up.

Continue reading "Social Entrepreneurship and Venture Philantropy - WISE co-founder Etienne Eichenberger" »

July 28, 2007

Mobile Phones as Game Controllers

by: Ilya Vedrashko (via Business & Games)

Sci-Fi Tech writes about Megaphone, a company that turns mobile phones into controllers for games that run in public spaces on large screens. Call in a number to join the game, then control your piece of action by punching buttons on the dialpad or by simply barking out orders.

Continue reading "Mobile Phones as Game Controllers" »

Workshop on Business Models in Australia

by: Alexander Osterwalder

I was invited to Australia by La Trobe University to give a talk to business people in Melbourne on the topic of business models. The talk took place within the context of a research program I am involved in. Below you can find the slides of the 40 minutes talk.

Continue reading "Workshop on Business Models in Australia" »

STA Travel: Innovation with widgets

by: Dominic Basulto

Last December, Newsweek predicted that 2007 would become "The Year of the Widget." In many ways, this prediction is turning out to be an accurate one.

Continue reading "STA Travel: Innovation with widgets" »

July 27, 2007

Decisive Factor Is Not how We Create but How We Consume

by: Lynette Webb

I've come close to buying the book "Cult of the Amateur" a few times now, but have shied away as I sensed it was going to be one of those books I threw at the wall every few pages in frustration.

Continue reading "Decisive Factor Is Not how We Create but How We Consume" »

Online Communities Plus Google Equal Value

by: Roger Dooley

A survey of technical professionals shows a startling level of reliance on Web communities by IT professionals. The report from King Research includes these key findings:

Continue reading "Online Communities Plus Google Equal Value " »

July 26, 2007

responding to critiques of my essay on class

by: Danah Boyd

One month ago, I put out a blog essay that took on a life of its own. This essay addressed one of America's most taboo topics: class. Due to personal circumstances, I wasn't online as things spun further and further out of control and I had neither the time nor the emotional energy to address all of the astounding misinterpretations that I saw as a game of digital telephone took hold. I've browsed the hundreds of emails, thousands of blog posts, and thousands of comments across the web.

Continue reading "responding to critiques of my essay on class" »

Steelcase Second Life Chair Design Competition

by: Design Translator

Wow, this competition totally went under my radar. I would not have caught wind of this if I did not get my usual dose of virtual goodness at rebang. In fact it was his 10th post in his RSS feed and probably would have fallen off into internet oblivion if I had visited his site some other time.

Continue reading "Steelcase Second Life Chair Design Competition" »

its a constant surprise to anyone over 30 that large parts of life can end up online

by: Lynette Webb

There was a great article a few months back in New York magazine which I’ve only just stumbled across. It was called “Kids, the Internet and the End of Privacy - the greatest generation gap since rock and roll” and included this great quote from Clay Shirky. It’s long but well worth a read if you haven’t already seen it:
www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&titl.../121589504/ 

Continue reading "its a constant surprise to anyone over 30 that large parts of life can end up online" »

Can You Use Flickr Pics in Ads?

by: Ilya Vedrashko

flickr_advertising"Virgin Mobile Australia has started an advertising campaign called "Are you with us or what?", which has been collecting images from Flickr released under a CC-BY licence, which allows commercial re-use and modification of the licensed work." (Technollama via Idea City).

Continue reading "Can You Use Flickr Pics in Ads?" »

July 25, 2007

Attention All Designers! Black Is Green

by Idris  Mootee

Back in Jan this year a blog post titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year proposed the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a lot of energy due to the popularity of the search engine.

Continue reading "Attention All Designers! Black Is Green" »

games are vehicles for self expression

by: Lynette Webb

858350329_bd822ee40d_400Here's one last slide on games for the day. Actually this is an old quote that I’d already included in part on an earlier chart, but I decided to expand - helped by stumbling across yet another brilliant photo by Thomas Hawk that perfectly suited it. :-)

Of course, not all games are “vehicles for self expression”. There is a very important distinction between so-called ‘casual’ games and their role-playing brethren - they’re like chalk and cheese in terms of the way it feels to play. Even for RPGs it varies by where you are in the experience curve…

Continue reading "games are vehicles for self expression" »

July 24, 2007

Is Good Design Art?

by: Design Translator

One of the great things I love about blogging, is you get to meet so many great people through your blog. One of them, whom I now consider a friend, is William Lehman from the Artist Hideout. Not only is he a talented Artist, he is a passionate blogger and a pastor (cool!). Discussions with him and reading his blog were ways for me to keep in touch on the more “raw and emotional” aspect of my design profession.

Continue reading "Is Good Design Art?" »

Marketing and the Placebo Effect

by: Roger Dooley

placebo-marketingWe all know what the placebo effect is - give a group of patients a sugar pill instead of a medication with active ingredients, and some of them will show an improvement in their symptoms.  Drug researchers treat the placebo effect as an annoying artifact that must be eliminated by using double-blind studies. 

Continue reading "Marketing and the Placebo Effect" »

How to Write a Business Plan: Ten Questions with Tim Berry

By: Guy Kawasaki

business_plan_proI work in the surreal world of Silicon Valley where venture capitalists fund companies based on PowerPoint pitches and executive summaries. My friend Tim Berry rightfully pointed that business plans still serve an important role in "the rest of the world."

Continue reading "How to Write a Business Plan: Ten Questions with Tim Berry" »

in wow i can cross tasks off a list

by: Lynette Webb

858255397_6e04540fce_400Continuing with the topic of games, here’s another interesting anecdote about why someone likes to play world of warcraft. It’s pretty much self-explanatory. :-)

The quote comes from a Newsweek article www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14757769/site/newsweek/. I’ve had it saved up for ages but only recently stumbled across this perfect picture to illustrate it. Thanks to Mrs Reed for letting me use it. www.flickr.com/photos/thereeds/708220272/ 

Original post: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynetter/858255397/

July 23, 2007

Eight Deadly Sins of Web 2.0 Start-ups

by: Idris Mootee

A friend of mine saw my posting yesterday and sent me an email to ask about the most common start-up mistakes entrepreneurs make. There are just too many mistakes, but some are just part of the journey. But there are a few that are avoidable and these are the key ones that have most often prevented the success of many, even though they were smart and armed with great ideas and lots of invested capital.

Continue reading "Eight Deadly Sins of Web 2.0 Start-ups" »

It is hard to think of anything more surreal than a chinese goldfarmer

by: Lynette Webb

858255125_51d5418d79_400There was a really interesting article in the New York Times recently that looked at the gold-farming phenomenon. For those who don’t know, ‘gold farming’ is the term given to people who play online games like world of warcraft in a manner so as to earn the maximum ‘gold’ which is then sold on to other players who don’t have the time/skills to earn it themselves.

Continue reading "It is hard to think of anything more surreal than a chinese goldfarmer" »

July 22, 2007

The Unwritten Future?

by: C. Sven Johnson

Ever since my hesitant interview for the ISHUSH blog (Link) last year, I’ve paid a bit more attention to how others believe books might evolve in an increasingly digital world. My first pass at giving it any real thought beyond “Uh, they’ll be e-books”, was in response to a question asked of me at that time:

Continue reading "The Unwritten Future?" »

Don’t know your SCART from a SACD?

by: Dick Stroud

The UK’s Office of Communications has just published a report: “Ease of use issues with domestic electronic communications equipment”.

This is a must read for anybody involved in domestic consumer electronics.

Continue reading "Don’t know your SCART from a SACD?" »

korean police stations have cyber terror units

by: Lynette Webb

455370165_a9eb0b303f_400Another in the series of anecdotes about how the world is changing. Along with all the positive changes wrought by technology, there’s clearly also a darker side.

Click image to enlarge.

Continue reading "korean police stations have cyber terror units" »

July 21, 2007

The Hardest Part Is Getting Noticed

by: David Jennings

lefsetz.jpgI'm always trying to find new, snappy and pithy ways to explain why discovery — the central issue my book addresses — is a "problem" that needs addressing, and why it's particularly become an issue in the last few years. Bob Lefsetz (pictured) is often pretty snappy, and this excerpt, which begins his latest broadside, states the issue as it applies to major labels in the US:

Continue reading "The Hardest Part Is Getting Noticed" »

Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs! This is the time

by: Idris Mootee


The scene is a Starbucks in Downtown Toronto, Canada. I am sure similar scenes are happening in London, Amsterdam, San Francisco or Boston. Four young men and women are doing a five-minute web 2.0 idea pitch from a Macbook to two venture capitalists. One of them asked how much it had burnt so far for the prototype. The reply was "Five". I think the VCs thought they meant $50,000 until another question revealed it was $5,000, and the total funds being sought a mere $350,000 - definitely pocket change for the VCs who think in millions.

Continue reading "Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs! This is the time" »

A Big Welcome to Dominic Basulto

Rejoice New York, one of your sons has joined the Futurelab list of contributors. Not so long ago Dominic Basulto used to curate the Fortune Magazine's Business Innovation Insider and act as Director of Editorial Strategy at Corante.

Continue reading "A Big Welcome to Dominic Basulto" »

Everything I know about innovation I learned from Pedro Almodovar

by: Dominic Basulto

You can throw away your books from Tom Peters and Malcolm Gladwell right about now and start loading up on movie DVDs.

Continue reading "Everything I know about innovation I learned from Pedro Almodovar" »

Media Pendulum Swings On Second Life

by: Ilya Vedrashko

Yeah, the media's honeymoon with Second Life is clearly over. Time mag has listed it among five worst sites to avoid: "We're sure that somebody out there is enjoying Second Life, but why?

Continue reading "Media Pendulum Swings On Second Life" »

Word of Mouth Is Now a Public Conversation

by: Lynette Webb

This is one of those things that in many ways is so blindingly obvious that it almost doesn't warrant mentioning.

Continue reading "Word of Mouth Is Now a Public Conversation" »

July 20, 2007

The Next Driving Experience Innovation

by: Idris Mootee

There is a plenty of Experience Innovation happening these days at the VW lab in Germany. They are working on a just-for-kids navigation system. The prototype child navigation system comes complete with GPS data, games and a time worm that eats away the hours until arrival.

Continue reading "The Next Driving Experience Innovation" »

Innovation for the other 90%

by: Dominic Basulto

If you enjoyed the Design for the Other 90% exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, you'll enjoy this... MIT is putting together an event for innovators in developing nations:

Continue reading "Innovation for the other 90%" »

Perhaps advertising isn't the money pit people thought it was

by: John Caddell

The July-August Harvard Business Review contains a provocative article from Prof. Leonard Lodish of the Wharton School of Business and Carl Mela of Duke University on the decline of product brands ("If Brands Are Built Over Years, Why Are They Managed Over Quarters?").

Continue reading "Perhaps advertising isn't the money pit people thought it was" »

If 2 Minds Are Better than One Then How about 2 Thousand?

by: Lynette Webb

This was the title of an article I stumbled across, a review of a book about AI and the way minds work. www.emcp.com/intro_pc/reading12.htm. I can't vouch for the book yet, although I've just ordered it... (I have SO many books piled up now, it's getting ridiculous!)... But something about this phrase just really grabbed me.

Continue reading "If 2 Minds Are Better than One Then How about 2 Thousand?" »

July 19, 2007

How Customers Think

by: Roger Dooley

“About 95% of all thought, emotion, and learning occur in the unconscious mind - that is, without our conscious awareness.”

       -Gerald Zaltman, in How Customers Think

Continue reading "How Customers Think" »

Correctly Sizing Up “Concern for the Environment” by American Teens

by: David Wigder

This week, Jupiter Research released the results of their latest online survey: 38% of online teens are “concerned about the environment.”  Interestingly, MediaPost reported that JWT’s March 2007 survey indicated a much higher response by online teens: “more than 80% of American teenagers are concerned about the environment and the role of the United States that is causing pollution”.

Continue reading "Correctly Sizing Up “Concern for the Environment” by American Teens" »

open source vs open APIs

by: Lynette Webb

714285747_bde9db18e2_400_01Often the terms “open source” and “open API” get lumped together, as part of an overall web 2.0 type philosophy of “open-ness” and decentralisation. Although spiritually they seem to sit well together, in practice they refer to distinctly different things.

Click image to enlarge.

Continue reading "open source vs open APIs" »

July 18, 2007

Want to Work Fulltime as Citizen Writer or Editor?

by: Idris Mootee

The competition for consumer generated content is about to drive companies to offer rewards for those who offer higher quality content. When companies such as YouTube and MySpace make millions without sharing a penny, some will start to ask the question why aren't they getting paid. "Hey, that's my content!"

Continue reading "Want to Work Fulltime as Citizen Writer or Editor?" »

one quarter of searches done on google are new

by: Lynette Webb

649325804_b435cbfbd0_400I’ve put this in my own words, but the back-up for it comes from a speech that Udi Manber, Google's VP of Engineering, gave recently. You can see more about the speech here thanks to Sean www.readwriteweb.com/archives/udi_manber_search_is_a_hard... but I also must thank Dan Calladine for first pointing me to it via Steve Johnson’s blog www.johnston.co.uk/2007_06_01_blog-archive.html#774266233...

Continue reading "one quarter of searches done on google are new" »

What If and What Then?

by: C. Sven Johnson

Seems as if the marketing/videogame/metaverse blogosphere is full of posts and comments discussing yet another round of embarrassingly amateurish mainstream media articles and commentary on Second Life.

Continue reading "What If and What Then?" »

Facebook Eats MySpace’s Cafeteria Lunch

by: Roger Dooley

My fellow FutureLab blogger, danah boyd, wrote an interesting and controversial essay about the social network migration of high school students: Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace.

Continue reading "Facebook Eats MySpace’s Cafeteria Lunch " »

July 17, 2007

NPS - what is it REALLY good for...

By: Stefan Kolle

To follow up my previous post on the Net Promoter Score (NPS) being under fire, I would like to engage the readers of this blog in a discussion on the use and value of the NPS in itself. I will be listing some (rather random) thoughts and musings on the NPS to get your insights and ideas.

So we break all our (unwritten) rules at the same time - but we think this issue is important enough to focus some attention on, and we really need your feedback, so please read on.

Continue reading "NPS - what is it REALLY good for..." »

Net Promoter Score under fire?

By: Stefan Kolle 

Reichheld’s Net Promoter Score (NPS) has taken the world of market research by surprise – and by storm over the past couple of years. Not being a researcher or statistician myself, I have taken the whole theory up on face value – particularly because I cannot remember ever having had such an ‘aha-Erlebnis’ as when first seeing the NPS explained. It makes such perfect sense, from a gut feeling point of view.

Now there seems to be some trouble brewing for the NPS. 

Continue reading "Net Promoter Score under fire?" »

Green Consumers and the Mushiness Index

by: Joel Makower

A new market research study of Americans' green passions and buying habits is out this week, from the venerable Yankelovich.

Continue reading "Green Consumers and the Mushiness Index" »

Can Moving Images Improve Ad Recall?

by: Roger Dooley

Side-to-side eye movements have been shown to improve memory, according to researchers in the UK and the US. They speculate that the eye movement causes the two hemispheres of the brain to interact with each other more, but a mechanism for the memory enhancement hasn’t been determined conclusively.

Continue reading "Can Moving Images Improve Ad Recall?" »

list of non-english social network sites

by: Danah Boyd

I'm trying to track down a list of all major non-English social network sites (definitions below). My interest in collecting this information is for an academic article on social network sites, but i suspect this information would be useful to others as well.

Continue reading "list of non-english social network sites" »

July 16, 2007

Avant-Garde Dating

by: Sebastian Campion

AVANT-GARDE DATING is a new experimental dating service for artists.

In contrast to traditional dating services, the primary aim of AVANT-GARDE DATING is not to match artists looking for a romantic/sexual relationship but to match artists who are interested in investigating issues associated with relationships.

Continue reading "Avant-Garde Dating" »

"Social Networks" and "Social Identities"

by: Idris Mootee

Everyone is talking about Facebook during the last two weeks. Social networks are becoming commodities just like web-based email accounts such as Hotmail or Gmail. This game isn't about the next upcoming killer features or cool widgets. The value of any social networks are based on:

Continue reading ""Social Networks" and "Social Identities"" »

Personal Entry: Pre-Alpha

by: C. Sven Johnson

While reading something yesterday concerning marketing in virtual worlds I resisted the urge to comment. Last night and again early this morning, I further resisted the temptation to post something here regarding what I’d read. And I’m now resisting the urge to slip something in. I won’t.

Continue reading "Personal Entry: Pre-Alpha" »

"Film and the Audience of Tomorrow"

by: Danah Boyd

As promised, i've uploaded the crib from my talk at Cannes for your enjoyment (and critique). It's about film, DRM, remix, MySpace, youth, fandom, film consumption, and other good things.

"Film and the Audience of Tomorrow"

Enjoy!

Original post: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/05/30/film_and_the_au.html

Home About Me The (Renewable) Electron Economy Part V.3: Hydroelectric Power

by: Michael Hoexter

The oldest, most well-established and most controversial renewable source of electricity is hydropower. Hydroelectric power uses the kinetic energy of water as it descends from one elevation to a lower elevation to drive turbines that in turn provide the rotational energy for dynamos. Technically, tidal and wave power are also hydroelectricity (’hydro’ = Greek for water) though they are not usually grouped together with the now fairly common technology of using river power.

Continue reading "Home About Me The (Renewable) Electron Economy Part V.3: Hydroelectric Power" »

July 15, 2007

Emerging "Social Commerce" and "Micropreneurs"

by: Idris Mootee

Social Commerce is here! A French company Zlio is pushing the right direction playing in this space. Received $4 mil US in funding from Mangrove Capital Partners (one of the early investors in Skype), they provide a platform that allows users to choose a set of products they like and create their own personal pages to sell them in just minutes. They can promote their pages by using widgets or blogs.

Continue reading "Emerging "Social Commerce" and "Micropreneurs"" »

Book: Branded Entertainment

by: Ilya Vedrashko

Over the past couple of months, I'd received several books for review but the time constraints were such that it is only now that I can sit down and pay them the attention they deserve. You will see more reviews coming in the next few days.

Continue reading "Book: Branded Entertainment " »

Media buyers take note – the 50-plus are watching more films

by: Dick Stroud

Cinema audiences are still predominantly young with nearly half of filmgoers under the age of 25 but older viewers are a significant number and becoming more significant. The number of people aged 45 and over attending the cinema has doubled from 19 million a decade ago to 38 million last year.

Continue reading "Media buyers take note – the 50-plus are watching more films" »

Experience is the New Reality

by: David Armano

Hmmmm, I wonder what Jakob Nielson would say about me posting this video? I mean, it's kind of interesting and I think the voice reminds me of Ricardo Montalban saying "Corinthian Leather" in the old Chrysler Cordoba ads.

Continue reading "Experience is the New Reality" »

July 14, 2007

Top 10 Features of China's Second Life

by: Dominic Basulto

Hipihi If you've ever experimented with virtual worlds such as Second Life, you may have heard the rumors that the Chinese were working on a souped-up version of Second Life for Chinese-speaking avatars. Jason Stoddard, CEO of new media agency Centric, has done some heavy beta-testing of HiPiHi and put together a list of the Top 10 features of China's Second Life - everything from water effects, in-world weather, swimming capabilities for each avatar; and cool new flight engines that mimic the look and feel of helicopters. Plus, there are neat things that only hard-core tech developers will appreciate, like new distance algorithms and on-the-fly ground retexturing. But here's the #1 reason why HiPiHi rocks:

Continue reading "Top 10 Features of China's Second Life" »

The Niche of Mass

by: C. Sven Johnson

Joel Greenberg has a blog entry (Link) worth reading regarding Suzanne Vega’s upcoming concert inside Second Life. Some of what he’s getting at has come up here before (reLink). And of course scarcity is something I’m often thinking about, given my particular interests.

Continue reading "The Niche of Mass" »

Is Web 2.0 a manifesto for anarchism?

by: David Jennings

Here are some chapter headings from a book I read on holiday:

The Theory of Spontaneous Order
The Dissolution of Leadership
Harmony Through Complexity
Topless Federations

Continue reading "Is Web 2.0 a manifesto for anarchism?" »

“Research says” – don’t you believe it

by: Dick Stroud

A couple of bits of ‘research’ about the 50-plus have recently been published that the press have picked up chewed around, attached a catchy headline and blurted out.

Continue reading "“Research says” – don’t you believe it" »

July 13, 2007

Customer Experience Design Talk

by: Idris Mootee

Experience is unique. There is no common definition on what is CX.  It is much more complex than services or products. What it means depends on the context as well the industry. There is a human dimension; there is a service component; there may be a digital interface component and it may have to do with dialogue and conversation enabled by the product/marketing platform that happened during the pre or pro-purchase.

Continue reading "Customer Experience Design Talk" »

As Google buys Postini, corporate email surveillance grows

by: John Caddell

I shrugged my shoulders when I read the news the other day that Google was buying Postini, the corporate spam-filtering service provider. Oh, well, another acquisition. Google does about one of those a week, it seems. What's the big deal?

(Photo by hilaryaq via stock.xchng)

Continue reading "As Google buys Postini, corporate email surveillance grows " »

Ten Questions with Jeffrey Pfeffer

by: Guy Kawasaki

Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He is the author or co-author of twelve books. Dr. Pfeffer received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Carnegie-Mellon University and his Ph.D. from Stanford.

Continue reading "Ten Questions with Jeffrey Pfeffer" »

High Testosterone Marketing

by: Roger Dooley

How does marketing to high-testosterone males differ from pitching their lower testosterone counterparts? And who are those testosterone-rich individuals?

Continue reading "High Testosterone Marketing" »

July 12, 2007

High risk France and Spain

by: Dick Stroud

This chart shows an Aging Vulnerability Index that attempts to measure how vulnerable countries are to an aging population. The index looks at things like pensions, healthcare, numbers of younger people, education etc...

Continue reading " High risk France and Spain" »

Nintendo breaks out of the living room and into the classroom

by: John Caddell

It's generally known that Nintendo deftly sidestepped the video-game console testosterone wars by focusing on an innovative motion-sensitive controller rather than amping up processing and graphics power (and price). As a result, Nintendo's Wii is the fastest-selling third-generation console in the world, well ahead of both Microsoft's XBox 360 and Sony's Playstation 3.

Continue reading "Nintendo breaks out of the living room and into the classroom" »

July 11, 2007

Some Players Call WoW the New Golf (v2)

by: Lynette Webb

I used this quote in one of the earliest Flickr slides, paired with a screenshot but I was never happy with it. A while back I resurrected it with this much nicer photo and just realised I hadn't posted it to the set - so here it is.

Continue reading "Some Players Call WoW the New Golf (v2)" »

Is Your Brand Cheap & Easy?

by: Alain Thys

Or are you the sophisticated and seductive type? As a follow-up to my earlier comparison between human love and the occasional affection we display for brands, I sometimes wonder whether some brand managers are still stuck in a bad 70s macho interpretation of Don Juan.

Continue reading "Is Your Brand Cheap & Easy?" »

"The consumer is being consumed"

by: Dominic Basulto

This video clip from 1973 is an oldie but goodie. New York Magazine recently profiled sculptor Richard Serra, who is currently the subject of a new 40-year retrospective exhibit at MoMA.

Continue reading ""The consumer is being consumed"" »

July 10, 2007

The Fuzzy Tail

by: David Armano

Tomorrow I'm off to Toronto to attend "Summer Event".  Every year, Critical Mass holds a 2 day "festival" complete with creative exercises, music and lots of beer.  I am going to be part of the "speaker series"—so I had to come up with something to talk about.

Continue reading "The Fuzzy Tail" »

Beast was first prototype of web-based storytelling

by: Lynette Webb

Click Image to EnlargeI’ve been thinking about the “web as platform” trend recently. A lot of the focus so far has been about online storage or web based applications/desktops (eg: google docs, nivio, etc etc). But there’s another aspect which is the web as a storytelling platform. I think this quote is fascinating and gut feel I agree - The Beast (and other alternate reality games of its ilk) are prototypes for the future of web-based storytelling.

Continue reading "Beast was first prototype of web-based storytelling" »

Book: The Cult of The Amateur

by: Ilya Vedrashko

When the word about Andrew Keen's "The Cult of the Amateur" first got out last winter, I was hopeful. Finally, I thought, we'd have an informed and comprehensive antidote to the poisonous hype around all things two point oh: all those conversationalist wise crowds of long-tailed lonelygirls-15 blogging their ride on the participatory cluetrain.

Continue reading "Book: The Cult of The Amateur" »

July 9, 2007

Sensory Branding

by: Roger Dooley

Continuing our survey of neuromarketing books, we recently finished Brand Sense - Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound, by Martin Lindstrom. This data-packed volume was published in 2005, and is based in part on a global research project by Millward Brown which studied the relationship between branding and sensory awareness.

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July 8, 2007

How Threadless.com democratizes design and innovation

by: Dominic Basulto

Over the weekend, Rob Walker of the New York Times took a closer look at the evolving business model for Threadless.com, which has often been cited as an example of democratized innovation, consumer-generated innovation and amateur innovation (and sometimes all three at the same time!).

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July 7, 2007

First look at Google/Youtube advertising

By: Stefan Kolle 

A Youtube user spotted a testrun of the new in-video advertising system Google/Youtube are apparently testing. The good news - it seems un-intrusive and user-friendly. It avoids the problem that many pre-roll ads have - if you watch a couple of videos in a row, you get the same ad over and over again, which can get pretty annoying - and therefore totally counterproductive for the advertiser.

Watch the video below. 

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The magic of innovation at Xerox

by: Dominic Basulto

In an interview with Geoff Colvin of FORTUNE magazine, Xerox's "inventor-in-chief" Sophie Vandebroek discusses how she is leading an "innovation revival" at one of the most storied innovators in the history of U.S. business.

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Introducing Jennings' Law

by: David Jennings

At yesterday evening's Music Tank event in London someone who'd just received an advance copy of my book mentioned that they'd seen the heading "Jennings' Law" in the table of contents, and asked me to explain.

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July 6, 2007

The Games Universe?

by: Gary Hayes

“Games are just games aren’t they, all the same thing?”. Wearing my Director of LAMP hat develop and training industry producers (working through the Australian Film TV and Radio School) I come across many traditional producers of media who just don’t ‘get’ games.

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July 5, 2007

wikipedia accounts for 1 in 200 page views

This quote comes from a fantastic article about Wikipedia in the NYT a few days back.
www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/magazine/01WIKIPEDIA-t.html?ei...

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The Nine Best Story Lines for Marketing

by: Guy Kawasaki

Lois Kelly is the author of Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing. This is her explanation of the top nine types of stories that people like to talk about. If you’re pitching your company to investors, customers, partners, journalists, vendors, or employees and you don’t use at least one of these story lines, you probably have a problem. And most likely you’re too close to what you’re doing, so you think that you’re uniquely “patent-pending, curve-jumping, and revolutionary.” :-)

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How Sustainable Is Your Brand Story?

by: Karl Long

fiji2In many cases when people buy products they are buying into a story, in many cases a narrative that has been crafted by marketers to tweak your heartstrings in the right places, to push the right buttons. in some cases the brand story is very closely aligned with reality, so there are few incongruence’s, or contradictions of the brand story. Take Patagonia for instance, everything they do in the way they run that company and the people they hire aligns with their brand story, from the frisby world champion that works the front desk, to the wet suits and surf boards they’ll lend to visitors if the “surfs up”.

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SAP Global Survey on Social Media/Web 2.0

by: Karl Long

It seems that SAP, one of the biggest suppliers of software that help run big businesses is working on a research report to help understand what’s really happening in the world around social media. They have got Shel Israel (co-author with Robert Scoble of Naked Conversations) to help in this and Shel is taking a similar research approach as well, talking to people. one of the great things about Shel’s research is he’s publishing interviews as he goes on his blog, here’s his conversation with Doc Searls, and again with Robert Scoble.

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Why Traditional Strategic Planning Sucks and Best Practices Are for Idiots!

by: Idris Mootee

I often get a lot of people asking me"what are the biggest challenges of moving large organizations into an open-innovation zone?" My answer is we need to deal with this on a strategic level. The quick answer is "Size" is the No.1 enemy. Most large organizations still prefer to develop/own those innovations even knowing that the chance for success to do it in-house is much lower. The second reason is, it's not something a division head can do. This has to come from the CEO and the management team to commit to this fundamental shift. They need to admit that their current model is not delivering the needed levels of top line growth and there's a need to innovate and find new ways to create shareholder value

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July 4, 2007

the living proof of wikinomics

by: Yann Gourvennec

marketing in social networks We all know about Wikinomics, Don Tapscott’s latest contribution to our world of changes. One may think that Tapscott’s exposé is a little bit theoretical and judging by the number of people of all nationalities whom I have met recently and who still wonder what a wiki is, one may also wonder whether this theory is not too much ahead of its time, and Tapscott a prophet without a prophecy.

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Revisiting Subscription versus A-La-Carte models

by: David Jennings

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The contention between subscription and à-la-carte models for online music has been running for at least five years, and I suspect it has at least another five years left to run. Rhapsody was the first to start offering a subscription service, where you pay a monthly fee in return for access to (but not permanent ownership of) a vast catalogue of music, in 02001. iTunes has remained firmly in the à-la-carte camp, selling music track-by-track for a unit price. Steve Jobs has maintained that consumers don't want to 'rent' music, and so far the market has backed him up. Then there are hybrid models such as eMusic, which offers a fixed number of permanent downloads for a regular monthly fee.

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15 Golden Rules for Web 2.0

by: Yann Gourvennec

Introduction

This document was originally designed to address the questions which were sent to me by large customers wanting to launch web 2.0 initiatives. Very often these clients wanted to jump on the bandwagon, but they didn’t know how to do it. They required help and guidance, even to understand the very meaning of Web 2.0.

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Fastest Cities in the World 2007

by: Idris Mootee

Fast Company just nominated the fastest cities in the world. Here's their Fast Cities 2007, with category based on city, population and how "fast" they are in their respective category. There are actually quite a few surprising cities here.

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Nicole Kidman – an interesting and expensive choice by Nintendo

by: Dick Stroud

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About 4 years ago I was a speaker at one of the UK's 50-plus conferences and surprised to meet a marketing guy from Nintendo.

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July 3, 2007

Web 2.0 and the Marketing New 4Ps

by: Idris Mootee


Marketing has gone through evolutionary changes in the last 36 months. It is probably the most profound period of change in the history of marketing. No one will disagree. The first generation of marketing took a pure functional view and was entirely tactical in nature, dominated by the 4P's: Product, Pricing, Promotion and Placement, focusing on pushing mass market product messages and driving store promotions.

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Apple + Nokia

by: David Armano

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Karl Long, Nokia employee and emerging media pro gave me a heads up regarding a video he just produced along with Paul Whitaker.  What's worth noting is that Karl actually hit the streets and chatted up a few folks about their current phones and what they were trading in for the iPhone etc. Nokia is definitely taking the iPhone threat seriously, but it's pretty cool to see a few folks out there mixing it up at the personal level to try to get a better Karl also discovered that the iPhone doesn't do video:

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Google, Sicko, and Why Everyone is Wrong

by: Roger Dooley 

Google has been getting pounded for a blog post by a Google Health account staffer, Lauren Turner, after she posted a suggestion in her blog that health care firms could use Google advertising to fight negative publicity from Michael Moore’s new movie, Sicko. Coverage includes The Google Blogger Vs. Sicko at Forbes.com, Google-’Sicko’ FUD at WIRED, Google Criticized Over ‘Sicko’ Ad Campaign at RealTechNews, and a whole lot more. Turner has tried to backpedal out of the controversy by stating the blog post was a personal opinion, not Google corporate policy. Search pundit Danny Sullivan, in Google, “Sicko” Opinions & Issues With Playing Ad Agency, suggests that Google should step away from playing ad agency to specific industries. Although I tend to agree with most of Danny’s well-informed opinions, on this one I come down in the opposing camp.

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how to turn your large organisation into a web 2.0 wizard in 15 steps

by: Yann Gourvennec

Web 2.0 descriptionintroduction

This document was originally designed to address the questions which were sent to me by large customers wanting to launch work 2.0 initiatives. Very often these clients wanted to jump on the bandwagon, but they didn’t know how to do it. They required help and guidance, even to understand the very meaning of Web 2.0.

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July 2, 2007

Frank Gehry and breakthrough creativity

by: John Caddell

"Smart World," the new book by Richard Ogle, describes how breakthroughs happen thusly: rather than turning inward, in lonely contemplation, creators turn outward, and look toward hotspots--emerging and long-lived trends--and draw capabilities from distant, seemingly unrelated areas to create vitally new combinations.

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Change in Nomenclature: “The Renewable Electron Economy”

by: Michael Hoexter

I’ve been devoting this blog for the last 4 months to talking about the “electron economy”, how most of our energy needs can be satisfied by using electricity and electrical devices with minimal damage to the planet and our future well-being.

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July 1, 2007

Web 2.0 and the New Role of Information Architects

by: Idris Mootee

In the world of Web 2.0, the role of Information Architects are getting more important and complex than ever. What's been called social classification, ethnoclassification, folksonomy, freetagging and metadata for the masses have become the foundation for experience innovation.

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