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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" »
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.
by: Roger Dooley
What 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.)
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" »
by: Alain Thys
Spoiler 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.
by: Karl Long
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?" »
by: Alain Thys
This 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" »
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.
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.
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" »
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.
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 " »
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 " »
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" »
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" »
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:by: Ilya Vedrashko
"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).
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" »
by: Lynette Webb
Here'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…
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.
by: Roger Dooley
We 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.
By: Guy Kawasaki
I 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" »
by: Lynette Webb
Continuing 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/
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.
by: Lynette Webb
There 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" »
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:
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.
by: Lynette Webb
Another 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" »
by: David Jennings
I'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:
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" »
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.
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" »
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?
by: Lynette Webb
This is one of those things that in many ways is so blindingly obvious that it almost doesn’t warrant mentioning. It comes from Chris Anderson, he of Long Tail fame, from chapter 7 of his book. But, perhaps because of it’s apparent obviousness I’ve found it to be a nice conversational jumping-off point to explore other aspects… like what the remit/approach to PR should be in this new era; like the fact that online conversations lives on and on, echoing long after the original ‘speaker’ has moved on, etc…
Image from Flickr CC www.flickr.com/photos/juiceboxgasoline/279544122/
Original post: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynetter/453858891/
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.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:
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" »
