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Fellow designer blogger csven has written a great article on his observations on the state of Intellectual property and its future impact on Design and of cause Industrial Design as well.
Continue reading "The Future Relationship of IP and Industrial Design" »
Continue reading "Scary Thoughts on Business and Social Change" »
Continue reading "Trend: Neuroscience Infiltrates Society" »
by: Nancy Baym
Web 2.0 is supposed to be all about harnessing the wisdom of crowds, playing simultaneously off the glorification of the individual via personalized profiles and services and the algorithmic magic that happens when individual data is mined.
by: Karl Long
Peter Merholz of Adaptive Path has just posted a presentation on the topic “The Experience Is The Product” on slideshare, even better he has synced the recording of him presenting this in the UK. In this presentation Peter does a great job of explaining that the experience is everything, it’s the branding, it’s the marketing, and how often our approaches to design screw this up.
by: Dominic Basulto
A big hat tip to Satish Nambisan and Mohanbir Sawhney, who have just released The Global Brain. The book provides a roadmap for innovating faster and smarter in a networked world. Here's a blurb from the book's website:
To innovate more effectively, you must harness powerful new sources of creativity from both inside and outside your company.
Continue reading "The Global Brain and Networked Innovation" »
by: danah boyd
In business, the economic concept of "externalities" has tremendous salience. In short, an externality is a cost that a third party must bear due to the actions of others. For example, air pollution is considered an externality of manufacturing. In theory, as protectors of the public good, reasonable governments should regulate corporate externalities through imposed taxes. (In reality...) More and more, discussion of environment externalities is a core part of business.
by: David Wigder
“We will not be measured by our aspirations. We will be measured by our actions”
– Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott in making sustainability part of his core strategy
by: Roger Dooley
Which is scarier - undergoing a potentially fatal surgical procedure that has a 95% survival rate, or one that causes death in 1 out of 20 patients? If you are like most people, you would find the latter statistic far more worrisome, even though mathematically the two statements are the same. A variety of research shows that marketers should choose carefully when throwing numbers at their customers.
by: Alain Thys (via Business & Games)
Now marketers have finally caught on to this interactive thing and seem to be ever more shy of places to put their new found digital 2008 budgets, gaming finally seems to be hitting the radar as well. An excellent time to seize the day, the guys at IAB must have thought as they just released the first of a series of papers to establish some standards in the chaotic world of advergaming (or was it gamevertising?).
by: danah boyd
For this year's Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) conference, I put together a paper reflecting on my methodological choices in pursuing an understanding of how youth engage with networked publics. In it, I try to lay out my decisions, my successes, and my failures. This paper is written in loving memory of my advisor Peter Lyman.
Enjoy!
Original Post: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/10/25/choose_your_own.html
Continue reading "Advanced Brand Strategy Masterclass - Week Seven - Global Branding" »
by: Dick Stroud
Research from Ipsos shows that Canada's 50-plus have the same intentions as their Brit counterparts and are setting up their own businesses in droves.
Continue reading " The Entrepreneurial over-50s - Same Message from Canada" »
by: Roger Dooley
What’s the first thing a manager teaches a new retail or food service employee? Maybe “Don’t steal the cash!” is first, but right after that is, “Smile at the customer!” It turns out that this is probably even better advice than one might think. Continuing our exploration of subliminal stimuli and their effects on behavior, I wanted to share an intriguing study that shows that exposure to brief images of smiling or frowning faces - too quickly for the subject to consciously process - actually affected the amount test subjects were willing to pay for a drink!
by: C. Sven Johnson
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: my primary interest in tracking the intellectual property issues currently plaguing the music and movie industries, waiting in the ebook wings for book publishers, and even frustrating hordes of bloggers whose content is appropriated and used to create spamblogs, is that at some point their problems become my problems; becomes the problem of anyone who designs and fabricates real products for a living.
Continue reading "The Looming Dark Horizon: When the IP Mess Hits Industrial Design & Co." »
by: Dominic Basulto
The Japanese Web site Information Architects has once again created a wonderful graphical representation of the most popular Internet destinations. (click to enlarge)
by: Karl Long
Todd linked to this excellent viral homage to some of the notable viral videos of the last few years. Believe me they list a hell of a lot, but what I found interesting was the number of deliberate commercial “virals” for want of a better word. These are the companies/people that managed to achieve what I believe is quite a feat, to launch a deliberate campaign that “goes viral”.
Continue reading "We Didn’t Start The Viral - Commercial Successes" »
by: Dick Stroud
For the past couple of years I have been banging on about the fantastic marketing opportunity to provide products and services to assist the 50-plus who are starting their own business.
by: Idris Mootee
I was surprised to receive so many responses from my last post on "management buzzwords", including dozens of emails, I guess that resonates with many of you guys. I personally think the underlying reason for that behavior is simply because many people simply have no idea of how to deal with their business challenges, so they resort to using buzzwords to give the perception that they have the answers.
Continue reading "When Did You Last Re-frame Your Business?" »
by: Lynette Webb
Ta da... after a stupidly long delay, finally the book is ready. :-)
Ironically the hold up wasn't getting the content together, it was finding a cover image and binding that I liked - it took me 3 goes to get right!
by: David Wigder
This week’s cover story in BusinessWeek featured the experience of Auden Schendler, corporate director of environmental affairs at the Aspen Skiing Company (ASC), as he tried to convince his senior management that going green was worth the investment (“Little Green Lies,” October 29, 2007).
By: Stefan Kolle
Although we usually tend to steer clear from pure news related events, as these tend to be discussed in so many other places, I do want to add a few quick comments on the Microsoft / Facebook deal. (In the rather unlikely case you have missed it - here's the story)
I'd like to make two seemingly contradictory obervations:
A. Facebook will be a disappointment in the long run, particularly from an advertisers perspective
B. Microsoft did a brilliant deal and will make it's money back several times over.
Continue reading "Some Comments on the Microsoft / Facebook Deal" »
by: Nancy Baym
In class this week I showed Stephanie Tuszynski’s recent documentary “IRL In Real Life” about an officially-sanctioned online community that formed around Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The film raises a number of issues about how the cast and production team (not least Joss Whedon) interacted with the fans.
by: Dominic Basulto
The current issue of Popular Mechanics has assembled a great list of the 10 Most Brilliant Innovations of 2007. At the top of the list, of course, is the new surface computing interface from Microsoft:
Continue reading "The Ten Most Brilliant Innovations of 2007" »
by: Roger Dooley
We are subjected to a constant stream of branding messages - company logos, brand emblems, and even distinctive designs are, quite literally, everywhere. In addition to conventional advertising media, it seems that just about every item that can be used to convey a message has been pressed into service. The net effect of this barrage of branding might seem to be “brand blindness.”
by: Karl Long
Guinness has added a little twist to its latest advertising campaign and have hidden it online somewhere for someone to find. In good old ARG (alternate reality game) tradition they have started this game off with a couple of clues, in this case a fictional Mayor called Juan Ramon has put a video on youtube and created a pdf letter to share.
by: John Winsor
Since last week I've been enjoying Radiohead's new album, In Rainbow. I have to admit, I've never been a fanatical Radiohead fan and am not much of a trendsetter when it comes to music. Yet, when I went to Radiohead's web site to download the songs I was willing to pay $10 because the context was set by iTunes. As a consumer, I'm willing to pay a reasonable price for the product and would rather pay the producer directly, cutting out the middleman.
by: Christian Smagg
You may have come across one of my posts entitled “Which consumer 2.0 are you?” urging marketers to develop a better understanding of their customers’ online behaviour and devise a coherent and adapted social strategy accordingly.
Continue reading "Word-of-Mouth or When the Unbiased Opinion Is Trusted Around the Globe" »
by: John Caddell
After last week's look at "The Future of Management," it seemed appropriate to look back at one of my favorite HBR articles, "In Praise of Hierarchy," by the late Dr. Elliott Jaques (link - $$). In this article, published in 1990, Dr. Jaques asserts that "35 years of research have convinced me that managerial hierarchy is the most efficient, the hardiest, and in fact the most natural structure ever devised for large organizations."
I will be speaking at the "Innovating the Business Model" conference organized by Enterprise Ireland, today, Wednesday 24th of October.
Continue reading "Conference Talk: Innovating the Business Model (Dublin, Ireland)" »
by: C. Sven Johnson
I’ve just given Kinset, a 3D virtual shopping application, (Link) a spin. Before I offer my opinion, let’s start off with what it’s supposed to be. From the website:
by: Dick Stroud
I have written a lot about the Charmed Generation the group of 50-plus with high retirement income, lots of property wealth and no debt. I reckon that makes up around 2.5 million of the UK’s 17 million 55+.
by: Roger Dooley
At a conference presentation last week (see Neuromarketing in Montreal), I made the point that the most important frontier for neuromarketers may be product design. Why struggle to make ads more appealing when you could be making the product itself more appealing by tapping into the consumer’s true feelings and reactions?
by: Joel Makower
If you had asked me even a week ago whether Japan or the United States was further along in the greening of mainstream business, I'd likely have answered Japan. That country is, after all, the birthplace of the Prius and other eco-efficient vehicles and advanced technologies.
Continue reading "Green Business, in the Land of the Prius" »
by: Alain Thys
When listening to the case of TNT Post's sustainability efforts at Marktplein 2.0, I could only conclude that no good deed goes unpunished. And as it's a situation which many companies going "green" may be facing soon, it's one to start thinking about today.
by: John Caddell
Hamel talks frequently in the book of enrolling the entire company in innovation. Among all the obstacles to achieving this--the lack of democracy, the weight of inertia--the biggest one in my view is the information gap. Comparing the volume and depth of information I had access to when I was a senior executive to the paucity I had in any other position--the difference was staggering. (Note: you can find excerpts of "The Future of Management" here.)
Continue reading "On Gary Hamel's "The Future of Management" part 5 - Final thoughts " »
by: C. Sven Johnson (via: Business & Games)
by: Karl Long
So in the first week Radiohead’s album, In Rainbows, which they allowed customer to set their own prices 1 sells 1.2 million downloads and gets an average of $8 each. Next time I’ll just ask them to up the bitrate a little bit.
by: Roger Dooley
The subtitle of Your Money & Your Brain by Jason Zweig (Simon & Schuster, 340pp) is How The New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Make You Rich. No doubt the publishers needed to spice up the cover a bit, because the book might have been better subtitled, “How to stop your brain from screwing up a slow and steady investment strategy.”
by: Alain Thys
Based on some of the work we've been doing in the area of marketing accountability, I got invited to do a few hour inspiration session at Masterplan 2007 in Bucharest. As I was tiring of the "Marketing has an image problem" drill, I decided to take a different direction.
by: Idris Mootee
Web 2.0 is a loaded term that is unarguably subject to enormous amount of hype but now also a lot of serious corporate interest. Different people define Web 2.0 in different ways, which are often confusing and is understandable (same as branding, strategy and many other words). I have written a lot the last few weeks on Web 2.0 and Media 2.0.
by: Ilya Vedrashko (via Business & Games)
A couple of announcements indicating that Sony's upcoming PlayStationHome (site, wiki) virtual world will have plenty of ad inventory:
by: John Caddell
After lengthy case histories of some new-management examples (W.L. Gore, Whole Foods Market and Google), Hamel gets down to helping us imagine what the new management model might look like. In Chapter Eight of "The Future of Management ," "Embracing New Principles," he lays out models for highly-resilient, self-organizing systems, so that by example we could create some rules and practices for new corporate managment. The systems are:
Brands are transforming themselves and I would argue they are becoming more and more important. They exist beyond the ads and the products, they are trying to find new ways to get inside your home and be part of your life in the form branded content, branded entertainment, branded utilities and branded space. L'Equipe, the Parisian based daily sports newspaper invented 'the tour de France' only to sell more newspapers, its branded content with a pinch of engagement.
by: Karl Long
Someone on LinkedIn just posed this question “How can one make Blogs more enjoyable or What is that you do to maintain the popularity/readership of your blog?“. Here are my thoughts on this, this may not be all that leads to a successful blog, but these are for me pretty essential ingredients: Focus, Passion, and Originality.
Continue reading "Three Traits of Successful Blogs - Focus, Passion, and Originality" »
by: John Caddell
"Making innovation everyone's job" is a section heading in "The Future of Management." The question is why isn't this done? Hamel (and his co-writer Bill Breen; I've been negligent in not crediting him earlier) give three reasons:
by: David Wigder
Electronic Arts (EA)'s SimCity, the popular simulation game that challenges users to build and run a metropolis, is set to release its latest version in mid-November - SimCity Societies - and is generating a lot of buzz in the process.
Continue reading "Greener SimCity Virtual World as Channel to Influence Real World Behaviors" »
by: C. Sven Johnson
After I first saw the above video on the The Weekly Squeak blog (Link), I immediately did a search on prices for interactive whiteboards.
Continue reading "Transreality Interfaces: From Whiteboards to Grey Matter" »
by: John Caddell
What's wrong with today's style of management, anyway? It's earned trillions of dollars of profits. It's slimmed-down, delayered and re-engineered thousands of companies. It supports hundreds of graduate schools emitting newly-minted MBAs every year (including your author).
Continue reading "Uncovering the Art of Disruption Requires New Lenses and New Tools" »
by: Jon Miller
I'm here at the MarketingSherpa B2B Demand Generation Summit in Boston. The opening session was by Sean Donahue, Senior Editor for B-to-B Marketing at MarketingSherpa. In it, he shared the top five challenges faced by B2B marketers. I was especially intrigued by challenges 3, 4, and 5.
Continue reading "Top 5 Challenges for B2B Demand Generation Marketers" »
by: Karl Long
At the Forrester Consumer forum David Armano successfully goaded me into doing a podcast, with his promise of creating a logo for me, and the condition that he can be my first guest i acquiesce. His suggestion was to call it “The long and the short of it”, which I kind of like, it plays nicely off my last name, and seems like an appropriate homage to one of my favorite podcasts, American Copywriter. The connection is of course the infamous American Copywriter drinking game which is you take a drink any time someone says “The long and the short of it” amongst other things.
Continue reading "Interactive Agency Blogs and “the long and the short of it” Podcast" »
by: C. Sven Johnson
There’s an opinion piece over on BusinessWeek penned by Geoff Vuleta that got my attention a few days back. In “One Vision for the Future of Chrysler” (Link), Vuleta discusses how embracing sustainability initiatives could be good for Chrysler. So far so good.
Continue reading "Sustainability Scapegoats: Industrial Designers?" »
Mario Vellandi, the author behind the very excellent Melodies in Marketing, spent the last couple of weeks conducting a hard hitting interview on my views on the future of industrial design, design strategy and sustainable design. It was a great discussion with very high level content and interesting ideas exchanged between Mario and I. As I am committed to being part of Blog Action Day (which is today!), I thought it would be great timing to post this interview as part of Design Sojourn’s commitment to green design. This interview is also jointly posted an his site.
Continue reading "Let's Talk about Design Strategy and Sustainable Behaviors" »
by: John Caddell
When we think of innovation, we think of products. The Segway, the iPod, the Roomba, the hot cellphone of the quarter. It's not surprising: they make good copy, and they can be photographed.
But, according to Gary Hamel, in his new book "The Future of Management," product innovations are a short-lived form of competitive advantage. A highly-successful new product gives you only a few years of excess profits before imitators and, yes, more innovative products commoditize it. (Doesn't it seem that the RAZR's heyday was a thousand years ago?)
Continue reading "On Gary Hamel's "The Future of Management" part 1 - Management Innovation" »
by: Dick Stroud
South Gloucestershire Council are putting together a strategy for the 50-plus.
Now that should be a good thing? Yes and no. This is the council’s objective of the strategy.
by: Joel Makower
Last week's Live Better Sustainability Summit, held just outside of Bentonville, Arkansas, was yet another in what seems to be an accelerating series of "whoda thunk" moments. Bentonville, of course, is hometown to Wal-Mart, which sponsored the event, a daylong conclave that brought together more than a thousand people to a nearby convention centerContinue reading "Blog Action Day: Wal-Mart's Sustainability Summit" »
by: Dick Stroud
What follows is a splurge or facts and figures.
The results of the biannual internet advertising spend study from the Internet Advertising Bureau, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Advertising Research Centre shows online advertising expenditure reaching a potential new high of £2.75 billion by the end of 2007.
Continue reading "The 50-plus an important factor driving online advertising growth." »
Design Reaktor Berlin is a multi-disciplinary research project of the Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK)/Berlin University of the Arts. Their aim is to encourage innovative cooperation between small and medium-sized companies and young designers.
by: Eliane Alhadeff (via Business & Games)
Architectural Wonders Allowing Anyone to Create a Working Virtual World. Virtual-worlds platform developer Multiverse Network is set to announce a partnership Tuesday that will allow anyone to create a new online interactive 3D environment with just about any model from Google's online repository of 3D models, its 3D Warehouse, as well as terrain from Google Earth.
Continue reading "Serious Games Set In Your Favorite Google Earth Locations" »
by: Eliane Alhadeff (see: Business & Games)
On the October 24 episode of CBS' hit drama CSI: NY, the crime procedural will feature a murder investigation that meanders into the virtual world of Second Life. Gary Sinise's detective will track a real-life killer all the way into the popular world of Second Life.
Continue reading "OnRez Second Life Viewer: Serious Games Embrace New Way To Watch Entertainment " »
by: Danah Boyd
This morning, I spoke on a panel at the Retail Industry Leaders Association. The day before, a guy from Unilever gave a presentation on what happens when users take up your content and spread it all across the web. He was invited to be on the panel at the last moment because of a cancellation and because his presentation was so well received wrt Web 2.0. Right before we go on, I'm informed that the guy from Unilever was talking about the Dove Evolution campaign that was spread all over YouTube. This is the moment where I went white.
Here day Nr.4 (last day) of a course I was teaching at a Masters class on "Modeling Business Models" at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Hochschule Luzern).
Continue reading "Course (in German) on Modeling Business Models - Day 4 of 4 half-days" »
by: Ilya Vedrashko (via Business & Games)
This ad for Toyota Tacoma set in the World of Warcraft has been airing for a few days and has hit the front page of Digg and just about any WoW forum. The spot is a riff off one of the most famous WoW player moments, Leeroy Jenkins (wiki). The ad is not unlike the famous Coke spot made to look like it was set in the world of Grand Theft Auto.
"Password to Marketers' Meeting: Digital" as reported in a headline today by Suznee Vranica of WSJ. Wonder how many marketers have those secret passwords? In this crazy business environment, marketing is ready to be reinvented. No one is sure to who is taking the lead to drive this change. I have some ideas. I am sure you do too.
Continue reading "Ad Agency's Disruptive Future? Can the Old Dogs Survive It?" »
by: Alain Thys
I have just been on what I can only describe as a 'Romanian roller coaster'. Two days of non-stop meetings, a keynote on a conference of planners, a 4 hour inspiration session with 50 marketers (90% women :-), a TV show, a dozen interviews and more conversations than I can remember. And this all while a few months ago I didn't even know that there was an event called Masterplan 2007, taking place in Bucharest.
by: David Wigder
Today, smart marketers are focused not only on whether consumers view their message, but to what extent they engage with it. One definition of engagement is as a measure of consumer involvement with a marketing vehicle. As defined, it implies that engagement should be considered as both a marketing tactic and a metric that can be measured and optimized.
Continue reading "Green Marketing as a Vehicle for Consumer Engagement" »
Continue reading "Advanced Branding Masterclass Week Six - Customer Experience Design" »
by: David Jennings
This is the second of the excerpts from the first full draft of my book that I think it is worth rescuing from the cutting room floor. As I explained for the first one, there were a bunch of fictional scenarios that I devised imagining possible futures for consumers and for media organisations of different kinds. Some of them, including this one, were written in the form of interviews with media professionals.
by: Joel Makower
The notion of carbon-neutral shopping looms large for many in the environmental world. If only we could shop without guilt, knowing unquestionably that the global warming impacts of our purchases were being rendered harmless, we'd all feel that we were being part of the solution to climate change.
Continue reading "Cooler and the Quixotic Quest for Carbon-Neutral Consumption" »
by: Eliane Alhadeff
No slowing down in market adoption of Serious Games and Virtual Worlds, on both sides of the equation.
The Numerator – Gross Revenues
In my prior posts Serious Games, Serious Money: A Sizeable Market and Serious Games: A Sizeable Market - Update, I addressed how the video game industry was finding more business outside the entertainment sector.
Continue reading "Serious Games Sizeable Market, Virtual Worlds Sizeable Investment " »
by: Ilya Vedrashko
UI Garden: "During the doctoral research, Ruth Mugge investigated the topic of product attachment – the strength of the emotional bond a consumer experiences to a specific product.
by: Ilya Vedrashko
AdWeek runs a kind of post-mortem on the two nearly identical Facebook back-to-school campaigns by Target and Wal-Mart. Nothing really new here; Target's was apparently successful, and Wal-Mart's became a board for voicing broader anti-company concerns.
Continue reading "AdWeek on Target's and Wal-Mart's Facebook Efforts" »
by: Roger Dooley
Usually marketers concentrate on getting their own message out, but sometimes it seems necessary to respond to the claims of others. The most annoying of these situations are claims or rumors that are totally false. What should one do if, for example, an activist group makes false allegations that your product causes cancer or is made from baby seals? One’s first reaction would be to start a major effort to set the record straight - call a press conference, schedule interviews, and buy ad space . Oddly, those steps may be the worst reaction to the charges, and the reason is the way people’s brains work.
by: David Armano
"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."
~Steve Jobs
In the past several weeks, I've been noticing a pattern. I've seen words like "Guru", "A-lister" etc. next to my name—and it's freaking me out. Don't get me wrong—this aint about coming across as humble, nor it is an attempt to dictate how I'm labeled. What makes me nervous is what would happen if I started believing these labels.
by: Christian Smagg
Many organisations aspire to be customer-centric, yet few have figured out the recipe for successfully transforming their business. It seems like it was just yesterday that companies were discovering the importance of implementing CRM technologies and strategies aimed at acquiring new customers, managing effectively customer interactions, selling more to current customers, analysing the effectiveness of marketing activities and providing better customer service. All in the name of building stronger, longer lasting business relationships. Well, today is a new day, and the customers now decide who they do business with, as well as how and when they will do so.
Continue reading "The Shifting Balance of Power: When CRM becomes CMR" »
By: John Caddell
"Business and the Buddha
Continue reading "The business world needs more wisdom, ethical conduct and compassion" »
by: Roger Dooley
Neuroeconomics research suggests that roughly 15% of your consumers are “spendthrifts” - they have unusually low sensitivity to the pain of paying, i.e., the neural discomfort associated with parting with money. Selling to people who feel little or no buying pain should be easy, right?
by: Karl Long
So this is some early experimental thinking here so feel free to poke holes, call bullshit, or add your own take in the comments.
I’m using the term co-creative marketing here as I think it’s a better more holistic term than “viral”. I still think viral is a totally valid tactic, but I don’t think it’s a strategy. Viral in most cases is not much better than a 30 second spot except it’s distribution is cheaper, I guess that’s why marketers and advertisers are so generally comfortable with the concept.
Continue reading "Beyond Viral: 3 ideas for Co-Creative Marketing" »
by: Alain Thys
Now here's a green programme that's pragmatic, inspiring and at the same time simple enough that it could make consumers care. In 2008, the French supermarket Casino intends to label its products according to their eco-friendliness. The move follows an earlier announcement by Britain's Tesco who will start tracking the CO2 footprint of its products.
Continue reading "French Supermarket Casino Labels Eco-Friendliness of its Products" »
Continue reading "Digital Marketing's Dirty Little Secret" »
by: David Armano
I originally wrote the "4 C's of blogging" back in June of 2006. I expanded upon them in my "Conversation By Design" presentation and most recently referenced them in an interview with Crains. So I thought it might be a good idea to put together a post with the highlights for what it takes to create a great blog experience (in my opinion).
Click image to enlarge.
by: Joel Makower
The notion of a corporate chief information officer is fairly new -- less than thirty years old -- but the CIO's role has grown in lockstep with the strategic importance of information and knowledge management inside companies. Their ability to think strategically about information technology can help a company innovate, grow markets, streamline operations, cut costs, and generally improve competitiveness.
by: Ilya Vedrashko (via Business & Games)
Porsche 911 Turbo S wireless force-feedback wheel for PC and PlayStation3 is "the original reproduction of a 911 leather steering wheel [that] gives you the genuine Porsche feeling," is licensed by the car make
Continue reading "Brand Experience Through Game Peripheral" »
by: Michael Hoexter
A few posts back in this series I reviewed the state of mobile energy storage in the form of batteries and ultracapacitors, which are in the process of getting smaller and more powerful. However, if you don’t need to move around while using energy, the amount of energy stored per unit weight and volume becomes less of a challenge, therefore the separate category of stationary energy storage.
by: Roger Dooley
We’ve been writing about “tightwads” and “spendthrifts” lately (see Tightwads, Spendthrifts, and Everyone Else and Five Keys to Selling to Tightwads), and thought [Futurelab] readers might be interested in finding out where they fall on the spending scale.
by: C. Sven Johnson
Core77 alerted me to an article by frog design’s SVP of Creative, Mark Rolston, that initially sounds a heck of a lot like what I’ve been discussing here over the past few years, but manages to fall short in some critical ways. The article, “Defining The New Singularity” (Link), is still worth a read… if you haven’t been keeping up with things here. And don’t mind the way he’s casually butchering the term “singularity“; which in my opinion should have remained intact given the subject matter and potential for confusion.
Continue reading "Frog’s Rolston Gives Industrial Design a Singular Sales Pitch" »
by: Roger Dooley
If there’s one persistent theme here at Neuromarketing, it’s that good offers reduce buying pain for consumers, and bad offers increase it.
Continue reading "Negative Shipping, Less Pain, More Gain" »
by: Karl Long
Click image to enlarge.
Continue reading "Communicate your commitment to your customer" »
by: Roger Dooley
Every community operator knows that it takes different kinds of participants to be successful. Some people come looking for answers, others come to help. Some like to expound at length, while others say little. Some are lurkers, others are prolific contributors. Researchers from Cornell and Microsoft have produced some interesting research that graphically represents different community roles.
by: David Armano
Unlike Jarvis, my journey on the road to Dell didn't start as a customer—it started as a blogger.
by: John Caddell
While preparing yesterday's post on the business value of dissent, I stumbled upon some research by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson on team learning. The research centered on explaining a paradox--why in her studies did excellent teams make more errors than poor teams?
Continue reading "Great Innovation Requires Great Teams, Candor, and Acceptance of Mistakes" »
Continue reading "Web 2.0, Media 2.0 and Agency 2.0 - What Do You Mean?" »
by: C. Sven Johnson
There are a couple of interesting items floating around the virtual community.
First up is a report by the Yankee Group I first read about on the Virtual World News blog (Link). From the Yankee Group Press Release:
According to the recently published Yankee Group Note, Wither Second Life?, the growth rate of Second Life users has slowed since its peak in October 2006, while user engagement (as measured by average time spent per user) has leveled off at just 12 minutes per month.
Continue reading "Those Tricky Virtual Numbers: Engagement and Investment" »
by: Lynette Webb
This is a bit cyborg-ish but I like it 'cos I'd never thought about it in such blunt terms before.
Continue reading "We've Outsourced Brain Functions to Silicon" »
Continue reading "Brand Vision - Is It Only about Winning Market Shares?" »
by: David Wigder
Last Friday, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel at the Sustainable Brands conference in New Orleans. Panel participants included:
Susan Space, Director, Brands & Advertising, at Sun Microsystems
Brian Reich, Director of New Media at Cone, a brand and cause marketing agency, and
Janet Eden-Harris, CEO of Umbria, a marketing intelligence company.
by: Roger Dooley
One out of four potential customers for your product may not buy it, even if the purchase makes economic sense or is otherwise a good decision.
by: Guy Kawasaki
My buddies at Avenue A | Razorfish
provided me this copy of a study called “Fast Forward: Designing for Constant Change.” It consists of thirteen essays and research that explore how consumers’ digital media habits affect the ways that companies should design user experiences and digital brands. The company wrote the report for marketers who are trying to design more effective online ads and websites in the face of rapid technological change. It is the result of 500 interviews conducted in July, 2007.
Continue reading "“Fast Forward: Designing for Constant Change” Study" »
by: Danah Boyd
Much to my chagrin, most people do not seem to read the contracts that they sign. More horrifyingly, I'm watching as corporate lawyers increasingly introduce clauses that are manipulative at best, legal gag orders more often. I realize that most people don't read click-through agreements, but I would strongly encourage everyone to at least read employment contracts and NDAs, even the ones that look like click-throughs when you show up at a company to visit a friend for lunch.
(Image from StrawberryFrog's global Cap Gemini Ernst & Young campaign)New study shows importance of advertising to economic growth
A new study commissioned by the World Federation of Advertisers and the French Advertisers Association (UDA) has given one of the most comprehensive insights yet into the importance of advertising to economic growth.
Continue reading "New Study Shows Link Between Advertising and Economic Growth" »
by: Ilya Vedrashko
Today a site dominated by male geeks discusses a commercial designed for women as the new Dove Onslaught spot hits Digg's front page: "I don't get it... aren't Dove products beauty products? Aren't they shooting themselves in the foot? *confused*"
by: David Polinchock
Anyone who read this blog will say "no kidding" when they read this, but glad to see someone is actually putting some research together. Maybe now people will listen!
A study by M/A/R/C(R) Research and National In-Store revealed that more than 16 percent of consumers would stop shopping at a retail store if they received bad customer service, particularly in the areas of consumer electronics and home improvement.
Continue reading "Poor Service Results in Major Retail Loss" »
Continue reading "Advanced Branding Class Week Five - Developing a Brand Vision" »
by: Josh Hawkins
How should we measure the impact of online advertising? A good question considering the ubiquity of contextual and search advertising, increasingly rich display ads, and rapidly expanding use of video pre-rolls, which together will total close to $19.5 billion in 2007. According to Professor Chan Yun Yoo, at Kentucky's School of Journalism, it's really a question of memory, recall and brand building, as opposed to a simple "click-through" measurement exercise.
by: Roger Dooley
Marketers love to segment their potential customers, and now there’s a new way to do it: spendthrifts, tightwads, and everyone else. Research at Carnegie Mellon University shows that 40% of consumers can be classified as either spendthrifts or tightwads, while 60% fall into a middle category without strong tendencies in either direction.
Continue reading "Tightwads, Spendthrifts, and Everyone Else" »
by: Joel Makower
You wouldn't think that the world of green business would need much more publicity, given all the media stories, blogs, websites, TV shows, billboards, events, and other shout-outs plugging green companies, products, and services.
Continue reading "The Greening of P.R.: Read All About It" »
