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June 30, 2008

Our Latest Trend Forecast: Widget Culture, Crowd Madness, Eco-Maniac, Privacy Frantic and Nearly Free

by: Idris Mootee

A very busy Sunday night trying to get ahead before week starts. I have been getting lots of calls and emails from organizations that want to discuss equity partnership with Idea Couture last few weeks. They range from agency holding companies to big tech players. Will continue with these dialogues and in the meantime work out our 2 year plan. Just reviewing our latest trend forecast for the next 18 months and I thought I would share some of them with you here.

Continue reading "Our Latest Trend Forecast: Widget Culture, Crowd Madness, Eco-Maniac, Privacy Frantic and Nearly Free" »

Roughnecks Learn to Learn from Mistakes

by: John Caddell

"Unmasking Manly Men" in the July-August Harvard Business Review Forethought section had a grabby title and a thesis puncturing a resilient stereotype: one of the roughest, most macho, most dangerous industries in the world--offshore oil drilling--has developed a new work culture where workers support each other, where they are open and candid with their feelings, and...my favorite topic...where they admit mistakes and seek to learn from them.

Continue reading "Roughnecks Learn to Learn from Mistakes" »

An Experiment in Crowd-sourcing

by: Matt Rhodes

I had my first real experience of using crowd-sourcing to solve a business problem last week. We’re working on the design and concept for an online community that will be public later in the summer. The community is going to be covering an exciting topic and one that should appeal to a broad range of the target audience. What’s even better is the client is enthusiastic about sponsoring a community about the issues, rather than it having to be overtly product-led.

Continue reading "An Experiment in Crowd-sourcing" »

June 29, 2008

The Facts & Figures of Brands & Games

by: Rick van der Wal  via Business and Games Blog

The Postbank (Dutch ING bank) in Habbo Hotel and eBay in the console race game GRID. It’s nothing new to see brands make an appearance in games to reach out to various demographics. Marketing agencies have discovered the secret of communicating with those markets hard to reach through traditional advertising. But yesterday at Branded Games 08 we got to see the complete motivation and results of Branded Games as presented by fairly large brands such as Elsevier, Wehkamp and Proctor & Gambles Dreft.

Continue reading "The Facts & Figures of Brands & Games" »

June 27, 2008

Marketing's Wheel of Misfortune

by: David Armano

One of the ways I have "monetized" this blog and other efforts in the social space has been the privilege of  getting out and speaking to folks in the marketing field from a variety of perspectives.

Continue reading "Marketing's Wheel of Misfortune" »

The Power of "New"

by: Roger Dooley

new_1.jpgMarketers know there are potent words in advertising, like “Free” and “New.” Neuroscientists have now determined that the appeal of “new” is hard-wired into our brains. Novelty activates our brain’s reward center, which may have been an evolutionary advantage to our ancestors as they encountered new food sources or other elements of survival.

Continue reading "The Power of "New"" »

Consumers Itching to Talk to Brands

by: Matt Rhodes

A new study from ExpoTV shows that 55% of consumers want an ongoing dialogue with brands. The study investigates how brands and consumers interact, and in particular how consumers want brands to engage them. And the results are exciting. In addition to the 55% wanting an ongoing dialogue, 89% of respondents said they would feel more loyal to a brand if they were invited to take part in a feedback group.

Continue reading "Consumers Itching to Talk to Brands" »

June 26, 2008

Creative Commons Case Study Database

by: Karl Long

I think many of us intuitively know how important Creative Commons is in supporting the co-creativity, like mashups and many kinds of consumer generated content. Now we don't have to rely on our intuition and Creative Commons have created a database of case studies of it's use around the world.

Continue reading "Creative Commons Case Study Database" »

M&T Bank - Piling on the Fees, It's a Company Easy to Hate

by: John Caddell

A funny thing happened to me at the end of April. While I was on a business trip, our personal checking account with M&T Bank dipped below zero. I didn't get back from the trip till late Friday, then the weekend came. At any rate I didn't find out about the problem till Monday, when I checked the balance on line.

Continue reading "M&T Bank - Piling on the Fees, It's a Company Easy to Hate" »

Are You Trained to Tell Good Stories? Do You Understand the Power of Narrative in Business?

by: Idris Mootee

We know all children love stories. Here's J.K. Rowling, unarguably the master story teller of this century.

Continue reading "Are You Trained to Tell Good Stories? Do You Understand the Power of Narrative in Business?" »

How to Avoid Convergence Collision

by: Matt Rhodes

At the E-consultancy Future of Digital Media conference last week the focus was on two magic words “relevance” and “engagement”. In Ian Jindal’s stimulating and lively talk he correctly pointed out that marketing hasn’t actually changed much, even though where we choose to communicate our messages may have. Consumers are at saturation point so the only thing left is for companies to get better at attracting customers from their competitors. The ‘How’ was the focus of the day. There were three themes:

Continue reading "How to Avoid Convergence Collision" »

The Future of: News Reporting?

by: Iqbal Mohammed

Sometime in the near future, Wikipedia will absorb and back up all the information in the world even as it’s being created. It’s already doing a good job of it – and it’ll only get better.

Continue reading "The Future of: News Reporting?" »

June 25, 2008

The Power Point That Made Me Cry (Because I Was Happy)

by: Karl Long

Your mileage may vary but some of the themes in this slideshow “happiness as your business model” resonate so deeply with me it literally brought tears to my eyes.

Continue reading "The Power Point That Made Me Cry (Because I Was Happy)" »

Why User-generated Medical Content Works

by: Matt Rhodes

When people think of user-generated content they often think of the media or publishing. Videos on YouTube, spoofing TV shows or films, and content responding to and expanding upon journalistic or editorial articles abound. But UGC is certainly not limited to these areas. In fact it can work best on any topic where some individuals will have developed a specific interest in or knowledge of the area.

Continue reading "Why User-generated Medical Content Works" »

Business Exposure to Benefit from New Face of Journalism

by: Yann Gourvennec

eye-large.gifAn article by Rachel Meranus: PR Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks Understanding the changing face of journalism can be the key to getting more coverage for your business is providing insight in the media revolution which is unfolding before our very eyes.

Continue reading "Business Exposure to Benefit from New Face of Journalism" »

Not So Fast

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

Denon has been trying to sell a $500 Ethernet cable for going on two years, and the social mediascape won't let it get away with it.

It's utter nonsense, of course, following in the hallowed and profitable clamshells of Monster Cable. Here's part of the product description:

Continue reading "Not So Fast" »

Radical Transparency and the Right to Information

by: Iqbal Mohammed

When WIRED recently announced that transparency is a judo move, they obviously didn't mean what PSFK discovered at the Captial One offices recently.

That gaffe, however, set me thinking.

Continue reading "Radical Transparency and the Right to Information" »

June 24, 2008

Bikinis, Babes, and Buying

by: Roger Dooley

thumb_bikini.jpgScantily clad women have been used to sell products to men for decades, and likely for millennia in one form or another. There’s little doubt that the typical male brain is wired to respond to attractive females in revealing attire. But is this a cheap attention-getting trick that has no real impact on sales, or does it actually work? Researchers shed new light on this topic by exposing subjects to either videos of women in bikinis or more neutral videos, and evaluating their decision making ability.

Continue reading "Bikinis, Babes, and Buying" »

Letting Primark Engage the Debate

by: Matt Rhodes

I watched the Panorama documentary on the BBC last night about Primark. For those not in the UK, Ireland or Spain, Primark specialises in fast and cheap fashion. They make cheaply priced versions of high-street and cat walk fashion and aim to get it to their stores within weeks of the original outfit first being seen. They claim their cheap prices are due to cost effective production, fast stock turnaround, the fact that they do no marketing and the volumes that they sell. The BBC tonight claimed otherwise.

Continue reading "Letting Primark Engage the Debate" »

Designing for Mobile People Not Mobile Devices

by: Karl  Long

“We must focus on mobile people, not mobile devices. In other words, we are not merely shrinking in size a Web experience, but creating an entirely new platform for communication and interaction.”

Continue reading "Designing for Mobile People Not Mobile Devices" »

Dangerous Underwear

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

It took an LA traffic cop to discover that Victoria's Secret underwear can be used as a dangerous weapon. No, not dangerous like oh-you're-so-pouty-dangerous, but as in actually harmful.

Continue reading "Dangerous Underwear" »

June 23, 2008

New York Times Becomes More Social

by: Matt Rhodes

The New York Times launched a beta version of TimesPeople over the weekend. It’s their first step at adding a social layer onto their site - a recommendations service and mini-social network. It’s works rather simply:

Continue reading "New York Times Becomes More Social" »

Should You Build Your Business Strategy Like Doing 'Tai Chi' - It's Non-linear, Adaptive and Is All Judo-Economics

by: Idris Mootee

Strategic planning today is seldom strategic. Many companies label their operations meeting as strategic planning. 90% of the times they use a top-down formal process of articulating a vision and translate that to actions, assuming the word “freeze” while they execute.

Continue reading "Should You Build Your Business Strategy Like Doing 'Tai Chi' - It's Non-linear, Adaptive and Is All Judo-Economics" »

Two Neuromarketing Challenges

by: Roger Dooley

Slate science writer Daniel Engber finds the concept of neuromarketing dubious, and in particular has a problem with FKF Applied Research. FKF has been particularly successful in getting highly visible press coverage of its interpretations of fMRI brain scans.

Continue reading "Two Neuromarketing Challenges" »

June 21, 2008

AARP Launches New Games Web Portal

by: Dick Stroud

AARP recently re-launched its web site. Part of the refresh is a new gaming area (sorry I should have said portal) provided by Arkadium.

Continue reading " AARP Launches New Games Web Portal" »

Green Marketing Is Pollution

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

I can't think of a practice that is more damaging to corporate reputation, or insulting to consumers' intelligence, than green marketing.

Continue reading "Green Marketing Is Pollution" »

June 20, 2008

The Biggest Online Fans are Sports Fans

by: Nancy Baym

The European Interactive Advertising Association recently released a study showing that sports fans are twice as likely to use the internet while watching TV than are ‘average’ internet users. As the report on this posted at Netimperative explains:

Continue reading "The Biggest Online Fans are Sports Fans" »

HUMMER: Split-Brain Branding

by: Roger Dooley

The last few weeks have had plenty of news about the Hummer brand. The biggest news, of course, is that General Motors announced that they were putting the Hummer line up for review and possible divestment. Just a day or so earlier, Hummer continued its history-making off road run when Team Hummer and Rod Hall Racing scored twin stock class victories in the Baja 500.

Continue reading "HUMMER: Split-Brain Branding" »

Creation, Rome, Chrysler

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

God created all of existence in seven days, Rome certainly wasn't built in a day, and Bob Nardelli plans to change Chrysler’s corporate culture somewhere between (in three days, to be exact).

Continue reading "Creation, Rome, Chrysler " »

Social Music in the Metaverse

by: Rick van der Wal via Business and Games Blog

music_in_virtual_worlds.jpg

Isn’t it ironic the industry which consistently struggles to monetize its digital content is the business with the highest potential to do so.

Continue reading "Social Music in the Metaverse" »

Brands vs Consumers - Microsoft's Spoof Ad Campaign

by: Matt Rhodes

So Microsoft has entered the world of spoof ads. Charlie’s post earlier this week (here) showed one of the adverts they’ve made. Based on a ‘couple’ the ads parody the disconnect between brands (or rather advertisers) and consumers. Showing how the consumer has moved on, whilst the advertiser hasn’t. How the consumer thinks the relationship isn’t working any more, whilst the advertiser thinks it can.

Continue reading "Brands vs Consumers - Microsoft's Spoof Ad Campaign" »

June 19, 2008

A Blueprint for Design Education 2.0

by: Design Translator

I often like to get myself into a spot of teaching, collaborating with and critiquing students. I find it enhances and consolidates what I have learned in my career in Design. I do recommend that designers, especially the senior ones, take some time off work to rub shoulders with people in a learning environment.

Continue reading "A Blueprint for Design Education 2.0" »

Google Is WPP, Omnicom and Publicis' Nightmare

by: Idris Mootee

I was in London with clients last week and I’d also had a meeting with my friend at WPP head office (see picture of their modest head office which houses the best financial minds in the business). We had a great discussion about how they see the ad world’s future.

Continue reading "Google Is WPP, Omnicom and Publicis' Nightmare" »

Advertising's Worst Nightmare

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

InBev's possible purchase of Anheuser-Busch must be keeping lots of advertising people up at night.

Continue reading "Advertising's Worst Nightmare" »

The Inside Word on Word-of-Mouth Marketing

by: Guy Kawasaki

Word of Mouth - book.jpg

In this interview Dave Balter explains word-of-mouth marketing. Balter founded BzzAgent in 2002. His company has provided word-of-mouth media services for dozens of Fortune 500 companies and has been featured in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and on National Public Radio. He is also co-founder and current board member of The Word of Mouth Marketing Association.

Continue reading "The Inside Word on Word-of-Mouth Marketing" »

June 18, 2008

Disintegrated Communications

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

A few days ago, I received further confirmation from my bank -- Chase -- that its brand is all about abusing me.

Continue reading "Disintegrated Communications" »

The Latest Reports: Solar Utilities, Carbon Offsets, and the Emperor's New Clothes

by: Joel Makower

The spring rains have yielded a bumper crop of new reports on the business of green. I've been a bit behind in fielding them, given my travels and last week's highly successful Greener by Design conference. Here are five of the latest:

Continue reading "The Latest Reports: Solar Utilities, Carbon Offsets, and the Emperor's New Clothes" »

Television Broadcast Is Moving To A Multiplicity Model

by: Idris Mootee

Are we getting near an industry breakpoint for the broadcast media and television industry? Macro forces are forcing a collision between the Internet and the world of video and television content distribution. This transformation may last for a few good years until the industry fully reconfigure itself.

Continue reading "Television Broadcast Is Moving To A Multiplicity Model" »

Markers of Status: Different, and Yet the Same

by: danah boyd

(I was asked to respond to some of Clay Shirky's posts on Talking Points Memo Cafe. I figured that this would be a good excuse to blog since I've been a bad bad bad bad blogger lately. What follows is my first blog response.)

Continue reading "Markers of Status: Different, and Yet the Same" »

June 17, 2008

Managing and Mocking Identities

by: Nancy Baym

The worlds of politics and fandom have been merging for some time, and it’s never been clearer than in this US election cycle where “user-generated content” from YouTube debate questions to Obama girl videos to Facebook groups to political blogs have been so important and inescapable.

Continue reading "Managing and Mocking Identities" »

"The Wall is the Desk of the Future"

by: Alexander Osterwalder

Last Friday I ran a workshop on business model innovation with the management of one of the 5 regions of a top Swiss bank. In the break-out session the bankers split into groups and were supposed to work on huge posters to sketch-out the business model of an innovative bank. That is when I realized how uncommon it still is for executives to think visually and use the wall/poster as a visual thinking aid.

Continue reading ""The Wall is the Desk of the Future"" »

Internet: Twice as Influential as TV; Eight Times as Print Media

by: Matt Rhodes

A new study, tracking and measuring the impact of the internet on consumer behaviour across three European countries (UK, France and Germany), suggests that the internet is twice as influential as television and eight times as influential as print media. These findings come from the Digital Influence Index study from PR firm Fleishman-Hillard and research firm Harris Interactive.

Continue reading "Internet: Twice as Influential as TV; Eight Times as Print Media" »

New Contributors: Matt Rhodes (4/7)

by: Alain Thys

matthewrhodes.jpgA big Konichi-Wa to yet another inspiring blog contributor here at Futurelab.  Working for the award-winning UK research firm Freshminds, Matt Rhodes specialises in sustainable customer engagement, using social networking and online communities to bring customers and stakeholders closer to the brand.  He's also learning Japanese (but as per his request, we won't test him on it ... "yet" :-)   Please join us in welcoming Matt !

June 16, 2008

Podcast and Presentation from Dublin

by: Dick Stroud

Alex Gibson invited me to Dublin to talk to a meeting of The Pudding Club. Not an offer I could refuse. The idea behind this club is that after a long day in the office marketers can socialise – drink a glass or two of wine – have a bite to eat and listen to a speaker talk about a specific area of marketing. No formality, no PowerPoint. Just listen, discuss, socialise, have fun and hopefully learn something new.

Continue reading "Podcast and Presentation from Dublin" »

7 Strategies for B2B Marketing during a Recession: The Definitive Guide

by: Jon Miller

Should B2B marketers change their strategies during a recession? Does a recession always mean marketers have to work even harder to find ways to do more with less? Can a recession create opportunity for smart marketers to grow and thrive? These are some of the topics I recently explored on a panel at the SMX Advanced conference in Seattle.

Continue reading "7 Strategies for B2B Marketing during a Recession: The Definitive Guide" »

June 15, 2008

Neuroeconomics and Investment Insanity

by: Roger Dooley

The human brain didn’t evolve to pick stocks, which explains why there are so few Warren Buffets among the ranks of fund managers. Jason Zweig, author of Your Money & Your Brain (reviewed in Ignore Your Brain and Get Rich), did a lengthy interview with the Journal of Indexes. The publication, which seems to be geared to promoting index funds (funds that invest in large baskets of stocks without active stock-picking by fund managers), could hardly have chosen a better subject to interview.

Continue reading "Neuroeconomics and Investment Insanity" »

Metallica Admit Some Blunder, Blunder Anyway

by: Nancy Baym

Metallica have offered a rationalization for demanding that those invited to a listening party take down the reviews of the album they wrote. Oops, just some underling’s dumb move, honest. On Metallica.com, they write:

Continue reading "Metallica Admit Some Blunder, Blunder Anyway" »

Am I Better off Being an 'Imitvator' Than An 'Innovator' ?

by: Idris Mootee

Leaving London and heading home for the weekend. A question that came across a few times this week during my keynote is 'how important it is to be agile'.

Continue reading "Am I Better off Being an 'Imitvator' Than An 'Innovator' ?" »

June 14, 2008

How to Escape Corporate America

by: Guy Kawasaki

Escape from Corp. Am. - book.jpgPamela Skillings is the founder of Skillful Communications, a career and communications consulting firm in New York. Previously, Pamela spent more than twelve years as a marketing executive for companies including MasterCard International, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup. She recently published a book called Escape from Corporate America: A Practical Guide to Creating the Career of Your Dreams

Continue reading "How to Escape Corporate America" »

Innovative Ways of Seeing: The Art of Social Data

by: Dominic Basulto

In the current issue of Contagious Magazine (subscription required), Noah Brier and Faris Yakob of Naked Communications have prepared a tour de force article about the new age of social (meta)data.

Continue reading "Innovative Ways of Seeing: The Art of Social Data " »

No Country for Old Men

by: Dick Stroud

ladies-740367.jpgThere is a very interesting article in today’s Guardian about the plight of older men, living alone. It is based on research from Help the Aged.

The bottom line facts/conclusions are:
In the UK the number of 60+ men, who live alone, is over a million.

Continue reading " No Country for Old Men" »

The Necessity of Purpose

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

One of the rites of passage in the real world is the summer job, which gives kids a taste of responsibility outside the home, not to mention the fun stuff that can be purchased with paychecks.

Only now that rite has shifted to virtual worlds. It seems that computer-savvy kids are finding work in MMOs and MMORPGs (online games):

Continue reading "The Necessity of Purpose" »

Management... duh!

by: Sigurd Rinde

Business process management, document management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, management, management, management...

Managing is what you do to horses. Wielding a whip in the middle of the manège putting the horse through it's paces.

Continue reading "Management... duh!" »

June 13, 2008

Employees "sell" Apple Macs to Their Bosses

by: Mark Rogers

Steve Jobs of Apple doesn’t employ a sales force to persuade corporations to switch to Apple. Nonetheless Apple market share in this area is growing, driven in part by the consumer’s liking for the iPod and iPhone. In an intriguing Business Week survey Peter Burrows highlights that employees, sick of a PC by day, Mac by night existence, are pushing their firms into switching to Apple.

Continue reading "Employees "sell" Apple Macs to Their Bosses" »

New Contributors: Mark Rogers (3/7)

by: Alain Thys

It's Friday the 13th, but at Futurelab that often means good luck. Today, this comes in the form of Mark Rogers of Market Sentinel who joins us as a new contributing blogger. As co-founder of the BBC's mothership website and launcher of the first WAP commerce site "ever", we can surely consider Mark as one of the pioneers of the digital space. So please join us in welcoming Mark and looking forward to reading his interesting thoughts on our blog.

June 12, 2008

Internet Inquiry (My New Book!) Ready for Prepurchase

by: Nancy Baym

Internet Inquiry - book.jpg

The book I co-edited with Annette Markham about the use of qualitative research methods, Internet Inquiry: Conversations about Method, is now available for prepurchase at Amazon. It’s scheduled to exist on paper between covers next month, just in time for fall classes. You can also order it direct from the publisher or request an examination copy here.

Continue reading "Internet Inquiry (My New Book!) Ready for Prepurchase" »

What Are the Differences between Chinese and Western Form-giving?

by: Design Translator

“An introduction to formgiving in Chinese product design” is a research article, written by Vigleik Norheim from the Department of Product Design from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. It gives some interesting insights on the cultural influences that impact the form-giving methodology in Chinese Industrial Design.

Continue reading "What Are the Differences between Chinese and Western Form-giving?" »

June 11, 2008

Must We Give away Digital Creative Works?

by: John Caddell

copyme_bbg.pngI've been thinking about this a lot recently, spurred on by the recent Fran Ten podcast, this David Pogue post, and most recently a thoughtful post by Scott Goodson based on this column by economist Paul Krugman.

Continue reading "Must We Give away Digital Creative Works?" »

Fashion Psychology

by: Roger Dooley

Our tastes in fashion, and indeed, our ideas in general, are almost never the result of a solo creative effort. Rather, they are influenced by collective behavior of which we may or may not be consciously aware. Robert L. Goldstone and a team of researchers at Indiana University have been modeling collective behavior in a laboratory setting to determine how idea propagate in different social arrangements.

Continue reading "Fashion Psychology" »

Actress Kristin Scott Thomas Drives a(n electric) G-Wiz!

by: Michael Hoexter

On a Top Gear show aired last night on BBC America, the well-respected actress Kristin Scott Thomas (”The English Patient”, “Four Weddings and a Funeral”,  “Mission: Impossible”) confesses to the bloviating but funny Jeremy Clarkson that she drives the G-Wiz electric mini-car when she is in London.

Continue reading "Actress Kristin Scott Thomas Drives a(n electric) G-Wiz!" »

When Is a Community Not a Community?

by: Matt Rhodes

There’s a lot of talk about online research communities at the moment. At almost every event I go to people want to talk about using online communities for market research, often creating their own communities. And every week there seems to be the announcement of another brand launching such a community (this week it was the Mirror newspaper with their Mirror Mouthpiece).

Continue reading "When Is a Community Not a Community?" »

June 10, 2008

Movie Mind Control

by: Roger Dooley

It’s no surprise that movies can light up the brain. After all, they can surprise or frighten us, makes us laugh or cry, create suspense, and much more.

Continue reading "Movie Mind Control" »

A Stinky Prediction for Anyone in the Creative Business

by: Scott Goodson

Paul Krugman's Op Ed in Friday's New York Times should be bone chilling for anyone working in the creative end of the business world. That is if you believe it.

Continue reading "A Stinky Prediction for Anyone in the Creative Business" »

Read More of Net, Blogs and Rock'n'Roll on Amazon.com

by: David Jennings

The Amazon.com pageBuy Net, Blogs and Rock'n'Roll from Amazon.com for Net, Blogs and Rock'n'Roll now has Amazon's Search Inside features enabled.

Continue reading "Read More of Net, Blogs and Rock'n'Roll on Amazon.com" »

Can the Market Decide Influence in Social Media?

by: Matt Rhodes

Over the weekend I wrote about Ian Schafer, who sold advertising space on his Twitter feed for a month on eBay; the item closed at $1,082.01 (see post here). This experiment interests me for a couple of reasons:

Continue reading "Can the Market Decide Influence in Social Media?" »

June 9, 2008

Brain Image Bias

by: Roger Dooley

The use of brain imaging in evaluating advertising and products is increasing, and one wonders if the judgment of marketing execs could be clouded by the presence of colorful scan images when used to back up humdrum conclusions in the text. The answer is almost certainly, “Yes.”

Continue reading "Brain Image Bias" »

The Renewable Electron Economy Part XV: Is the EV Revolution Already Here?

by: Michael Hoexter

In the leisurely way I have been writing and posting on my blog, I have not yet completed my series on how energy supply and energy demand will look in the future, what I am calling the Renewable Electron Economy. Yet, as events are unfolding more rapidly in the world around us, we may see some form of an Electron Economy, perhaps fueled by renewable energy, sooner rather than later.

Continue reading "The Renewable Electron Economy Part XV: Is the EV Revolution Already Here?" »

Endless Innovation Business Trends: June 2008

by: Dominic Basulto

Largely as an outgrowth of client work over the past quarter, I've put together a brief overview of four business trends that are worth keeping an eye on over the remainder of 2008:

(1) Social Data
(2) Micro-Payments for Online Social Experiences
(3) Content Mashups
(4) "Live" experiences (that really aren't "live")

Continue reading "Endless Innovation Business Trends: June 2008" »

June 8, 2008

An Important Definition of Sensemaking

by: John Caddell

In trying to talk to companies about using narrative techniques and other ways to mine the non-quantitative data they have but never make use of, especially for strategy and innovation, this post from Dave Snowden will be a significant asset.

Continue reading "An Important Definition of Sensemaking" »

Accessibility but Not for You

by: Dick Stroud

This incident really amused me. A very large global communications company recently presented at a conference about older people and proudly (with some justification) explained that they had created a booklet that was sent to all staff about how to deal with older people. A big round of applause.

Continue reading " Accessibility but Not for You" »

June 7, 2008

DVR Usage to Blame for Idiotic, Invasive Intrusions -- Adrants

by: David Polinchock

I wrote about this last July (see Experience Manifesto: Note To FX Network) and it's getting worse & worse. It's particularly bad on the cable nets, but I'm sure it'll eventually move over to major networks as well. As I said in my comment at Adrants, we like to talk about the consumer being in control, but the reality is we can't wait to take that control away.

Continue reading "DVR Usage to Blame for Idiotic, Invasive Intrusions -- Adrants" »

The Dim Bulb Equation

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

I'm not satisfied by any of the answers I've heard for measuring branding because I'm not convinced we're asking the right questions.

Continue reading "The Dim Bulb Equation" »

Social Enterprises - May Be the Best Solutions to Many of Our Problems

by: Idris Mootee

I picked up an old copy of a Harvard Business School Reunion Magazine (1995) from my garage. Flipped through it and an article caught my attention. It was written by Gregory Dees and Kasturi Rangan (HBS professors) reporting about their research in Social Enterprise. The two of them started many years back the school’s initiate of Social Enterprise. They developed field studies and courses in Social Enterprise, which is a second year elective. 

Continue reading "Social Enterprises - May Be the Best Solutions to Many of Our Problems" »

What's a Twitter Ad Worth? $1,082

by: Matt Rhodes

There’s a lot of discussion about Twitter at the moment, mainly because the service seems to be struggling to keep up with the growth in user numbers, but I’ve been following a different development.

Continue reading "What's a Twitter Ad Worth? $1,082" »

June 6, 2008

What Are Your Principles of Good Design? (Featured)

by: Design Translator

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Particularly because I frequently like to consolidate my design thinking, and had noticed many designer anchoring their work on some kind of design philosophy or thinking. Similarly, Dieter Rams’ 10 Commandments helped define him as a designer, and perhaps by identifying these Principles or Laws could do the same for me as well.

Continue reading "What Are Your Principles of Good Design? (Featured)" »

Is There a Bear Sterns of the Advertising Industry?

by: Scott Goodson

First there was Bear Stearns. Now, James West suggests that Lehman Brothers - that venerable institution, that’s been in business since 1850, may fall in a Bear Stearns-like meltdown.

Diane Hinton, an analyst at Standard & Poor's, said: `We're in a market environment where sometimes perception becomes reality.'

Continue reading "Is There a Bear Sterns of the Advertising Industry?" »

New Contributors: Brian Ling, aka. The Design Translator (2/7)

by: Alain Thys

Today, we'd like to introduce you to Brian Ling. Under the nom de plume Design Translator (DT) you will see his articles appearing on the Futurelab blog. DT is Creative Director and Design Producer at Design Sojourn, while at the same time heading up Industrial Design at Nakamichi Research in Singapore.   

As described by himself, his posts focus on: How to do good industrial design, create clever products, and master the business of design. Please join me in welcoming another remarkable blogger to the Futurelab family!

June 5, 2008

Green Is Now a Cliche´

by: John Caddell

I agree with Tim Berry--the term "green" has been overused to the point of meaninglessness. Here's the latest example I've seen:

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Walmart's Latest Innovation - It's Free Classified

by: Idris Mootee

Two interesting businesses launched this week and both worth special mention. First one is Wal-Mart has decided to compete with Craiglist and Kijiji (an eBay company); they quietly launched a free online classified service, and sell practically anything to anyone. It is still at pilot stage and currently carries 30 mil items. I searched for Tiffany and I got this Tiffany bracelet for $135. There's no fees involved for buyer and seller. I don't think eBay likes this idea.

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Where Can Social Media Go?

by: Scott Goodson

My vision for social media is a much broader, much bigger, more invasive media than we can even imagine today. With Gen-y growing up using this medium as their main medium, I only have to look at the boomer generation to see the hundreds of new industries that were created on the back of film and TV with this age group.

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June 4, 2008

The Greening of Design, from A to D

by: Joel Makower

bsrgraphic.jpgThe greening of design is gaining interest, and I'm not simply talking about our fast-approaching conference on the topic, Greener by Design. Last week, Business for Social Responsibility and the design firm IDEO released a new free report (download - PDF) showing how companies are infusing sustainability into their design processes in ways that have led to innovative products that offer value to consumers.

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Stairway to Brand Heaven & Hell

by: David Armano

Inspired by a chat with Jared Spool.

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New Contributors: Nancy Baym (1/7)

by: Alain Thys

This year, we've decided to provide you with an extra stimulating dose of Summer reading, as we will be putting not less than seven (7) new contributors online in the coming weeks. Today, we're kicking off with Nancy Baym. As social media specialist and Associate Professor in Communication Studies at the University of Kansas, she's probably the world's blogging authority in the area of online fandom. Today - we're very proud to say - she's also part of the Futurelab family, so keep an eye out for her thoughts !

Meetings - a Silent Sigh

by: Sigurd Rinde

Meeting of minds are core to our existence, and almost always a pleasure (except for that chance brush with a surly parking meter overlord of course).

But there is another kind of meeting, mostly an intracompany phenomena: The project workflow node par excellence, the book-ends of any process snippet in our daily Barely Repeatable work day.

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10 Best Practices of Online Music Promotion

by: Nancy Baym

Get your music streaming : If you want people to get into your music, they need to be able to hear it. Get your entire catalogue up at Last.fm, load those songs on MySpace, make sure iMeem and iLike have your tunes, find out what services people are using in the regions you want to be heard and make sure those people have easy free access to your catalog. No one’s going to fall in love with thirty second tidbits, and if you’ve got a great song, people will want to know if the rest of your stuff is as good. Let them listen.

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June 3, 2008

Managing Environmental Risk by Looking through the Rear-view Mirror

by: David Wigder

A recent survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit identified both the top influencers of – and benefits derived from - corporate environmental risk management (CERM) programs. Two things are curious about these survey results. First, customers and investors rank relatively low in influence (fourth and seventh, respectively) despite the fact that “better corporate reputation” among these groups ranks as the primary benefit for launching CERM in the first place.

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Industry Breakpoints Are Where Innovation Is Most Likely to Happen

by: Idris Mootee

You probably hear about S-curves or industry discontinuous all the time and wonder if these are just academic theories or real. If they are real, how can one create an industry breakpoint and are there any pre-conditions? To make that happen, companies must be able 1/ to learn about the breakpoint potential in the industry and have a sense about when it will happen and 2/ commit to making a quantum organizational change and 3/ have an economic engine (cash flow) to sustain the transformation.

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Best Management Book 2009: "Business Model Innovation" by Osterwalder & Pigneur, Produced by ULURU

by: Alexander Osterwalder

The title of this blogpost is probably a bit cocky and it would certainly be completely off the mark if it were just about another management book...

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June 2, 2008

Mind Reading Progress

by: Roger Dooley

Reading a person’s thoughts may still be science fiction, but researchers at Carnegie-Mellon University are making surprising progress in specific types of “mind reading.” The team, led by computer scientist Tom Mitchell and cognitive neuroscientist Marcel Just, has demonstrated that they can correctly determine the concrete noun subjects are thinking three out of four times:

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Plurk, Twitter for Teens?

by: Karl Long

Just heard of this new service called Plurk which is a similar “microblogging” service rather like Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku etc. According to Venture Beat it launched in January this year and seems to be targeting a more teenage demographic.

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Golden Rules for Corporate Blogging: Do's and Don'ts (3/3)

by: Yann Gourvennec

The do’s and don’ts of Internet Blog writing

blogloavantlapluie-detail.jpgWriting in a blog is not very complex, but there are a few guidelines which should be respected as much as can be. This list of do’s and don’ts of Internet blog writing can be used as a Vademecum (literally in Latin ‘come with me’, a manual which you can take with you at all times) for expert Internet writers. It could also be treated as a Charter describing which rules to follow, and each expert should confirm that they have read these guidelines.

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June 1, 2008

Germany's Ageing and Diminishing Population

by: Dick Stroud

I have already written about the double whammy of prolonged low birth rate and extending life expectancy that is changing the age-profile of Germany. If you haven’t already, then you should, read the FT article quoted in the blog posting.

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From Blog to Comic

by: danah boyd

Last fall, I wrote an entry called my long lost handwriting. Much to my delight, Greg Williams turned that post into a comic for Blogjam which appears in the Tampa Tribune tomorrow. Here's the digital version. ::giggle::

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