Business

Slow innovation -- long wow?

The Putting People First blog by Experientia has pointed me toward the excellent essay "The Long Wow" by Adaptive Path's Brandon Schauer. Schauer outlines a vision of creating lasting customer loyalty and brand value that runs counter to the fixation on quick wins and instant gratification, which many companies, under the pressure of shorter product life cycles and CMO tenures, seem to pursue these days. He defines "The Long Wow" as "a means to achieving long-term customer loyalty through systematically impressing your customers again and again."

This goes far beyond adding new features … Read more

Conversation 2.0: Social marketing and you

Here's a link to a presentation I gave last week. Forgive me for the "conversation 2.0" moniker but it's a catchy way to pinpoint what's happening right now in the world of marketing. Marketers and brands have always had conversations, but at a much slower pace and mediated by professional parties. That's no longer the case. Conversation 2.0, that is, the Web 2.0-enabled conversation, shifts places and times; it is ubiquitous and doesn't pause--it is, in all senses of the meaning, a "never ending conversation."

Thus, "social … Read more

Change as a feature: designing for consumers in a state of permanent crisis

Can you call a concept a cultural phenomenon if different people conceive of it at the same time? Within the past few months, three publications have come to similar conclusions. The digital media agency Avenue A | Razorfish released a study called "Fast Forward: Designing for Constant Change." It consists of thirteen essays as well as research exploring how consumers' digital media habits are changing, and how this affects the design of user experiences and brands. The key take-away is: Today's online users are forced to adjust to constant change in increasingly volatile rich media environments, and they … Read more

As eco-buzz grows, survey warns companies of green trap

America's consumers offer a warning to business leaders and marketers looking to ride the green wave: either back your eco-friendly words with socially responsible actions or risk a backlash.

The first major study to combine field observations with a national survey on purchasing behavior and social values has found increasingly conscious consumers who are demanding that companies be transparent about their practices and accountable for their impact on people and the planet.

According to the inaugural BBMG Conscious Consumer Report, nearly 9 in 10 Americans say that the words "conscious consumer" describe them well and that they … Read more

The price of oil

I couldn't take my dogs for a run at their usual park this weekend. Why? Because it is an estuary for the San Francisco Bay, and the Bay's water and surrounding coast is coated with a layer of thick fuel oil that leaked out of a container ship that crashed into the Bay Bridge.

Some 58,000 gallons leaked out of the gash in the side of the ship after it inexplicably hit the bridge, the worst oil spill in the region in twenty years. This is the sea-going equivalent of tapping a parking meter with your bumper … Read more

The value of old-fashioned ways in a Web 2.0 world

Today we are in the throes of a slow return to a world of more personal connection between companies and their customers. Web 2.0 is allowing it, and for some people perhaps it is a new concept, but in fact it dates back to the beginning of commerce, to individual barter or the local market and the personal connection between those selling or buying the goods. For a long time we have engineered and marketed and grown our way out of this type of connection, and it is still quite startling when you see it happen in a genuine … Read more

Skateboarding for eco-conscious riders

My colleague Hunter Smith of frog design has used his entrepreneurial spirit to launch a budding start-up based on his two greatest passions: eco-design and skateboarding. Hunter's company, aptly named SuperGreen Boards, employs some of the most advanced eco-friendly technologies for producing custom longboards, slalom, and speedboards.

SuperGreen Boards uses bamboo, which is not only beautiful, strong, and flexible but is also sustainably harvested. Maple wood, known as the gold standard for skateboards because of its strength under the pressure of the rider, takes a minimum of 100 years to mature before it can be used. Bamboo, in comparison, … Read more

Is HoneyShed the end of the future of online advertising?

Call it branded entertainment, advertising-as-content, or just brand-vertising: obviously inspired by TBS' veryfunnyads.com, which according to MediaPost claims more than 73 million views since launching last year, brands and advertisers are teaming up to push the envelope of online advertising even further. Recent example: Publicis Groupe, Droga5, and Digitas have joined forces to quietly launch what they had already announced in May this year--a site dubbed HoneyShed on which advertisers can air brand-specific programming. Clips can be shared by viewers via e-mail or embedded on blogs and other sites. HoneyShed also offers instant e-commerce: "I want it." … Read more

The first Web 2.0 soccer club in the world

After attempts to "crowdsource" the purchase of a soccer club, it was obviously just a matter of time until the concept of crowdsourcing--the act of outsourcing a job or task to a group of people--would be applied to the actual game.

The Israeli team Hapoel Play65 Kiryat Shalom, a shared project of the online backgammon room Play65 and the Israeli social network for sports fans Web2sport, prides itself on being the first Web 2.0 soccer club in the world.

The club has begun experimenting with a wisdom-of-the-fans approach that allows the team's supporters to monitor … Read more