So now we've got Social Media. It is the bell what ringeth out glory on high. As is the wont for cohesion in every industrial tribe, marketers (and IT folks of course) have their lexical totems. Social Media—how about I just call it, like, Social, k?—is the totem of the' [...]
(This is second in a series of posts entitled, "Geese From Bottles". The introductory post provides some context , though probably not enough.)
We love tools. Business loves them, government loves them, people love them. They are the progeny of our uniqueness as humans. Tools—technology—have always been a fulcrum in [...]
Discussion threads are legion. They are one of the more prominent exemplars of the new communications paradigm. Their existence in places where they heretofore have not existed is generally a welcome thing. I want to know what people think of that editorial on GISS weather data. The editorial alone is [...]
There is a koan involving the master, Nan-ch’üan P’u-yüan (南泉普願) whom, in varying accounts, relates some arcane wisdom to some neophyte through the metaphor of a goose in a bottle. My favorite version is from the 1959 textbook "Zen Buddhism: An Introduction to Zen, with Stories, Parables, [...]
I ranted earlier today about Sprint's customer service dystopia. It got worse. I decided waiting another 2 to 4 days for a phone was untenable. I called customer service again. Here's how it went down:
I have phone service through Sprint; if you want to call it service. I drop calls constantly and everywhere. Out of probably 30 customer service experiences with them, perhaps only once did I not feel latent hostility from the representative. The Sprint stores themselves are like something dreamt by Dante. [...]
This blog about corruption at the Memphis, Tennessee Police Department is a sign. It is a sign of the arrival of the new communications paradigm.
If the custodians of communications for organizations of all kinds don't recognize the importance of this and respond appropriately, we could have a French Revolution' [...]
It occurred to me the other day that “doing the right thing” has really basically two meanings: doing what is dictated by convention, and doing what is dictated by your conviction.
I think that everyone gets these two meanings mixed up and mixed together a lot. In spite of this, [...]
Well that's what I heard.
I guess I just can't shake the impression that this guy likes to piss on beauty. Oh sure, he talks about multi-disciplinary teams and whatnot, but I think he derives perverse satisfaction from the effect his rhetorical position has on its detractors. He seems rather smug. [...]
It's been some time since the last update on my little Terra Chips interaction. I can't say that there's anything really new to report. I couldn't seem to justify to myself the time and effort to record a phone call to their customer service team given the other important things [...]
One trip to the grocery and one blown PSU later and I can finally offer a final post in the wait for some response from the Terra Chips people. I've got a brand new bag of Lay's Kettle Cooked Original Potato Chips. They're good, although honestly, they're not as good [...]
Matt offers an excellent suggestion about how to draw a line in the ground potato chip crumbs as it were. As he suggests, there's no particular science to deciding how long one should wait for a response from a company before you determine that they're not being entirely honest [...]
As per Skye's suggestion, I'm creating a new post for each update to the Terra Chip saga. So far nothing after an entire work day. I'm starting to wonder if my questions and comments are so very important to them after all. If I get something else, I'll pass it [...]
So bigwidesky is in a holding pattern. Things have changed and will change again. Such is the way of things. As an incredibly brilliant person just suggested to me today, "I know I will not get out of this life alive..." That obviously means what it means, but perhaps less [...]
Like most in or near the ballpark of our discipline, we hate spec work. I think it tickles a nerve near to this dirty business, excerpted:
Do the intellectual property rights to student work produced in the normal activities of a regular course belong to the student or [...]
There's something about breakdancing that, whether I can or not, makes me want to try it. I probably should have started when I was a nimble, back-flipping, pre-adolescent gymnast with health insurance.
The concept is dead on; execution notwithstanding. We've been talking about this for awhile now.
I have to say I’ve been disappointed with the way the Republican presidential candidates have been handling the YouTube/CNN debate. When I first heard that only Ron Paul and John McCain were committed to appearing and how Romney wasn’t gonna answer no questions from no damn snowman, I [...]
So I was waiting for this massive file copy to complete (I'm actually still waiting) and for the hell of it, I google "marketing blog". Which, well, I just laughed in spite of myself (I'm actually still laughing). (I've now stoped laughing.) The first result is this: Shotgun Marketing [...]
Seth has a post up on his blog called Benefit of the Doubt. In it, he basically suggests that when doubt is swinging your way in the minds of your consumers, they won't be so ready to tear you a new one when you (inevitably) screw up. On [...]
John Hagel is giving rhetorical form to what I think are the most important issues at the confluence of business, economics, marketing and even epistemology. His ?Unanswered Questions at Supernova 2007? post from a month ago is still consuming my thoughts even when I?m trying to do other [...]
The great minds in advertising have long championed the emotional sell. As in, a Mercedes SL is sold on its sex appeal, and not, say, the work of the metallurgists on the new alloy used in its body. As I’ve said myself elsewhere, 90%+ of consumers don’t give a [...]
bigwidesky is beaming to introduce propeller, our high altitude interactive development team. Specializing in web, CD, and DVD communications, propeller "pulls message, design and technology into harmony to create interactive media that elevates your message, your image, and your essence."
Now, before someone leaps up in the middle of a [...]
The other day, the bigwidesky family received news - through a surreal game of "telephone" - that Skye was dead. A shock to us all - especially Lana - Matt and I haphazardly switched to "panic mode" and went across the street for sushi. "Drinking all the chilled sak [...]
In the graceful, brutal arc of a doomed relationship (romantic, professional, abstract, etc.), there may not be a staccato thunderclap signaling that Things Just Went 'Round The Bend. Most often, evidence of the downward spiral comes in the aggregate, the result of a slow leak from pressurized discontents. What starts [...]
[belated entry; busy is good]
IDEO is listening.
With no more nudging than our recent bloggy squawk, the revered designistas rocketed to bigwidesky some replacement method cards, a deftly penned note, personal contact card, and a paperclip we’ve dubbed "le sex bomba". An impressive response, for [...]
Here's a recent McKinsey report on Web 2.0 in business. The highlight for me was that 42% of respondents said that they, "Invested at the right time but should have more in our companies internal capabilites," and 24% said that they, "Should have invested sooner in technology that in [...]
I don't know why I haven't posted something about this before. I find myself talking about this all the time. Here's the gist:
Marketing is dead. You can be humans again.
No, really. Not the practice of taking things to market; I mean “marketing, the [...]
Innovation demigods, IDEO, have available for purchase these jaunty “method cards”. We bought some from the fine folks here at William Stout Architectural Books. We shipped ground—because our CFO is just like that—and we waited.
When they arrived, I took a third [...]
The Consumerist has a post about some excellent customer service from SmartBargains.com.
Every ad agency should be making every attempt to sell some kind of customer service initiative with every campaign. An authentic interaction. If the marketing is going to tell a compelling story, it had better be [...]
...wherein I discuss the finer points of business theory with Odin, from his Madison Avenue penthouse, "Little Valhalla."
me: Great place you've got here.
Odin: ...
me: Right, so for whatever it's worth, I've drawn a good deal of inspiration from your business.
Odin: Oh yeah? What do you do?
me: We architect novelty. In [...]
During our recent San Francisco travels, Skye and I were disrupted by the last of the Universal Soldiers. His name's Justin, so hints his URL, and he's revolutionizing something or another with an idea that was bound to come about sooner or later: 24/7 real-time first-person, erm, programming. [...]
I was wrong. My initial distaste for Windows Live Messenger's Whatchoo Listenintoo? gimmick was unfounded. This is actually an ingenious feature. Provided they aren't merely shuffling through a random playlist, my conversee's current choice of music reveals a level of communicative nuance and emotional subtlety beyond even the most [...]
I just spoke with Al Wiman about the Science Cafe offering they run over at the St. Louis Science Center. Tonight, the topic is, "Are We Committing Biocide? The Human Impact on Biodiversity" and includes Peter H. Raven, President, Missouri Botanical Garden. I've been wanting to [...]
