LINKS FROM December 2006
"Are our brains wired for sound? One professor has provocative theories, and they started with Blue Oyster Cult."
Tags: music psychology brain science
"Enough about jargon, the explicit implicit web is all about the value that will accrue to an Internet user when their every action is tracked, recorded, and used to provide value back to that user."
Tags: attention trend community privacy aggregation recommendation
Michael Bierut explains the new Saks' identity by Pentagram
Tags: design branding packaging shopping typography logos
Couldn't agree more. Where else are you going to see a BMX slow dance?
"A consultancy called the Attention Company has just complete a fascinating survey of what it calls "Out There" people---think Mark Cuban and other promoters of radical transparency."
Tags: statistics transparency blogs business attention privacy research
"Due to media hype, MySpace is perceived on a scale next to Fox (as AOL was to Timer-Warner), but maybe it should be considered more like like Lost (which turns Yahoo into The Simpson's)."
"When Aristotle talked about ethos, he referred to reputation or credibility. In short, I need to believe that you actually believe in what you're pitching. If I don't think you believe, I won't ever believe either."
Tags: trust marketing reputation
Seven Lessons Learned for Startups
"The following is a list of those quotes which were often repeated to me . . . they are the ones most significant to me and those which I believe can be generalized and applied to startup situations."
Tags: venturecapital startups tips lists
Secrets of Sexual Body Language
An interesting look at sexual body language.
Tags: bodylanguage relationships sex psychology
Spam surge drives net crime spree
"'92.6% of all e-mail messages are spam,' said Dan Druker, spokesman for Postini. 'That's the highest it's ever been.'"
Tags: email spam crime statistics
"Instead, inexpensive, miniaturized and connecting technology has created a Little Brother Society where the masses are outfitted with cameras and are ready and willing to record, report and snitch on each other and the government."
Tags: culture transparency trend
Marketers: It's Time To Stop Blaming Your Woes On The Consumer!
"Marketers should embrace this growing period of reciprocity by refocusing on the fundamentals. Those fundamentals mostly likely are what made you successful in the first place!"
Tags: marketing trend business customerservice
"It's a sharecropping system, but the sharecroppers are generally happy because their interest lies in self-expression or socializing, not in making money, and, besides, the economic value of each of their individual contributions is trivial."
Tags: web2.0 longtail economics attention
"The brain is a parallel processor - it simultaneously processes many different types of information . . Effective teaching employs a variety of learning strategies. So having different ways of communicating and and different levels of communication might
Tags: marketing advertising brain learning
Ikea instructions for making Dick in the Box
Inspired by the SNL sketch.
"The best things cannot be told because they transcend thought."
Tags: quotes thinking communication ideas
Is Mad. Ave. Ready To Go Naked?
"These brash Brits say they have the cure for what ails the ad business these days. Is Naked Communications a real revolution, or just Brand X in a new box?"
Tags: business advertising marketing communication planning
A look at the differences between the top searches of the year on Yahoo!, AOL and Google.
Tags: search google yahoo aol lists 2006
On NBC's strategy to release the unedited version of the latest Samberg video.
Tags: video youtube media2.0 unbundled nytimes comedy
What would radical transparency mean for Wired? (Part 2)
"Some of these are based on my experience in open-sourcing my book research on this site, which worked great. Why not apply the same lessons to a magazine?"
Tags: blogs collaboration magazines media2.0 transparency opensource
"In an age of microscopic technologies and sweeping Google-earth panoramas, Will Wright, the world's most successful video-game inventor, has set out to create game (or is it the art form?) that will teach us how to really see."
Tags: videogames education thinking creativity design technology
The Confession of an American Jew
"Everybody wants to know, but nobody wants to ask: Why are Jews funny? In search of an answer, WAYNE GLADSTONE travels far from the roads of good intentions."
Tags: funny religion comedy bestarticlesof2006
10 Social Media Strategies for the Fortune 1000 Corporations
"Social Media (Blogs, Forums, Wikis, Podcasts, Video blogs and other tools) are appearing in every industry. Below are my 10 strategic themes for 2007."
Tags: socialmedia blogs community business marketing
"The fact is that most user-created content on the Web is not challenging the authority of a traditional expert. It's working in a zone where there are no experts or where the users themselves are the experts."
Tags: web2.0 media2.0 technology community aggregation
"Let's all expect more from the businesses from which we buy, and expect more of the companies where we work. Marketers and executives: how can you can make your brands more worthwhile?"
Tags: branding marketing ideas
"Under the new model, a blogger can permanently "activate" the content, distribute it and allow the New York Times to generate ongoing ad revenue from the article."
Tags: nytimes internet business newspapers blogs
So completely absurd . . . Don't worry, it's safe for work.
Second Life: What are the real numbers?
"If most of the people who try Second Life bail (and they do), we should adopt a considerably more skeptical attitude about proclamations that the oft-delayed Virtual Worlds revolution has now arrived."
Tags: secondlife community games socialsoftware bestarticlesof2006
How Transmedia Storytelling Begat Transmedia Planning... (Part Two)
"Will transmedia branding make a lasting contribution to contemporary marketing theory? It's too early to say. As an author, I am delighted to see some of my ideas are generating such discussion."
Tags: marketing planning media transmedia books
Craigslist Meets the Capitalists
And confuses them quite a bit by saying they are not all about making money.
Tags: business craigslist economics finance
"So I made the above PSD for myself back when I was working at Facebook, it was an easy way to just grab a tint I wanted whenever I needed it (since Facebook is only based off of 2-3 colors anyway)."
Tags: photoshop design colors tools
No schedules. No mandatory meetings. Inside Best Buy's radical reshaping of the workplace
Tags: business change culture innovation management productivity time
How Transmedia Storytelling Begat Transmedia Planning... (Part One)
Henry Jenkins on transmedia planning.
Tags: planning media2.0 branding marketing transmedia
"Tourfilter sends you email when your favorite bands come to town."
"How do you do it? By honoring your community, making reasonable and transparent rules, getting experts to help you, and encouraging positive, thoughtful behavior from your site's members."
Tags: community google design business socialsoftware
"Coming from a place of abundance means believing that there’s more out there than one person could ever possibly have; believing that there’s more than enough to go around."
Tags: happiness productivity psychology
"This should be understood as a radical new alternative to marketing aspiration (image). It is about being involved in things you have a passion for vs passively buying something which might make you look good."
Tags: marketing advertising passion enthusiasm
Getting High Performance out of High Potential People
"Manage for Passion. This is the key takeaway."
Tags: management creativity leadership passion productivity business
"Here are 113 10x10 greyscale icons in .gif format to fill up your stocking with - the next instalment of my mini icon collection, which has been steadily growing over the last year."
"Markets today are so bigâ€â€the global video-game market is now close to thirty billion dollarsâ€â€that companies can profit even when they’re not on top, as long as they aren’t desperately trying to get there."
Tags: business longtail marketing management small videogames
"Yes, they're efficient and good for business, if business is what you care about. But sitting at a computer when you don't have to is to be cripplingly passive, even if you're playing the bloodiest, most maniacal shooter game ever."
Tags: technology communication culture
"There's something about a low-end brand that offers a sense of authenticity, particularly among those who feel jaded by traditional advertising."
Tags: culture trend advertising marketing
Web 2.0 Compact Definition: Trying Again
"Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. "
Tags: web2.0
"Fed up with members' bars and superclubs, nocturnal thrill-seekers are looking to illicit drinking dens for kicks, Fleur Britten reports"
Tags: trend alcohol culture secret bars
"'If you want to send a message' in Hollywood, the saying goes, 'call Western Union.' Don't tell that to entrepreneur and philanthropist Jeff Skoll. With 11 Oscar nominations for cause-driven work . . he's proving that it pays to be pointed."
Tags: movies entrepreneur passion marketing philanthropy marketingforgood
33 Names of Things You Never Knew had Names
Including such gems as "SNORKEL BOX - A mailbox with a protruding receiver to allow people to deposit mail without leaving their cars."
Tags: fun language lists strange
"Weird Al" Yankovic's new music video, from the album "Straight Outta Lynwood"
The Bloomberg-for-president scenario starts with the mayor’s growing sense of himself as a man of destiny. Throw in the country’s disgust with the two parties, add a half-a-billion bucks, and you’ve got yourself a race.
Unleash your potential and the ultimate opportunity
"I started looking around for people and things that might help answer the questions that I was asking: What would constitute the next chapter of my life? How could I re-center my focus and clarity?"
Tags: tips conversation personality lifehacks
"I am frankly amazed how much of their limited resources universities allocate to owning land . . . Instead of going into the real estate business, why not developers and land-lords do this and focus resources on talent."
Tags: education talent college realestate creativity
Questioning "VPs of innovation"
"If ever a VP of something is created, say a VP of quality or a VP of sarcasm, it means one thing: 1. The company is failing at that activity. 2. The company will continue to fail at that activity until that VP is no longer needed."
Tags: business innovation management culture
Blend of old, new media launched OK Go
The story behind the success of OK Go's crazy treadmill video.
Tags: video youtube viral marketing music
"Can marketing actually make life a little better? I think so. If we celebrate Marketing for Good and decry Marketing for Bad, will more marketers chose the former over the latter? Perhaps."
Second Life Will Save Copyright
"This is exciting, because it turns Second Life into a laboratory for trying out alternatives to prevailing real world copyright rules."
Tags: secondlife copyright community law
"Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page."
Tags: firefox development extensions html css
"But now “Attention is Media� is about attention streams as content. Those could be individual attention streams or group attention streams or social network attentions streams. See what I mean?"
Thinking virally; thinking it's often stupid
"It’s not enough for marketing consultants to mindlessly carry out poorly-conceived campaigns. Smarter consultants will spot the motiveless campaigns and let that company know that they can do better."
In Praise of Radical Transparency
"Perhaps the most interesting of these is the shift from secrecy to transparency."
Tags: transparency identity privacy technology trust blogs communication
Attracting Talent in Spikes and Firms
"The winners in the global economy will be the firms that can find ways to break this vicious cycle and harness network effects for talent development both within and across firms."
Tags: business economics management strategy talent
tagging vs. cataloging: what it's all about
"So, tagging has brought metadata to the masses, thanks to both its ease of use as well as its clear value."
Tags: tags ia metadata design usability
Advertising is Dead - Interview with Tom Himpe
"I caught up with Tom Himpe, the author of Advertising is Dead, Long Live Advertising and chatted with him about his book, advertising and Brussels…"
Tags: interviews advertising marketing strategy change innovation
10 Steps to Guarantee You Make the Digg Front Page
Everything you could possibly need to know.
Bidding for time and attention
"Sponsoring the individual consumer, regardless of the media he or she consumes, provides one smart path forward."
Tags: attention marketing advertising
The Two Keys To Happy Customers
"So remember: if you want happy customers, nail the basics, and simplify the decisions your customers have to make."
Tags: mobile customerservice simplicity
10 Reasons to Go Short on Second Life
"I thought the blog/Web 2.0/Cluetrain revolution was all about authenticity and living online the way I do in real life... my digital world as a reflection of my real interests and real personality?"
Tags: secondlife business venturecapital
"Muster up all the enthusiasm your body contains and let it shine. Enthusiasm is the key to success."
Cognitive Seduction and the "peekaboo" law
"Evolution has seen to it that the very act of searching for the hidden object is enjoyable, not just the final 'aha' of recognition--lest you give up the chase."
Tags: brain marketing learning communication presentation sex
Vote Chris Christmas Rodrguez to replace Santa this Christmas
Tags: funny holidays video marketing
the latest in junk e-mail trends.
Why can't design be like this?
"I don’t know any members of the AIGA and I’m starting to wonder if it’s a design culture where people just want to stay in their own bubble."
Tags: likemind community design
"Great design on the web that I'm archiving here for inspiration and recognition."
Tags: design inspiration photography gallery