herebenotions

Levels of thinking

Data Samurai

Using social media to power business

This is a really interesting interview uberpulse did with Andy Lark from Dell.

One of the most interesting things he says is that he believes most elements of the marketing mix, besides social media, have become more transactional.  Social media has the most strategic importance, and is being used to "power the fundamentals of the business", and he cites examples like customer certified solutions and ideastorm as examples of how they are listening to and harnessing people power to make their business better.

He also noted that when the BBC interviews him the first thing they ask is 'can they podcast this?', whereas newpaper reporters still turn up with paper and pen.  Which led to this, which I thought was apt...

photo from renatotarga @ flickr

The more things change, the more things don't stay the same

This quote comes from a leaked memo Schultz sent to his CEO.  It's a fascinating and clear analysis of the way a number of supposedly small changes, made to increase efficiency as Starbucks grew, have collectively robbed Starbucks of all the important things people loved about the brand and the store.

Beautiful billboard

Discovery

Traffic jam?

It's getting pretty crowed out there.

In 2005, about 10 exabytes (1 exabyte = 1018 bytes) of new information was produced and stored worldwide, roughly equal to 74,000 times the 17 million books in the United States Library of Congress.

Compare this to the estimate that in 1999 the sum total of recorded human knowledge, music, images and words amounted to only 12 exabytes.*

These figures are pretty mind-blowing. 

With the take-up of broadband people are really starting to upload content to the web, rather than just consume it.  The problem is computers and networks weren't designed for people to upload large files (compare the upload and download specs on your computer).  When the protocols were decided, no-one imagined what possibilities digital technology would release.  How the 'network constraints' will cope with the flood of consumer generated content is something of a headache for the boffins and companies like YouTube.

(*Source: UC Berkeley, School of Information Management and Systems)

Dare

Idea-pie

I was reading this post by Russell, and was reminded of the quote below.  I think it nicely encapsulates the power offering more than just products can give to brands, and why two-way communication is so important.

 

Photo from Matt Browne at flickr