Powerful structures for product-driven organisations
I've talked before about my amazing Maths professor at Bristol university, Dr Mayberry, and in particular about his dissection of the phrase 'every nice girl loves a sailor'. Is it: "For each nice girl, For each sailor, the nice girl loves the sailor", or perhaps "For each nice girl, there exists a sailor, such that… Continue reading Every nice girl
A side effect of the digital revolution has been the closing of the perceived gap between product thinking and communications thinking. Not always with desirable results. Watching these worlds collide has long been a fascination for me, as they are such distinctly different approaches, require such different skills and temperament and are typical bought by… Continue reading Two tribes
Robin sparks some interesting rants over on Advertising 2.0, in response to a frankly bizarre set of comments published in Campaign about how twitter can be used by brands. The debate appears to be over whether brands should tweet and how - should they pretend to be real people or inanimate objects, funny characters or… Continue reading Another day, another dollar
What's wrong with this picture? Well apart from the fact that their advertising is clearly so laser-guided that they're shoving the 'your ad here' ad up to their entire market, there's only one item on the page you can't 'prioritize' (dig or bury) yet it's likely to be the only item on the page that… Continue reading Spot the obvious mistake
Aside from the usual rubber chicken and three-inch-wide movies, most of my long flight yesterday, and a rather intimidating trip on the A-train into Manhattan, was taken up with reading Lewis P Carbone's Clued In. This amazing book provides a method for understanding customers, products and brands that not only fits the classic American hospitality… Continue reading On with the show
The people at Wolff Ollins must be kicking themselves. The 2012 logo seems likely to not just make them look like heartless corporate robber-barrons (where's our £400k guys?), but may be part of the deathnell for the entire "branding" industry. Russell Davies joins the cry for the end to the overuse of the term and… Continue reading We’ll let you know
Like Dan at RMM London, I had to look at this logo about 10 times before I spotted that it was supposed to spell out 2012. I think I may have, however, uncovered it's true meaning. Close one eye and quint a bit and it looks like Paula Radcliffe in the famous marathon "toilet break"… Continue reading Brand on the run
Like Antony, I'm waiting for Royal Mail (or rather Amazon) to deliver my copy of Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger. From reading around the book, it seems it will be a fascinating look at the role for taxonomy in the new world order of infinite capacity. The traditional taxonomies of… Continue reading Truth and classification
Antony's Map, Monitor and Engage mantra was a great rule of thumb for brand marketers looking to take their first steps in social media. Unlike most 1-line solutions it has the benefit of being usable and meaningful; providing an actionable plan for sometimes very hesitant marketers. First of all work out who your community is,… Continue reading As seen on Web 2.0
I hardly ever give up on a book. There was a Kate Atkison book my mother gave me for Christmas four years ago but that's about it. Well Herd has stopped me in my tracks. This feels like real shame because I think the idea behind it is brilliant and the key insight is central to… Continue reading Stop me if you think that you’ve HERD this one before
Leading product 