Invent a proof positive document shredding company. Hate the idea of leaving my old confidential documents in someone elses hands. Love the idea of handing a bag of papers to someone behind a counter and watching them shred it right in front of me. Call me paranoid, but I bet there is a market for this sort of thing. Especially if it’s 50% or more as cheap as buying a basic paper shredder for home.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
..from commoditized dumb pipes to banks
January 19, 2010One interesting development from the Haiti earthquake crisis with marketing implications is the use of text messaging to trigger a payment. Text ‘Haiti
to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross. Text ‘yele’ to 501501 to donate $5 to help with relief in Haiti via Wyclef Jeans’ Yele Haiti foundation.
What these two organizations quickly figured out is that many people will give if you make it super simple & easy. They also were astute enough to look at cell phone companies as more than just providers of a wireless signal – in this case they are a billing vehicle. Brilliant.
I’d be surprised if this form of mobile payment didn’t become wildly popular in the not so distant future with any company that is looking to sell something. What’s more, putting a wireless carrier in the middle of a customer and corporation could breathe a new life giving revenue stream the wireless industry. For the Haiti crisis, the telcos will pass along nothing short of 100% of donations to the relief organizations. However, given the approach of intermediary in moving money from one party to another based on a consumers credit, it’s inevitable the telcos start collecting a merchant processing fee for each transaction, or even interest payments for immediate distribution of funds (ahead of consumers paying their bills). This could turn wireless telcos from commoditized dumb pipes into banks.
What do you think: will texting of payments grow wildly popular? Will telcos start acting (and collecting) like banks or credit card companies?
The Psychology of Abundance
October 1, 2009An interesting thought stemming from Chris Anderson’s book FREE is that while we cognitively understand the concept of abundance, our psyches and primordial instincts are only really programmerd to respond to scarcity. In other words, we are motivated by the things we don’t have, not by the things we do. So. how would wants originate in a world where everything was plentiful and free? As always, thoughts on this topic are welcome (and free)…
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Obama gets it right, urges kids to be like founders of Google, Twitter and Facebook
September 8, 2009Pete Cashmore at Mashable published a post yesterday that highlighted something very cool about the current President of the United States – his belief in ‘new media’.
As the name of the post suggests “Obama Speech To School Children: Be Like Founders of Google, Twitter and Facebook” this is a snippit from a forthcoming speech meant to inspire and motivate a future generation of leaders, currently grade school kids, in the face of a rapidly changing business and communications landscape.
As a parent, this post really struck a chord with me because it’s the same idea that I have in mind for how I wish to raise and educate my almost 3-year-old son. Read the rest of this entry ?
Should you have a mobile site?
July 22, 2009The advent of smartphones like the iPhone, Storm, Pre and Nokia N97 with full HTML web browsers make this question even trickier to answer. After all, with the ability to view full HTML pages and zoom into specific sections, as needed, you should be able to simplify your development needs. However, in my daily mobile web usage (via my iPhone) I’ve observed that a well designed mobile site is still much easier to navigate than sites with full HTML site pages on a mobile device….even the almighty iPhone. This is an initial consideration.
Some additional factors to consider in making this decision are: Read the rest of this entry ?
Diagnosing “today”
July 19, 2009Shiv Singh, the Razorfish social media guru, posted a provocative piece to his blog “Going Social Now” earlier today titled “Harvard Business School – A Failure?“ which I’d like to call attention to because the implications are so profound for marketers.
Shiv’s post is built around a Businessweek article, written by a former Harvard Business School professor, who states sincere regret for educating a generation of managers and business professionals that are “deeply mistrusted and despised by a majority of people in our society and around the world”. Read the rest of this entry ?
Social Media How To: Twitter via Mashable’s Twitter Guide Book
July 3, 2009Mashable recently released an organized compilation of many of their Twitter articles that provide background, answer questions and give advice on how to get the most out of Twitter. Mashable’s Twitter Guide Book is an incredibly valuable resource that can keep you busy reading and learning for hours. Articles from their top-notch staff of writers are organized as follows:
- Twitter 101 – The Basics
- Building your Twitter Community
- Twitter for Business
- Top Twitter Follows
- Sharing on Twitter
- Managing your Twitter Stream
Click here to check it out.
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Twitter vs Facebook; a user critique and POV
June 3, 2009Which is better? MY short answer is Twitter.
The longer answer, and more objectively, I’d say it depends on your goals and maybe even your life stage. If you want to share the intimate details of your personal life with your network of friends in a multi–media fashion, go with Facebook. If you want to briefly share what you are thinking, or reading, or doing, and no more, then Twitter is the way to go.
I’ve been on Twitter about 6 months now and was pleasantly surprised to discover that’s it’s not simply a place where users share that they’re now on a coffee break or on their way to the restroom. No. While some of that still happens, more advanced and community minded members are using the Twitter for information sharing. It turns out when people you follow shared links, Read the rest of this entry ?
Making blogs more twitter like
May 27, 2009This post comes straight from an email typed into and sent from my iPhone. The idea from WordPress (the provider of my blog) is to de-tether bloggers from their PC’s, giving bloggers access and control to create blog posts from anywhere at anytime using mobile devices.
If WordPress can deliver as promised then I think this is bound to catch on in the blogger community. Hey mobile tweeting is more fun (in my opinion) than desktop based tweeting
