crboynton's blog » Uncategorized

When circumstances change – hello Foursquare and Dunkin D’s

crboynton — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:43:49 +0000

Foursquare take 2 – On May 21st 2010 I made my 1,214th Foursquare check-in and then quit. I had loved the game and the challenge of becoming mayor of every would be destination in my life. The problem was my iPhone 3G was too damn slow – which could be traced to a combination of issues: iOS 4 didn’t jive with the old school 3Gs and the AT&T signal quality was bollocks, pretty much everywhere I went. Yesterday March 12th 2011 I made my 1,215th Foursquare check-in and I’m thrilled to announce it was quick, easy and fulfilling with the Verizon iPhone. Everything I knew it could be. I’m gonna give the game a second chance now that I’ve upgraded my equipment and carrier and see if it can infect me the same way again.

Dunkin Donuts take 47 – I recently got a train station parking permit at the best (for me) train station in town. This station is a couple of minutes closer to home and pretty much guarantees I get a very good seat on the train each day, unlike my previous station. With the old station I gave up my morning cup of Dunkin Donuts for a cup of the local brew which was right on the way. Aside from the very rare occasion, I had all but abandoned Dunkin Donuts coffee for the convenience and rhythm the local joint afforded me in my commute. Now I’m happy to report Dunkin Ds is closer and – I’m back to the cup a day Joe I was.

Sometimes you will lose customers through something that is no fault of your own. The trick to insulate yourself from this inevitability is to give obsessive focus to making your product as good as it can be. When circumstances change (and they always do) you’ll be well positioned to always be welcoming back a segment of brand fans you’ve lost touch with.

New wheels on my blades – psyched to break’em in today

crboynton — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 16:13:54 +0000

A cool way to show Appreciation this Admin Professionals Day

crboynton — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 18:56:39 +0000

A simple “Thanks” can go a long way to make others feel good. Throughout my days I often remind myself about this. Try it. You’ll like it – I promise!

Along those lines, I’m proud to announce one new and fun way for businesses all across america to say thanks to some of the most critical players on their teams – Administrative Professionals. We recently launched ForEverythingYouDo.com as a destination for business professionals to publicly share their thanks and messages of appreciation for AP’s they work with, in celebration of Administrative Professionals Day & Week, April 21st and April 18th-24th respectively.

Check it out, won’t you? ForEverythingYouDo.com. Say thanks and make someone feel good today!

Free idea – Somebody ought to…

crboynton — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 19:07:07 +0000

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.

And so another day begins :)

crboynton — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:20:10 +0000

..from commoditized dumb pipes to banks

crboynton — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:21:14 +0000

One 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

crboynton — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:54:26 +0000

An 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)…

Obama gets it right, urges kids to be like founders of Google, Twitter and Facebook

crboynton — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:24:00 +0000

Pete 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. Thinking differently, observing the world through a different perspective, finding new ways for the basic elements of humanity to come together through the web. The possibilities are limitless if you know how and what to look for. And this speech to America’s grade schoolers is a nationwide step in the right direction.

The inevitable next question now becomes, will our nations school curriculum adjust to teach and foster the principles that will drive the world and world’s economy forward? My son will learn about new media regardless of what the school system teaches, but for the sake of the rest of his peers and the benefit of our nation and world, I hope it does adjust.

Should you have a mobile site?

crboynton — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:36:14 +0000

The 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:

Mobile Internet usage adoption – US consumers accessing the mobile web is a fairly common event these days. Some have estimated that in the US, Mobile Internet Usage Is At Least One-Third And Maybe One-Half Of Wired Internet Usage. Also one should consider the smartphone market growth that will be driven by fierce competition (and reasonable pricing) amongst the main players identified above.

Business goals, products and services - Answers of YES to two or more of these questions could qualify your site as a candidate for developing a mobile site:

Are you a digital or mobile agency selling mobile strategy & production? (actually, if the answer to this is yes, read no more…you need a mobile site)
Does your site provide the type of information that consumers might need or want to access on the go?
Do you sell advertising space on your site and are you seeking additional ad revenue opportunities?
Do you publish news and information related to the mobile industry?
Have you exhausted all quickly scalable traffic and revenue generating channels/opportunities for your general site?

If you want some further reading on mobile sites, mobile agency Crisp Wireless has a recent blog post that outlines numerous advantages of creating mobile sites versus creating device specific applications. I hope this little riff was helpful in making heads or tails of a common, and complicated question. Please let me know your thoughts, comments and questions!

Diagnosing “today”

crboynton — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 23:58:34 +0000

Shiv 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”.

The source of the mistrust? Managing businesses towards “shareholder value” instead of other values which may be more beneficial to society in terms of creating and sustaining long term growth, wealth and prosperity. Please, if you have a moment

Read Shiv’s post
Read the Businessweek article
Send it around and start discussing the takeaway, which I tend to agree with, anywhere and everywhere you can

It’s not all bad news. There are companies out there that are already leading the way into the next age of prosperity like Amazon, eBay, Apple (and I’d add Google). Check it out and let’s start a discussion.