January 2011
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WatchNice summary of trends to watch for in 2011. I think the JWT team captured a good deal of insight here and were able to concisely explain each trend on a slide. Some might be obvious and some might be reaching, will be fun to watch and track throughout the year.
November 2010
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The Times’ Paywall and Newsletter Economics, from... →
Clay Shirky on how the News Corp paywall experiments are a “referendum on the future (read: the present) of newspapers.” Brilliant as always.
October 2010
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How Much is that Jersey Worth?
This year Manchester United took AON on as their new shirt sponsors, for a deal that tops all shirt deals in the English Premier League at £20m per season. It got me thinking about these jerseys in general and another one of the biggest teams in the world, Real Madrid featuring BWIN an online gambling site across the front of its jersey. What if NFL Jerseys featured an online gambling site or...
September 2010
2 posts
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WatchEric Schmidt interviewed by Stephen Colbert, very entertaining. Colbert is relentless on the Google privacy concerns.
August 2010
4 posts
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WatchWatched this talk over the weekend and would recommend because it’s inspiring but also entertaining. I thought McCandless did a great job of bringing light to some very relevant and timely topics through data.
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June 2010
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Looking Up Once in a While
I’ve read a few things that inspired me lately and they actually fall into two themes.
One is whether the Internet has depleted our capacity to think deeply or rather has it increased our productivity by allowing us to connect and produce with ease and immediacy. I am going to say that on a personal level it has allowed me to achieve much more but often times I do feel stretched and...
May 2010
5 posts
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What I Read this Week
NYTimes reveals that a pay wall will come to their online and other digital presences from Fast Company - http://tinyurl.com/3afzlkp
With it’s distribution across models and networks Android platform surpasses the iPhone OS from NPD: http://tinyurl.com/23786d9
Scathing post from Jason Calacanis on “Getting Zucked” but it also features a nice set of reference links on the...
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Weekly Roundup May 8th
Fascinating article about how we track and optimize our lives: The Data-Driven Life - http://nyti.ms/cf0OwX
Check out Gillette’s mens grooming site, winner of AME award and from our Toronto offices, very helpful and entertaining - smart way to reach this target: http://bit.ly/iUgEx
Great idea: a 23 year old just won a million dollars playing 2k MLB video game - http://bit.ly/cbYZMd
Kudos...
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WatchWell now that you can embed slideshare presentations I might have found a new way to keep this blog fresh. Actually, this is a great read on why old communications briefs don’t work as well in the digital space.
I recently went through unraveling this same issue, before I saw this presentation. I appreciate many of the thoughts in this presentation for that reason. I don’t agree...
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Weekly Roundup
As time gets tight, I’m toying with the idea of posting some of the most interesting items I find each week. So here’s this week:
Apple buys mobile search service, mobile consumers are more likely to use search that delivers a specific answer vs. google several times to find an answer: http://bit.ly/bzEykj
Nice collection of links and opinions on Facebook’s open graph...
April 2010
1 post
WatchI am late getting to this presentation from Netflix about the culture they aim to create and maintain at their organization. Regardless of being late to the party I found this read fascinating. It’s great that companies are rethinking the environment they are creating for their workers. Also it’s a careful coordination of what your organizational values are and how those benefit your...
March 2010
3 posts
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Scarcity & Value
We are in for a long recovery, out of this there’s an interesting notion for businesses that companies and their brands need to be prepared to think about their value in a new way. I thought many of the questions that HBR proposes business leaders address are the challenges that we face everyday because of how digital has changed media and consumer behavior, namely: value, innovation and...
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2010 Interactive Annual from CommArts →
CommArts 2010 Interactive Annual, has a few nice picks including the Puma Lift and Nike Chalkbot ideas that I highlighted here.
February 2010
10 posts
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Famous Literary Drunks and Addicts →
I think a better list would be non-addicts that were famous literary figures
HBR experiments with Net Promoter Scores for... →
Really interesting experiment from HBR that puts up a Facebook page for a small cafe and starts to engage with fans in several ways. They then report on a Net Promoter Score for the effects of this little experiment with positive results. Problem being it’s a very small scale experiment.
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“BBH’s pitch began with digital. “It’s not often that you have agencies come in...”
– advertising: Sprite Launches First Global Ad Campaign - Advertising Age - News (via paulisakson)
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Zagat expands mobile efforts into Foursquare →
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Who says the future needs an ad agency →
At times this seems self-serving because a non-big agency digital person is the author but at times it just feels brutally honest. Enjoy, I did for its faults and all.
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January 2010
3 posts
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Yelp's Divide between Consumers and Businesses →
Interesting post here, I’ve often thought about this as I review places on Yelp. I try to be constructive or at a minimum couch what I say in the context of my likes/dislikes. I can’t say that all consumers will put this much thought into what they choose to review, but then again 10 years ago businesses didn’t have an incredible powerful ratings tool that anyone could access.
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I feel I have let my industry down, 1.2MM donated... →
During the Holidays I had some time to record...
December 2009
2 posts
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NYTimes 2009 Year in Ideas →
This is one of my favorite annual articles from the NY Times. I highly recommend reading through all of it, and this year they have a great interactive piece, which allowed me to sort by topic. Notables from my first glance through the Technology and Business sections:
Good Enough is Great
Man Made Greenery
Printable Batteries (Magazine’s latest savior)
Web Searches in Real-Time
...
Food and Drink Apps for Locals
foodie Local writer (and occasionalTOCcontributor) Ari Bendersky rolls out an iPhone app this week that offers its members exclusive Chicago dining opportunities. Around 30 participating restaurants (including the Bristol, Spiaggia and Green Zebra) will use the app to send out word of special offers like bargain prix fixes, which #foodie members can jump on by paying 99 cents to reserve a spot....
November 2009
3 posts
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Do musicians fare better in a world of file... →
Post that describes how revenue from live performances continue to climb while revenues from recordings continue to slide. I wonder if this is news to independent artists or have they realized this for many years. It does seem, without any statistical evidence to support, that there are move live shows going on in Chicago than ever before.
Is being a non-profit the future for newspapers... →
Great piece by Steve Coll in the New Yorker. In this piece, he cites a few presigious college investment managers that have said being a non-profit with endowments like colleges/universities might be how newspapers like the Post survive. Following the newspaper industry as it struggles and having posted on it before I thought this piece was particularly intriguing.
September 2009
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August 2009
5 posts
Last week I posted quickly in reference to the Tour De France Nike Chalkbot idea, about how after some brainstorm sessions I started to question how we’re coming to tactics first vs. strategy or ideas.
And of course two people have gone out and expressed in more depth what I find at fault about this practice. First Seth Godin: In my experience, people get obsessed about tactical detail...
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Starbucks looks to go lean, be more like Dunkin... →
Reading this made me think about where SBux is now. A company that used to stand for quality, customer service and wanted me to enjoy having some coffee at the store is taking it all back, now they want me in and out as fast as possible.
I hope more companies when they focus on value creation stick to their philosophy ten years down the road. In Starbuck’s case it’s do or die as...
The start of an argument for the interactive... →
July 2009
2 posts
This American Life had an episode not too long ago where they featured an advertising copywriter. Absolutely worth listening to, and it’s act one.
Act One. Mad Man.
TAL producer Sarah Koenig tells the story of her father, Julian Koenig, the legendary advertising copywriter whose work includes the slogan “Timex takes a licking and keeps on ticking” and Volkswagen’s “Think Small” ads. For...
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June 2009
6 posts
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how to properly use technology like augmented... →
Nice visualizer of US health data from GE →
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WatchDan Ariely talk at TED, imagine if always took the time to do what he says when developing experiences for consumers. I know my experience design friends would be happy — if we’re still friends that is.