Nov 28, 2011 | Change, Collaboration, Communication, Marketing, Social Media
The internet is choked with lists, 10 ways to do this, 5 best ways to handle that, bloggers put them in because a list is a proven driver of blog traffic. People seem to want the core of an idea to be trimmed down to a set of bullet points, perhaps it is just more digestible that way.
I have certainly done it a bit, with 12 facebook tips for SME’s, How to make twitter useful, 6 rules for strategic alignment, and many others, some my lists, others a link to the lists of others, each for one reason or another seemed to be useful and worth sharing. In the case of the lists I created, mostly they emerged from work I was doing for a client at the time, and the process of assembling a list assisted me to order my thoughts, and so hopefully, helped a few others in a similar way.
Today, the “Uber-list” from Forbes magazine, which has a whole feature on the worlds most innovative companies, the worlds 2000 leading companies, the most powerful people, the richest, and so on.
It makes for interesting reading, almost wherever you make your dollar, there is some reference to the industry, who is who in the zoo, and what they did right.
Thanks Forbes, something for everyone.
Nov 27, 2011 | Communication, Leadership, Personal Rant, Social Media
The digital world has taken over, but the emergence of social media tools that host a lot of pretty low grade stuff sometimes overshadows the huge impact the tools of the web can have, sometimes life-changing and even saving, impacts. Just look at the role played by social media during the floods in QLD, the disaster in Christchurch, and the changes happening in the Middle East.
Consider the site Ushahidi for instance, born in crisis, and evolving in a manner that has, and will continue to make a huge difference to many peoples lives in times of crisis. Such a tool would have been impossible without Tim Berners-Lee, his colleagues and subsequent innovators.
The value of just one site like Ushahidi, and the useful utility of social tools makes up for all the junk that appears to be the other side of the coin, making up the volume.
Nov 24, 2011 | Customers, Marketing
The case for employing intelligent people, and letting them get on with their jobs exercising common sense has been made again and again. In this lovely example of the hubris of rules, Safeway in Honolulu ensured they stuffed up by following a voluminous rule book, the substitute for trust in the common sense of your employees.
What damage has this stupidity done to the Safeway brand, and will any amount of advertising about how they care for their customers and their families wipe out the lasting impression forged by the news story of their stupid insensitivity and lack of care.
Nov 22, 2011 | Communication, Marketing, Social Media
Since I was a kid in this industry, the standard terminology has been to “buy media” meaning stick an ad somewhere, and hope somebody you want to reach sees it, and takes action as a result. However, the reality is that we have just rented an audience from a newspaper, TV or radio station, not bought them.
The net has changed this, as with almost everything else. Now we can buy an audience, over time by developing content that engages and draws people back again and again, encourages sharing of and comment on the comment, effectively building digital “stock in trade” that is stored for access when appropriate.
In other words, at last, we are able to create stock that we can use in the selling process, or in the case of on line retailing, a sale results directly from the stock on the net.
Nov 18, 2011 | Management, Marketing
This process has many forms, I have probably seen most of them over the years.
Percentage of sales, opposition activity, what the P&L can bear, what was spent last year, what seems like a nice round number, what the new CEO says, the last and “balancing” item in the budget, and there are others, including and significantly the confusion between strategic investments and short term tactical spending which is often just a cost of doing business in a distribution channel.
Notice the absence of customers in the mix?
All of these common budget setting tools are internal, the serve the operational needs of the business, and have nothing to do with customers, and how they are to be reached, engaged, and persuaded to become apostles for your business.
No wonder we get so much random rubbish thrown at us through the multiplicity of media channels we now have, that have nothing to do with the brand building and strategic positioning of the product or service.
Nov 16, 2011 | Marketing, Small business, Strategy
Woolworths and Coles price and promotion strategies are often shaped by what happens in the UK, as there is a history of successful imitation in Australia. The resurgence of Coles has taken the initiative from Woolworths, and the short term outcome has been price reductions to consumers, the flip side of course, and there is always a flip side, is a further hollowing of the production sector in Australia.
I am pretty sure that if you asked consumers which they would prefer, a price reduction today, or production security into the future, they would take the former, without understanding the probable consequences.
The Federal Court found last week in favor of Metcash in their effort to sell Franklins, saying in part that the competitive power of Woolworths and Coles served to keep prices to consumers down, solidifying the power of the status quo.
