Posts tagged biz
Arts and crafts with agency models today.
Not enough people focus on taking an idea from concept to completion. There’s a lot of ugly stuff in the middle there: budgets, plans, clients, dates, organization or personnel issues, etc.
But when you can help a client solve their execution problems as well as the conceptual problems, and actually do the work you promised, that’s the pot of gold.
Taking a little inspiration from the school of Seth Godin and Amber Rae here today too.
Listening and Interacting
A couple good pieces today on content and listening. Quick and simple, but often overlooked principles that apply to all marketing, not just “social media.”
“What’s in your Facebook feed?” by Bijan Sabet
“Listenting Redefined” by Percolate
Marketing always comes back to just being a conversation between a brand’s people and their clients/users. Keep that in mind with everything you put out there and you’re head and shoulders above the rest.
How can you NOT want to go here?!
I don’t want to understand Facebook.
Charlie Munger on CNN re: $FB. (via gbattle)
Like the FT article circulated on Fredwilson.VC the other day, this highlights the disconnect between Facebook right now, and the potential for a long-term deep business penetration. As a marketing platform, FB is powerful, no doubt. But as a tools for life AND business, it falls incredibly short. FB needs more daily utility that we MUST integrate into our daily lives.
Microsoft’s software runs the computers many people have used all their lives. Google tools, like gmail, are the go-to for most of us and we spend hours a day using them for moving our lives forward, or learning. FB right now can be discounted a simple marketing and promotion platform that we use simply for short-term entertainment.
Do we NEED Facebook to function on a daily basis in our business of persona lives?
No.
That’s what’s holding it back right now, and blocking an expanded audience like that of the FT commenters and legendary business people like Mr. Munger.
If You Were A Silicon Valley VC…..
1=Square
2=Uber
Both of these companies offer a clear solution to a tangible product and a real world problem that’s scalable and useful to most everyone in a positive way. Something that’s missing from too many startups these days.
This problem is compounded, it seems likely, by the ever-increasing probability that your mother (or father or teacher) is on Facebook.
my 83 year old dad is thinking about joining facebook. i told him he might learn more about his grandchildren than he wanted to know
Lex in depth: Facebook - FT.com
(via fred-wilson)
The article is good, but the comments are gold. Reading through the comments is like a quick gut check against the broader market demographics and opinions. Being in the tech and marketing spaces everyday we get too close and, at times, disconnected from the majority of users in the real world.
The FT audience however, is quite smart, and really NOT the prime FB demographic in my opinion right now. And that’s a problem, per the article’s Microsoft example. FB needs to get these same people onboard as hardcore daily users in order to ensure it’s long term business viability. It’s hard to see that happening when you think of how little FB provides by way of alternate tools or experiences right now. It’s got a LONG way to go before it becomes an indispensable daily tool we utilize for more than just personal photo and status sharing.
The “Singles” ad Pandora’s been running for months is depressing as shit.
I’ve been using Pandora heavily again for most of the last year. And I consistently notice how awful their ad targeting is. I updated my account when I moved to NY and I still get ads for SF/Bay Area items like Phil Ting’s campaign and ads for Santa Clara University classes for my future.
And what the hell is wrong with their music algorithm as well? I like to put the Frank Sinatra station on for most of the day on Sundays year round. And without fail, even when it’s 90-100 during the summer, I’m good for at least one listen to “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” Seems like a simple adjustment to the program to account for seasonality, right ?
Richard Branson's Life Lessons
During my life I aspire to be just 1% as awesome as this man.
I keep copious notes. Notebooks have always been a critical part of my life. If I’m on a Virgin plane, I’ll get up and meet staff, meet passengers, get feedback and write things down.
When I’m on Necker Island [in the British Virgin Islands] about all I’ve got on is SPF—Sun Bum and also Island Company sun cream.
Every day is different, absolutely fascinating and a learning experience. In Canada, I’m trying to get legislation passed to save the polar bear. I’m going to Madagascar to try to save the lemur. Yesterday I was on stage with Amnesty International; today I’m doing a bit of business with Virgin Atlantic.
I hate being in hotels with a thousand rooms. And I personally don’t like going into hotels where you’ve got formal check-in desks. I’d much rather come and sit on the couch and be checked in that way, or ideally be checked in before I’ve actually gotten to the hotel.
My watch is a Bulova Accutron limited-edition. Every time one is sold, a portion of the proceeds goes to Virgin Unite, my charity.
I’ve spent a lifetime trying to set an example to get the necktie abolished. I mean, I just find it so sad going somewhere like Japan, where they’re all wearing suits. You look at these lovely pictures of them 100 years ago in their beautiful robes, and you think, ‘how on earth did the necktie ever catch on?’ I just find them uncomfortable and restricting. I think it’s people who run departments of companies, who’ve had to suffer all their lives and are damned if the next generation isn’t going to suffer, too.
I love to kiteboard. My board of choice is Cabrinha.
I’m not a very religious person, but if anybody was going to convert me, it would be Archbishop Tutu. He set an incredible example to the rest of the world, I think, when he helped bring about forgiveness in South Africa after the apartheid regime collapsed.
The reason I got into the travel business originally was out of frustration about the ghastly experience we used to get on other airlines. We literally started with one secondhand 747, crossing the Atlantic from London to New York to see whether people would go out of their way to travel on an airline that offered something a bit more personal. Fortunately, people did.
Jeans are great because you can wear the same pair of trousers 365 days a year and get away with it.
The movies that really make a difference are documentaries. ‘Sharkwater’ is one that changed my life. It’s about all the sharks that get slaughtered just for their fins and are thrown back in to die.
I could live off English roast dinner. If business is good, I love a glass of Champagne.
As a leader it’s important to always look for the best in other people—never criticize. If I ever said anything bad about anybody when I was a child, my mom would make me look in the mirror.
I’ve always believed in befriending your enemies. Years ago British Airways went to extraordinary lengths to put us out of business. After the court case, I rang up Sir Colin Marshall, who ran BA, and said, ‘would you like to come out for lunch?’ I think he wondered why on earth I was doing it. But we had a delightful lunch at my house in London and became friends and buried the hatchet.
There’s no better gift than aphotograph. Stephen Colbert recently sent an enlarged, framed photo featuring him dressed as me, vacuuming, with a nude model on his back. It was similar to a photo of me kiteboarding, and it was gratefully received because the fire on Necker burned down my office and with it all my notebooks and photographs.
I love the music of Peter Gabriel, who is also one of my best friends.
I recently bought a pair of Allen Edmonds lace-up oxfords in Las Vegas. I wear them all the time.
I’ve just spent two days in the Silver Bank, where pretty much every whale in the Atlantic converges once a year. It’s about 600 miles off the Dominican Republic. I was swimming with these magnificent creatures. The babies come up and play with you—it’s definitely one of the 20 wonders of my life. I think we’re going to send my catamaran there in March and April of every year and share the experience with other people.
I find that taking pictures gets in the way of enjoying the experience. But I’m also lucky that there are so many people around me who are taking pictures.
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