You are here: Home / Archives for 2007

25 Things Your Future Colleagues Won’t Know About

December 16, 2007 By

As we approach the end of the year, I thought I’d make a post about the incredible technological progress we’ve made. Here’s my overview of things that will draw blank stares from your future colleagues.

Media:

  1. Vinyl records / VHS tapes / Cassette tapes / CDs / LaserDisc / MiniDisc and their playback equipment
  2. 3.5” and 5.25” Floppy disks
  3. Film rolls
  4. Standard definition
  5. Encyclopedias and atlases
  6. Phone books
  7. Newspapers and magazines

Hardware:

  1. CRT monitors
  2. Dot-Matrix printers
  3. Typewriters
  4. Answering machines
  5. Rotary-dial telephones

Software:

  1. DOS
  2. Command line interface
  3. WordPerfect
  4. Lotus

Connectivity:

  1. Handwritten postal mail
  2. Payphones
  3. Fax machines
  4. Modems
  5. Pagers
  6. Walkie Talkies

Web:

  1. Portals / Search engines like Altavista and Lycos
  2. Chat programs like IRC and ICQ

And the most frightening thing that will be forgotten is “privacy”.

Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: , ,

You Get What You Pay For

November 18, 2007 By

When selecting a product or a service, price tends to play an important role. Except price sometimes plays an important role for largely the wrong reasons. Price is equated with cost and not with value. Lower prices mean lower costs, but (long-term) benefits, such as value (in quality and/or speed) and a good relationship, might be overseen.

I came across an interesting case recently where a client more or less demanded a service agency to invoice less—despite delivering all the services as described. Not only is this morally unfair, it’s disrespectful.

You get what you pay for. You pay for what you get. Don’t destroy a potentially solid long-term relationship by making the wrong one-time decision. Go for the best that your organization can get, the price will justify itself.

As David Schwartz alluded to in his book “The Magic of Thinking Big” (Amazon link): Go first class, you can’t afford not to.

Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: , , , , ,

Don’t Think Outside The Box

October 14, 2007 By

I hate the term “think outside the box”. I cringe when people use the term and throw up in my mouth when people use the term to describe themselves.

Maybe I don’t understand it, but what exactly is “the box”? The problem with the phrase is that it has a different meaning for everyone because the reference for “the box” is different for everyone. Sure, there could be unwritten parameters that would describe what is conventional and what would be “outside the box” within a certain context, but even these can be arbitrary. Instead of determining whether something is inside or outside, adjust the parameters by which you judge.

Don’t think outside the box. Make your box bigger.

Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: , ,

The Future Of Press Releases

September 16, 2007 By

I’ve recently been given a book which describes how to write a press release. I have to admit that—until now—I never paid much attention to press releases. Maybe ignorance was bliss, but I do feel grateful for realizing that most of them are basically full of crock.

This is roughly the basic layout for a press release:

  • First paragraph: Provides answers to the questions who, what, where and when
  • Second paragraph: Elaborates on the why and the how
  • Third paragraph: Adds more context/history to the press release subject
  • Fourth paragraph: Contains quotes from involved people
  • Fifth paragraph: Provides some additional (non) essential information

It’s all very elementary but the advent of a more consumer-powered media culture makes the press release seem old-fashioned. While press releases are sent to the media, the media aren’t the target audience. The consumers are and the media are only a channel.

There is a case to be made for renaming “press releases” to “community releases” that spark both consumer (community) involvement and interactivity. People will have questions about your press release. Why not open up a channel towards them and start the dialogue with them? This might sound like more work, but think of it this way: you can focus a large part of the conversation to a single point, a single point that you control.

Empower your consumers to talk to you. Empower them to talk about you.

Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Will Internet Kill The Video Star?

August 19, 2007 By

I’ve basically stopped watching TV for the last two years or so. Most of the TV time has been replaced by the Web. The Web has provided with more value than TV, both from as source of information and source of entertainment.

So is the Web supplanting television in the same way television replaced radio? In short, no. For the last few years, there has been a major convergence trend between all the multimedia channels. This convergence will continue and video will play a larger role on the Web.

New business models will be developed to monetize online video and videos will be used more frequently to attract visitors/fans or drive traffic.

Consider whether your company/brand/product/service can benefit from focusing more on video.

Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: , , , ,