Blogging with Purpose http://blog.ianlyons.com Sharing useful stories posterous.com Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:35:28 -0700 Your Google+ rights explained simply - Google should add legalese to languages it translates http://blog.ianlyons.com/your-google-rights-explained-simply-google-sh http://blog.ianlyons.com/your-google-rights-explained-simply-google-sh

Rights

via TweetDeck

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Sun, 01 May 2011 22:47:00 -0700 Windows onto the world http://blog.ianlyons.com/windows-onto-the-world http://blog.ianlyons.com/windows-onto-the-world

I've been looking forward to the day that we can print TV screens onto wallpaper and transform an entire wall into any view you chose.

The folks at RationalCraft decided not to wait and improvised with a couple of standard 46" plasma screens and a clever implementation of position tracking using a Wii remote. 

As you move around the room (wearing an infrared transmitter), the scene changes - giving you the impression you're actually looking out of a pair of windows.

I think there's going to be a market for high definition (min 1080p) real time camera feeds - and they're going to require a lot of broadband.  Here are some views I'd be prepared to pay for ...
I'd love to see an update to this with the Kinect which doesn't require the transmitter.

Video-kinects-body-tracking--video-shared-viewing

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Tue, 26 Oct 2010 02:18:34 -0700 What if an energy company opened a gym? http://blog.ianlyons.com/what-if-an-energy-company-opened-a-gym http://blog.ianlyons.com/what-if-an-energy-company-opened-a-gym
A couple of students (Erik Hogfeldt and Gustav Johansson) take a fresh look at how a large Nordic energy company might use its marketing budget if it wanted to innovate.

The idea delivers much ...

  • Create awareness about the product - and how much energy it takes to produce
  • Increase contact from a monthly bill to a useful daily habit
  • Move brand from staid and boring to fun and active
  • Any energy you produce gets removed from your bill - and your waist line
  • Single sign on and syncronisation to online hub
  • Energy becomes something you manage - through an interest in the bill
  • Simple calendar integration so it get scheduled into my life
  • Auto status updates based on proximity to gym
  • Visibility into which friends are also active
  • Turn facebook or twitter status fields replace ad space because this is something people want to share
  • Mobile app that allows you to access not only your bill but manage the devices at home

Above all, it makes sense that people would want to get involved - and it doesn't require any significant new behaviours.  It's certainly something that could be funded as a trial out of a marketing budget.

One question I have is why didn't Fortum run with any of the ideas?  Here's the web site today ...

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Sun, 24 Oct 2010 15:37:00 -0700 language http://blog.ianlyons.com/language http://blog.ianlyons.com/language
via vimeo.com

Here's a wonderful rant by Stephen Fry where he shares his love of words and language and cautions against being too pedantic about grammar.

As long as language communicates clearly, isn't that the most important thing? I guess I should finally forgive apple for "Think Different".

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Sat, 24 Jul 2010 04:02:00 -0700 Fun packaging http://blog.ianlyons.com/fun-packaging http://blog.ianlyons.com/fun-packaging

How fun would it be to receive a package secured like this?

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If you have a cool product to ship inside the box, why would you not use this tape?
Screen_shot_2010-07-24_at_9
Order it directly from the clever couple who created it by emailing info@mmiinn.com

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:22:00 -0700 Chapter 1: How we raised over $18K to write a book http://blog.ianlyons.com/chapter-1-how-we-raised-17k-to-write-a-book http://blog.ianlyons.com/chapter-1-how-we-raised-17k-to-write-a-book
Bucketbrigade
About 30 days ago, I happened to see Bud Caddell tweet about wanting to write a book about marketing in this brave new social media world but he wasn't sure any publisher would take it on.  Bud is a prolific thinker and writer and I'm a bit of a fan of his Fan Economy presentation - it has contributed to a few strategies I've put forward to clients.
 
I had recently seen a new platform in action - one which allows people with an idea to release it to the world, rope in friends and family and hopefully raise funds.  In 30 days Nic and Stan had raised $16K to fund them riding around South Africa, capturing stories about how every day people use their bicycles as part of their lives - in the hope of promoting cycling as a commuting option.
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I sent Bud a message suggesting he test the loyalty (and pocketbooks) of his own fan base and put his concept to the test.
 
A couple of days later he sent me the link to the Bucket Brigade project - hoping to raise $5,000.  It looked good to me so I ponied up the $100 to join the editorial board and then tweeted it out.  Over the next few minutes we had $500 pledged - perhaps we were onto something.  There's nothing quite like the marketplace validating your idea with hard cash.
 
I'm not going to say it was a massive immediate viral success - it took lots of work and great communication - but we quickly reached the $5K goal and as of writing, we're at $17K - with 3 hours to go.  I won't give away too much more but the details will be in the first chapter of the book - which you can secure for just $2.
 
Quickly people recognised the real value was pledging $100 to interact with some pretty heavy weight thinkers during the writing of the book - it's cheaper than any course you'll go on ...
The funding is now over and everyone is starting to get to know each other on bootcamp - the project management system we'll be using to collaborate across all these timezones.
 
Here's the original project on KICKSTARTER
 
I'm afraid if you've heard about this a little late, you've missed out but I'm sure we'll be engaging in plenty of croudsourcing activities.
 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:21:00 -0700 The Old Spice campaign is clever but it's not viral! http://blog.ianlyons.com/the-old-spice-campaign-is-clever-but-its-not http://blog.ianlyons.com/the-old-spice-campaign-is-clever-but-its-not
The third installation of Old Spice's ads featuring the impossibly charismatic Isaiah Mustafa was a little unexpected.  Isaiah and the creative team have been rather busy of late - listening, researching and responding in very personal and meaningful ways to people who have mentioned the first two ads across all types of media.  Currently I count 118 video responses on the YouTube channel - to people ranging from Ellen DeGeneres (33,000 views) to Perez Hilton (61,700) to Kevin Rose (61,600) to dozens of every day people who average 300 views.  Note: these numbers tripled in the 2 hours since I started this post.
Old_spice_thank_yous

If you look at the total channel video views, it's an impressive 55 Million - particularly because there was nothing passive about their consumption.

This phenomenon is often labeled viral but this is a fundamentally flawed way of understanding it.  By definition, a viral video would have to have an in built replication mechanism - one that forced its way into the attention of all your friends.  Individuals decide whether to pass on content based on how they believe it will effect the relationships with the recipients - most people don't spam their friends.  As Bud Caddell points out, better word for this is popular - the original ads had broad popular appeal and these new responses have a much narrower appeal but much deeper meaning.
 
Here's an example of how well researched and thoughful the responses are.  Kevin Rose recently shared he was sick on twitter.
 
 
I applaud the agency Wieden + Kennedy for convincing their client to spend more of its marketing budget on genuinely connecting with and rewarding people who want to be involved in the campaign - its fans.

At the end of the day though - will I switch to Old Spice?  Very unlikely but then again, I'm not the target market.  Looking forward to seeing the sales figures - I'm willing to bet they're pretty good.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Mon, 24 May 2010 02:44:00 -0700 Bicycle Portraits Project http://blog.ianlyons.com/bicycle-portraits-project http://blog.ianlyons.com/bicycle-portraits-project

As part of my work with South African Tourism in Australia, I started talking to people about telling a different type of story - not your usual destination reviews.  A friend put me onto this project where a couple of mates have started documenting their conversations with all the different types of cyclists they encounter in their travels.

Home_page

The idea is to create a gorgeous book ...
Book_example
That in turn might encourage more of a cyclist commuter culture.
 
I love this type of grass roots project and I've been fortunate to meet one of the duo - Nic Grobler - he's a lovely and talented guy.  It's well worth liking the facebook page because you'll get periodic short stories which connect you with someone on the other side of the planet.
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If you'd like to pledge your support, the process is very simple ...


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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Mon, 24 May 2010 01:54:00 -0700 How to go from zero to a million users in a year http://blog.ianlyons.com/how-to-go-from-0-to-1m-users-in-a-year http://blog.ianlyons.com/how-to-go-from-0-to-1m-users-in-a-year
I love this presentation from founders @drewhouston (dropbox) and @asmith (xobni) where they share their lessons learned about creating products that people want, attracting customers and turning a profit.
 
 
Key points:
  • Make something people want
  • Learn early, learn often - note this is not the same as fail often
  • There are lots of tools to help test in market for cheap
  • Start small to learn and iterate
  • Build real relationships with people who can help you
  • Give people reasons to share - maybe even have some fun
  • Spend a lot of time on making things simpler - this helps massively with conversions
  • You don't have to educate all in one go - spread it out
  • Metrics will help you understand where you're succeeding - do more of that
  • Profit comes when you deliver something of perceived value to your customers
And just like these Gnomes, it's so easy to miss out one of the steps ...

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Thu, 20 May 2010 09:15:00 -0700 Google doing its part to beautify the web with a Font API http://blog.ianlyons.com/google-doing-its-part-to-beautify-the-web-wit http://blog.ianlyons.com/google-doing-its-part-to-beautify-the-web-wit

First a cleaner, tighter logo - now this - Google suddenly seems to really care about how the web looks.  This will make a huge difference to how usable web sites are - a very simple way to gain fine control over what fonts are on your page - without resorting to images.  There are some pretty nice free fonts on offer too.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Mon, 19 Apr 2010 06:34:21 -0700 Google introduces drag and drop to Gmail http://blog.ianlyons.com/google-introduces-drag-and-drop-to-gmail http://blog.ianlyons.com/google-introduces-drag-and-drop-to-gmail Google has recently introduced something that I think is huge - drag and drop functionality into the browser. No longer to do you have so scratch around a confusing file system for that picture you want to attach in an email. You can actually simply drag and drop directly from the application. I can't wait for this to permeate Google's other platforms such as docs and sites - finally we can focus on sharing information rather than clunky filenames.

Gmail_drag_and_drop-1

Currently this is only available natively with Google Chrome or Firefox 3.6 - it is done using HTML5.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Sat, 03 Apr 2010 21:13:00 -0700 Want happier customers? Focus on happy endings. http://blog.ianlyons.com/want-happier-customers-focus-on-happy-endings http://blog.ianlyons.com/want-happier-customers-focus-on-happy-endings

Have you ever had a small negative moment at the end of an otherwise pleasurable experience, ruin the whole thing?  Turns out, how we remember an experience can be significantly impacted by how it ends.  This really matters because all future decisions are made on the expectation of future memories.

Nobel Laureate and behavioural economist Daniel Kahneman presents some of his latest research at the 2010 TED conference.

Key Points:
  • Big difference between experiential and remembered happiness
  • Memories are defined by; changes, significant moments and endings
  • The remembering self makes all future decisions
  • We don't chose between experiences - we chose between memories of experiences
 
Social Media Implications:
  • What's the story you're curating in your customers' minds?
  • If you're asking a satisfaction score and it's high, you have the opportunity to ask for pass along (FB share or retweet)
    • If it's low, get a real person to ask how to improve it
  • Allocate proportionally more budget to create memorable highlights and happier endings
So to all the countries that charge a departure tax, I hope it's worth more than the positive word of mouth it kills off.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Sat, 03 Apr 2010 16:15:00 -0700 Starting a movement http://blog.ianlyons.com/starting-a-movement http://blog.ianlyons.com/starting-a-movement

I often talk to my clients about how they hope to affect the world around them - what they are going to stand for beyond their products and services - something others can get behind and support.  Here's a terrifically entertaining video and accompanying commentary about how to nurture your early supporters from Derek Shivers who got to present it at TED.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Sat, 03 Apr 2010 00:24:38 -0700 uncluttered white spaces http://blog.ianlyons.com/uncluttered-white-spaces http://blog.ianlyons.com/uncluttered-white-spaces
Media_httpuncluttered_ijdqz
via unclutteredwhitespaces.com

My mate Ben Rennie runs this

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:09:43 -0700 How to be a better public speaker (from MIT) http://blog.ianlyons.com/how-to-be-a-better-public-speaker-from-mit http://blog.ianlyons.com/how-to-be-a-better-public-speaker-from-mit
This is the most impactful video I have seen on how to improve public speaking - none of the inane hype, all of the mastery that comes with deep understanding.

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This is what got my attention

Your career will determined largely by ...

  1. How well you speak
  2. How well you write
  3. The quality of your ideas 

In that order!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:16:20 -0700 I have a hunch this will freak you out http://blog.ianlyons.com/i-have-a-hunch-this-will-freak-you-out http://blog.ianlyons.com/i-have-a-hunch-this-will-freak-you-out
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Hunch is a predictive recommendation engine which gets better as you answer more questions.  It has released a new interactive game which asks you to enter your twitter account and then proceeds to accurately predict answers to a slew of questions - and they're not just simple A or B either.

I bet that if you give it a go, you'll pretty quickly think it's rigged - at that point, click on "take a peek" and you'll realise you're more predicable than you'd hoped.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Sun, 21 Mar 2010 01:04:54 -0700 The GFC explained succinctly by Jon Stewart http://blog.ianlyons.com/the-gfc-explained-succinctly-by-jon-stewart http://blog.ianlyons.com/the-gfc-explained-succinctly-by-jon-stewart
via thedailyshow.com

Scrub through to 4:20 for one of the best riffs clearly explaining why we're still in this huge financial mess.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:50:19 -0700 Facebook releases some impression fan page stats http://blog.ianlyons.com/facebook-releases-some-impression-fan-page-st http://blog.ianlyons.com/facebook-releases-some-impression-fan-page-st I've noticed a few changes to facebook today - the friends online now in the left bar, the tighter ad targeting form and almost missed the impression count for fan page wall posts. If you are an admin of a fan page, you will see the number of times your story has been seen on your wall and the news feed of your fans.

This is arguably a more valuable impression than a banner ad so potentially we can apply some media equivalency metrics - say $40 CPM would value the following post at $1,120. Of course you would have to tie this into some financial transaction metrics to make it really valid but it's a pretty interesting exercise and is one way of assigning value to a growing fan base.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:08:38 -0700 How to get your resume blogged about http://blog.ianlyons.com/how-to-get-your-resume-blogged-about http://blog.ianlyons.com/how-to-get-your-resume-blogged-about What an amazing way to present an enormous amount of information in a completely fresh, beautiful and compelling way.  I present to you Michael Anderson's resume ...
Resume-infographic

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:49:14 -0800 Email Signatures http://blog.ianlyons.com/email-signatures-8 http://blog.ianlyons.com/email-signatures-8
I recently received an email that made me take notice of something that is so common that we no longer pay much attention to - the ubiquitous email signature.  I love that the people at VOX uses verbs to indicate what they would like you to do with each communication medium.  How very human of them ...

Inbox_209_messages_1_unread-1

Is it possible to improve on this?  This legalese alternative from http://doingwords.com/ would certainly reveal (and reward) the people who are paying attention ...

New_message

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/159719/ian.jpg http://posterous.com/users/eDAZSI8wp3 Ian Lyons ianlyons Ian Lyons