Business (s)tuff & ideas, objects, tunes & random thoughts
eMarketer predicts that spending on online rich media and video ads will account for nearly one-fifth of all online ad spending by 2012, up from 9.7% of all online ad spending in 2007.
Check out the IABs draft video ad format guidelines and best practices, released April 2008. More coming out on May 5th.
British artist and sculptor Henry Moore (1898 - 1986) introduced a particular form of modernism to art in the United Kingdom. He is particularly well known for his reclining female figures. Moore was born in Castleford, Yorkshire, the son of a mine engineer. He became notoriously acclaimed in the international scene as a sculptor for his large scale abstract bronze and marble figures which can be seen in significant public enclaves worldwide. Moore’s figures are normally characteristic for piercing and hollow spaces which are reminiscent of the hilly landscape of Yorkshire. Most of the wealth he made from these large scale commissions in his later years was endowed to his Foundation.
There is a quote of Moore’s which I particularly enjoy and I find condensates how I understand his work:
There are universal shapes to which everyone is subconsciously conditioned and to which they can respond if their conscious control does not shut them off
More about Henry Moore’s work and style here and in this tribute page to the artist.
Portrait of the artist in his studio in the mid 1960s via britannica. Reclining figure from sculpture.net. The Three Piece Reclining Figure: Draped in Kew Gardens via rwapplewannabe
We already know it. Internet takes young adults away from newspaper titles and newspaper titles do not recover them in their online resources. “Among young adults, 27% said they read national newspapers less since they started using the Internet compared to a 14% drop by the general population“
Oopps… where did they go?
Probability indicates that the large media groups will still own the information space, but it’s the brands, the means of access to information and the sources of credibility (traditionally the national dailies) that change.
Some days ago I read that Google and New York Times have built a layer on Google Earth (get a last upgrade; enable ‘geographic web’), so you can see what’s being written about in the New York Times via the earth map. This access still relies on the brand equity and credibility of the Times as a medium, but it provides yet another step towards non-conventional access channels to credible information.
My questions are: Are a the same few monster media corporations still going to dominate the information space? Will they engulf all the new and upcoming diverse forms of creating and distributing media and consolidate it? What does credible mean to the current young adults? How do you create credibility in the new media space (not just UG ratings)?
In the image Orson Welles as Citizen Kane (William Randolph Hearst) via snd
If you are in as dreamy a situation as Apple, with wads of cash, a great looking balance sheet and no debt, you might as well follow Steve Jobs’ wise counsel. This is what Michael Roberto of Conversation Starter quoted him as telling in Fortune magazine (is this meta quoting…?):
“In fact we were going to up our R&D budget so that we would be ahead of our competitors when the downturn was over. And that’s exactly what we did. And it worked. And that’s exactly what we’ll do this time”
Jobs was referring to previous recessionist environments and of course, to the current one. As Roberto reflects in his post on the matter, in a recession there are a number of good actions to take, namely:
Invest in research and development for the next shinny times
Analyze and know your competitors’ Aquilles heels and act upon them in a clever way (think on the fringes; be a parallel thinker?)
Identify critical suppliers and distributors and identify the risk associated to them in the economic environment and how it could affect you
Think carefully about your talent needs and be very careful so you don’t send the most talented people to you competitor’s den
Erica Abi Wright, also known as Erikah Badu, was born in Dallas in February 1971. She’s an R&B and hip-hop singer and writer. She is often compared to Billie Holiday for her “musical sensibilities”, Wikipedia dixit.
I like her. I would normally think this is too commercial, but there is something in her neo soul stream, this so-called alternative or underground hip-hop, that resounds. Her father had left the home when she was growing up, but when she chose the artistic name Badu, he wrote her: “Badu in Arabic means truth and light, good choice kid”.
Not sure if this video reminds me of Carmen Miranda, Billie Holiday or Chaka Kahn meets Grace Jones. I like Erykah Badu anyway, I discovered it last week.
Images of the unforgettable Carmen Miranda; Grace Jones in the cover of Nighclubbing album courtesy of this Canadian site; Chaka Khan way back when. In the video the song Bag Lady. Cool colours and instrumentation.
Cool. I was there when they made this video (I mean I saw the filmaker with his tripod and his Sony HC7 camera on the tram to Kabatas). It starts on the Starbucks near Kabatas and gives nice views of Istanbul from there to Galata, including a ride on the funicular. I think they had a great time making it and I keep remembering Jim Jarmush ;-)
Paradise Lost is an epic poem writen by John Milton in blank verse in the XVIIC and originally published in 1667 in 10 books. It’s about the Judeo-Christian story of the fall of man, the temptation of Adam and Eve and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Couple of other videos by the same author here and here. The Pink Panther vs Skeleton Man trailer is very surreal and quite funny. I love the Brazil soundtrack and the way Pink Panther manages to keep standing in the corridor with so much dignity ;-)
eMarketer predicts that this year online advertising will grow to nearly $25.9 billion and account for 8.8% of total US ad spending. I know some media players in much more underdeveloped markets who are making this proportion too. Awesome.
Syntegrity is a formal model presented by British theorist Anthony Stafford Beer in 1990. Now a trademark, it is “a form of non-hierarchical problem solving that can be used in a small team of 10 to 42 people. It is a business consultation product that is licensed as a basis model for solving problems in a team environment”. From synergistic tensegrity
Another good description is this one: “a future-oriented approach to the design of democratic management in the sense of the heterarchical-participative type of organization. It is a holographic model for organizing processes of communication, in particular for the (self-) management of social systems. Based on the structure of polyhedra it is especially suitable for realizing team-oriented structures as well as for supporting processes of planning, knowledge generation and innovation in turbulent environments”.
But the really amazing thing that I read recently is that Beer is the brainchild of Project Cybersyn, an attempt by Chile’s Socialist government under Salvador Allende to achieve a real-time, computer controlled planned economy of sorts. The year was 1971.
“A network of about 500 telex machines linking the country from north to south supported all this. A single computer center in Santiago controlled them, using principles of cybernetics. Its futurist design offered the hope of a more participative and less bureaucratic society. The project had the participation of a multidisciplinary group of national and international scientists. Their task was to build a system for distributed decision-making supported by relevant information. But their efforts were interrupted by the coup d’etat of 1973“
Photos from top to bottom: Stafford Beer from The Very Secret Plan; Salvador Allende from Axisglobe; CyberSyn operations room view (futuristic chair design for data reading and analytics)
I really liked this tip list on how to save costs and other clever tricks to use when running a start up, provided by Jason Calacanis. Definitely enjoyed point 11 about seeking talented workaholics when managing a start up.
Verbatim:
Infact, I think it’s fair to say that also in large companies, in new projects, you need to abide by some similar set of rules in taking talent from outside or handpicking it from other divisions. It’s critical to ignite and steer certain projects within the corporation at large and if you don’t infuse innovative projects with individuals who also have a true entrepreneurial edge and a desire to outdo themselves, you may never lift to even the design phase.
It seems there are still too many hurdles to mobile advertising picking up big time. I mean, the forecast of emarketer to 2012 (19M$) is still very quiet compared to the overall advertising market size. I think it’s fair to say that one of the hurdles to this advertising format will not be overcome until mobile users stop getting charged a premium for all kinds of services related to the use of this most precious hand-held device.
The table below is a clear indication of this phenomenon, which is just one (but a biggie) of the significant hurdles to be overcome.
In the meantime, have a look at the different types of mobile advertising: mobile seo, mobile search, mobile social media, mobile display, personalised start pages
You could be in one or various of the following situations: projects stuck in logjams nobody can fix; non-strategic projects consuming too many of your critical resources; delays you cannot set objective milestones to; well run project parts which were executed perfectly (as parts) but which don’t wield together as a whole… and so on.
Some great authors in HBR explained that the problem is that in companies “we look at projects individually and try to push them, as such, through the pipeline with speed and cost efficiency”. But who keeps an eye on the big picture? Who decides which is the right blend of projects we should be nurturing in a period of time? Who sets the pace for strategic versus maintenance? Who provides metrics and confidence to roll out mega-projects with a calm mind?
The authors suggest a few techniques:
“Achieve the right blend of project types: including breakthrough, platform and derivative products; R&D efforts; partnerships
Eliminate strategically irrelevant initiatives
Replace project management with process management: unplug the bottlenecks; smooth the workloads; increase the time to market
Build small projects into large initiatives early: to deliver fast measurable payoffs and iron out problems before they doom the effort”
I like all the principles hereby stated. They are pragmatic and propose a good high-level framework to reduce noise and achieve speed to market in a reasonable priority setting.
More reading: Why Good Projects Fail Anyway by Nadim F. Matta and Ronald N. Ashkenas
Project plan schema visualization (Gantt chart) courtesy of Ambysoft
The origins of the Jewish Istanbulite Camondo family probably start in 1492 Spain, from where they were expelled like all Jewish and Muslim citizens. After that their traces reappear in the ghettos of Venice and in Constantinople, Ortakoy, in 1758.
View from the top floor in the newly restored Camondo house near Galata, in Beyoglu. Photo taken by Eero Korhonen
They seemed to encounter some clashes with the Ottoman authorities and, of Austro-Hungarian nationality, fled to Cyprus only to return to Istanbul in the early 1780s. The Camondo was a family of bankers (lenders originally, “saraf”). Their institution, called after its founder Isaac Camondo & Co., started by means of lending and then diversified to control a network of retail in Galata and in Uskudar as well as a brick factory and olive oil production unit in Çorlu.
They were the bankers of the liberal Sultan Abdulaziz and later of Abdulhamit II and were allowed a very exceptional situation for foreigners: to own property. The Camondos were very active donors in the Crimean War (1853 - 1856) and philanthropists and they tried to modify the Israeli public instruction to allow Turkish and French, the languages of the official institutions and of trade, to be taught in schools (which no doubt lead to great discontent in the Jewish traditional institutions).
Camondo family Mansion on the Golden Horn, Istanbul. Photo from Turkey Travel Planner
By the end of the XIXth Century their wealth in France, (where they moved to in the mislead hopes of finding a more welcoming and evolved society) and in other countries span companies such as Paribas, Portland Cements, the Imperial Ottoman Bank, The Refineries of Egypt, The Constantinople Water Company, The Portuguese Railways, and Franco-Canadian Credit, among many others.
After seeking and finding prosperity and wealth in Western Europe, the Camondo family, like many of Ottoman Jewish ascent, disappeared. Sadly, the French Government, blinded by its anti-Semitism, failed to welcome them into society in spite of the magnificent donation of the Nissim de Camondo house and collection in Paris and in spite of the death of war pilot Nissim in Lorraine in 1917.
Nissim and sister Beatrice in 1916. Image courtesy of the Musée de Camondo, Paris
It seems unavoidable that result based marketing is taking a lead on Internet advertising formats. The last available Internet Advertising Revenue Report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB/PwC 2006 Full Year Results) indicates the highest growth rates in lead generation advertising formats. Second highest growth segment is classifieds… :)
Can’t wait for the next edition, should be coming out in the coming days. Look out for it and see what changes are taking places in the morphology of Internet advertising spending.
For the condensation of the data in the report, see this table.
The Global Marketing Effectiveness Report (the name sounds very serious, right?) establishes that amongst B2C and B2B marketeers, direct marketing fares as the most efficient channel. It was, they claim, “the #1 medium for marketing effectiveness in 2007″. The survey was made with over 3,000 marketeers worldwide. In the United Kingdom, a mature venue for marketeers, direct marketing is still less than 25% of total marketing spend. (The researchers mention that although all the noise is being made around online and mobile advertising, all the cash is still in the likes of TV and print). However, they consider direct marketing best for 2 main reasons:
It generates engagement; it provides much better response
It makes sense when you consider the same set of marketeers goals in 2008:
Growing company revenue was a key, followed by generating leads for future sales. Infact, only 15% of the surveyed guys were primarily concerned by building long term brand awareness in their marketing strategy. Is brand longevity dead?
Oh, and by the way, marketeers worldwide said that 65% of their marketing efforts had “no discernible effect on consumers in 2007″.
In the image a very unfortunate outdoor advertising campaign by Chupa Chups found in Adweek
In order of value, the SEO company Engine Ready has identified that direct traffic (as in: “they know your brand”) is the most relevant to e-tailers. So the most valuable are those typing URLs directly or bookmarking. Their conversion rate is estimated at 3,3% and they spend (in the US) an average 170$ per order. They’re also very engaged (312 seconds per session; 6 pages viewed on average).
They are followed by referrals, the second most valuable group, but also the one with the highest bounce rate - leaving soon after arrival. To here all clear. But what I found interesting is that the third and fourth positions are, in this order, paid search (1,4% conversion; 138$ per order) and then organic listings (also 1,4% and 117$ per order, but 5 pages per session, which is quite close to the #1).
It’s definitely very interesting data to understand how to optimise the marketing investment and the SEO actions. In any case, it seems organic listings still yield high quality, at least from the amount of pages per session.
In the image, quite off topic, Marc Andresseen, co-founder of Netscape, futurologist and originator of The New York Times Deathwatch
Bill Milbrodt (in the image with an air guitar) is known as an eccentric avant-garde music innovator capable of making music from car parts. Recently he has lead a project for Ford Motors where he has built 31 instruments -from Focus car parts- in a record time of four weeks. A wonderful campaign idea for an abominable (aren’t they all?) car manufacturer. It’s not the first time Milbrodt does it, but Ford took a very great marketing stride in commissioning this project to him.
The fender bass in the images, made from a Ford Focus wing (United Kingdom) or fender (United States). It looks elegant, and it sounds good!
Check out some of his videos at the project’s Myspace page
Images courtesy of the Car Music Project and it’s mentors
And if this is an undeniable truth: should media business become software business?
Read a very thought provoking take on it from media thoughtster Nicholas Carr in this Forbes.com article
And a definition for the road, from Wikipedia, your everyday CC encyclopedia ;-) Cloud computing is a new (circa late 2007) label for the subset of grid computing that includes utility computing and other approaches to the use of shared computing resources. Cloud computing is an alternative to having local servers or personal devices handling users’ applications.
Illustration care of Dough
The Innovation Radar, first described in 2006 by professor Mohanbir Sawhney and 2 peers, tries to identify innovation beyond product development and R&D, where it is normally silo-ed in traditional analysis. For that they have built a radar which covers 4 major dimensions or business anchors:
What: Offerings a company creates
Who: Customers it serves
How: Processes it employs
Where: Points of presence it uses to take its offerings to market
It’s a nice tool for companies concerned about their capacity and depth of innovative exercise, as it broadens the spectrum beyond product delivery and into value creation.
Spread across these, a company can innovate way beyond product or technology and can also track the status of it’s innovative capacity well beyond them. Infact, from these 4 key anchors the radar provides a vision enabling companies to innovate in these 12 areas:
Offerings, platform, solutions, customers, customer experience, value capture, processes, organization, supply chain, presence, networking, brand
More on using the innovation radar to drive organic growth. Image courtesy of Enterprise Leadership
Today I was reading one of those visionary presentations that you always wonder if the author wrote under the effects of some opiate. But I came across a slide that addresses exactly the 3 questions I was asking myself in the morning when I woke up in the same anxious anticipation that wakes me up every morning since I moved here.
Those 3 questions where masterfully articulated by the author as follows:
Strategic decisions: what business are we in and where are new opportunities for growth?
Operational decisions: how do we structure our business units to most effectively compete for and win market share?
Tactical decisions: which customers are available to us and how can we convince them to chose us over any and all functional equivalents?
Nicely put. Now I continue to rake my mind and scrutinise my peers to answer these questions in the most value adding manner for the business ;-)
More information in AuroraWDC and also in ReconG2
Illustration courtesy of Pay Attention or Pay
The Bogardus Social Distance Scale is a psychometric scale created to measure, in an empirical way, people’s willingness to participate in social contacts of varying degrees of closeness with members of diverse social groups, such as other racial and ethnic groups, homosexuals and so forth.
The scale asks a person to what extent they would accept a certain group. An average result of 1.00 for a group indicates no-social distance. The scale is cumulative (Guttman-esque?) as each item implies acceptance of all preceding ones.
The reason this drew my attention is that I just read about the Roma community in Hungary and found, not to my surprise (unfortunately), the following:
They account for 10% of the population (largest Roma community in any European country)
80% of them are unemployed (In Hungary the average unemployment rate is 7,7%)
In 2005 The Decade of Roma Inclusion was declared
Photo: winner of the Decade of Roma Inclusion Photo Award, 2007. Tunde Erika Palose, The World of Information
