Strategy

ProductCamp Austin: A great success!

The second ever ProductCamp started in Austin at 8am this morning. I had never been to any BarCamp-style “un-conference” before, but I must say I really enjoyed it. It was active, informative and agile, in the sense that we the participants, voted on the sessions at the beginning of the day, we were [...]


It’s a Conversation, NOT a Campaign

Social media demands interaction… because its a conversation, not a campaign.
Nice quick report from B2B’s NetMarketing Breakfast in NY this week.
Paul Dunay, global director of integrated marketing at BearingPoint, said he actively reuses and retargets existing content in ways that make sense to provide value to customers.
Dunay said there is no “campaign” in social media: [...]


Pricing and Negotiations

Scientific American has a great article “Why things cost $19.95″, focused on pricing of products and more specifically, our brain’s negotiations mechanisms.
University of Florida marketing professors Chris Janiszewski and Dan Uy suspected that something fundamental might be going on, that some characteristic of the opening bid itself might influence the way the brain thinks about [...]


Interactive marketing spending up despite slowing economy

According to a new Forrester survey:
“In a recession, marketers typically cut interactive spending. But our survey of 333 interactive marketers revealed strong support for maintaining or increasing budgets in categories including social networking, email, blogging, and search optimization. Among 12 major categories only online displays ads looked soft. Professional services, financial services, and media marketers [...]


Good interview: Cisco User Experience Lead

Just read a pretty good interview with Cordell Ratzlaff, ex-Apple and ex-frogdesign and the new head of product design at Cisco.
Having just built a UX team at my former job, and now looking for new opportunities, I’ve seen first hand the specialization and fragmentation of roles in UX groups. I certainly understand specialization and [...]


Usability (and organizational) Problems with the 2010 US Census

The US Census Bureau is getting ready to conduct the 2010 Census, the population count that will be used to calculate congressional districts and funding. The trouble is, they have usability problems with the handheld computers they were planning to use, in addition to the organizational communication issues you may expect from a government [...]


Professional Development via Online Video and Podcasts

I’ve spent a little time recently on iTunesU (iTunes link), Apple’s area for free audio and video casts from universities around the US. I’m very impressed by the content and subject matter of these… I’ve downloaded a few and it’s great to keep in touch with some strategic thinking while traveling. Here are [...]