Apple has filed a wide ranging patent application for a home energy management system. While the patent is fairly complex, the concept is typically Apple: Elegant and easy to implement for the user. From what my non-engineer’s mind can see, the system adds a component to any household outlet (via a plugin adaptor or in [...]

Turns out the name I like, The Experience Architects, isn’t original. It’s the name of a chapter in a book on innovation written by IDEO GM Tom Kelley back in 2005. I own the book so it’s likely that the term was floating somewhere in my subconscious and surfaced when I was trying to encapsulate [...]

When Facebook changed its privacy controls this week a lot of people saw it as an attempt to open up access to their information by changing the default preferences to allow more of your info to be accessible. This would particularly benefit marketers. I think there is something entirely different going on, a strategic change.
With [...]

Can a book project be a start-up?
I’ve been looking for a start-up to get involved with in 2010. I’ve also been working on a book proposal. It dawned on me that the book proposal is my start-up. The proposal is a business plan. The literary agent is a business development person. The publisher is both [...]

Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader- what is the point? As a writer and avid reader I understand the appeal of carrying and accessing any books you want, wherever you want. If this was 1999 I’d think these things were very cool just like I thought my cell phone was cool, my Palm Pilot Pro was cool [...]

No this is not another speculation about upcoming Apple products based on rumor and innuendo. It is a logical argument that a tablet running the iPhone OS and apps from the App store is the obvious next step in computing from a strategic point of view.
First, take a look at all of those dedicated gadgets [...]

One of the reasons traditional marketers have struggled with how social media fits into their planning is a simple fact: You can’t manufacture reputation in a public forum that is permanently on the record. This is a fundamental aspect of the social media revolution that overturns virtually everything we know about marketing. Let’s look at [...]

Great guest post on Techcrunch today by Vivek Wadhwa about the amount of university research that languishes on shelves in labs:
“In 2007, U.S. universities performed $48.8 billion of research and filed 17,589 U.S. patent applications. In that same year universities received back revenues for licensing and royalties on patents of less than $2 billion. Those [...]

Catherine Taylor of Social Media Insider makes a point that no marketer should ignore. In her observation of the mommy blogger summit Blogher she notes that brands are building relationships with influencers rather than running ads.
Money quote:
“I’m going to quote a competitor to Mediapost, Advertising Age, but its packaged-goods reporter, Jack Neff, said it best: [...]

The conversational marketing model is not really new at all, vis a vis Seth Godin and many others, but it is a major change: When we buy, we discuss the choices with friends and, as Godin points out, we have a lot more friends because of social media. If I’m buying an LED monitor, I’ll [...]