Too Many Choices

Posted on 23. Aug, 2010 by David in Takeaway

In the promotional products industry we all think that a website needs to have a million products on it!

Science now proves that we’re totally wrong:

In a now famous supermarket study only 3% of shoppers purchased jam when confronted with 24 varieties, while 30% purchased when given only six. Although the tenfold increase is interesting, what fascinates me are the people not exposed by the raw data. A good number of those 27% approached the jam section with a particular jam in mind. They knew what they wanted and went to purchase. However, the range of alternatives actually placed doubt in their mind.

Read the rest of the article here.

Better Workplace Communication

Posted on 09. Aug, 2010 by David in Takeaway

We all receive too many emails. Period!

Here’s an interesting article that explains how to use different tools for  different types of communication.

Money Quote:

Depending on the velocity of communication we have a number of choices:

Fast-moving discussions are handled in an instant messaging application. This is a replacement for quick get-togethers when people are in different offices or the topic does not merit interrupting what a colleague is doing. Technically, the transcripts can be copied and stored somewhere else for posterity but most of the time it is the result of the interaction that is important and not the conversation itself.

Fleeting thoughts and questions find their way to our microblogging tool. Statements act as useful signals about what is going on and may attract comments from colleagues. Questions are asked and replied to, often with links to our knowledge platform or external sites.

Slow-moving, larger pieces of analysis are developed on our knowledge platform (which happens to be a wiki). Groups can work together to co-draft presentations or strategy papers, and pages can be tagged and linked together. Each project has its own area on the platform and we use it to store notes and prepare project deliverables. Working in this way has the useful side effect that work product is automatically shared (unless we need to react to information barriers) obviating the need for a specific “knowledge management” step in the work process.

Read the whole thing here.

Does Professional Mean Pretending We’re Not Human?

Posted on 02. Aug, 2010 by David in Takeaway

When did it become “professional” to pretend we’re a giant faceless corporation?

Why is acting like we have 20,000 employees who can only follow procedures considered the “right” thing to do .

Most of us are small business people who are concerned with maintaining a personal relationship with our customers.    Shouldn’t that mean acting human and treating people like we expect to be treated when it comes to the internet.

Here’s a good article that explains more:

Money quote:

Like any valuable relationship, the ones we have in business hinge on trust. And trust depends on openness, respect and humanity. Yet we often resist taking that approach in our professional lives, even though we know it would be absurd to do anything else in our personal lives.

Facebook acquaintances the new TV stars

Posted on 28. Jul, 2010 by David in Takeaway

So this is why we all find Facebook fascinating.

Money Quote:

Since TV was invented, critics have pointed out the dangers of watching the perfect people who seem to inhabit the screen. They are almost universally beautiful, live in interesting places, do intereseting work (if they work at all), are unfailingly witty, and never have to do any cleaning. They never even need to use the toilet. It cannot be pschologically healthy to compare yourself to these phantasms.

So it’s interesting that social networks have inadvertantly created the same effect, but using an even more powerful source. Instead of actors in Hollywood, the characters are people that you know to be real and have actually met. The editing is done not by film school graduates, but by the people themselves.

Clean Up Your Wall

Posted on 15. Jul, 2010 by David in Takeaway

Your Facebook wall is an important piece of real estate for you and or your business.

In this video Sean Malarkey will demonstrate why you should clean it up and make it a space that works for you to drive business and add value – by removing a lot of the crap that is cluttering up your wall and making people click away.

Five Signs Your Paid Search Manager Is An Imposter

Posted on 13. Jul, 2010 by David in Takeaway

Many distributors ask Buttonwood to work with a search engine marketing consultant they have hired. More often than not I come away from the conversation with these SEO folks feeling like telling my customer they’re getting ripped off.

So in the interest of educating our customers…I’ve posted a good article from Search Engine Land on how to tell if you’re getting hosed! …and I’ll keep posting them as I find them.

Live and learn…

9 Essential Social Media Tips for Beginners

Posted on 08. Jul, 2010 by David in Takeaway

Here are a few of the best Do’s and Don’ts that can save you time and help grow your social media authority more quickly.

Read more here.

Keep It Simple

Posted on 02. Jun, 2010 by David in Takeaway

Google doing an awesome job of keeping the message simple and fun.  What a great lesson in the importance of understanding what the market thinks before trying to sell something. 

What Makes A Company Creative?

Posted on 22. Apr, 2010 by David in Takeaway

One of the challenges in running a business is to manage the totally unmanageable creative process….I’m always looking for advice and ideas.

The Economist interviews Ed Catmull, the president of Pixar.  They discuss what makes a company creative, how to manage success and how to work with creative people.  Scott Berkun adds some great commentary…

Sorry I couldn’t figure out how to embed the video –> Watch Here

My favorite quote:

So there is this balance, what is the state of the thing… we need to have honesty, we want to have honesty, but honest is a buzzword. Its one of these things we hear, everyone nods their head on, ‘it’s all true’, [but] the gap between the abstractions and where people actually do it is enormous. And people fill it in with all sorts of crap.

Fashion Signals = Fashionomics

Posted on 12. Apr, 2010 by David in Strategy, Takeaway

Tyler Cowen is one of the most interesting people writing on economics in the world right now.  I highly suggest reading his blog from time to time.

He’s giving a talk  at The Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE) conference in Las Vegas today on the economics of fashion which means the “signals” that your fashion choices send to others around you and the economics of sending those “signals”.

Here’s an example of signaling:

If a former SAAGNY board president were to buy a vintage THE CLASH t-shirt for $78 would he acquire the ability to generate a signal worth more that $78? (he could probably buy it for less but for this example it’s important that the t-shirt has a high value so let’s imagine that he bought it from a former girlfriend of Mick Jones)

Let’s imagine that he wore it to Promotions East and walked around all day and twelve people stopped him to talk about their tremendous appreciation for the band.  Now imagine that nine of those people were distributors who gave him their card and felt that they had made a important connection with a fellow THE CLASH fan who was wearing an important piece of punk rock history.

Now, most suppliers might value a qualified lead at a trade show at somewhere around $50 per scan.  In this case a $78 THE CLASH t-shirt generated nine “scans” worth a total of $450 for a cost of $8.66 per scan.

Was this a good deal?  Should he buy all of his salespeople THE CLASH t-shirts and have them walk around and have them walk around collecting business cards from distributors who like 80′s punk rock.

The economics would suggest that yes he should…and that’s how many fashion companies make money:

Connect with the buyer using a signal with high perceived value, use that signal to build a relationship, then sell the buyer something she can afford which allows them to retransmit the a weaker version of the signal.

In this case a distributor would be doing business with someone who signals that he “get’s me”. The distributor would be able to resell that suppliers product with a potentially move valuable signal since the distributor can share the t-shirt story with the client thereby retransmitting the signal and some of the associated value.

(i.e. look how awesome this pen is, the guy who makes it has the coolest THE CLASH t-shirt!)

Read more about signals and fashionomics here and  here.

(my apologies to any former SAAGNY board presidents who may not be THE CLASH fans)

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