World in Motion

Godin: On Being a Rock Star

2010-03-09T08:31:00.003-05:00

Good Tuesday to you all! I trust your week started well and the next few days will go by in a flash. Today I'd like to highlight a post by Seth Godin about motivation and performance. It is somewhat similar to what we discussed last week about "over-promising" in order to win a job interview.

Godin points out that living each day with the pressure of being 'a rock star' or being the best of the best at all times is: IMPOSSIBLE! I'm sorry if you expected the opposite but we can't expect to be changing the world every day and that every decision we take saves babies in Uganda or blue-collar managers somewhere in Pleasantville.

Life doesn't happen that way - we can't be rock stars. But what Godin does argue for is, being a rock star for 5 minutes each day. Doing the best we can, exceptional work, work that matters at least for 5 minutes each day.

Setting this objective for each day is what will make you a rock star in life, able to take down any job requirement and elevate it to that greater something only you can set upon yourself.

So take a moment to think, did I just make the last 5 minutes worth it? Well... did you?!

'enjoy the day!'

-APL

Lady Gaga, Social Media Strategist

2010-03-08T08:21:00.003-05:00

Lady Gaga is the face of the new generation of female pop stars, this is an achievement she's garnered through her outstanding performances and personality but also her fierce social media campaign. Experts argue if she is really the brains behind her outstanding operation but from what is known Lady Gaga does indeed orchestrate most of her efforts.

How she engages with fans through social media:

- According to AdAge, all parties who work with Lady Gaga on her label, management and marketing teams cite Gaga herself as the ultimate brains behind many of her creative and social-media ideas and tactics.

- "Bad Romance" debuted last November on LadyGaga.com before MTV or any other outlet - resulting in a Universal Music server crash, a week-long Twitter trending topic and a cumulative 136 million and counting views on YouTube to date, more than any other past viral music video. (Ok Go's - This Shall Pass garnered 3.5 million views)

She can be seen Tweeting from backstage at her performances, to launching debuts of her freshly minted videos on her site before releasing them mainstream, and barring professional videographers from her performances to allow user-generated content be distributed via YouTube and other online sites.

Call it what you want, but the marketing behind Lady Gaga is an incredible demonstration of marketing prowess. Its simple and speaks truth with the end-user, love for music. And this approach has helped concrete her position as a leader in the music industry right now. So I invite you to engage with Lady Gaga today!

Lady Gaga is the perfect example of how fast the marketing machine can be learned and used to create mass media hysteria...

'til next time!'

-APL

First Glimpse: Apple iPad Commercial During the Oscars

2010-03-07T22:19:00.002-05:00

Watching the Oscars? Well if you missed it, Apple aired its first iPad commercial! Check it out below (now back to the Oscars)

~Until Next Time~

WIM

Safe but Naughty, Volvo's New Direction

2010-03-07T21:02:00.003-05:00

The 'This to Shall Pass' has been tearing up the viral charts and with good reason - very cool video. It's a great way to make something viral and fun in order to engage with consumers. I believe some brands have made some attempts similar to this with equal or less success but this is definitely a great example of where to head with your intentions.

This brings me along to my post of the day about a recently launched campaign by Volvo - essentially its a dare to the safest naughty drivers out there. While its subversive hook may be to elicit the bad kind of naughty in order to catch your attention, its really asking consumers to come up with naughty tricks for the S60 to perform.

Online they have videos of the S60 running a slalom course in three different levels. The first level being a standard run through a slalom course, level 2 tests its skill by replacing cones with fine china and a fish bowl, then it takes it up a notch by having the S60 run the course backwards.

All cool ways to feature the dynamic attributes of the car, and a bold move for a brand like Volvo that needs to differentiate from a stagnate market. To back this up, Volvo is daring users to find 'naughty' tricks for the S60 to perform. I'll keep my out for the videos to come but for now, check out the S60 ripping up the slalom course backwards!

Can you guys give me some examples of other cool viral campaigns being done by brands? Let us know!

'til next time!'

-APL

Ok Go: This Too Shall Pass

2010-03-07T00:18:00.005-05:00

So the rumor is that this was taken in just one amazing shot...what do you think? If so, pretty damn impressive! The video is Ok Go's latest web sensation (do you remember the other one? The music video with them jumping from treadmill to treadmill...equally as impressive) Ok that's enough about that!

Watch, enjoy, and start your Sunday with a dose of Ok Go.

Don't forget to check out the treadmill video if you haven't seen it!

~Until Next Time~

WIM

Nike Courage: I've got soul but I'm not a soldier

2010-03-06T01:12:00.001-05:00

Mannn talk about getting some extra motivation to get up and run tomorrow morning (if my ankle heels up). I found this spot from Fit Sugar and can't get the song out of my head. I love ads that keep a certain song in your head especially when they are good ones, I looooove it. Anyways, here is the spot I'm talking about, brought to you by Nike. Let me warn you though, you WILL be lacing up your sneakers once this is over:

This spot is typical of Nike and not only does it get you motivated to just about do about anything it really fills you up with a sudden burst of energy. I don't know about you but I think I'm going to fall asleep in my running shoes on in preparation for my 11 mile run tomorrow (Training for the DC Half Marathon and looking to beat my time, any good tips to increase endurance?).

Ok so by this point I hope I have accomplished two things... 1) You should feel lazy right about now and 2) You are thinking about hitting up the gym :)

Enjoy!

~Until Next Time~

WIM

Oldies but Goldies!

2010-03-05T08:39:00.003-05:00

As promised and heeding to the saying, 'oldies but goldies!' I present you with two great commercials from some South American ad agencies "power-ponies". Both commercials are for global brands and respectfully these ad agencies have earned the right to make funny and creative stuff for them.

I think a well-established trend in the ad industry is the rise of the creative power behind dynamic small agencies to win some huge accounts. Well, now international borders are broken down as small global agencies place the cold end of the barrel on some of the ad world's big boys.

And this video clips are perfect example of that, the first is a short created to promote the Buenos Aires Film Festival - it takes a great swipe at Tom Selleck! The second clip is for Pepto Bismol - don't let your food hurt you!

Love the moustach-o rub... classic ad!

Two really great commercials, I believe they won a lot of recognition during their time and set those small agencies well into their current future. Expect a more detailed briefing soon! For now, enjoy a laugh and forward it onto your friends!

Have a great Friday everyone!

'til next time!'

-APL

Twitter, Facebook, what companies are doing to keep their fans engaged

2010-03-04T02:13:00.002-05:00

I must say I loveee sushi. I just got back from a friends birthday dinner, and we celebrated at Nooshi in downtown DC. The sushi was pretty good but I still left hungry...hmmm what to do about food now..

Anyways, I wanted to post about some recent success I have had on Facebook and Twitter, and how happy I am to see companies interacting with their fans.

So the first company I want to profile is Arnold:

According to Arnold,

"Great Work Works." It's as simple as that. At Arnold, if it doesn't work, it's not great"

So I guess I'll start from the end and work my way to the beginning of my story. I made a comment on the Arnold Fan Page and to my surprise I ended up winning tickets to see the Celtics take on the Knicks! My comment was related to one of Arnold's latest campaigns taking place at Chicago O'Hare Airport. The campaign was aimed at luring travelers to Amtrak with the goal of "trying to appeal to airline customers fed up with flight delays, escalating checked bag fees and cattle car seating." The humorous ads which can be seen below try poke fun at air travel.

Now, if you take a closer look at the above image the tag line reads

"Wear Mismatched Socks. We'll never know."

The campaign itself was extremely clever. I always love advertising campaigns like this one because they sort of jump out at you with no warning and you are pretty much forced to look at it. The surprise element to this idea was great, but there was one thing that bothered me a lot. Here we are trying to advertise Amtrak and we are telling our consumers that we wont notice if you bring anything on our trains. I have taken Amtrak quite a number of times and I can certainly tell you that no form of security exists, you could literally walk on there with whatever you wanted, be they mismatched socks and they would never ever notice.

Now, taking a jab at security especially related to travel and more importantly in the world we live in today made me a little uneasy. The reality is that people are willing to go through extra security to ensure that they get from Point A to Point B. Being an avid traveler myself flying back home to Europe quite often, I know what these security lines are like and I'm willing to go through those extra long checks just so that airlines can ensure my safety.

Now, this is just my own opinion but luckily enough my own opinion happened to win me a pair of Celtics tickets. There are two things I liked about this, actually maybe three. 1) Arnold is willing to listen to their fans, and to their sometimes good and sometimes bad criticism. 2) They actually interact with their fans. Many fan pages don't do that very often and when they do they just don't seem to show any kind of sincerity through their comments, and lastly 3) I won some Celtics tickets haha. That on its own is pretty amazing. Check out a picture from the game if you don't believe me!

Ok so I'm almost done with Arnold but after brainstorming for a few minutes about this whole airline idea and playing around for a few minutes on photoshop I decided to take a shot at the campaign myself.

Now, being a traveller myself as I mentioned before I don't mind these security lines but there is one thing that makes Amtrak much more comfortable compared to airline travel and that is comfort. I think it would have been great to somehow compare leg room on Amtrak compared to airplanes seeing that they were trying to appeal to customers fed up with the cattle car seating.

I didn't want to stray too far away from the whole concept but I started thinking...what is it that I find so annoying about airline travel and then BAM it came to me. SHOES! I hate having to take off my damn shoes when I go through those scanners haha. So, I thought it would be appropriate to stick with using the security bins because that is where you need to place your shoes once you take them off but the only thing we needed to do now is change the tag line. So, what I ended up coming up with was this:

"Lace your shoes once with Amtrak"

I would love to hear some of your thoughts on this! I thought this would work just as well because I feel that it ties into the whole situation perfectly as well as to the whole haha! Surprise! routine. Just imagine you putting your shoes into this bin and seeing that...I don't know I think it would be funny and it would kind of get me motivated to go and use Amtrak but that's probably because I'm the one who came up with the idea haha. Then again this is just my opinion and as great as I think my ideas are, some people will disagree and that's why I open the comments section of this post to you!

Ok, so enough about them and lets move onto the next company!

I'm going to be honest here and say that I have heard a lot of bad press regarding teleflora. Has anyone had any experience with them? Regardless, the post isn't about their ability to deliver flowers but rather their interaction with their followers on Twitter. I happened to be Tweeting during the Super Bowl and providing some thoughts on some of the commercials. The Teleflora spot (below) happened to be on and I can't remember what I said but I know I said it was "ok" and that it was nothing special.

Anyhow, after tweeting this the people from Teleflora wrote me back and began a conversation with me and long story short they provided me with a great discount on some flowers! Now, I don't know if this was because Valentine's Day was right around the corner but regardless, they listened to what I had to say and rewarded me with a great discount. So thanks Teleflora!

Wow...this post ended up being longer than I expected but while you read through this post, I encourage everyone to leave comments, share, and most importantly subscribe to our posts!

~Until Next Time~

WIM

Just get to it!

2010-03-04T00:38:00.006-05:00

Its been quite some time since my last post, a lot of changes I'm getting accustomed to still - new house, new job - and all the tedious groundwork that comes along with getting two responsibilties like that up and running simultaneously.

However, I was very intrigued by the last post about venturing out and trying to bait your next big job. This is something I encourage everyone to do, get out there and test the water. The day I learned to ride a bike was the least prepared day of my life.

Yet, eyes closed as I ripped down a hill like a chicken without a head, I started pedaling, pedaling faster and faster until I had made it about half a block away from my departure point. And figuratively speaking, I haven't stopped pedaling since then!

So for those individuals who risk the chance of working at a "fast-paced" environment, or trying something new... I can only say - just get to it! And learn how to pedal as fast as you can.

I hope you all sleep off the wear-and-tear of the week tonight in preparation for an incredible weekend!! And for those readers looking for new challenges, time to blow the dust off those resumes!

'til next time!'

-APL

Something to think about on a Wednesday

2010-03-03T17:31:00.000-05:00

Don't let job applications with carefully crafted responsibilities sway you from applying to them. What's the worst that can happen? You just don't get the job, oh well find a new one. Just do it.

One of my personal favorites is, you must be willing to "work in a fast paced environment" ...well are you sure it's fast paced or do you just take too long to finish your work? There is a big difference. Now..unless said company actually operates at an Olympic pace, and you know you have no experience or skills with fast turnovers, make sure you don't promise something you can't offer. If you see yourself as a person who is accustomed to meeting deadlines then you have nothing to worry about. On the other hand, I would reconsider "over-promising" about your skills if you aren't up to the challenge.

Whatever you do just make sure you keep up the hard work and keep applying.

Anyone have any other favorites they have seen during their job hunt?

~Until Next Time~

WIM

Kids don't need a role model, they need an early bloomer

2010-03-03T00:22:00.001-05:00

Finally found the motivation to post...I wish I could find the inspiration to do it earlier on in the day but for some reason I seem to be able to write much better during the night...oh well. Here is an Ad called Early Bloomers, and its tag line is "Kids don't need a role model, they need an early bloomer."

After watching the video the first time I really did not understand what was going on. I couldn't tell if the person who sent this to me was trying to play a joke on me, or just wanted me to sit through one of the most annoying videos I have ever seen.

Finally got to the end of the video and noticed it asks the viewer to go check out earlybloomers.ca. Obviously curious to see what on earth that Ad was talking about I visited the site and not only was I presented with another attempt to be funny I had to listen to some guy sharpening his pencil.

So...clearly at this point I knew whatever was trying to be brought across failed miserably. So this got me curious, and I wanted to see who was behind this campaign. So...thinking if you went to "contact us" it would finally just get to the point but unfortunately I was wrong and had to listen to the same guy sharpening his pencil but on a voicemail.

By this point I'm just about ready to close the browser when somehow it switched websites and said everything was a joke and here is the real campaign.

Thanks for wasting my time that I really don't care what this program is about anymore. Hopefully by people reading this post, they can just jump all the crap that leads to it and just go to the main site which is found here. Save yourself the time, believe me. The funny thing is the first time I checked out the website it didn't automatically switch to that screen shot I just showed above, but rather I had to find it myself. I don't know if this is because other people found it so unbelievably annoying or they just forgot to include it. Now the funny thing is I still down know whether or not this is serious haha. All it does is take me to a website that really doesn't provide me with much, and it also includes three testimonials. I think they could have gone with a different approach to this entire campaign...now if you give me some time I might be able to think of something but I can't think of what that could be now. Either way I would have rather just wanted it to get to the point quicker.

Now...if the point of the campaign was to create buzz, it certainly did that.

My criticism might be a little harsh but the purpose of this site is to provide you with our honest opinion and obviously everyone might not agree with it but we welcome everyones views and would love to hear peoples reactions to the Ad and their experience with the site. If anyone knows anything about it please leave your comments below!!

~Until Next Time~

WIM

Security Issues

2010-02-28T22:46:00.003-05:00

Hi everyone! I hope everyone has had a great weekend so far. Now it’s time to turn our attention to those people out there who like to make other peoples lives a living hell by infecting their computers with viruses or getting their passwords somehow, or even somehow getting into their banking information!

I don’t think there is a huge difference between generations or national groups when it comes to understanding privacy, confidentiality, and security. Everyone has an innate feeling that privacy, confidentiality and security are all things people should be entitled too and therefore most people feel the same about it. However, the problem is that there are people out there who enjoy the thrill of being able to access anyone’s personal information, and also using people’s personal details for personal gain.

There are several critical Internet security issues everyone needs to be aware of. Some of these include viruses, identity theft, spam, and spyware. More importantly for business owners, they need to assure that hackers don’t get into their system and corrupt it with any kinds of viruses. They need to also make sure their customer information is safe and secure so that personal information does not fall into the wrong hands. Identity theft has been a growing trend in recent years and has caused several problems for so many people.

Businesses have a huge responsibility in providing a safe and secure environment for transactions, as well as for customer information. First and foremost, for any business to become truly successful, you need to assure your customers that their information is secure and safe. If you provide them with this, they are more likely to come back and do business with you in the future.

These responsibilities and security issues can be met by assuring you have an IT department that is up to date with all the newest security concerns. Furthermore, it might beneficial to make your employees aware of any malicious spyware and viruses that are crawling around the web and to not click any link that might seem suspicious. If you have a security department that makes clear the issues that are out there, companies should be somewhat safer.
~Until Next Time~
WIM

Websites: The Face of an Organization

2010-02-28T22:45:00.002-05:00

The website I have chosen to analyze is Facebook. Facebook is a social networking site whose purpose is to offer millions of people around the world the ability to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.
Until recently, Facebook was typically used for personal use but with the sudden increase in popularity of social media, Facebook has been turned into a great resource for companies to market themselves by creating Facebook "Fan" pages where they can interact with their customers the same way any other person can interact on their personal profiles. The fan pages do come with some perks but it has become one of the most popular mediums for companies to take advantage of.
Facebook has certainly achieved its "purpose" with people all over the world uploading photos constantly to Facebook of their travels or family outings or even their night's out with friends. Furthermore, it has provided businesses the ability to develop bonds with their consumers like never before.
As many of you probably know, Facebook is structured in a way that is tailored to you. A recent redesign of Facebook has allowed them to better serve their customers. The home screen gives you access to a "Top News" feed and a "Most Recent" news feed. Additionally, the left hand column gives you easy access to your messages, your applications, as well as your photos. The right hand side of the homepage is filled with "suggestions" that Facebook recommends to you based on your profile information. Lastly, the right hand side also has ads that Facebook has been able to make money through.
Facebook certainly serves it's customers effectively. Facebook is quick to listen to user feedback whenever something gets rolled out and is always sure to change anything that might not be working. Facebook is unique because it acts somewhat like an e-mail client by giving you the chance to send messages to your friends Facebook profiles or individual e-mail addresses. This next topic can be argued but one way Facebook serves their customers is the ability to suggest friends you may not have known were on Facebook or the option of reconnecting with a friend you haven't been interacting with. From my experience, the people they recommend I reconnect with or add as friends I don't really care for so I wouldn't mind if they just got rid of that feature or gave us the ability to hide that.
Facebook is not made up of too many graphics, but mostly text. The only graphics you will see are either from applications or profile pictures or even just the Facebook logo. The marketing and sales principles of Facebook is certainly made up of various e-business features. Currently Facebook is having a hard time trying to find out how they can begin to create money. There are talks of Facebook offering a "Facebook Gold" account where members can pay for an upgraded version of Facebook but with some perks, all rumors though. Facebook relies on most of their marketing online, but with the boom in social media, you have probably seen Facebook ads like the Verizon Fios commercial where it tells you that you can now update your Facebook status from your TV (because we all know that the computer, the iphone, the BlackBerry, and the ipod touch aren't enough platforms to update your status right? :) ). Some features that Facebook uses to make money is through advertisements that appear on the side panels, as well as allowing users to buy small virtual gifts to send to other friends.
Some things I would currently change about Facebook is giving the current design a small tweak. Currently it features a frame on the left as well as a horizontal frame at the top of the browser. Currently if you move anywhere away from the homepage you lose the left panel. I would recommend Facebook to keep the left panel constantly available and only let the center of the screen change. By doing this, it allows the user to have access to messages, photos, videos by just one click. The other change I would recommend, is giving users more control of the look of their profile. I would like to have the ability to change the theme of my profile or move the panels around as I please.
If any other recommendations come to mind I will let you know but in the mean time I would love to hear anyone else's recommendations for Facebook!
~Until Next Time~
WIM
Enjoy!

Appropriate Technological Infrastructure

2010-02-28T22:43:00.001-05:00

A good process to identify and match a company’s technological infrastructure to its organizational mission is determining how much your business relies on IT. For example, if you work for an organization whose mission is to strive for a better environment, like the World Wildlife Fund, you would research IT infrastructure that could be used by the organization to reduce its carbon footprint.

WWF Environmental Policy: “Good environmental practices in the way we work go hand in hand with our mission to protect the planet's natural environment and to build a future in which human needs are met in harmony with nature. WWF strives to make the best choices to ensure that the activities we conduct in pursuit of our mission demonstrate care for the environment. To this end we are committed to examining our impacts on the environment and finding alternatives to improve on our performance. Exercising care and showing leadership to reduce our environmental impacts in the workplace are valuable assets in our efforts to promote environmental stewardship worldwide.”
A good process to match a company’s technological infrastructure to its e-business process is to make sure your company has the necessary technological components to maintain an e-business. This requires top management to invest in the newest technology to guarantee success. For example, something Amazon should look into is shipping their products within 24 hours, and this way they maintain a competitive edge over their other competitors.
A good process to match a company’s technological infrastructure to its operational needs is to make sure the space is big enough to handle the infrastructure it requires. An example of this would be a trading floor. In order for it to work, you need a large open space with multiple computers per person. Additionally, you need to have space for all the equipment needed to make everything operate.
Common errors include not investing in proper technology that result in system failures. Additional errors include companies refusing to invest in better technologies and rather remaining with the status quo. These types of errors can be avoided by having a management team that is aware of upcoming developments in new technology as well as keeping a close eye on competitors and seeing if they are doing anything different that you could benefit from.
~Until Next Time~
WIM

Models and Concepts

2010-02-28T22:41:00.004-05:00

The company I have selected as a good “role” model of ebusiness is Netflix. Netflix has “more than 11 million subscribers and is the world’s largest subscription service streaming movies and TV episodes over the Internet and sending DVDs by mail” (http://www.netflix.com).

What makes Netflix stellar is the fact that they have single handedly destroyed the traditional way of renting movies. Blockbuster has already adopted an online rental service and is looking to close their stores. What made renting from Blockbuster annoying was the fact that you could only have the movie for a limited number of days and if you had it longer you had to pay a late fee. With Netflix, not only do you just pay a fixed amount at the beginning of each month but you also have no late fees! A new feature Netflix recently launched was the ability to stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix right to member’s TVs through the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and the Nintendo Wii.

The strengths Netflix has as an ebusiness is that it comes equipped with a recommendation system that suggests movies based on your ratings. It easily discovers movies that you may not have watched and recommends them to you. Another strength Netflix has is that it offers customers the ability to choose how many DVDs they want delivered and for a different price. Furthermore, whichever subscription method you choose, you have the opportunity to watch an unlimited number of movies each month for that price.

The limitations Netflix has as an ebusiness is that since they don’t have an actual physical store front, customers send their movies back in the mail, and the problem with this is that the postal service is sometimes very slow, and sometimes the DVD might get damaged in transit and therefore Netflix has to replace it.

Some improvements Netflix could look to make is offering customers the choice to rent HD movies, without having to pay extra. Another improvement would be to change their current website into more of a social network where they can build friends and recommend movies to each other, sort of like a Facebook for Netflix. I wouldn’t suggest too many improvements but I would warn them to watch out for more online movie streaming sources as that is becoming more and more popular these days,

There are several essential qualities of a successful ebusiness, and those are its ability to ship products to its customers in an efficient manner, a secure connection so that customers can purchase items through the website and not have to worry about security. Also, the ability to adapt to the ongoing changes that occur on the Internet, and have a long term strategy for continued success. Furthermore, with the current trend of Web 2.0, a successful ebusiness would give customers the ability to interact with the website.
~Until Next Time~
WIM

Socio-Technical Organizations

2010-02-28T22:38:00.002-05:00

Sorry about the delay of this post, but for some reason or another I have had some trouble logging onto Blackboard these past few days, and today it wasn’t working at all. I would like to first begin by saying that this is probably one of the biggest problems facing many companies that are based solely online. The threat of your consumers not being able to connect to your website would result in significant losses and possibly some backlash. Luckily, this was just a Blackboard posting, but whoever said that wasn’t important either? ;)

I would define a socio-technical organization as one that provides workers with the tools needed to grow in the skills, knowledge, and abilities to become successful within an organization. Additionally, for an organization to become successful, they need to make sure that technology is an integral part of their core strategy, but also remember that without proper social interaction or communication, the organization will not function smoothly.

Business enterprises weave human resources and technological applications into one system by using new technology to find new applicants. As a result of the Internet, businesses have been given the unique opportunity to further their brand presence online and tell people why that company is such a great place to work. Additionally, companies are able to post job openings on the companies website, or even onto some of the several job portals. Furthermore, with the existence of social networking, businesses are able to communicate with interested applicants before they even think about applying for any positions!

Current businesses are a mix of “brick-and-mortar” and online applications. This mix didn’t always exist; Internet marketing was almost non-existent about a decade ago. However, in today’s world you would almost be foolish if you did not incorporate the Internet into your business model. Some businesses can’t just operate their business solely online, and require an actual storefront. However, with the emergence of e-commerce, many consumers are doing all their shopping and searching online, and as a result this has forced many businesses to have an online presence.

E-business and E-commerce principles are inter-related and incorporated into many business models. E-commerce is defined as the “use of the Internet and the web to transact business” (http://ezinearticles.com/?id=2002483) However, e-business is defined as the “digital enablement of transactions and process within a firm, involving information systems under the control of the firm” (Ibid). As a result, the bond between e-business and e-commerce occurs when there is an exchange of value.

~Until Next Time~

WIM

Beginning to think about e-business

2010-02-28T22:34:00.001-05:00

So as a way to sort of use what I have been doing in school to this site is to start combining things. I'm taking an e-business class that requires us to write posts on a variety of topics. As exciting as its been to receive comments from class members I thought it would be great to let everyone else who is interested to write down some of their comments (if any) to some of the posts I have been writing in class. So here goes! The first post as you can see is titled "Beginning to think about e-business"

Enjoy...

"E-commerce has grown rapidly in the last decade, but the popularity of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace has grown tremendously over the last few years. I’m very excited to learn more about E-commerce and how I can effectively use what I learn to my own personal endeavors. I would say that I have been actively participating on the online world for quite some time. I currently work on two websites, the first one being Development Crossing (http://www.developmentcrossing.com), and the second one being World in Motion (http://www.thewim.com). To conclude, I would say that by taking this course I would like to learn more about how I can take these websites and generate money with them.

There are several reasons why the “Dot-Com” ventures and “virtual businesses” failed according to the two articles found under the virtual knowledge commons section in Blackboard. Some of the reasons include a general economic recession during this period, findings of corporate corruption, and the subsequent bankruptcy, at several large companies, including a few large technology companies, and lastly the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Additionally, most of the “Dot Bomb’s” presented unproven, theoretical models to the banks for the IPO’s. They had never shown a profit and never would because the models they used simply could not work. Therefore, when the bottom fell out of the Internet advertising market, the companies whose business models were based on selling advertising on their sites or in their networks were the first losers.

As with any failure, you always seem to learn something after it’s all said and done, and fortunately we learned a few lessons and principles from this initial experiment in online business. According to the Ezine article on “Learning the Lessons of the Dot-Bomb Era” the first lesson we learned was that we must establish our business on a business model that can be profitable at low volumes before we can even hope to be profitable at high volumes. The secret to online profits is not cash, but rather a solid business model. The second lesson we learned was that as a small business owner, we can and must remain flexible. Especially in an untested and unproven market, we need to sustain our flexibility and keep our focus on the bottom line and the marketplace, but most importantly never to fear change. Lastly, remember to take whatever means are necessary to track the successes and failures in your advertising and always watch your bottom line. This is the most important thing to take note of if you wish for your online business to be profitable.

The above lessons have already been applied to 21st century business models, if they haven’t they should probably get on that! For example, the success of Facebook and MySpace wasn’t just by accident, and they weren’t brand new ideas. Earlier social media sites like Friendster, Hi5, and Bebo all started off with a large follower base but MySpace and Facebook saw their limitations and gave the public more control of what they could do with their own personal pages. However, smaller social media sites are now beginning to grow after seeing what works. Furthermore, using Facebook as an example, continues to grow at a rapid pace. It used to be that only college students could sign up for a Facebook account but now anyone around the world with access to the Internet can create an account. Additionally, businesses have been able to take advantage of Facebook by creating Facebook Fan pages that allow businesses and their customers to interact in a way like never before.

There are several trends we will see in 2010 regarding e-business. The first trend is search engine optimization. As we have seen more and more, consumers want more personalized search results and this means search engines will be looking for more relevant and personalized content from publishers and brands. The second trend we will see is social media marketing. The reason marketers love social media is because you have access to so many people. Smaller businesses will look to use social media much more in 2010 to grow their business. Lastly, a third trend you will see is blogging. Blogging continues to become more and more popular, and you will see more businesses create their own blogs with relevant news about what is happening at their company."

~Until Next Time~

WIM

Social Media Authority: Measuring and Improving Online Influence

2010-02-26T12:28:00.002-05:00

FRIDAY. Any BIG plans for the weekend? I love Friday's. Even better since that today Finland is taking on the US in Ice Hockey for a chance to play for gold or silver!

COME ON FINLAND!!!!

Besides that, I wanted to post about what I did yesterday. I had the unique opportunity to participate in a social media webinar. Being strapped for time I quickly logged on and went to the first presentation by Brian Halligan (@bhalligan). I can't possibly post about everything he talked about but the topic of his presentation was "Social Media Authority: Measuring and Improving Online Influence"

Brian Halligan

So let me go over some of the things I quickly wrote down. If you are interested in increasing your online influence, the one thing to focus on is increase the amount of remarkable content you put out. He recommended us to engage in activities in a variety of "watering holes" that are on the web. For example, the ones he pointed out that were the best were "LinkedIn Answers, Yahoo! Answers, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Foursquare, Digg and Reddit."

So lets put that into an easy to remember equation:

More Online Influence = Your Brand/Company + # Of Watering Holes

Got it?

Yeahhhh you doooo.

So..how do we measure influence? Easy! It is a Fx(Reach, Attention, Spread)

Now how do you find influencers you say? Well thats easy...you want to make sure your brand, your Twitter handle, your LinkedIn account, whatever it may be provides enough influence to influence others in retweeting or sharing your information! Now, Brian gave us a great resource as to determine the influence your Twitter account has online! Visit Twitter Grader and just enter your Twitter name and watch it spit out some information. During the presentation @cymbalmark Tweeted me with a better resource called Klout. Both were great resources so I recommend you guys check out both!

Anyways, something that Brian said during his presentation has really stuck with me. He recommended companies to encourage their employers to Tweet, to start blogs, to start pretty much creating some kind of influence online. Also, funny enough...to HIRE people who Tweet and who Blog because if your company is lucky enough to find people with a large follower base or with a large online influence, you could use them to market your brand or your products to the follower base they have already set up. I thought that was a great thing to say because there are several companies who are only just starting to Tweet and finding it difficult to build a large follower base. So if you have someone who has already built a large follower base, you could use them as a valuable resource in your company.

Now I'm going to finish off this post with two other things that I found very interesting. First being:

"Don't Pimp Your Product"

More than just a funny quote it does hold a tremendous amount of meaning. When you are online, don't always talk about your company or your products, remember to show some love for all the other people out there and if you do that you are sure to increase your online presence.

And LASTLY, apparently the best time to Tweet is at 4PM on a FRIDAY. So upon reading this post, I want everyone to Tweet this at 4PM today and EVERY other day if you don't get a chance to read this post today! Now, in reference to 4PM I found it pretty funny that the time 4:00 came up, now this is because one of my favorite TED videos is "Rives about 4 AM" (Watch the video below)

It might not be 4AM but again, 4:00 o'clock sure does get a lot of press.

Please comment, share, and express your views! I would love to hear anyones opinions about the above posting or if anyone has any other great resources we should know about!!

~Until Next Time~

WIM

When the FBI raids your Brand

2010-02-24T20:04:00.004-05:00

That's right, what happens when the FBI raids your brand? If you are still incredulous about the possibility then I invite you to continue reading.

Last night, the FBI raided three suppliers of Toyota's parts in search for documents pertaining to "antitrust violations and hiding quality problems." The news hit the wire early this morning and is still sending chills down readers' spines.

Its a huge blow for Toyota ...what comes next? Toyota failed to address this issue properly from its inception and its been snowballing down a very steep and dangerous brand slope. Desperate measures are needed to rescue consumers' perception of Toyota - not soon but now.

theWIM will continue following this incident and track the brand fallout that could pursue. We welcome your thoughts!

'til next time!'

-APL

Twitter Engagement Among Companies

2010-02-22T19:07:00.002-05:00

Bonjour! Decided to throw in a little French greeting into this post to remind myself that I need to go back and review! Great language to learn, anyone have any helpful guides I could download? I've been meaning to try out one of those podcasts iTunes sells but don't know if it would be worth the money...any recommendations?

So the topic I wanted to go into today is about Twitter engagement among companies. I make it a priority to always follow everyone back, and always respond to any @Reply that is sent over my way. The one thing I don't do often is respond to DM's. I find that DM's are almost all spam, and so I tend to just delete them without any hesitation.

What I have noticed while being on Twitter, and following a variety of companies is that there are several companies out there that advertise that they are on Twitter but do nothing in terms of engagement. Not to name any company specifically but what I have noticed is that some companies just use the "Twitterfeed" application to automatically Tweet the latest news that comes off their website. I'm not saying this is a bad thing but I could just as easily go to your website and take your RSS feed and just save that to Google Reader and BOOM I have an identical feed of your account.

Now, like I said this isn't a bad thing...I do the same thing for WIM just because I like to get my latest posts out onto the web. But for companies to just rely on Twitterfeed and say that they actively use Twitter is a small lie. All I'm really asking is to see some kind of engagement on your profile with other users! Show me that there is someone behind that damn logo of yours.

Ok, so that was first thing I wanted to discuss. Now, lets move onto Followers. I understand it must be a pain to always accept people, but guess what? You joined the social media game, so why not play it? It's annoying to see companies with a MASSIVE follower base but only following say....20 people.

That tells me that you don't care about the people who follow you, and you don't honestly believe that whatever you are trying to do through this social media platform is working. Show some kind of meaningful connection with your followers so that they know there is a person behind that damn logo again. It really isn't that difficult...tools exist that allow you to automatically follow or unfollow large groups of people. SO THERE IS NO EXCUSE!

So to finish this post off, how can companies say they use Twitter when they show no kind of involvement?

If someone out there knows why companies don't often engage enough with their followers or just can't be bothered to show that they follow others please let me know!! Lastly, if anyone knows companies that are guilty of what I just talked about, leave a link to their Twitter account and I would be happy to feature a list of those companies people feel that need to be doing a better job!

~Until Next Time~

WIM

Starbucks VIA Taste Test

2010-02-20T17:48:00.000-05:00

I hope everyones weekend is off to a good start! I actually woke up early this morning and went out for a 13.1 mile run!! I have to say I'm pretty exhausted. Anyhow, I wanted to post our first YouTube video! I actually took this video over the summer, and I'm sure many of you remember but it is from the Starbucks VIA taste test. I took the challenge myself but unfortunately I lost! haha. Though...I do have my theory about their little taste test, so if any of you out there took the VIA taste test please leave your comments below or on the YouTube video itself! Soooo what I think Starbucks did was water down the "real" coffee so that the VIA tasted a lot stronger than the regular coffee. Did anyone else feel the same?

Here is the video:

Keep an eye out for more videos from World in Motion and don't forget to subscribe!

~Until Next Time~

WIM

The Making of a Man

2010-02-20T15:20:00.004-05:00

While taking a break from the massive operation that packing up my house has taken, I found some very cool clips about one of the best commercials from the SuperBowl.

Created by Weiden + Kennedy, "The Man your Man Could Smell Like" clip has been racking up the views on YouTube and televisions. Its very funny and clever, I really enjoyed how the guy strolls into every situation like it was nothing..

Awesome work by the W+K team, and as a special treat I found a "making-of" video that showcases the tremendous effort undergone to produce this in 3 days! Check out both videos below.

And, below the making of the video - we're looking to make this part of our weekly video series.

Its back to packing for me but the next few days I'll try to get these posts up early in the morning for you guys to have throughout your day!

'til next time!'

-APL

Group Think: When it comes to what we say we like, often we're just following the herd

2010-02-18T02:58:00.003-05:00

Gooood evening! So I'm pretty excited that one of my fellow countrymen (Peetu Piiroinen) just gave Finland its first medal of the Olympics with a silver in snowboarding! Woohoo!

Anyhow back to more important matters. I was reading through a recent article in Wired by a guy called Clive Thompson. He wrote an interesting piece on the idea of Group Think, and whether or not we can persuade someone to like a product by simply telling them it's popular. According to the article "it seems clear that we're often just sheep." As marketers, this is our primary job, we need to be able to convince a certain group of consumers why they need our product and then rely on them to tell their friends about that product in order to create this huge snowball effect.

Thompson goes on to make the argument that "Madonna is famous because she's uniquely talented. You could counterargue that she's just lucky: She got picked up by the right label at the right time, and enough people glommed onto her." I found this particularly interesting because I just finished a book called Outliers, where Malcolm Gladwell talks about just this phenomenon. Using this example Thompson gave, we could state that Madonna is an outlier due to her significantly "lucky" circumstances that happened at the "right" time. What if the events didn't play out the way they did? Obviously Madonna wouldn't be Madonna as we know her today.

Anyways, to test out an idea, Duncan Watts a "network theory pioneer and scientist at Yahoo and Columbia University" and Mathew Salganik created a "music downloading Web site. They uploaded 48 songs by unknown bands and got people to log in to the site, listen to the songs, then rate and download them." Users of the site were able to see each others rankings, were "influenced in roughly the same way self-fulfilling prophecies are supposed to work. That meant some tunes could become hits-and others duds-partly because of social pressure." These guys tried this out over and over again until they had 12,900 participants, and the result of their work was that "different songs were hits with different groups."

So, do you think it's possible to think something is popular when it isn't? They took the rankings of one group and the songs that they used in the experiment with them and inverted them so bottom ranked music was now at the top. Then they gave these rankings to a fresh set of listeners. What ended up happening is that they essentially told these new participants that the songs that were unpopular with the original group, were actually the popular songs. What they found with this experiment was that

"flat out lying works"

With all this said, it doesn't shine a good light on marketers. As I mentioned earlier, we try our best to promote our product...our brand...whatever it may be but what I've noticed is that marketers spit out all kinds of material to consumers trying to get them to buy certain products.

How much of this stuff is actually true? Is any of it? Or is it all just a load of bs? This article presents a "cautionary tale to marketers: If you lie about the merits of your product, you might suppress demand across your entire sector."

I would love to hear your thoughts on the idea of group think and whether or not we are able to convince people something is one thing when it actually isn't. With that said is that really fair?

~Until Next Time~

WIM

Ongoing Competition

2010-02-17T00:28:00.003-05:00

A while back, theWIM posted about an on-going "friendly" feud between Audi and BMW. Its brewing to become quite a legend for prosperity because they continue to devise clever ways of taking swipes at each other. Reference #1

As consumers, we can only sit back and enjoy the ongoing raillery. Today I feature two new spots from Audi who contest their leader position in the luxury automobile market. Call it engineering, design, or simply who has the wittiest creative this side of town - regardless it's a win win battle between these two.

The first spot by Audi pays tribute to the never-ending friendly rivalry between human beings. Since our birth we subliminally fixate ourselves to duke it out over friendly competitions. That's why I like this ad, its funny and witty... playful way of saying, so long suckers!

The second spot I can't say I'm a huge fan of simply because its quite unremarkable yet very well executed. It gets the message across, yet maybe if they had not played game to the trendy "droll-rant" being used by different campaigns at the moment. They could have turned out something exceptional like the video above.

Despite my critique of the second video. I know both will do well with viewers. One makes you laugh the other one tells you what to do. Lets see what BMW has to say about this!

'til next time!'

-APL

Vitaminwater: Engage yourself with the Olympic Games in Vancouver!

2010-02-16T18:12:00.002-05:00

So I have been trying to watch the Olympics these days without having the results already given to me by some other source because guess what? NBC refuses to show live coverage of the Olympics but would rather show it during primetime. The only sports they seem to be showing live is either Hockey or some kind of ice skating. I don't see why NBC doesn't just show live coverage throughout the day, this is the Olympics! This is a time where the best athletes from around the world come together to compete, and not just the ones you like to watch...NBC.

Anyways, that's enough about that! Let's move onto something else that caught my eye as I was perusing the web for something great to post. I came across this great campaign from Vitaminwater, where a clever group of people from a Cleveland-based ad agency called Brokaw decided to bring the Olympics to the people of Vancouver in a more unique way. Brokaw designed 3-D bus shelters for downtown Vancouver.

Brokaw "transformed the shelter into a ski lift, a move that recalls a stunt that Venture Communications pulled on behalf of Ski Alberta in 2008." (BrandFreak) Some other ads you might see along the streets of Vancouver include "Olympic athletes in Vitaminwater's typically jocular style. "Don't try challenging Michael Lambert, reads one, referring to the Canadian snowboarder. "You'll lose. Even in your imagination." (BrandFreak).

This is a great campaign, and from taking a look at Brokaw's website, they certainly held true to their promise, they helped Vitaminwater rise above the "blah blah", and reaffirmed the point that it doesn't take a huge agency to do great work but rather "a little Brokaw" will help your brand do hugely impactful work.

I really like the idea of bringing the Olympics to the people. Not only does this create great buzz, but the Olympics as well as Vitaminwater get a great deal of attention with this campaign. I can only imagine the people waiting for their next bus as one of their friends takes a creative photo of them while they sit on the lift! Even better, the people at Vitaminwater could set up a group of people stationed at particular bus stops that give bus goers the option of getting a photo with the ski lift and then have the option to send it like a digital postcard! How cool would that be? Alright I need to stop rambling but cool no?

Check out the pic below for what I'm talking about!

Anyways, now it's your turn! Anyone think I'm being too harsh about the lack of Olympic coverage? Anyone not like this campaign? Please, feel free to comment but remember be gentle!

Until Next Time

~WIM~