“As Pole’s computers crawled through the data, he was able to identify about 25 products that, when analyzed together, allowed him to assign each shopper a “pregnancy prediction” score. More important, he could also estimate her due date to within a small window, so Target could send coupons timed to very specific stages of her pregnancy.”

Although I don’t think we should be surprised that big companies like Target know so much about us and are acting on it, it does surprise me that Target has decided to cloak how much they know about us by sending us random coupons, too.

“And we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works.”

This randomness is what disturbs me because are they throwing in random coupons to disguise what they know about me or just because they get better usage when they do it. Either way I think they are treading on shaky ground ethically because they are admitting they understand that the consumer doesn’t like that they know so much about them.

When I talk to college students about working in communications the only thing that I say that I can guarantee them about a career in communications is that people always love to read, see, hear well told stories and that how will tell will continue to change.

1. Word of Mouth. A recommendation from a friend is huge and that’s what happens when people talk about your positively on social media.
2. It’s where the users are. One out of five web site page views is on Facebook. If you maximize the traffic on facebook to your web site what would that be worth in Advertising spends?
3. People are already talking about you on social media. Are you going to join in the conversation or just let them talk behind your back?
4. When they talk about you, you have a great opportunity to help them. Many companies have whole customer service departments set up on Twitter.

Without money the site can’t function. Okay, let me tell you the difference between Facebook and everyone else, we don’t crash EVER! If those servers are down for even a day, our entire reputation is irreversibly destroyed! Users are fickle, Friendster has proved that. Even a few people leaving would reverberate through the entire userbase. The users are interconnected, that is the whole point. College kids are online because their friends are online, and if one domino goes, the other dominos go, don’t you get that? I am not going back to the Caribbean Night at AEPi!

Find the number that best dictates your success. Measure everything about that number. Determine which factors move that number in a positive direction. Measure everything about those factors. Use the most efficient way possible to influence the main number in the right direction to find success.

I’ve read a lot of hype that says that Amazon is pushing the device to make more sales, but I really believe that is a pure content device. It’s a great reader, beautiful HD player and runs all the Android apps once you get out of the Amazon App store.

In contrast to most critics I actually prefer the size of the Fire to the iPad and I don’t really have any issues with the Silk web browser. My wife carries it with her everywhere- It’s the perfect purse device.  She has a Nook e-reader before and we’ve installed the Nook App so she has her previously purchased Barnes and Noble’s e-books on her Amazon Kindle Fire.

You really have to have an Amazon prime membership to get the most out of  the Fire. With the a Prime membership you can stream videos to it and participate in the Kindle lending library.

• Reliability – Your web site has to be up to accomplish your goal.
• Ease of use – If it’s not easy for your users to post content forget it.
• Speed – Your web sites must be fast for someone to enjoy it.
• SEO – The mother’s milk of web sites.
• Social – Does it play well with Facebook and Twitter.
• Administrative costs – It may be free, but how many server administrators does it take to run it?

It all comes down to the original communications model. Sender -> Message -> Receiver and then all the noise. You want to find the right channel to minimize the noise. At  Christmas the noise is everywhere in all the channels.

Hallways receive my vote for the best part of a conference (especially those with big leather couches). I’ve been to large conferences with 15,000  in swarming masses and to small conferences with only 12 attendees and in both cases (and all in between) I’ve benefitted the most from the conversations in the hallway. Some of those are random conversations that I’ve struck up with the person sitting beside me and others are more strategic accidentally running into a speaker  (after stalking them from the speaker’s lounge).