Electronic Paper Sighted In london !

Do you remember the first computer game that you ever saw a computer game? (space invaders at the the railway club in Basingstoke).
Do you recall when you first saw a mobile phone (school trip to london)?
Well this is the first time I have seen someone out and about with electronic paper. Only this time I captured that moment on film.

The girl in this picture is in a buisness district of london and she is carrying the sony book reader.

List of products that have been successfully marketed using social networking

This is a list of things that social networking has successfully helped to market

• Knitting – and all the associated bits and bobs
• Scrabble – I dont care what any one says, facebook was good PR for scrabble
• Live Music – Its inconceivable to imagine a live gig that is not promoted by facebook and myspace
• Ubuntu – The support for this product and the Buzz is all on the social networks
• Print media – Although nearly every book is available online the cumulative effect of visual book shelf, amazon wish list, etc … is massive

The commonality is that the brand is not important, nor are any brands from the days of mass media in the list.

How to generate ideas

All you need is one piece of paper, your favorite cafe, a pencil and a lack of inhibitions

Often I am asked to think up a few ides on a specific topic, or to come up with a new architecture for a product.

This can be really difficult, especially when you have to get somthing quick. Here is one of the methods that I use to do this I call it an Ideas sheet.

The process is straight forward,

1. get out of the office … find a cafe, park, street corner any where that is comfortable that you are in control of any interuptions.
2. get a blank piece of paper,
3. Clear your mind for a while
4. Think about the essence of what is being asked for,
   who is it for?
   why is it fun?
   what is so great about it?
5. When you get an idea write it down on the paper, if words are too restrictive … then draw a picture.
6. Now try to completely forget the last idea, turn the page up side down so that you cant read it. or place another piece of paper on to of it.
7. Go back to thinking of the essence of the issue or what you want to make, when you get an idea .. repeat.
8. Now just keep going till the paper is full
9. If you spend more than an hour on this then give up, try again another day.

As you can see this often makes some funny ideas. Which are all good. When you come to discuss the ideas with your collegues they can all have a good laugh, which really helps with making the job fun.

Connecting with your retail customers

If your retail business is built on personal relationships, and referral sales, how do you compete with companies who are exploiting the new long tail market?

The answer is simple, do what you have always done. Build real relationships between real people, but instead of limiting this to the show room, use the new communication tools.
imagine this ….

• you search for a “samgung whatever”
• you get presented with a link or placement for store
• you follow it to the catalogue and get presented with the standard picture and blurb
• however …
• a little box appears on the page with a photo of a real person saying “talk to Geoff about the samsung whatever?”
• the users click yes and …
• A chat window appears, then they are really talking to Geoff who can then perform the same sales behaviour that he would normally do in the store.

This can very quickly and easily be achieved, Ive seen a few sites do this for hosting, or high value products and it works really well. One guy I chatted to like this said, “Hey why dont I call you?” and we had a good chat about the various servers he had on offer.

using free products such as xmpp.

From what I gather traditional retail buisness is about people, and are therefore going for the repeat or referal business through establishment of personal relationships between customers and the sales team.

Instead of floor walkers, employ forum walkers.