Archive for April, 2007
Just What is a White Paper, Anyway?
Remember all those dopey, boring little themes you wrote in sixth grade that started out “According to Webster….”?
Well, now they start out with, “According to that completely unimpeachable source, Wikipedia….”
And, since I’ve been thinking a lot about White Papers lately (and, in fact, blogged on the topic just the other day), I thought I’d check out [...]
Saturday Morning Odds & Ends
Odds and ends from my “blog about that” stack:
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Setting Expectations (Low): This morning I saw this on the results page after filling out a contact form on a web site:
Thank you for your feedback. A member of our staff may contact you soon.
Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll see.
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Not the Proudest Moments in Advertising History: Slate [...]
Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Marketers Focus the Audio Spotlight on Consumers
The other day, The Boston Globe had an article by Jenn Abelson on something called an “audio spotlight device,” from Holosonic Research Labs in Watertown, Massachusetts. Now, I’m almost automatically behind anything that’s Made in Massachusetts. And I do love the use of screen beans, a personal favorite, on their home page. But from [...]
Marketing Places
Tory Gattis writes about the latest from the Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau at his Houston Strategies blog, commenting on a recent Houston Chronicle column on the subject. From the Chronicle’s Lisa Falkenberg:
When I tell people I recently moved from the Chronicle’s Austin bureau to start writing this column, I often get an apology. [...]
Call Center Chatbots
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have some horror story about trying to get support from a call center. First there are the hideous menu-trees to struggle through and game (0-0-0-#-#-#). Then there’s the wait to speak with a human being which, if you’re lucky, they’ll even estimate for you. Then there is the actual [...]
When Supermodels Have Serifs
I’m not sure whether this is simply an example of careful attention to branding or a harbinger of cultural apocalypse, but supermodel Kate Moss is now a typeface.
Probably the former, and the latter is just my inner cranky old man coming out; I image this would’t even be interesting to me if the product was [...]
B2B Tech Marketing: The content your buyers want most
KnowledgeStorm andMarketing Sherpaa recently release the first research piece in their Connecting Through Content Series.
Available to those who sign up with KnowledgeStorm (sign up is free), Issue One: How Technology Marketers Meet Buyers’ Appetite for Content (March 2007) is a must-read for B2B technology marketers trying to figure out how to get through to [...]
Some Notes for Software and Interface Designers
These are some simple rules for you.
My computer belongs to me. I have set up all my preferences the way I want them. Do not add icons to my desktop or quick launch menu; I can decide for myself what needs to be there.
Do not make things run in the background or when I [...]
Les Halles in Second Life, Ready for Your CareerBuilder Close Up
A residents’ association in Paris is running a contest in Second Life in order to put a little pressure on the first-life city government. Plans were unveiled for a new garden at Les Halles, but residents are complaining that they’re not being consulted about plans for this important project in a prominent spot near the [...]
Social networking gets down to business
A brief article in the April 7th Economist, “Joined-up thinking” described several of the business-side uses of social networking.
First, they talked about some dubious marketing uses, which they termed “painful,” one in which Pizza Hut set up a bogus delivery guy profile on MySpace to tout the company’s promotion. (I bet that one got outed [...]
