Creativity and Complexity - CEO Study From IBM

First let me thank IBM for committing to excellence and curiosity. This is their work and it’s probably the best “thing” you’ll read this year and the shortest at 76 pages but worth every moment you spend. Enjoy!

Here’s what the site Design Mind (thanks and love the site) had to say and where I originally found the link to this report, I guess I’ll call it a white paper but it’s so much more.

IBM has just released its fourth annual survey based on 1500 face-to-face interviews with global CEOs. Past studies have been rich sources of understanding the trends that company leaders are seeing shaping their businesses. The opening statement by IBM’s own CEO, Samuel J. Palmisano, sets the stage for this year’s study:

“[E]vents, threats and opportunities aren’t just coming at us faster or with less predictability; they are converging and influencing each other to create entirely unique situations. These firsts-of-their-kind developments require unprecedented degrees of creativity — which has become a more important leadership quality than attributes like management discipline, rigor or operational acumen.”

Having written a lot about the new breed of complex problems businesses are facing today, this rang true with me. In fact, the study’s findings line up well with the challenges and approaches I describe in Innovation X. Here’s a small sample and the main brief from IBM’s findings:

Embody creative leadership: Creative leaders invite disruptive innovation, encourage others to drop outdated approaches and take balanced risks. (In Innovation X I refer to this as divergence)

Reinvent customer relationships: In a massively interconnected world, CEOs prioritize customer intimacy as never before. Globalization, combined with dramatic increases in the availability of information, has exponentially expanded customers’ options. (Immersion)

Build operating dexterity: CEOs are revamping their operations to stay ready to act when opportunities or challenges arise. (Adaption)

Please click here for the link to IBM’s site and the link to the report. It’s in PDF format and you have to fill out a brief information page >>> click here for the full report.

Stella Pop says, it’s all about harnessing and setting free all at the same time, your organizations creativity and ability to approach problems with an open mind.

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Apps and Advertising - It's Raining Sales

It seems that it’s raining sales from advertising place on apps.

From MediaPost Blogs, “App Ads Precipitate Sales” by Jack Loechner

A recent study from mobile audience media company JiWire revealed that, of the roughly 1,000 smartphone users surveyed, 52% claim they have acted on an advertisement in an app and 18% have made a purchase directly from an ad in an app in the last month. Their new report “examines device use, consumer adoption of Wi-Fi and consumer preferences for mobile content and advertising delivery.” 55% of the on-the-go audience owns an app-enabled smartphone or mobile device. The top devices (and % ownership) are:

iPhone - 36%

BlackBerry - 27%

iPod Touch - 17%

Android - 7%

Windows Mobile - 5%

Palm - 2%

Respondents say that advertisements on mobile devices are both welcome and effective, with 53% saying they were willing to share their location to receive more relevant advertising, and 76% said they would prefer to download a free, advertising-supported app instead of paying an upfront fee for the same app.

Click here for the full read >>>> Click here

Stella says, go forth and be mobile.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Apple, apps, Branding, Content Marketing, Marketing, mobile advertising, PR, stella, Stella Pop, stella pop marketing, Stellas Pop Factory

NewsPapers and Pay Content

Please hear me, I still believe this is a capitalistic country and if you produce “it,” you have every right to charge for the sweat of your labor. But it’s extremely difficult when you first give it away to later start charging especially after years of giving it away under an advertising model. Look at the Wall Street Journal, they made pay online subscription a part of their model from the beginning and no one complained, if you wanted the WSJ it cost you - period.

I have a question, if I pay for content am I not entitled to receive it un-encumbered without advertising? Here are some interesting examples of content I pay for and receive without commercial interruption: songs, music, videos, movies and games but if I want it for less I get advertising, if I choose to pay more I get it without hassle and annoyance of ads.

The New York Times is jumping or maybe edging in like an old man into the cold ocean into a fee based publishing model after years of giving it away. I’m wonder out loud if this is going to work or is the newspaper business driving down a highway they cannot exit? Are they doing it without thoughtfulness or proceeding, hoping it all works out?

From the New York Magazine - By: Gabriel Sherman - May 14, 2010

New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. appears close to announcing that the paper will begin charging for access to its website, according to people familiar with internal deliberations. After a year of sometimes fraught debate inside the paper, the choice for some time has been between a Wall Street Journal-type pay wall and the metered system adopted by the Financial Times, in which readers can sample a certain number of free articles before being asked to subscribe. The Timesseems to have settled on the metered system.

One personal friend of Sulzberger said a final decision could come within days, and a senior newsroom source agreed, adding that the plan could be announced in a matter of weeks. (Apple’s tablet computer is rumored to launch on January 27, and sources speculate that Sulzberger will strike a content partnership for the new device, which could dovetail with the paid strategy.) It will likely be months before the Times actually begins to charge for content, perhaps sometime this spring. Executive Editor Bill Keller declined to comment. Times spokesperson Diane McNulty said: “We’ll announce a decision when we believe that we have crafted the best possible business approach. No details till then.”

I believe the newspaper publishing business is on a crash course with failure unless some smart and cunning business person changes directions rapidly and with ingenuity.

Stella says, I love the feel of traditional newspapers and the incredible content they deliver but I hate the business model and I fear it’s regrettably dying a painful death.

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iPad by Apple

Remember that post a few months ago about iPad and the Apple new content delivery system, “Direct to Device - iContent By Apple,” well here’s a great follow up look at two areas of content and the iPad.

cNet and PaidContent dot org By Rafat Ali Apr 17, 2010 12:50 AM ET

“Can iPad Save Newspapers & Magazines?”

Yesterday I was part of CNET’s Reporters’ Roundtable, talking about the in-vogue topic of whether iPad will be a savior of newspapers and magazines. Moderated by Rafe Needleman, editor of CNET’s Webware, it included Damon Darlin, the technology editor of News York Times, and me.

Some of the issues brought up:
—What is the problem at newspapers and magazines?
—What’s different about the iPad? (a business model reset?)
—How much will readers pay? Should they pay anything?
—Will magazines’ investments in developing iPad version pay back? And more importantly, do people want to read this way?
—What can publishers learn from music industry in doing deal with Jobs? Is Jobs going to take over news the way he did music? Censorship issue?

Stella says, content from multiple sources will be more fluid and accessible in the future across multiple devices.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Branding, cNet, Content Marketing, daily twixel, Marketing, PaidContent, re-contenting, Stella Pop, Stellas Pop Factory

Can a 5-minute animated video capture a technology company’s global vision? IBM’s “The Internet Of Things” YouTube clip is inspiring and compelling and the sort of fresh thinking more tech companies should try, although I did crack up during the final segment as some massively Deepak-Choprah-overdosed guy buzzes about what the planet is saying and the universe is hearing.

Most of the animated video is a spirited mix of voice-overs describing the rise of intelligent and interconnected instrumentation in everything from tech devices to waterways and appliances and radiators spewing out signals to the 2 billion people who’ll be online within the next couple of years. And I liked a couple of metaphors that were used to describe the resulting information flow: a “global data field” and the planet’s “central nervous system.”

Click here for the rest of the article at InformationWeek by Bob Evans.

Stella says, get some of your own animated content to tell a story that stands out in the crowd. How crowded you ask?  We each see 5000 brand messages everyday, that’s how crowded.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, animated video, audience building, Branding, Content Marketing, Creative Services, Custom Publishing, daily twixel, evid magazine, InformationWeek, Marketing, social media, Social Networking, stella, Stella Pop, StellaPop, Stellas Pop Factory, Web 2.0, YoStella

Via Silicon Alley Insider -

At the 1:50 mark, CNBC anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera says (paraphrasing), ‘I use UberTwitter, which sends me ads that look like Tweets. Are you getting a cut of that ad revenue?’ Biz says no. But, he adds:

We’re going to roll out something we think appropriate not just for Twitter users but also for the ecosystem when we develop this monetization platform, it’s not going to be just for us, it’s going to extend to all these apps that are out there that everyone is using.

Is this a smart move on Twitter’s part? Maybe.

While it’s stuffed with cash from venture capitalists, the companies that help make it a success like Tweetie, Tweetdeck, and Hoot Suite aren’t quite as well off.

We don’t get a whole lot here but something is in the wind and should be very interesting for future business schools to study the success or failure of the model - build it and they will come then try and make some money. Venture Capital community might find it hard forgetting The Twitter Model if monetization is not right around the corner and it better look a lot like a huge basket filled with cash.

What happens when Twitter rolls out the advertising?  Does the herd of tweet-aholics go away? Are they just Twitter tired and will not tolerate more online paid advertising?

Stella says, I’m on the tweeting edge of my seat. Thanks Marketing Pilgrim and Silicon Alley Insider.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Branding, Content Marketing, Creative Services, Custom Publishing, Marketing, social media, stella, Stella Pop, StellaPop, Stellas Pop Factory, Tweets, twitter, Web 2.0

Photography by Zaid Hamid

Click here for iTunes

Technorati Tags: stella "stella pop" "stella's pop factory" "stella pop video production" marketing advertising branding "content marketing" "creative services" "custom publishing" re-contenting YoStella "eVid Magazin

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation
and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

What is a wave?

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

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Late Night Lists

Don’t get me wrong by reading at my title but I love lists all those pages full of life saving advice, neatly listed out for my convenience. I lov’em and I don’t use the word love lightly or often but I’m in love with all those cute lists, as much as any online tip-hound but things are getting a little out of hand.

Look at these search results - “Tips on how too…” providing 329 million tip lists in 0.29 seconds.

Google Search Results - "tips on how too..."

Or these results - “10 Things…” providing 438 million lists of 10 things in 0.67 seconds.

Google Search Results - "10 things"

That Google search thing is really incredible and I hope it takes off one day without indexing all those lists. Let me start by congratulating number one, two and three on both search lists. Getting those spots on any given day is a real accomplishment, really it is! 800 million search results delivered in less than one second and they got the three top spots - awesome work - the kings of the lists. I’m not here to give out trophies or send flowers but pose two questions:

How many items should you put in a list?

• Five - Maybe?
• Ten - A little, tiny bit long.
• Fifteen - OK Grandpa, you’re getting a little long winded with that same old World War II invasion story. Heard it yesterday at breakfast too.
• Twenty - Now you’ve pushed the envelope way beyond realistic, shorten it up buddy or go to court and see the judge!

Damn I’ve created another list. I’m must be a List-A-Holic, help please me! Call List-Anonymous I’m addicted to lists!!
‘SOS’ call the list-guard!!! I’ve been kissed by a list mutt - Lucy I’m in need a 5 cent list of psychiatric self help.

Don’t laugh, I’ve seen so many list-aholics worse off than me. Publishing these mindless lists which seem to appear online every nano second as a lame and transparent marketing ploy, trying to attracting list-isitors. And the legions of list developers keep growing like a virus, they must be stopped. Is everyone on the planet looking for a short cut in business and life? I’m begging you please stop with the lists, help me to help you.

Let’s look at a good web site example, Mashable the popular online destination for everything digital and tech related they have a list tab . Come on a list tab? Now I enjoy Mashable quite a bit and they get a boat load of visitors (way more than me) but please a f*^%#$* list tab. Give me a break.

Mashable - List Tab

List Crazy - Mashable

This is getting crazy and can it last?

It feels like to me, that right about now the whole list craze is becoming tire and deserves a good long rest. How about we work together and give lists a much deserved rest? Let’s band together and form a world anit-list alliance and rally for the creation of compelling and custom content. Publishing online content that has some original creative value and is strong enough to stand alone without the sad listing.

But if you insist on the listing, here’s the second piece of list advice:

1. Three is best.
2. Short.
3. Simple.
4. Compete relevance is a must.

See it still feels slightly long, redundant and over-used. Why? Because it is. It’s to easy to keep doing those damn listless lists of brainless mushy content.

What do you think - got what it takes to skip the list?

Stella Says, ‘listing’ is a sailing terms and means to lean one way or the other usually more than desired. Are you leaning to much on lists? Come on, I know you have more talent than that… your clients are depending on it.

Technorati Tags: 7, Advertising, brand evolution, Content Marketing, Creative Services, Custom Publishing, daily twixel, evid magazine, lists, Marketing, Mashable, Michael S OGrady, michealsogrady, re-contenting, rebranding, social marketing, social media, Social Networking, stella, Stella Pop, StellaPop, Stellas Pop Factory, tips, video content, Web 2.0, YoStella

Innovation - Creative Services from Stella Pop

Don’t say at Stella Pop, we don’t provide instant and creative solutions to your everyday business obstacles. Found this list at Wellsphere and loved it, here it is for you. Use it and prosper:

1. Invent and share a refreshing solution to a stubborn work problem – solve a  difficulty that leaves you bored or in a rut at work. Brain fact: Boredom is more a habit formed in brains, and shaped by daily choices,  then stored in brain as a reality.

2. Uplift your work area with natural lighting.  Brain fact: Environments influence brainpower, and a healthy workplace inspires people to transform problems into solutions.

3. Thank a fellow worker for a personal accomplishment.  Brain fact: Well being comes partially from and is fueled and extended by serotonin chemical hormones.

4. Give somebody the gift of forgiveness, and let go of a grudge. Brain fact: Anger, fear, and frustration  are fueled and extended by cortisol chemical hormones.

5.  Propose alternatives to an observed annoying habit.  Brain fact: Venting is bad for the brain and creates new neuron pathways to much more of the same.

6. Act the person you want others to see in you, and that you’ll become. Brain fact: Dendrite brain cells use the outside world and  take shape, or grow based on what you do.

7. Vary your background sounds and add music for more motivation. Brain fact: Music changes brain wave speeds in ways that impact moods and alter productivity.

8. Stir curiosity and engage others.  Brain fact: Lectures and talks work against listener brains and benefit speaker intelligence while neglecting  listener insights.

9. Shift routines up daily. Brain fact: Hebbian workers rewire their brains to kill incentives, limit focus or even shrink their brains with sameness.

10. Include differences as assets.  Brain fact: Diversity training commonly fails people  mentally  because it shows inclusion as a deficit model – rather than as assets.

11. Sleep well in order to perform well. Brain fact: Brain waves can bring either sleep or peak performance, based on how you activate and manage them.

12. Research and open mentally to new and different ideas daily.  Brain fact: Hook even difficult facts onto one thing you know and learning increases in less time.

13. Change on regular basis.  Brain fact: Your brain’s basal ganglia stores old facts and creates ruts, while working memory holds few new facts and leads change.

14. Survey and engage more strengths. Brain fact: Multiple intelligences are common to all, used by few, and can be cultivated daily with regular use as mental tools.

15. Create rather than criticize. Brain fact: Cynical or critical mindsets literally block creativity, limit talent in you or others, and stomp out innovation.

16. List key facts as guides and reminders.  Brain fact: Memory can be outsourced to help you remember more, and to free your mind for  focus on the moment.

17. Inspire novel young ideas. Brain fact: Plasticity enables people of all ages and backgrounds to rewire the human brain in ways that keep it younger and more agile.

19. Encourage you and others often.  Brain fact: Encouragement changes the chemistry of a brain through raised serotonin, and ratchets up tone for profitability.

19. Communicate with care, openness and honesty. Brain fact: Meta messages destroy relationships through implications different from message spoken.

20. Integrate from ideas and people across many fields.  Brain fact: It often takes an integration of  hard and soft skills to solve problems with the brain in mind.

21. Relax and practice letting worries go.  Brain fact:  Stress literally shrinks the brain, and tone in communication acts as a silent killer.

22. Seek genuine and lasting relationships. Brain fact: Greet  colleagues through speaking people’s names, to offer spike in well being or awareness in person’s brain.

23. Risk innovation one step at a time.  Brain fact: Inspire creativity and invention through teaching others at the same time you also learn and create yourself.

24. Collaborate to propose solutions. Brain fact: Create new neuron pathways collectively and add  solutions to workplace  problems  encountered.

25. Celebrate those who differ mentally. Brain fact: Women’s and men’s brain differ biologically and intellectually, for instance,  in ways that few optimize.

How could these few applications from facts about your brain increase workplace brainpower and increase innovation in 2010?

StellaPop Says - Brain power and creativity leads to innovation, growth and development.

Lucky Number 7.

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Eric Schmidt — Washington Post — February 2010

Google CEO Eric Schmidt to newspapers: Innovate Your Way Out

More than ever, innovation is disruptive and messy. It can’t be controlled or predicted. The only way to ensure it can flourish is to create the best possible environment — and then get out of the way. It’s a question of learning to live with a mess.

First, start-ups and smaller businesses must be able to compete on equal terms with their larger rivals. They don’t need favors, just a level playing field. Congress should ensure that every bill it passes promotes competition over protecting the interests of incumbents.

LA TImes - April 2009 - – David Sarno

Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the White House in January. Credit: Matthew Cavanaugh / EPA

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt delivered today’s closing keynote at the Newspaper Assn. of America annual conference in San Diego, conjuring up visions of an open, interactive future to the audience of newspeople.

In order to move themselves forward, he said, newspapers will have to get used to the idea that they are not just generators of trusted, professional content, but also aggregators of the new kinds of information the Web has enabled — the collectively edited knowledge structures like Wikipedia, and user-generated information like blogs, images and online video.

“In that model, newspapers become platforms for the technology to use their services,” Schmidt said, “to build businesses on top of them, and also to interlink — hyperlink — all of the different information sources that end-users will take.”

Perhaps not surprisingly for the leader of one of the most inventive technology companies of the 21st century, Schmidt’s prescription for newspapers — an industry that has struggled to escape a dying, century-old business model — is innovation.

“Innovation is bizarre because it’s very difficult to centrally plan,” he said. “But you can architect a structure where innovation is welcome, and where it’s taken advantage of.”

Among his recommendations were …

… taking advantage of mobile technology as a distribution mechanism, beginning to think of stories not as happening on a given day, but as continuous and “living,” and, of course, improving the experience of  reading online.

“We need to reinvent the way the Web delivers this content,” he said, “so that you can have the kind of experience, when people are wandering around with their phone and so forth, that you can have with a printed magazine.

“From my perspective, the online experience can be thought of as terrible compared to what I view as this wonderful experience with magazines and newspapers.”

The day after the Associated Press announced its intentions to more aggressively control the dissemination of proprietary news content, Schmidt noted that the natural laws that govern digital information flows make that kind of control difficult.

“One of the fundamental problems with the Internet is that it doesn’t respect traditional scarcity structures. It’s very hard to hold information back.” In order to create value from content that can be difficult to control, he said, “We think the answer is advertising.”

On the recent fuss over Google’s relationship with the AP specifically, Schmidt said that because his company pays the news collective through a multimillion-dollar hosting and distribution deal, “I was a little confused by all the excitement in the news in the last 24 hours. I’m not quite sure what they were referring to.”

“There’s always a tension around fair use,” he said a moment later, referring to the legal concept that allows for limited reuse of proprietary content — as Google News does by aggregating headlines.   “Ultimately fair use is a balance of interests in favor of the consumer.”

“Think in terms of what your reader wants. These are ultimately consumer businesses. If you piss off enough of them you will not have any more, or if make them happy, you will grow them quickly.”

Innovate.com — Eric Schmidt   — March 2007:

McKinsey Quarterly — SEPTEMBER 2008 — James Manyika

Google’s view on the future of business: An interview with CEO Eric Schmidt

How the Internet will change the nature of competition, innovation, and company operations.

In his years at the company, Schmidt has delivered steady growth while expanding Google’s reach. By anticipating the ways in which people would expand their use of Internet applications, Schmidt has introduced new products from the popular Web-based e-mail service Gmail (Google Mail in Germany and the UK) to the recently unveiled G1 mobile phone. And as Google’s audience and influence have increased, so too has its appeal among advertisers worldwide.

Making all this happen depends on Google’s ability to attract and engage top talent. The organization that Schmidt has helped shape depends on collaborative projects and free flows of information that encourage employees to share ideas. Staffers devote 20 percent of their work time to special projects of their own design, an inventive and effective policy that is at the core of its innovation efforts.

Not many executives have a better vantage point on the changing technological landscape than Schmidt. He recently took time out to discuss his views with McKinsey director James Manyika. Schmidt sees more powerful digital assistants arising from cloud computing, markets morphing at an ever faster pace, and plenty of space for human creativity if organizations are willing to carve out a place for it.

Click here to see the video interview >>> CLICK

StellaPop Says: Innovation is the only way and creativity is the muscle that built this country and many great companies. And don’t forget the hard work which is a given for greatness.

Technorati Tags: 7, Advertising, Branding, Content Marketing, Creative Services, Custom Publishing, evid magazine, innovation, Marketing, re-content, rebrand, rebranding, SEO, social media, Social Networking, stella, Stella Pop, StellaPop, Stellas Pop Factory, Web 2.0, YoStella

It’s a simple storyline and could apply to any business or brand message providing a little clever creativity and cunning brand message delivery system. Think about it, every business I ever meet had a funny story or situation that could translate into a simple and video short that might get there (clients and client prospects) attention?

StellaPop Says - it doesn’t have to always be so straight forward in order to make a statement and stimulate action. You know filling the prospect pile line, leading to a conversation, relationship building and new or improved clients. Is it time to get your organization into the custom publishing business and make a video short and see if it does a better job than the usual sales pitch.

Technorati Tags: 7, Advertising, Branding, Content Marketing, Creative Services, Custom Publishing, evid magazine, Marketing, Michael S OGrady, michaelsogrady, re-branding, rebrand, Reston VA, social media, Social Networking, stella, Stella Pop, StellaPop, Stellas Pop Factory, video content, Washington DC, Web 2.0, YoStella

Business Books - Advertising, Marketing & Branding

I know finding time to read is getting tougher and tougher especially if your an entrepreneur or business person hustling to beat your competitors and the economy. I’ll make it easy for you with a list of must reads which will bring your marketing, advertising, social media, creative initiatives and branding up to speed, thinking and on the path toward marketing success:

1. Get Content, Get Customers by Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett - Junta42.com

Marketing is moving online at a breakneck pace. Several research firms now forecast that the Internet will become the world’s dom- inant advertising medium by 2012, or a mere 18 years after Yahoo! was founded. And if you believe that today’s business users are online-savvy, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The next generation of consumers and business professionals, now percolating in colleges and high schools, spends 60 percent less time than their parents watching TV and 600 percent more time online, according to the Arthur W. Page Society.

At the same time, people are tuning out conventional marketing at a dizzying pace. Today, your carefully crafted messages bounce off a wall of digital video recorders, pop-up blockers, spam filters, and digital music players.

In the new reality, customers choose which messages to listen to and which marketers to let in the door. The days of what Seth Godin calls “interruption marketing” are over. The future is in “invitation marketing.”

Customers have powerful new ways to reach out to one another. The population of the blogosphere skyrocketed from 1 million to 60 million between January 2004 and December 2005. Then social networks exploded onto the scene, giving people the means to form groups easily. In these groups, they could share experiences and rate the organizations they did business with. Emory University sur- veyed its incoming freshmen in 2007 and found that 97 percent of them had Facebook accounts. For the first time in history, people are engaging in a global discussion with others just like them—peo- ple they trust.

No longer can weak product be covered up by expensive adver- tising. Today, 7 out of 10 customers consult online peer reviews before making a major purchase. Buyers are engaging in discussions among themselves, and marketers are rarely invited. Years of shov- ing messages down the throats of customers who were helpless to talk back have denied them a seat at the table. They have to find a new way to get invited to the party.

That way is through content marketing, a concept that some peo- ple regard as New Age, but that is really as old as the village bazaar. Content marketing is about relationships and trust. It’s about sup- pliers and customers forming bonds that spring from mutual dependencies and shared interests. It’s about businesses really lis- tening to their customers and endeavoring to deliver the goods and services that those customers need. It’s about customers returning the favor by offering advice.

2. The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott - WebInkNow.com

You’re not supposed to be able to carry around a $250 video camera, record what employees are working on and what they think of the products they built, and publish those videos on the Internet. But that’s what I did at Microsoft, building an audience of more than four million unique visitors a month.

You’re not supposed to be able to do what Stormhoek did. A winery in South Africa, it doubled sales in a year using the principles discussed here.

You’re not supposed to be able to run a Presidential Campaign with just a blogger, a videographer, and a Flickr photographer. But that’s what John Edwards did in December 2006 as he announced he was running for President.

Something has changed in the past 10 years. Well, for one, we have Google now, but that’s only a part of the puzzle.

What really has happened is the word-of-mouth network has gotten more efficient. Much, much, more efficient.

Word-of-mouth has always been important to business. When I helped run a Silicon Valley camera store in the 1980s about 80% of my sales came from it. “Where should I buy a camera this weekend,” you might have heard in a lunchroom back then. Today that conversation is happening online. But, instead of only being two people talking about your business, now thousands and sometimes millions (Engadget had 10 million page views in a single day during the Consumer Electronics and MacWorld shows in January 2006) are either participating or listening in.

What does this mean? Well, now there’s a new media to deal with. Your PR teams better understand what drives this new media (it’s as influential as the New York Times or CNN now) and if you understand how to use it you can drive buzz, new product feedback, sales, and more.

But first you’ll have to learn to break the rules.

Is your marketing department saying you need to spend $80,000 to do a single video (not unusual, even in today’s world, I just participated in such a video for a sponsor of mine)? If so, tell that department “thanks, but no thanks.” Or, even better, search Google for “will it blend?” You’ll find a Utah blender company that got six million downloads in less than 10 days. Oh, and 10,000 comments in the same period of time. All by spending a few hundred bucks, recording a one-minute long video, and uploading that to YouTube.

Or, study what I did at Microsoft with a blog and a video camera. Economist magazine said I put a human face on Microsoft. Imagine that. A 60,000-employee organization and I changed its image with very little expense and hardly a committee in sight.

This advice isn’t for everyone, though. Most people don’t like running fast in business. They feel more comfortable if there’s lots of checks and balances. Er, committees to cover their asses. Or, they don’t want to destroy the morale of PR and marketing departments due to the disintermediating effects of the Internet.

After all, we can type “OneNote Blog” into Google or Live.com, or Yahoo and you’ll find Chris Pratley. He runs the OneNote team at Microsoft. Or, search for “Sun CEO.” You’ll find Jonathan Schwartz and his blog.

You can leave either a comment and tell them their product sucks and see what they do in response. Or, even better, tell them how to earn your sale. Do they snap into place?

It’s a new world you’re about to enter. One where relationships with influentials AND search engine optimization strategy are just as important as each other. One where your news will be passed around the world very quickly. Don’t believe me?

Look at how the world found out I was leaving Microsoft for a Silicon Valley startup (PodTech.net).

3. The Brand Bubble by John Gerzema and Ed Lebar - The Brand Bubble Blog

Now, another bubble is hiding in our economy. This bubble represents $4 trillion dollars in S&P market capitalization alone. It’s twice the size of the subprime mortgage market. And it accounts for over one-third of all shareholder value. Credible evidence suggests that financial markets think brands are worth more than the consumers who buy them. The constantly rising valuation of major brands is creating a brand bubble, one that could erase large portions of intangible value in firms and send a shockwave through the global economy.

Figure 1.1 illustrates the typical value exchange between brands and consumers. In essence, the multiples that markets place on brand value overstate actual consumer sentiment, so the value creation that brands bring is greatly exaggerated. That is, Wall Street is long on brands; consumers are short on brands.

Fissures are forming in the pillars of brand equity. This conclusion is based on our research of fifteen years of brand and financial data from Y&R’s BrandAsset Valuator (BAV), the world’s largest study of consumer attitudes and perceptions on brands. Working with professors from several leading business schools, we’ve identified a growing divergence between brand valuation and brand speculation. Our data indicates that investors are irrationally overvaluing brands, and that if leading companies don’t take steps to change their approach, more than a few of them might soon experience dramatic declines in market value.

Of course, this is not to suggest that some stellar brands are not genuinely outperforming the market and setting new standards in customer loyalty and financial performance. But in most cases, these are precisely the brands that serve as examples of what other companies must do to inject value back into their own brands. These are the brands consumers swoon over, tell their friends about, and buy time and time again. These are the brands that drive a company’s stock beyond the estimates of financial experts. These are the brands that create surprise earnings quarter after quarter.

The problem is these stellar brands are becoming fewer in number. In today’s changing consumer climate, exceptional brands are just that — exceptions. Most of the brands lining our supermarket shelves, hanging from department store racks, or touting their superiority on television are experiencing a rapid diminution of perceived value. Consumers are simply falling out of love with a majority of brands they buy.

This warning about the prices of assets such as brands being in decline is, without doubt, contrary to what most people believe. Just as with equities and property in past bubbles, the market values of brands have been consistently rising for decades. Even in today’s recessionary climate, brand valuations reports continue to proclaim consistently rising brand values each year. How then is a brand value collapse possible? Thousands of brands have experienced large and long-term successes driving their corporate stock in a continuous upward pattern, enriching executives and investors alike. What exactly is the nature of this bubble? Are we talking about a simple market correction that will be forgotten in a few months or a year? And, if that is so, then why bother with it?

In reality, this is not a simple market correction. Our research foretells a significant loss of value for many brands that will jolt business and investors alike. Markets, being about expectations, have pushed brand values to unsustainable levels, where the earnings potential imputed to thousands of brands far outstrips their value to the consumer. These expected future cash flows that brands are expected to account for have grown to become a dominant force in driving total business value. But their future value is unsustainable when we uncover and analyze the true state of most brands today.

As CEOs search for future pathways to growth, their brands now account for a growing proportion of total enterprise value. This means their brands are making bigger promises of future earnings. Are those earnings going to be there in the future? Have most companies properly discounted the risk on their rising brand values?

StellaPop! says, happy reading and take a chance to create a connection and build an audience by starting your own content marketing program. It will allow you and your organization to look forward, over the horizon rather than forward from the back of the pack and you know what the view is from there. The most valuable thing about leading is you get to measure of your marketing platform and also you get to see what new possibilities lay ahead, providing your business the opportunity to steer a course and grow.

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stella pop ideas

I believe we are living in a moment in history when those with the ideas, will be far ahead of those that just do jobs. Want to make more money, advance your career and prepare for the future - get creative or find an organization with the desire to challenge and chase the creation of ideas. Make sure of one thing, that this organization creating ideas - delivers.

The Economist believes that the world is governed by ideas. Because human progress relies on the advancement of good ideas, we are launching a new series of events that brings together top thinkers from around the world to discuss and debate the most important ideas of our time. By focusing on Innovation, Intelligent Infrastructure, and Human Potential, we imagine an ecosystem where good ideas move from concept to implementation, fueled by the power of human ingenuity, and only the best survive. Welcome to the Ideas Economy.

The inaugural event, Innovation: Fresh thinking for the ideas economy, held at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley on March 23 and 24, will be unlike any other event organised on the topic. A multi-part, multimedia forum designed to fuse creativity with action, this event will expand and possibly overturn established thinking about what innovation is, where it comes from, and how to make it work.

To get more event information >>>> CLICK IT.

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Have fun with this one! I bet you can’t get them all?
Signage is such a powerful branding tool and a good sign or logo lasts in your audience or clients sub-conscious forever.

Guess That Highway Sign!

From Fast Company BY WILLIAM BOSTWICK
Photographer Josef Schulz has a game for all the semioticians out there.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Branding, Content Marketing, Creative Services, Custom Publishing, games to play while driving, highway signs, Marketing, re-branding, re-contenting, stella, Stella Pop, Stella Pop Plays Guess The Highway Signs, StellaPop, Stellas Pop Factory