No big “come and get yours” sign, but subtle self discovery. I was the first person to arrive and it took me a few seconds to twig why so many names were on the bookshelf.

To give the public what they didn’t know they wanted

See the full article/comic here

This post by Seth Godin today summarises this point terrifically, where he explains the magical, intangible elements  that make for great marketing, and how easy it is to kill them. Referring to a great little restaurant, he says:

…it’s the hand-fitted gestalt of thousands of little decisions made by caring management out to make a difference. Usually, when a business like this gets bigger or turns into a chain, marketers make what feel like smart compromises. The MBAs collide with the mystical, and the place gets boring. “Why do we need 14 free salsas when we can get away with six?”

Twenty years or so ago, the Rodney King beating video was a sensation. Now, with half the population owning smartphones, and most of them having video recording abilities, its clear there are interesting times ahead.

The police already routinely film the view from traffic cars, and YouTube is full of cyclists’ footage from helmet cams.

Imagine a scenario where people start routinely filming, storing or even live streaming from wearable cameras. It won’t be long before they’re cheap as chips and as discreet as a button. We could all be constantly filming our own CCTV.

What would that mean? People recording all their conversations with officials or colleagues; footballers all mic’d up to capture episodes of abusive language (or prove innocence thereof)?

Given we all routinely say things we haven’t thought through, or didn’t really mean, there’ll be a lot of sticky situations and a lot of messy legal and social ramifications to work through.

Everyone having a kind of personal black box recorder is quite a potent thought, and doesn’t feel good for society. However, the kind of routine sharing that happens on Twitter and Facebook would have been similarly unpalatable just 10 years ago.

Maybe it’s not Big Brother we ought to be wary of, but his distributed younger sibling.

I particularly enjoyed their concern that Hagrid is entering Santa’s reputational space.

• Brent Hoberman (my former boss) and Stelios have just announced plans to make EasyCar a person-to-person car club
• HouseBites is attempting to revolutionise takeaways by providing a platform for chefs cooking at home
• AirBnB is a global network of accommodations offered by locals
• Comedian Louis C.K. is getting a lot of love for selling his video simply and directly to his audience

Yet Instagram (see my previous post) is way ahead of the pack in popularity and buzz. This fantastic article goes into why. My favourite aspect is about how it deliberately limits its functionality. you can only load one image at a time. Imagine how natural it would seem to add many at once. But that would detract from the product’s simplicity and delight.

Design is finished not when there’s nothing left to add, but when there’s nothing left to take away.

So it was with delight that I got this message from Amazon when starting the Returns process. That’s customer service good enough for me to tell everyone in ear-shot in the office.

I’m starting to realize that this job is about choosing between two lousy options. And the right choice is the one that’s just a little less lousy.

That’s senior management isn’t it? By the time an issue gets to you, it has to be a tough call. If it was easy, people could make it themselves.

He postulates his theory that Oasis benefitted from a time when it took tangible effort from fans to get the band experience. There was no transient, half-hearted clicking of links – people had to really invest their time and effort. That engendered loyalty and camaraderie.

Just like bands, the over-supply of distractions and ease of switching attention means it’s harder than ever for brands to get famous and stay relevant. Being distinct and trying hard to give genuine value are the best ways to go Supersonic.

Even sweet old Radio 4 is getting in on the act; last night I heard them encouraging people to use the hashtag #r4riot and join in with one of their live shows.

But my favourite example recently is Riz Ahmed, an actor in Four Lions, tweeting live (simultweeting?) along with a screening of the film on TV. What a great way to spread the word and encouraging re-watching. It’s a bit like the audio commentaries you get as extras on DVD, but much more vital.

It’s been well discussed that it took the confluence of tenacious, brilliant reporting from the Guardian with the amplifying power of social media to really land the killer blows.

One thing that’s really struck me, though, is the impact of social media on crisis management PR.

NI took the understandable step (eventually) of publishing an apology last weekend in all the nationals, followed by “and now let’s put it right” the day after. These are classic steps in the crisis management playbook.

However, are they relevant any more? Within moments of the apology being published, it’d been dissected, remixed, lampooned and re-broadcast by the Twittersphere – undermining its power markedly.

Traditional crisis management has relied on a scarcity of the ability to broadcast. I.e. get your message on tv/in the papers and that’ll drown out dissenters.

Not any more.

[edit] looks like George Lucas didn’t appreciate the copyright infringement!

Instagr.am does just that – it’s the Twitter model of easy microblogging, but based around photos rather than text and it seems to be catching fire by enabling people to broadcast their creativity to friends and strangers in a fast and customisable way.

There’s a need for this. Whereas Facebook’s blithely happy environment pulls towards the mainstream, emerging services such as Instagr.am skew towards the thoughtful and creative. And there’s a place for that.

Via

The natural salesman in Steve shines through, and he outlines the benefits simply and passionately. Proof that any material can be made compelling.

It’s also another testament to Apple’s unhindered visions – they’re not just getting a new campus, but taking a shot at making the best office building in the world

via macrumors