Please help

Sport Relief

(I should apologise for bringing you here by illicit categorisation and tagging, but I won’t. You might have wasted just 10 seconds. Hopefully you will make the choice to change someone’s world in less than a minute).

Filed under: 2.0, ACL, Adobe, Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, Analyst, Analytics, Apple, Awards, BBC, Blog, Blogging, Blogroll, Books, Branding, Business, Buzz, CBS, CIM, CRM, Charity, Colour, Computer, Computing, Conversational marketing, Conversion, Cool, Corbis, Customer service, Data, Deloitte, Design, Direct Email, Direct Mail, EMI, Email, Entertainment, Entrepreneur, Events, Experiential, Facebook, Fairchild Semiconductor, Forrester, Fun, Gartner, Google, IBM, IODA, IT, IT Planning, Ideas and Riffs, Illusion, Imagery, Influence, Infrared, Job, Keywords, Knee, MIT, Mac, Measurement, Media, Microsoft, Mobile, Music, News, Online, Online Video, Open Social, PC, PR, Planning, Power 150, Printing, Public Relations, Punchstock, Quotes, RSS, Religion, Remarkable, Research, SEO, SEO / SEM, SPARQL, SQL, Salmon, Scene7, Search, Search Engine Optimisation, Second Chance Tuesday, Second Life, Semantic Web, Sinclair, Social Graphs, Social Media, Social Networking, Software, Sony BMG, Spam, Spectrum, Strategy, Surgery, Survival, TV, Tattoo, The Orchard, Tim Berners-Lee, Twitter, Usability, User Generated Content, Viral, Viral Coefficient, Virtual Worlds, WIFI, WIKI, WOM, Warner Music Group, Web, Web2.0, White Paper, Wired.com, Wordpress, Xerox, Xuuk, Yahoo!, YouTube, ZX, blogs, bob, copywriting, digital, dotcoms, garfield, iStock, ideas, illustration, last.fm, marketing, ogilvy, permission, photography, podcast, sport, startups, stock photography, technology, trust, venture capital, verge, web 2.0, webmasters, wi-fi, word of mouth , 2008, Advertising, Age 5-14, Animals, Anime, Announcements, Answered, Art, Articles, Barack, Basketball, Bible, Big, Big Questions, Blog, Blogging, blogs, Books, Business, Charity, Children, China, Christianity, Church, clinton, Club, Comedy, Commentary, Community, Crime, Culture, Current Events, Daily, Democrats, Design, Economics, Economy, Education, Election 2008, Elections, Eliot Spitzer, English, Entertainment, Environment, Events, Faith, Family, Fashion, Fiction, Film, Food, Friends, Fun, Funny, Games, God, Government, Health, Hillary, Hip-hop, History, Home, Humor, ideas, India, inspiration, internet, Iraq, Islam, Jesus, John McCain, Journal, Kids, Leadership, Life, Links, Love, marketing, Marriage, Me, Media, Misc, Miscellaneous, Money, Movies, Music, Musings, My Life, Nature, News, Obama, Opinion, Parenting, penguin, People, Personal, Philosophy, photography, photos, Physics, Pictures, Poems, Poetry, Political, Politics, Pop culture, Prayer, Projects, Psychology, Questions, Quotes, Race, Ramblings, Random, Rants, Recipes, Reflections, Relationships, Religion, Research, Review, Reviews, School, Science, Sewing, Sex, Shopping, Society, Software, Spiritual, Spirituality, Sports, Stories, Stuff, technology, television, The Page, Theology, Thoughts, Travel, trends, TV, Unanswered, United states, Update, USA, video, Videos, web 2.0, Welcome, Women, work, World, Writing, YouTube

Making any money on your Island?

Filed under: 2.0, Business, Fun, IBM, Online Video, Second Life, Social Media, Social Networking, Strategy, User Generated Content, marketing, technology , Avatar, Business, digital, IBM, innovation, Money, Virtual World

Advertising’s evolution….

IBM Global Business Services in its new report, The End of Advertising as We Know It (report PDF, summary PDF) forecasts greater disruption for the advertising industry in the next five years than has occurred over the previous 50.

Whilst I find this type of sweeping statement a tad nauseating (agreed: it is not as bad as Facebook’s boy-coder turned big-thinker Mark Zuckerberg who said last week; “Once every hundred years media changes.”). But nonetheless the report is worth a read.

It states:

• broadcasters will have to change their mass audience mind-set to cater to niche consumer segments.
• Distributors will need to deliver targeted, interactive advertising for a range of multimedia devices.
• Advertising agencies must become brokers of consumer insights and guide allocation of advertising dollars amid exploding choices.
• All players must adapt to a world where advertising inventory is increasingly bought and sold in open exchanges vs. traditional channels

Not really ‘new’ news. But good all the same.

Filed under: Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, Business, Facebook, IBM, Ideas and Riffs, Strategy, ideas, marketing , Advertising, change, consumers, distributors, Facebook, IBM, IBM Global Services

Working at big co. just got duller

How predictable. A big I.T. company is telling it’s employees how to behave online….

IBM has just released ‘employee guidelines‘ for virtual worlds. The seven-page .pdf outlines basic principles governing how employees should represent IBM in the virtual arena.

Rules like these make me feel sad. It seems that the bigger the company, the lower the risk they want to assume. The trouble is, the more stakeholders/shareholders a company has – the bigger the potential risk.

Ok, in this instance it’s IBM, but I might very be writing about Microsoft, Oracle, Xansa, Cap Gemini or any other ‘big’ I.T. company. Market gorillas play it safe. They are protective, defensive and either instinctively behave in this fashion, or ‘learn’ to behave like this.
But the result of strategies like this? You become monotone, dreary, dull and predictable.

Two things that IBM’ers won’t do under this type of governance….

• They will never break ‘news’. Big companies want their employees to play safe. Safe = Boring and dull.

• They will never be ‘nearly libellous’. Unless you flirt with danger, you never dare a response. To me that seems like easy street. And easy street takes you nowhere, fast.

Acting ‘big’ in this way slows you down. And it certainly waters down what you are doing. And that is a very bad thing.

Whoever you work for (Big or small, but particularly if you work for a big company) be brave, tell the truth, be remarkable, break news, be transparent, be pithy, challenge convention, enter debate, admit your wrong, and lobby for what you think is right. And tear up the rule book.

Filed under: 2.0, Blog, Blogging, Conversational marketing, IBM, Online, Second Life, Social Media, Strategy, Virtual Worlds, Web2.0, blogs, ideas, marketing, web 2.0