A study was recently completed by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute into the smallest number of people that through exerting influence in a network, can bring about change. Apparently the number is slightly less than 10% – provided that the core base is highly committed and not prepared to change themselves. This has quite significant implications [...]
Digital technology empowers and it destroys. As the legacy silos entrench themselves and become more polar in their approach the silos start to crumble. It happens in business and more of that later. As is incredibly visible right now, it happens in politics. Sometimes those silos are not really about the leader or the policy [...]
While the media is all doom and gloom, for some there is boundless optimism. I have been asked to do several pitches in the last two weeks, two to companies that are expanding into new areas and want to make sure that they capture all the market potential that they see, and one to a [...]
Its a question that anyone who is in marketing will ask at a meeting. Its a question that should help us define how to start a campaign. Maybe its not the only question that we should ask, though. How about, “Why’s your customer….?” Why is your customer going to respond to your campaign? Why is [...]
Yesterday was a busy day… in fact the whole week was crazy when I come to think about it. But yesterday more than most days… In the morning I attended an event to mark 50 years of friendship between Korea and Australia. (I was there as the proxy for Professor Gordon Wallace from ACES where [...]
What is the biggest brand? There are some big big brands out there. Every year more brands vie for visibility and dominance. The reason is that every brand that gets share of mind – and trust – can generate huge revenues… Let’s think about some of the great trusted brands in the world, and some [...]
I have had a number of branding jobs over the last few months. What is interesting about developing brands is that every job is totally different. Developing a brand architecture for an enterprise requires for there to be a real insight into how the model works, what the underlying brand promise is, and most of [...]
I had dinner with Johnny H on Sunday night, and he was telling me that he was in the process of selling his Beemer because it was about to hit a bit inflection point in terms of depreciation – 150,000kms. My Prius had its 140,000km service on Tuesday (yesterday) so I thought maybe I should [...]
I meet a lot of people who want to achieve things that need some sort of outside involvement. Because of my past in the music industry, I meet people who want to get signed to major labels relatively often. Because I have been involved in raising money for businesses, I seem to bump into people [...]
Systems evolve over time. Look at the eco-system that drives most of the western world. It has been around for a relatively short time in historical terms. It is a sub-set of capitalism that may now be showing signs of weakness as a continuing driver for wealth creation. I’m talking about consumerism. Consumerism is assumed [...]