I’ve been busy looking for a new job these last few weeks, and that has meant writing a lot of cover letters. In general, writing is something I enjoy immensely. Writing cover letters is not the type of writing I tend to enjoy. But why is that? Let’s examine the cover letter as an artifact.(…)
If you’re in a hurry, you can watch from about 7 minutes to 10 minutes on the talk for the anecdote that encapsulates the definition, but I recommend giving the entire talk your time. Dan Barber is not only an excellent chef, but also an excellent speaker as it turns out.
If you’re like me, you check email obsessively. Sometimes you’re waiting for something important, sometimes you’re bored. In either case you should probably be doing something else. Enter Inbox Zero. Inbox Zero is the brainchild of Merlin Mann (great name!), founder of 43 folders – a site dedicated to helping you manage your most limited(…)
I’m going to begin this entry a little off-topic, at least as far as the title goes; I was discussing browsers and ‘the browser war’ with a friend the other day when it seemed that I was, for some reason, ignoring my own advice, which was that everyone interested in speed should use Google Chrome.(…)
This post has been a long time a brewin’. In aniticipation I created a little ‘Great TED Talks’ sidebar over there which will have a rotating (and growing) list of some of my favourites. First, what does TED stand for? What’s it all about? TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984)(…)
I recently came across Nexus, an application that can map out the connections in and amongst all of your collected friends on Facebook. The result is, I think, pretty neat. As you can see, my friends form some interesting smaller networks, through which they are all connected to each other (at the very least) through(…)
A couple of blog posts/articles I’ve been reading over have articulated more or less what I have been thinking about twitter lately. I haven’t really used the service yet, but I’ve been ‘shadow following’ (for lack of a better term) several marketing type people and other friends in my area to try to better understand(…)
Listening – companies must listen to what customers are saying to gain better understanding – Starbucks: My Starbucks Idea (www.mystarbucksidea.com) – a place where registered users can provide ideas, feedback, and talk to each other about the drinks, the food, whatever; Starbucks also monitors twitter feeds and responds directly to customer complaints or questions. –(…)
Easy Lesson 1: Know why you are doing it and how it will enhance the user experience. Companies and brands use a wide variety of social media and networking tools such as twitter, facebook, and blogs; not all companies should do this. A Seth Godin witticism elaborates: sundae toppings are great, so long as they(…)
The folks over at Plaid have provided our tradeshow topic, Using Social Media to Create Brand Evangelists, the best anecdote to date. They were feeling justifiably upset over a gigantic roaming bill ($1000 per card) for 24 hours of mobile internet service while passing through Vancouver on their recent roadtrip. They prepared for a word-of-mouth war against(…)