Nat Torkington doing his 2.0-ish thang
At the recent Nexus 2007, Nathan Torkington, crowd favourite and Perl guru from O’Reilly Media, spoke about Disruption, Change, and Opportunity. In case you do not know, its founder Tim O’ Reilly coined the term Web 2.0 and have been in the business of technology trendspotting for quite a number of years. Nat cited key developments in the technology landscape over the decades:
1988 – X Windows Documentation
After hearing my fellow media socialists Kevin, Benjamin, Ivan, Siva, Coleman, Preetam and Vanessa talk about Nexus 2007, I decided that I simply had to check it out for myself. And boy was it a blast!
Before going into the heavy stuff, let me share some photos and tongue-in-cheek observations about what Nexus 2007 is all about.
Word of Mouse in Action!
I am currently reading the Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing, a book by George Silverman, which I borrowed from the National Library. Fascinating stuff in there with some explanation of how one can make Word Of Mouth (WOM) marketing work.
Let me highlight two key learning points. First is the Buying Decision Process. Those who studied Marketing 101 may be familiar with this. The stages are as follows:
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Two out of three in my family wears specs!
I’ve never revealed it before, but I am a closet consultant. I love to provide business and marketing advice to people. After so many years working with entrepreneurs, media, lifestyle and tourism businesses, I do have some thoughts welling in my head. Whether they take it or not is another thing altogether of course.
Let’s start with the optical business. It is a booming business, with 80% of adult Singaporeans being shortsighted and us having one of the highest myopia rates in the world. What can opticians (like eastcoastlife‘s hubby Chris) do to make themselves stand out clearly from the competition?
Lately, I have been reading a little more than usual. Have only just picked up Purple Cow by Seth Godin.
It isn’t exactly brand new but some of its insights are still worth considering.
Sprite Shower – a great example of experiential marketing (courtesy of Exact Drive)
How do you market a theme park, museum, or holiday resort? Do the traditional 4 Ps of Product, Price, Place and Promotion still work?
The answer certainly lies less in your marketing mix and more in what I’d call your Experience Mix.
Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba has created the 4 Fs of citizen marketers. This is an elegant idea which distills some of the types of bloggers and new media activists you find in the blogosphere.
An example of an advertising analogy and metaphor
Have you wondered why certain speakers and writers can bring their ideas across so elegantly? How do they transform a complex (and sometimes obscure) concept into one which we can see in our heads with such clarity and definition?
The answer lies in their ability to to tell stories with rich and powerful analogies, allegories and metaphors.
While languishing in bed for two days last week, I managed to pick up the book “The Tipping Point” and finished reading it all in one go (almost). Malcolm Gladwell’s thought provoking tome isn’t exactly the newest trick of the trade, but some of its principles are useful to share.