GE: Smart grid yields net-zero energy home
This is exciting! Follows on from my earlier post on Hohm.com…
You Must Be Taking The Piss!..
Somebody has more time on their hands than imaginable…
Expialidocious
Amazing what you can do with a sine wave bass, a few custom drum sequences, and sounds recorded from the Disney film ‘Mary Poppins’…
Arguably a more compelling 21st Century trailer for the film!
FREE PINT OF ICE CREAM
See? This is what I mean by smart. Don’t just mail out a blind blizzard of coupons. Double your impact by having consumers become your evangelists, delivering targeted offers to themselves and their peers, and keeping your brand a benevolent arms length from the actual “ask”. Employ social media as a channel for the communication, and build your brand penetration fluidly.
Heck, I don’t even like coffee and I’m willing to pass it along! Why? Because I am now a participant in this process, rather than subject to a unidirectional brand “speech”.
This is a Commercial…
Consumers today are neither interested in nor prepared to be “subjected” to market offerings. They want to be engaged in a dialogue of mutual discovery. If they are going to watch an ad, they want to feel that they are witnessing an intelligent thought process in action, one which they may explore further upon completion of the spot. Even if the advertisement is “silly” it must be brilliantly so. This new generation of consumers is more socially interconnected, less interdependent; more culturally discursive, less patient; more committed, less loyal.
Smart ad agencies are abandoning network TV in the face of DVRs and Hulu, as they wonder how best to maintain a connection with their client’s prospective targets…
The smart courses of action are not hidden or obscure, but conventional media has always been slow to respond to trends. This “Aircraft carrier” approach has served them somewhat well, as media and consumer trends more often than not revealed themselves to be short-lived fads. However, some trends are both inescapable and irreversable, and the media platform/channel paradigm shift is indisputable. The modes of content distribution have changed, and the language used to connect to consumerrs is changing.
Who will successfully embark on this new commercial voyage, and who will miss the boat? It used to be that a media giant could buy emerging trends up, but I believe this time the giants of old will find they have been replaced by giants of at least comparable, if not greater size…
How Teenagers Consume Media
The first knell for Twitter’s demise, or simply proof that its business model will metamorphose as much by necessity as design?
(Thanks to Soo-Hyun for the link)
The 2009 Venice Biennale
Call it crazy, call it ugly, call it gorgeous, call it mad….the point of art (IMHO) is to foster discussion: sometimes with others, sometimes with yourself and your prevailing point of view. Art is supposed to enhance, heighten, challenge, defy, or otherwise alter your sensibilities. Which of the pieces shown at this year’s Biennale delight you? Which confound you? Which do you find spectacular? Which are ridiculous?
SOUR - Hibi no neiro
I’m so old, I still remember the days when people said the Internet was anti-social…
If anybody is still living under that delusion, may I offer up exhibits 1,200,730 thru 1,200,797…
User-Generated Feature Length Massive Multiplayer Remakes
How come it took so long for someone to think of this?!
This will unquestionably be a hot waxy mess, but thoroughly entertaining, and I am confident it will be sporadically peppered with moments of brilliance. I can’t wait for the final cut!
Ericsson to Run Sprint’s Cell Service (or "Hans Brinker misses the boat")
So Sprint thinks that this will stop the torrent of departing customers?
Memo to Sprint execs: there was a time, a couple of years ago, when you could have said the exodus represented a sort of “trickle”. However, this outsourcing represents sticking your finger in a dike that broke apart months ago. There’s only one way former customers will come back, or others (myself included) will stop leaving your brand, and that is if AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, et al screw up more mightily than you already have. The sprint brand is no longer in control of its destiny. A sad place to be.
There is little you can do now to rescue what is essentially a toxic brand. On a professional level, I note almost daily the ridicule heaped upon you by customers of other providers, and the disdain and frustration leveled at you by your (for now) current customers.
On a personal level, with the exception of Charter (and look where they are), I do not think I have received worse customer service from a company, ever. I have been loyal to you for 20 years, and I am now actively looking for another carrier. I rarely switch providers, but Sprint fails to recognize that over 90% of their “deserters” did not CHOOSE to leave: they were forced out. Could you imagine a restaurant or store owner telling his/her customers - on a daily basis - “no, you can’t have that / here’s a bill for something you didn’t ask for / who cares what my associate promised you, I’m not giving it to you / I know what you THOUGHT you were getting, but that’s all we have, so suck it up…”?
Frankly, I’m surprised Ericcson agreed to align themselves with this circus act.
Just in case anyone should think that the struggles in Iran have ended: this is a photo taken earlier today. Click to link to more photos.
Google to launch OS
This will completely recast the PC user landscape, if done right; or might be the clearest misstep to date by Google, heralding a weakening of this previously indestructible brand…
Either way, this is big news.
Microsoft Hohm
As soon as my Utility provider becomes a partner of this new service from MSFT, I can see this being a useful tool for self education in energy savings and more efficient green living.
A smart utility would get registered quickly, and provide incentives to their customers to sign up and use the site…
Tesla’s 2011 Model S
Geek Cuteness
About me
A return to the classic blog nature: random commentaries, musings, inspirations, and the like - in no particular order.
