Just came across the new budweiser advert and well I must say it’s so ‘normal’ that it feels wrong for Budweiser. Maybe that is the aim of it!? An advert that creates an outcry from people, who have grown used to so damn good adverts from Budweiser. The powers that be at Bud thought they would tease us with this unusually ‘normal’ one!
Yes it’s a take on Pulp Fiction so there is some ‘foul’ language involved but if you can ‘take it’ then check it out, quite funny
Working too hard is not that efficient… in the long term
At a time where people are worried about losing their jobs and working all hours god sends to stand out from the pack in a positive manner it seems that they may not be providing their company with the best of themselves. Obviously if your company is short staffed and still has as much work they may not be so interested in the article over at FastCompany. But may be worth reading so at least you are aware 
Examples from Flickr and Facebook are provided to illustrate the misconception that getting people to work their socks off may not be providing you with the best results in the end!
Make sure you check out this great video from TED, Stefan Sagmeister is a world renowned designer who explains how every 7 years he takes a year off to pursue personal areas. He also indicates that structuring his time off was probably one of the most important parts in a successful sabbatical year. Furthermore this time often allows him to be a better designer and provide his clients with a better quality service once the sabbatical is over! Better still take the time to view the video see for yourself.
Following on from the Twitterer is a mainly a narcissist article, the currently trendy term of “Consumer intelligence” seems to be giving clients the jitters (so agencies see it). Companies that understand the need for a consumer “pull” strategy where the emphasis is on the consumer, fits with the need to quickly respond and listen to the consumer, analyse new behaviour and habits. In a very interesting Ad-Age article the journalist explains that companies feel they don’t need agencies as much!
There is a great quote from the CEO of Unilever Paul Polman:
“Maybe the most extreme example of this is to be found in consumer-generated content, where we have invited consumers to develop communications for Omo and Vaseline as a complement to those generated by the company, and in the case of Peperami, we have even dispensed with the agency in favor of exclusively ‘crowdsourced’ content.
“However well traditional advertising agencies read the signals and recognize the need for radical change in their capabilities,” he said, “few agencies can address all the communications needs of a brand. … This is making the management of agencies increasingly complex, and raises challenging questions on how best to measure the value added by the respective partners and consequently how to manage remuneration.”
The current economic situation pushes clients to search for financially viable solutions, or at least good ROI you can present to your boss. From an agency perspective, we know this is without being prepared to accept a reduction in scope or speed to market. Although the speed to market aspect can often be better managed by agencies, the “same scope, with reduced budget” is just not always possible. Sure you can provide cheaper solutions but that generally implies a reduction in quality, even though clients may agree to it. Clients rarely anticipate the reactions from their project sponsors and hierarchy and it can fall back on the agency.
Clients who have previously externalized their marketing and branding requirements are now looking to internalize what they had given away to agencies over the years according to the above article. The likes of Forrester are pushing to get marketing and brand managers (sorry Forrester prefers Brand Advocates) to be use ‘invaluable’ Forrester insight and work in house rather than go through agencies as much.
Would this have anything to do with some of the larger digital agencies producing detailed market reports (ex: Digital Outlook) and complex dashboard systems that provide the same type of ‘insight’ Forrester is selling to clients?
I’m not sure Forrester is my idea of a company capable of seeking and identifying trends in the digital arena to serve as a catalyst for the client’s brand coverage but hey I work in an agency so I would be biased. Without denying the importance of the number crunching and analysis, it is just a small ingredient of the digital marketing mix.
Although the above article does not touch on the details or definition of an agency I think there is a tendency to consider them all to be the same. In the same way that Jon discusses how both Forrester and Gartner don’t go into enough details in their Content Management comparison reports, I feel they do the same when discussing and comparing agencies. Good digital agencies do provide support for the above areas mentioned by Forrester and far more. The intricacies and issues of implementing complicated technical solutions are part of a digital agency’s normal day. They also have a good understanding of all the other ingredients of the digital marketing mix, how it all works together down to the small details that Forrester don’t even touch on!
An article on the New York Times explains how a group or person was able to get malicious code inserted on the New York Times and gave readers the impression that a program was scanning their computer
New York Times Malicious Ad Code Inserted
THE NYTimes article explains that this attack via online ad systems have already hit companies like FoxNews.com and the The San Francisco Chronicle.
As you can see in the below letter from Publicis owned Starcom this is obvioulsy being taken very seriously and security is being tightened up around the ad insertion procedures…
Publicis-Starcom_Media-Partners_Letter (PDF)
…so Fast Company says in their article:
“Attention Marketers: 80% of Twitterers Are Narcissists” (check out the illustration )
Two Twitter happenings caught my attention. 1) The seismic effect of dear young Miley Cyrus deleting her Twitter account in order to “have a life”. 2) It seems to be a revelation for film studios; Twitter may affect box office results depending on the film, hey, they seem to be understanding what Twitter actually is!
It’s a global word of mouth booster, which kind of means that, yes you are not under the spotlight, you are under multiple spotlights, to the extent that everything is amplified at will. When a film is good, guess what, people talk about it, and I will trust (or avoid in some cases) a friends comments on a film far more than any journalist. Twitter just allows people to spread the word to lots of people quickly, maybe even people will tweet while watching the film…
So people that have thousands of followers, just cry out ‘narcissist’ for me, and are invariably comprised of celebrities telling people they have just been to the shop! The exception is the 20% that actually have something interesting to say, and funnily enough, don’t always have thousands or millions of followers.
A few articles about the Miley Cyrus Twitter account being deleted event also pick up the fact that Twitter is not really extensively used by her current target population / fans.
But the main thing is that the companies like Twitter, be they Facebook or Myspace have taken the same approach as Google:
- We will provide you with the tools and you (can) create the content.
- A footnote says “oh and by the way we’ll make money from selling adverts on your pages so don’t worry the service is free!”
‘Giving’ these tools to the crowds has changed the channels advertising agencies and marketing departments are used to. Listening to people who discovered the internet (and the web etc.) 2 or 3 years ago and explaining it to either of the above is at the moment like the blind leading the blind.
I’m astonished when I hear people saying that the social media technologies allow companies to engage the consumers. I think companies will find that social media technologies have given consumers a real voice. A voice that can get very loud. So if you are trying to sell a product that is not bad and your marketing team is promising to make it a success this is where the global word of mouth effect (like Twitter) may be waiting to bite you and any ‘engaging effect’ may only last a few seconds…
Sure you could find (or pay) narcissist Twitter gurus with millions of followers to say your product is great. But wouldn’t it be better to make your product around what consumers want. Not everyone can take the Apple stance of saying we don’t do user testing we make great products…
If you take a look at the article on All Facebook about Honda’s attempt to sway people towards the new Accord Crosstour you’ll see that the idea of using tools in a concealed fashion makes people think you believe they are tools! The big no-no of course is to try and erase comments perceived as an attempt to silence people. Being open to feedback (criticism) is in my opinion the sign of a company that is really trying to provide customers with the best possible service / product. Hey there are millions of companies that still pay enormous amounts of money to get customer feedback rather than using the web.
The social network with systems like Facebook have unleashed the word of mouth. Creating an interesting and valid buzz around a good product will unleash the crowds. Try to trick them and you will be drowned by the wave of mistrust. The same people that are creating the above events like the Accord Crosstour are often the same that complain the Facebook, Twitter et al. aren’t raking in the money because they do not understand the systems and are unlikely to understand their potential if used properly…
Joel Cohen, Warner Bros.’ executive VP and general manager, tells the Sun: “We may be putting too much weight onto the Twitter Effect. But you can see Twitter’s benefits as a communications tool that spreads the word about a film, and the negatives have yet to be proven.”
Source: econsultancy.com
There are 2 interesting examples here of video from the Nikon 300s and Canon 7D specifically under artificial lighting conditions at night and the wave type issues that appear on the Nikon but not on the Canon 7D. You can see this near the end when the person is filming a shop with the Nikon 300s and moving down towards the pavement and back up. You see the wave effect for a few seconds before the camera seems to adjust and the video comes back to normal.
It seems the Canon 7D may have one up on the Nikon here! The below example from the Canon 7D is just amazing !
Think this just convinced me to save up for the Canon 7D for Christmas! Note that the rig used for the 7D is very impressive but cannot be considered a reason for the difference in quality of the video if you were wondering… He has added a lens hood / matte box, viewfinder and microphone and uses tripods, other stabalizer gear and last but not least this was shot at 1600 to 6400 ISO!
T-Mobile users of the sidekick device have been warned to not let their devices drain completely after a server from the Danger company (owned by Microsoft) had a catastrophic failure, specifically the server managing this service. Seems weird when you read up on cloud computing that one server would hold all the data and not have any type of backup system! Especially when it concerns so many people’s everyday digital life! Read more about the event here and here.
Through the different accounts of the incident it seems that there a) wasn’t an ongoing backup system and b) when upgrading the system the techies at Danger didn’t actually perform a backup, so when things went wrong they were, well, out of options! c) data is not saved on a proper backup system on the Sidekick since the battery draining itself can kill all the data and relies too much on the cloud / offsite storage system!
It is obvious that this story is a dream com true for consultants and companies that work in the backup industry and a nightmare for T-Mobile users concerned…
An article in “Le Figaro” discusses a move in France by Valérie Boyer to request a legal note be added to photos that have been modified. Although this request is specifically with regards to photos that depict very slim to skinny women, specifically the fashion industry, other bloggers provide interesting arguments for this to be a general request. When photos are used in the news, in a completely misleading manner this type of annotation should be required to avoid it, check out this article over at 10 000 words.
The below video is part of “Le Figao”’s article:
Very simple procedure. All you need is a small screwdriver and some gentle but determined hands
Turn your closed netbook over
First turn your computer over so you can see the back of it as the image below:
Location of panel to change memory
Circled in red is the panel that has 1 screw you will need to remove to get access to the memory module that needs to be changed.
Remove the battery
I recommend that you remove the battery before attempting to touch the memory module.
1005ha PU1X-BK with battery removed
Unscrew and remove the memory panel
Remove the screw as seen in the image below and remove the panel that will allow you to remove and replace the memory module:
1005ha view of memory panel removed
Note: before touching the memory module I suggest you try to discharge any static electricity you may have. I grab hold of the chassis of my desktop for example. You should try to only hold the module by the edges and not touch any components on it. Avoid standing on a carpet for example or clothes that easily create electro static charge…
Unlock the memory module
You now need to push back the tabs on the side of the memory module that are holding it in the locked position. You will be pushing these for the top one upwards and slightly down and the bottom one downwards and slightly back. This should be done gently there is no need to force this to allow the memory module to slightly spring up so that it is at lifting up at the end that has the tabs.
1005ha memory module in locked position
Release bottom tab on memory module
As you can see below the tab when moved back releases one side of the memory module and you then only need to release the other tab for the whole module to spring upwards.
1005ha memory module bottom tab released
Remove the memory module
Once you have removed the tabs it should be slanted upwards on one side and look like the image below allowing you to then remove it. If you have an anti-static sleeve that your new module came in then put the old module in it so that if anything goes wrong with the new one you can at least put the old one back.
1005ha memory module slanted up
Add the new memory module
As you can see there is a groove on the memory module where it is connected to the motherboard. The number of pins above and below the groove is different so will help you know which way round the memory should be inserted. As you can see in the image below the groove on the connector is from the centre positioned to the left and the memory module therefore needs to be positioned in the same way .
1005ha memory insertion markers
Put the memory panel back
You can now put the memory module panel back, clipping it back in, then screw the panel back into position.
1005ha putting the memory panel back
There you go you now have upgraded your 1005 ha EeePC to the maximum memory of 2 Gig. You should be fully prepared for Windows 7 now!
Recent Comments