Subliminal Sound Ads on Your Phone

In Engadget: Ads to be triggered on you phone based on subliminal sound at a given location.  This is a little like augmented reality, which can be triggered by GPS location.  Opt-in I would assume.

A Technology Driven World

In Forbes:  How to Be an Optimist in a Pessimistic Time: A Techonomy Manifesto ..   The conference mentioned is now over, but the thoughts are interesting:   " ... Despite all our optimism, tech is no panacea. There are real and troubling questions emerging globally about the impact of tech on jobs, for example. It seems more and more likely that while technological progress improves productivity, global GDP, and aggregate social wealth, it will replace more jobs than it creates. Separately, security concerns are growing almost as fast as new technological capabilities. We can see a new world of efficiency and connectedness coming into view. But there is the real risk it could be undermined or even stopped by those who do not want global prosperity—be they criminals, terrorists, or renegade governments.... " 

Tricks of Holiday Marketing

Martin Lindstrom is interviewed in Bloomberg on the complexity of holiday retail marketing. " ...  In an interview with Bloomberg.com’s Ben Steverman, Lindstrom explains some of retailers’ canniest techniques, including why stores suddenly smell like cinnamon during the holidays and what online retailers and casinos have in common. Edited excerpts of the interview follow.... " 

In Defense of Gamification

In Gigaom:   " ... Gamifications can have a bad rap, admits Gabe Zichermann, CEO of Gamification.Co. He said people think it means turning everything into Angry Birds.... But he said companies are increasingly turning to gamification to accomplish a number of real world goals and they’re not simply turning everything into a game. They’re realizing that gamification, or the use of key game concepts to engage users and solve problems, can be a powerful way to create happiness and innovation and spur on results and education among its workforce" .  As I also emphasized in a recent presentation, gamification is all about lifting engagement to a level where the boring can be made interesting, and the mundane, exciting.    If you do that, it is a useful technique.

IBM to Acquire DemandTec: Delivers Analytics via the Cloud

I see in a press release that IBM has agreed to acquire DemandTec.    Our enterprise retail innovation center was an early evaluator of DemandTec, which brought advanced analytics to key retail and manufacturing  processes.  I was impressed that they had delivered approaches that we had long examined and leveraged to improve operational systems.  Aiming to deliver smarter commerce through analytics.

 Later, they were an innovator using social network interaction to help manufacturers and retailers to collaborate using business analytics.   This new acquisition looks to the Cloud to make those capabilities even easier to connect to data, provide analytics and share results.   This should add nicely to IBM's already impressive vertical analytics capabilities.  To see where this plugs in, see IBM's Smarter Commerce  initiative.

" ... The acquisition of DemandTec will extend IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative by adding cloud-based price, promotion and other merchandising and marketing analytics to help companies better define the best price points and product mix based on customer buying trends.

Organizations are struggling to meet the demands of rapidly shifting customer buying patterns in the era of mobile and social networks. This new digital marketplace requires companies to be highly responsive to consumer demands on the fly. Whether it's setting and executing the right pricing strategy or the ability to automatically adjust pricing based on online and offline data, being able to rapidly shift to market changes has become a key competitive advantage for global businesses ...  "

Higher Education Bubble

I have been hearing this term used more and more.  It has a Wikipedia entry.  I am still old school on this, but can see some of the symptoms.   It is likely better to focus education better than it has been done before.

Siri Changing Education

Received, interesting thoughts. " ... We at Onlinecollege.org recently came across your blog and were excited to share with you an article “20 Ways Siri May Forever Change Education” was recently published on our blog ... "

Rethinking the Funnel

A very good article on the innovation funnel.  We actively used the concept in new business development efforts to think about work planned and underway.  I like these new thoughts about the metaphor.  Worth a read.

Global Supply Chain Visibility

Video in CGT:  How Amway achieved global supply chain visibility.

Data Temperature

So what does the concept of 'data temperature' mean?   Summarized here, with links to more detail:

- Hot = accessed all the time, or extremely important data requiring sub-second response times
- Medium = is data accessed most of the time, but where response times can be anywhere from 1 second to 10 or 15 seconds
- Lukewarm Data = data that is accessed rarely; rarely may be (for example) once every 30 minutes or twice every 4 hours. 
-Cold Data = historical context that is hardly ever accessed, but when requested, must have a response time equal to that of a couple minutes ..... "

Visual.ly Blog Launched

I see that the Visual.ly blog on data and design has been launched.   I like their general approach, but am leary of the overuse of infographics.  I like to see data provided that you can make your own conclusions with. 

Cost of Customer Loss

In Inc.  Thoughtful short piece about the cost of customer attrition. " .... It may surprise you just how much each lost customer is costing your business.... "

DemandTec Retail Challenge Scholarship Awards

In an era rewarding mostly sports and celebrity, it is great to see math being noticed.  More. 

Stickers Acting as Sensors

In general a nice idea.   Wireless sensors delivered as stickers.   With considerable potential application in retail. Gamifying implications. Worth following.  I will,  and report back here.  More and pictures in Engadget. 

"... Rather than ask people to integrate bulky or intrusive sensors into their lives, GreenGoose's upcoming system (pre-orders start on Dec. 15; systems ship on Jan. 1) will instead provide small stickers with built-in Internet-connected sensors. Tip a water bottle and the attached GreenGoose sticker logs it through a small base station that plugs into your wireless router. Feed the dog, go for a walk, clean the house — GreenGoose has designs on all of it. No special skills required.... "

Breaking from Microsoft Office

Walter Riker, who teaches MS office applications and is a true expert on their use, writes about their use and how that influences our work.  Nice job Walter.  If you need some help in this realm, contact him.  I always do.

Duke Synovate Research Center

Brought to my attention. The Duke Synovate Research Center.  Sounds similar to our own Innovation Center founded in 2000.  It will include board members from CPG companies. " ... The center will focus on advancing the research in shopper decision making, how to create demand generation through the shopping experience, and provide an integrated view of consumer and shopper marketing ... " .   Press Release.   Also has a strong connection to Ipsos.   Will continue to follow the development.  To what extent are they considering virtualization of of the retail process, as we did?  If anyone from Synovate would like my help, let me know.

Digitizing Innovation at P&G

My first post at Innovation Excellence was realized recently.  It was a re-post of an item in this blog on modeling and innovation at P&G.   I am glad to see it have further  exposure.   Thanks to Julie Anixter, colleague and now at MagaDesign, a company I am very intrigued with,  which links information modeling and graphic design.  Hope to see that idea taken further.    See also their Magamaps blog.

Disney Method

In Innovation Excellence: Using the Disney Method.   By Paul Sloane.  A group parallel thinking method that we were introduced to now years ago that is based on views of interaction with an innovative proposal.  Nice to see it mentioned again.

Thinking Fast and Slow

Freeman Dyson, physicist and favorite thinker and writer, insightfully reviews : Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman.  Excellent thoughts regarding How to dispel your illusions. The basis of irrationality in economic decision making.  Includes his take on the famous 'luck vs skill' Lancaster bomber survival analysis of WWII.  Even addresses the near universal dilemma of calorie consumption among many of us.

Best of KYield

Interested in how the entrepreneur operates?   The ups and downs of selling the semantic enterprise?  Mark Montgomery, a long time correspondent,  has posted a index of his articles in his KYield Blog .   Enlightening.