My wife and I are really huge fans of the TV series LOST but due to the writers strike we have to wait until end April to find out how 6 survivors get off the island :-( Another problem we have is that as we are in Europe, abc.com blocks us from seeing the latest episode. So, as addicts, we resort to paying for TV through iTunes. I am getting tired of this…which led me to wonder when we are going to finally get to a good service for ubiquitous internet TV? When will the internet finally kill the TV star? What will this look like and who is in the lead at the moment?I have not heard much about this lately. With their interesting social online model & CBS as a big backer, a year ago, Joost appeared to be the heir apparent to the online TV title…now I am hearing about new entrants like Hulu. In any case, someone needs to make this easy and accessible. The competitor that figures out how to build the right ad model, while combining the best of the web + TV is going to win and the big companies are all going to dive right in…
Monthly Archives: April 2008
A shameless plug…but much still to be done
A few weeks back I learned that P&G won the European Business Award for Corporate Sustainability (Mar 11). This felt great…indeed, P&G has been a leader in this space vs. competition.
Sustainability is a pretty broad term as it incorporates social, econonmic & environmental aspects. Recently, I have been able to take part in some of our “socially sustainable” projects here in Switzerland, and they do have impact within the community.
The award was great, but with the tremendous amount of global challenges facing companies we are going to have to step up our efforts in a big way. I recently learned that 29 of the top 100 economic entities in the world are corporations, not countries. P&G has the brands, technology, expertise and global scale to help solve problems in ways few other institutions can, so it needs to continue to be a force for good in the world.
Why all bloggers belong in the intelligence services
Before my marketing days, I spent a few years as an Intelligence officer. Intelligence work is all about collection, analysis, and then dissemination. I guess anyone putting out an info product engages in this process. Bloggers, however, seem to be extremely adept and quick with the collection part of the cycle. Some of the best bloggers are known to scan and read hundreds of posts a day (600 + RSS feeds a day if you are Robert Scoble). This is amazing stuff. Of course, as dissemination is so quick and easy and the web is all about “instant,” the analysis part of the collect-analyze-disseminate cycle tends to get lost. Perhaps the pressure for Google juice & readership has pushed the trend even further away from analysis in the past year.
In any case, I think the intelligence services should recruit from the blogosphere. Give us bloggers a little time to understand our areas of operations and provide us with a short brush-up on analysis and voila!
Loving engagement, Seductive Geneva summer, & tips for non-profits from MJ
I started getting some excellent comments recently and I admit that this engagment really motivates me…wanted to say thanks & pls. keep it coming. As a “new” blogger this helps me to try & get some thoughts out there despite the fact that summer on Lake Geneva is coming. If you ever get out this way, check out the Swiss Riviera on the Lake over in the Montreux area. Believe it or not there are palm trees in Switzerland. Gotta love microclimates…
A few months back in my first post on m-cause, I blogged about Google’s efforts to help non-profits with free adword campaigns. Google is stepping up their efforts now it seems via Google for Non-Profits. Well done Google…smart. What are Yahoo and Microsoft are doing in this arena right now? Note: If the link for Google above does not work, it seems the site may be down at the moment.
The “other” MJ (Mitch Joel) over at Six Pixels of Separation wrote a good post a week or so back on tools non-profits can use in the social media space. I have posted them below for you in case you missed them. I need to get better with a couple of these myself. I have not yet started twittering but am thinking about starting…does anyone have any good tips?
1. del.icio.us - create a centralized location for every piece of content related to your cause that may interest the group. Make sure to encourage people to add their own links, tags and resources there as well.
2. flickr - post photos from your events, and encourage attendees to do the same. Everyone likes seeing those pictures in the society pages of a newspaper, leverage that vibe in the online space.
3. twitter - let people know (short and quickly) where you’re at, what’s happening or what you need. No time to Blog? How about micro-blogging?
4. Google Reader - centralize all of your feeds in one place - save yourself time - every day - by creating watchlists and Google News Alerts. You can even export the OPML file and give it to those who want to follow whatever it is you’re looking at.
5. BarCamp - PodCamp - check out some free unconferences in your area, and copy the model for your own needs. Free events that are self-organizing might well be the best way for you to learn, and a great new event for you to introduce to your organization. Imagine the learnings you could cull from your own unconference?
6. YouTube - corporate videos, grab some cool clips at an event, video testimonials? create a channel on YouTube (or any other online video sharing site). It’s free, and it could well help with getting your message out there and, if tagged correctly, there might even be some Search Engine Optimization benefits.
7. Google Grants - a small, simple process could get you some free online advertising.
8. Widgets - get your organization on the desktop of the people who matter most to you. There are tons of free tools that let you create desktop widgets for free.
9. Wikis - if anything screams “community,” it’s a wiki. Leverage this mass collaboration tool to work on documents, proposals or propose new concepts and future trends by working together as a team.
10. Online Social Networks - groups, fan pages, individual profiles, applications - there are many ways to get involved in spaces like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo to engage your community. If you think it’s possible, you can even start your own online social network using Ning.
On m-cause, I discuss marketing and good causes. Sometimes I talk about P&G (my company). Sometimes I talk about life in Europe. Sometimes I talk about random things. If you want to connect further, email me at roborj@yahoo.com or connect with me on Facebook. If you see any "good" stuff happening out there, please let me know...