Trendspotting — Where 97.9% Fail

Filed Under Analysis, Branding, Customer Think, Marketing, Strategy, Successful Blog, Trends | 37 Comments

Learn Everything

We all want that ability to be able to see the next big trend before it happens — what people will be wanting, doing, needing, going to, and buying NEXT. We want to be there ready and waiting for those customers.

Some folks can see that next trend and hit it fairly often. No one can do it 100%. No one can get any customer base to behave 100% predictably.

Good morning, Class.
Find the next trend. Oh yes, 97.9% of you wll fail this test.

The TECHNORATI Business Model Revealed

Filed Under Analysis, Business Life, Customer Think, Outside the Box, Strategy, Successful Blog, Technorati | 45 Comments

Smoke and Mirrors

Don’t be fooled by smoke and mirrors. Five blogs on an AP website is nothing. Technorati on every one of them is a big deal. Technorati is joining the mainstream. That doesn’t mean bloggers are.

By virture of it’s index of OUR blog posts, and 3 deals in announced in the last 3 days, Technorati is one of the worlds largest content providers with it’s name on every Paramount Classic and AP website.

It sure looks like we provide their content for nothing. Technorati gains plenty of fame and who knows how many dollars?

I was wrong before. The strategy here is brilliant. It’s so far outside the box, I didn’t even see it.

Sorry David, this too clever by half for me to be quiet about. What is it that I misinterpret here? Please set me straight. I really want to believe I have something wrong, but all of the pieces fit as I look at it.

How did this happen? Why doesn’t anyone see this? [links via Bloggers Blog]

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Technorati–Shopping Is NOT Strategy

Filed Under Business Life, Strategy, Successful Blog, Tech/Stats, Technorati | 24 Comments

Joining the Mainstream Are We?

I’m starting to feel like I’m on Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live. As Sting would say Be still my beating heart. Another day, another 50 cents, and Peter Hirschberg is announcing another Technorati new deal. This time Technorati teams with Associated Press to connect you and me and 40 million bloggers to over 450 AP member websites. The new service began this morning. How will this help my life, my business, my brand? I just don’t see it.

Excuse me. Excuse me, please. Is this door number 3? Darn, I lose again. Yoohoo! I’m the little guy who uses your service. Read more

Trendspotting: How to Crawl into People's Heads

Filed Under Analysis, Branding, Customer Think, Marketing, Strategy, Successful Blog, Trends | 5 Comments

Your job — should you decide to keep working here — is to figure out what our customers want NEXT.

Trendspotters

I belong to a networking group which requires endorsements. As I was editing my profile last night, I came across this endorsement from a client.

” . . . Liz can spot an emerging trend before it is even on the horizon. — Blake Education, Australiaâ€?

It’s true I often can. My friend, Chartreuse BETA, is phenomenal at trendspotting, as is our friend, Copyblogger. Scot Karp is excellent at seeing what trends are about to happen. Sometimes it depresses him. Don’t leave out Tom Peters. . . . How exactly do we do that?

What does it take to spot a trend before it takes root and actually happens? What does a person need to watch for? Seeing trends seems to be a factor of intelligence, learning style, and world view. Allowing that you have the prerequisite intelligence — we’re talking business acumen, common sense, and people smarts, not rocket science — the rest is a matter of doing the work and being open to what’s happening. This is lesson 1 on being a trendspotter. Read more

Critical Skill 5A: 3 Parts of Spectacular Ideas

Filed Under Branding, Idea Bank, Outside the Box, Strategy, Successful Blog, Writing | 15 Comments

Originality

When I compiled this list of ten critical skills, it was an original list — the list came from my head not from the Internet, not from some book. I’ve done continuous work on thinking skills for years so it wasn’t a huge hardship to think some more on the skills I consider critical. Is any one idea original? No. Not one on that list is unique or spectacular. The value-added is that I put them together and pointed the need to have them for success.

Originality Versus Spectacular

Originality is often how we look at things. The most original thought I’ve encountered — that hasn’t been around for years — was my six-year-old son’s drawing of the solar system as if he were standing on Pluto, looking in toward the sun. Even that was just a new take on a picture that’s been around for a long, long time.

True originality –a brand new idea — is hard to come by, but that’s okay. It rarely works in business. True originality is expensive and rarely sells. As good as I am with ideas I’ve learned if I find one that has been done before, tha it’s because of one of three reasons. Read more

The Show Is in the Comments

Filed Under Branding, Comments, Marketing, Strategy, Successful Blog | 4 Comments

Blogging Is Conversation

I’ve heard it said before that the internet has changed the world of news. That the news used to end when it was put into print, now that’s when the news begins. HART said it first, Half the show is inthe comments. Sometimes it’s more than half. Yesterday, 37signals published a small piece by guest poster Ryan Carson teaching bloggers how to use digg.com to market their articles.

The current 46 comments that follow discuss the pros and cons of self-promotion using digg.com and in some ways overpower the original article. It’s also a great demonstration of how a blogger deals with mixed reviews of a posting.

You can access the whole thing by clicking the title shot below.

One truth about blogging is that you can never know for sure where a post might take you.

Thank Ryan for the well-written post that started a fine discussion — one that we should all think through from every angle.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Writing– The 2 PowerQuestions

Filed Under Strategy, Successful Blog, Tips, Writing | 6 Comments

The Second Question

When I start with that blank page, whether I think about it or I stare into space, two questions are waiting in white letters on the white space. I have to make myself see them and answer them before I will ever be able to write. The questions are basic and always the same.

What will your topic be?

and

What do you want to say about it?

If I can answer those two questions, the piece pretty much writes itself.

It really is as simple as that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Net Neutrality: Red Bank TV

Filed Under Business Life, Strategy, Successful Blog, Trends | 2 Comments

Who Says Blogs Aren’t Useful?

Tom has lived in Red Bank, New Jersey, since he bought a home there six years ago. He’s not an activist. In fact, he says he has no political affiliation at all. Tom’s just a guy like us, who works with and uses technology. He also cares about negotiations between the town of Red Bank, New Jersey, and Verizon Communications.

So he made a blog.

Why Tom Made the Blog

Tom made the Red Bank TV Blog because he believes that as part of the cable franchise agreement with the town of Red Bank, Verizon Communications should make three promises:

Promise to provide A la carte cable service to Red Bank residents
Promise not to object to a Red Bank Municipal WiFi network
Promise to keep the internet a level playing field by upholding the tenets of Net Neutrality

Tom’s blog got my attention. I bet it got Verizon’s attention too. I hope this article helps it get the attention of Doc Searls, Jeff Pulver, Om Malik, and many others who want to know what local folks are doing. Tom’s blog is a great example of someone following through on what he believes.

Blogs used well are transparent to the purpose they are used for. No one will be wrapping fish in Tom’s blog tomorrow, or the next day for that matter. There’s so much to talk about in what Tom is doing.

I bet if you have a question about how it’s going, Tom will see it and answer it here.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Leaking with a Reason

Filed Under Community, Links, Strategy, Successful Blog | 12 Comments

Here are Leaks for Lea with a reason . . . visit these stress-free vacation spots

Some truly decadent fractal art to rest the eyes on and cool sci-fi words to go with it.
An extraordinary, happy place to get away from the workaday world.

and

this post I still remember reading seven months ago, and I still think it’s fun.

HA! Now doesn’t that feel better — stress-free leaks with a reason to take a peek.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Helping Clients Get Past Blogaphobia

Filed Under Branding, Customer Think, Marketing, Strategy, Successful Blog | 24 Comments

Enthusiasm Can Kill

Just today I wrote an email to a potential client I met with two weeks ago. In it I wrote this phrase I know my enthusiasm can be huge. We’d gotten into a conversation about blogs and how they were changing the world.

I wish that I had read the article I found exploring later that afternoon. It’s a piece by Anil Dash at Six Apart News called How to keep blogs from scaring the hell out of people. It’s just packed with truths. Read more

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Successful Blog

You're Only a Stranger Once

Learn Everything

Good morning, Class. Find the next trend. Oh yes, 97.9% of you wll fail this test.

Smoke and Mirrors

Joining the Mainstream Are We?

Your job — should you decide to keep working here — is to figure out what our customers want NEXT.

Trendspotters

Originality

Originality Versus Spectacular

Blogging Is Conversation

The Second Question

Who Says Blogs Aren’t Useful?

Why Tom Made the Blog

Enthusiasm Can Kill

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Good morning, Class.
Find the next trend. Oh yes, 97.9% of you wll fail this test.