Seth Godin's "Flipping the Funnel" eBook

Seth Godin had a post today that featured his new eBook, Flipping the Funnel. This 18 page book attempts to explain how Seth believes some of the new Web 2.0 tools (flickr, de.licio.us, squidoo and others) combine with some of the concepts he has written about before, including ideaviruses and the Purple Cow.

While I think that Seth's focus is, as it has been recently, too much on technology, his concepts are (as usual) spot on. He writes in this new eBook that firms must:

"Turn strangers into friends.
Turn friends into customers.
And then... do the most important job:
Turn your customers into salespeople."

NY is a Small Town

A small world story from New York:

I was up at PS/MS 95 in the Bronx this morning working on a mural with students as part of the kasina Foundation's efforts. On the way back, Steven and I stopped at Ideal Cheese on the Upper East Side (the city's best cheese shop) to pick up some snacks.

While there, Emeril Lagasse came in with two friends to buy a large amount of cheese, partially for a dinner this evening that he is doing with Mario Batali (Emeril is making the risotto). We halfheartedly tried to get an invite, and then went on our way with our cheese. Fast-forward 30 minutes later, and after dropping Steven and his son off, I was walking home from the garage when who should stop at the corner of 8th Street and Broadway but Mario Batali (on his lime green Vespa and wearing shorts, as always). I let him know that Emeril had picked up some great cheeses and that he was in for some great risotto - Mario laughed, said he was looking forward to it, and sped off. It wasn't my best celebrity interaction (most of you know my Meg Ryan story), but it did make me realize how small New York can feel sometimes.

Businesses Must Learn to Let Go

BusinessWeek had a good article that spoke about the need for companies to focus on "core expertise and collaborating with partners in innovative ways." My clients (asset management firms), as well as every other company, can certainly learn from the lessons of (1) staying focused, (2) looking to outsiders for help, (3) thinking ahead, and (4) forming the right relationships.

Web Users Judge Sites in the Blink of an Eye

This story from Nature (subscription required) got picked up in a lot of publications, but for good reason. Canadian researcher Gitte Lindgaard of Carleton University found that visitors to a Web page can make up their minds about the quality of the page within just 50 milliseconds. The article states that: "We all know that first impressions count, but this study shows that the brain can make flash judgments almost as fast as the eye can take in the information." This is why it is so important for firms to consider the image they want to convey. Users immediately make a judgment about a site (and therefore a company) - is this a site/company that is "all business," one that is fun, one that is easy to do business with, one that is accessible, etc...

Creativity Works

Speaking of new marketing techniques (see the post below), The Washington Post reports on Alex Tew's million dollar idea, the Million Dollar Homepage. Alex's idea, charging per pixel for ads on his Web site, has garnered him over a $1,000,000, and generated lots of copycats.

According to the Washington Post, "More than 1,000 copycat homepages have cropped up hoping to duplicate his success -- from the Zero Dollar Homepage, which gives pixel blocks away and tries to make money from banner ads, to "The Most Expensive Pixels on the Internet" that sells space for $1,000 per pixel. Twists and oddities also abound: The Million Pixel Gallery tries to sell art and advertising from galleries and museums, the Cover Up Osama Bin Laden site sells pixel blocks to obliterate Osama's face from the screen, and the Million Booby Homepage, well, appears to still be in the training-bra stage of development."

What these copycats are missing, however, is the spontaneity and originality of Alex's idea. I see this all the time with my clients, who wait for someone else to push the envelope and then blandly try to follow in their footsteps.

As Alex says, "The lesson is that consumers are willing to go to good ideas, things that are unique, things that are novel. Rather than copy each other, spend time thinking up new things. . . . Creativity works."

Live Action Punch-Out

At kasina, we talk a lot with our clients about modern marketing theories, such as viral marketing. One of the most viral videos I have come across (at least for those of us that wasted many an hour in college playing Mike Tyson's Punch Out on the NES) is this video of some kids doing a live action version perfectly matching the game (even with a live performance of the music). If you know the game, you'll love it.

Surviving Workers from Windows on the World Open Restaurant

Newsday reports that some of the workers from Windows on the World (the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center) are opening a new restaurant in my neighborhood. Colors, a 120-seat dining spot at 417 Lafayette St. (212-777-8443), will fully open to the public next week. The history of the workers and the proximity would be enough for me to want to check the place out (and encourage you to do the same), but on top of that, they have a unique structure where the employees are the owners. Let's hope the food is good, because I'd like to see them succeed.

Letterman to O'Reilly: 60% of What You Say is Crap

David Letterman, uncharacteristically, went after Bill O'Reilly on his show this week, saying that "I’m not smart enough to debate you point to point on this, but I have the feeling, I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap." Hammer of Truth has text excerpts or you can watch a video to get the full sense of the enjoyable and unexpected interaction.

Attention Bay Area Readers

A good friend lost two puppies recently in the Bay Area. If you live anywhere near the El Cerrito Plaza, or if you know anyone that does, please take a look at her posting on Craigslist. They are desperate for any help.

Update: Amazingly, the dogs have been found safe and sound.

Really Stressful Syndication

François Joseph de Kermadec (which is a great name if you ask me) has a post at macdevcenter.com with his theory on why RSS adoption is so low. He writes that "the root of the issue is not to be found in how the technology is presented but in the technology itself." He feels that "RSS puts constant pressure on us" and that most people want to be able to "entertain the obviously false notion that [they are] on top of [their] material." While it is true that ignoring information is easier than processing it, I feel that RSS is an amazing tool to help people stay up-to-date with the huge volume of info out there - I think that the obstacle is that most people still don't have any clue what it is or how to use it.

Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint

I've been reading up a fair bit on presentation techniques recently. There are a ton of resources out there, such as Presentation Zen, with tips and techniques. I have come to the conclusion that most of my presentations use too much text and too many slides (and I'd bet that the same is true of your presentations). I am setting a goal for myself to improve my presentations in 2006. While I'm not sure how feasible this is in all situations, I was intrigued by Guy Kawasaki's "10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint," which he defines as the fact that "a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points" - especially "for any presentation to reach agreement: for example, raising capital, making a sale, forming a partnership, etc."

Saturn Loves Even Competitors' Customers

metacool points to a post with an amazing story about Saturn (the car company). He raises the question that "if your brand is the sum total of all the things you do in the world, then how far would you go to live up to the expectations of people in that world? Would you do something like this?"

Trade Your Used CDs for a New iPod

Millennium, a CD store in Charleston, SC, is offering a free iPod in exchange for used (but good-condition) CDs. They'll take the discs by mail, so you don't need to get to South Carolina.

45 CDs = 512 MB iPod Shuffle
65 CDs = 1 GB iPod Shuffle
85 CDs = 2 GB iPod Nano
110 CDs = 4 GB Nano
130 CDs = 30 GB iPod
175 CDs = 60 GB iPod

Coldplay's New CD has Rules

Boing Boing reports that Coldplay's new CD comes with a list of rules, including "This CD can't be burnt onto a CD or hard disc, nor can it be converted to an MP3" and the fact that the CD may not play in DVD players, car stereos, portable players, game players, all PCs and Macintosh PCs. Of course, users don't know about this until after they have purchased the product. I think that this is an amazingly short-sighted step by the music label, limiting customers from using the product in the way that they want to. It may be an obvious statement, but I think that all of us need to make sure that we create products that are easy for our customers to use. This is something that I consistenly see firms ignoring - you need to understand how a customer would ideally intereact with you and then create a profitable way to meet that desired customer experience.