Blue Police Balloons - fun Christmas campaign

Imagine you pop out to the shops, go to work, etc and upon returning to your home you find a blue balloon in the house (shock), with a messages from the police attached. (curious)

Well, UK police is doing just that: putting balloons and messages in people's unsecured property such as homes, sheds, and cars. If they can get in, they leave a warning behind.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10530962/Police-leave-balloons-in-unlocked-homes-in-bid-to-make-people-lock-their-doors.html

Now all you need is an opportunistic burglar (and aren't they all are), to follow in the police's footsteps and look for the balloon. Genius.

Still, brilliant initiative from the South Cambridgeshire police force. Modern, fun, and inventive. It's also getting some PR, which can't hurt. Good positioning, positive message, great brand campaign. Way to go.

Recognise the moment you need to capture

Mmmm - Nicholas Bate

Read it daily. For clarity, inspiration and drive.

The worst CEOs of 2013 - bbc

As the year's end is inching closer, it's time for some rankings and lists to reflect on the year that was.

BBC compiled a list of the worst CEO's. The qualifying questions were:
- Did the CEO’s company suffer,
- Was the CEO culpable,
- And finally, did the CEO’s actions, or inactions, provide evidence of a significant breach in corporate governance or strategic leadership?

And the list goes... 5) Steve Ballmer, 4) Eddie Lampert, 3) Thorsten Heins, 2) Ron Johnson, and topping the list is the infamous Brazilian, Eike Batista, who lost almost his entire fortune during the last twelve months.

Great reading: BBC - Capital - The worst CEOs of 2013

The end of Apple as we know it? by BBC - Capital

"The iPad was also a revolutionary product. It even started a new product category that customers didn’t know existed. A company that breaks the rules, changes the world, and does it all with panache and coolness is a tough act to beat.

That is, until it starts cutting prices."

More at The end of Apple as we know it?

HBR: How an Auction Can Identify Your Best Talent

Great article on how an open marketplace can set prices and generate innovation.

http://lnkd.in/bfuRKMW

I have worked at many different organisations, and saw that some companies are more agile than others. I Redefining/ creating departmental purpose and some healthy competition, could energise teams.

This is Sydney, too

Santa & +33C. This is Sydney, too.

This is Sydney, too

Multicultural. This is Sydney, too.

Quote of the day

'With autonomy comes accountability.'

Matt Hennessy, Head of Distribution Sales, BlueScope

Quote of the day

source: http://peterbaeklund.com/

Monday Morning chess trivia

Although I'm not a strong player (and weaker still), I love chess. I thought this little piece of trivia was a nice thought starter for the week:

the knight can visit each square exactly once. Fascinating!

Source; chess.com

Steel Industry - here I come

After about nine years in media I thought I'd try something a little different during 9-5. It's early days but yesterday I already had the opportunity to tour the heart of the operation of my new employer. Enter BlueScope Steel Mill at Port Kembla... wow

Here is a photo from Bloomberg, and some more from my instagram collection. Enjoy!

source: Steel Industry Photos - Bloomberg

Molten iron in a Turbo ladle

source

source

source

Motivation

I saw a great youtube video on how to heal cancer and it prompted me to revisit an age old wisdom about motivation.

Basically, unhealthy living and eating is a slow poison which more often than not doesn't end well. I doubt that anyone lives to die, and in fact to die a slow and painful death. But not everyone is wise enough to foresee cause and effect.

There are two things that motivate us:
1) to gain pleasure, and
2) to avoid pain.

We tend to favour the second point more. Therefore choose to avoid pain over gaining pleasure. The problem is that not everyone can see that with slow processes what seems pleasurable today may contribute to pain on the long run.

Marketing's new role in the digital age

As marketing becomes more and more measurable and zeros in on ROI, retargeting (driving increased sales) is an excellent (as well as measurable and transparent) platform, among others, to demonstrate how marketing is not only about glossy images of brand building, but in fact about wealth creation for an organisation.

You can do anything, but you can't do everything

A month without a post. There is always a reason. I learned a new skill that I've been wanting to learn for circa 25 years. I'm delighted to report that I've been knitting almost every evening in July.

First it took half an hour for a row of fifty stitches, now it takes less than 3 minutes (always the achiever). The initial enthusiasm will certainly settle into something less obsessive soon, but it's years worth of hunger that needs satisfying first.

You can do anything. Almost anything. But something has got to give.

It's winter in Sydney. Blog parked for a little while, knitting is on.

Life's challenges

Everybody has challenges in life; at work, at home and everywhere in between. By solving problems, we get stronger and wiser.

But there are people who when presented with issues, completely change direction and choose not to face them. Those refusing to do so, or expect others to solve these for them, don't learn but stagnate. And they find they face the same problems over and over again and perhaps even make the same mistakes again.

It's of course not quite this black & white. Some situations are easier to solve than others, but if you can celebrate the fact that there is always something to learn, challenges will become your friends.

A little bit of kindness - goes a long way

Came to the doctor's this morning with flu symptoms. Fever, body ache, lethargy - you know the rest.

It's a busy surgery, with 8-10 docs and I'm only a semi-regular; if there is such.

This morning I got a smile and was greeted with my own name. As miserable as I felt I couldn't help but return the smile and it stuck with me for moments afterwards. Suddenly I felt a lot better.

Such a small thing, calling people their name and letting off a smile, yet it goes such a long way.

When would you say your chances are good at winning?

'New elections are coming up in a few months [in Goslar, Germany which became famous of recent by turning off streetlights after midnight in order to save money]. For financial reasons, Goslar will be consolidated with the neighboring town of Vienenburg. Junk [the incumbent Mayor] plans to run for mayor again. 

His chances are good -- so good, in fact, that the opposition has opted to not even field a candidate.'

Now those are good odds. Clearly.


A curious article brought to my attention by Michael Wade of Execupundit. More at German Communities Forced to Find Creative Ways to Reduce Debt - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Blogging is (still) on the rise

Rand Fishkin has been monitoring the growth of web marketing fields by looking at five different sources including Google Keyword Trends, LinkedIn, Simply Hired, etc.

Compared to May 2012, Blogging (or blog/ bloggers) presented one of the biggest surprises:

'I would have guessed that blogging was a more mature field and that we wouldn't see 3x growth between early 2012 and today.'

Either there are more blogs around, or people are more open about disclosing these on their public profiles and resumes. Or perhaps, a bit of both.

More at The Growth of Web Marketing Fields - Rand's Blog.

Taking the mickey out of North West

One would think that after apple, no sorry Apple, Sunday, Harper 7 - just to name a few - celeb baby naming couldn't (really couldn't possibly) get any worse. I was wrong.

Enter North West. And wonder no longer, why the web has erupted in jokes, including this one:

More at: Kim Kardashian, Kanye West's baby name North West inspires jokes, spoof Twitter handles - NY Daily News

Google Trends - Hot Searches Visualised

If for nothing else but to get a vague sense of the sheer volume of searches that are occurring every second, check out Google's visualisation. Mesmerising for a second or two...

Google Trends - Hot Searches

NB. Nigella Lawson is a rather popular search term at the moment. Most unfortunately this time people aren't searching for her recipes, rather for details on how the domestic violence story unfolds between her, and her husband, Charles Saatchi...

Quote of the day

"Music may be psychiatry's greatest competitor. "

By Michael Wade of Execupundit.com

My Accessories This Morning

The Most Important First Step in a Sales Process

The best client meetings I have ever had always started with a closed laptop and and an open notebook with pen in hand, ready to take notes. 'So tell me a bit about your company and your objectives with xyz (related to discussion). I know we briefly touched on this on the phone, and I also researched your website, but it would be great to recap.'

And that helps to identify what Mark Suster coined  the most important first step in a sales process, or as he coined it 'pain'. Or in other literature often called as Need, or Client's Need.

"It’s a reminder that unless your prospect has a need to solve a problem they are not going to buy a product. Customers sometimes buy things spontaneously without thinking through what their actual need is. But often there is an underlying reason for a purchase even if the buyer doesn’t bring it to the surface." (Suster)

And if you can identify that, you are more likely to have a successful meeting outcome - for both sides of the table.

More at The Most Important First Step in a Sales Process | LinkedIn

A milestone - Seth's Blog

Seth Godin, author & marketing guru, on the 5000th blog post.

"My biggest surprise? That more people aren't doing this. Not just every college professor (particularly those in the humanities and business), but everyone hoping to shape opinions or spread ideas. Entrepreneurs. Senior VPs. People who work in non-profits. Frustrated poets and unknown musicians... Don't do it because it's your job, do it because you can."

More at Seth's Blog

Something is really wrong with this: Boston parking space sold - $560,000

Boston parking space sold - $560,000

Two adjacent parking spots in Boston are auctioned for more than half a million dollars, almost double the average price of a home in the region.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22910579

#thepantoneproject

Any of us who ever got a DSLR knows the initial urge as you take the beautiful charcoal black, deliciously heavy equipment into your hand, that you must, you really must become a pro. It subsequently fades for most, but in those first few days, weeks, or perhaps months we are all on the lookout for a project that could keep us engaged and motivated.

Now here is a clever idea from Chicago based photographer, Paul Octavious. This one is iPhone based, but still, a great project to get you going.

Get the 100 pack Pantone Postcard set, match the colours with that of the background, and start snapping.
Here is how the pro Octavious does it:

Would you be surprised to learn that it has caught on? Here is how others have fared:

Will you try it?

Uninvited hairy passenger

Admittedly this happened a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn't resist sharing it.

My uninvited hair passenger:

Looking my uninvited hairy passenger in the 'eye'...

Courtesy of Bondi Junction, Sydney, Australia.

7 steps to a more meaningful you

Nicholas Bate: Deeper 7

#RedTape Tower, Obamacare Regulations

A picture is worth a thousand words...
See it here: Cultural Offering.com: Stealth exchanges

China, the next Supercomputing Superpower?

I can't help but applaud China's decisions of pushing R&D and investing into technology. Sure they have a long list of issues to deal with on their soil, but this leap is admirable.

China’s Tihane-2, the world’s top supercomputer. Photo: Jack Dongarra

"The most important thing about this system is that it not only has a top performance, it also has a substantial investment in technology,” says Dongarra, a computer science professor with the University of Tennessee.

That matters a lot. Supercomputers are the test bed for many of the computing advances that we now see in everything, from the multicore processors in Apple’s iPhone to the futuristic networking technologies in Google’s data centers.

It wasn’t supposed to get this close. Five years ago, the U.S. was on track to build a supercomputer on par with the Tihane-2. The plan is still to someday build these “exascale systems” — machines that are 30 times as powerful as Tihane-2 — but by 2010 the recession intervened and funding never materialized, says Horst Simon, Deputy Laboratory Director at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “At the same time that the Chinese have made this big step forward, the American investment is stagnating,” he says.

More at: China Could Supplant U.S. as the Supercomputing Superpower | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com

Leadership - what not to do

A thorough list of what not to do:

1. Applying a lower standard to yourself than to your followers.
2. Not doing what you say you will do.
3. Leading from behind.
4. Knocking down straw men.
5. Relying on speeches instead of actions.

more at Execupundit.com: 50 Leadership Techniques That Don't Work

Sydney sunset

It's all about the journey (when you write)

'Hug the wastebasket and enjoy the process.'

Execupundit on writing and re-writing

Which face are you?

Sunday Morning funny from Cultural Offering:

Cultural Offering.com: Ask your doctor. . .

Today is the day!

Read this first. Than get up and do whatever you need to do today!

Jagged Thoughts for Jagged Times: 35 - Nicholas Bate:

Retargeting works - Twitter is opening up its inventory

At first we sold digital advertisements at a fixed CMP (Cost Per Thousand) rate. Than as more companies developed ecommerce platforms, we all started looking at clicks/ click through rates (CTR) and conversions.

Under pressure from marketers to drive campaign efficiency higher, we got smarter and applied technology to narrow in on the clients' target market. By location (IP address), time, database information (such as email client logins) and more recently by demonstrated behaviour.

Enter retargeting. We started serving ads with products and services that people have just researched and in-market for. We blatantly re-messaged them and, surprise surprise, people noticed it. Outrage ensued. Battles over privacy meant regulation (in some countries) over cookie usage, alerts and messaging.

The storm (more or less) settled and Facebook allowed retargeting about a year ago. Now, a little over three years since they opened advertising up for the first time, and Twitter is prepping an online ad exchange to rival Facebook's. Twitter Exchange, 'TWX' or thereabout. (Abbreviation is speculation only!)

Why? Because retargeting works. And it works extremely well in driving conversions.

Twitter, great plans!

And Twitter- do allow dynamically served creative messaging (opposed to static ones, like those currently on Facebook). That's one way to ensure a stronger (>200%) CTR, as well as better conversion rates. And Twitter, that right there is what it's all about.

BBC News: Dutch police may get hacking powers

I support the police force's anti terrorism and anti child pornography efforts, this proposed bill sounds way too dictatorial.

'The Dutch government has announced plans to give police much greater powers to fight cybercrime including the right to hack computers abroad.'

'Under a new bill, investigators would be able to hack into computers, install spyware, read emails and destroy files.'

more at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22384145

Very clever resume from Gary Le Masson

You may recall Alec Brownstein, a NY based creative person buying Google PPC ads for the names of a handful of creative directors in 2010, getting a few interviews, and two job offers as a result.

Well here is another CV linked to Google that's going viral at the moment and worth a look because it's the first of its kind and it's neatly executed.

Gary Le Masson | Google Resume - CV Google:

Well done, Gary.

Could virtual cash replace money?

I'm pro technology but the further we go from the gold standard, the more sceptical I get...

Enjoy the mountains

with Nicholas Bate, master of (among other things) photography.

Google search appears to be down...

Even if it's only on my PC, I can't even begin to tell you just how unsettling the following screen message made me feel. I had think for a second, than somewhat reluctantly I typed in bing.com, searched, and after checking out the results I silently acknowledged that yes, google better work again. And fast.

This webpage is not available

The webpage at https://www.google.com.au/ might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.

Time and how we spend it

“How we spend our time says so much more about who we are than does how we spend our money.”
(Cassie Mogilner)

More at Kissmetrics: 5 Psychological Studies on Pricing.

Competition

They saw the small birds do it day in, day out, and they had enough.
Had to try it for themselves...

Two large (!) Australian White Ibis birds balancing (!!) up on the wire in the morning hours.

Pantone Colour of the Year 2013

Love green. Absolutely adore emerald.