Perishable electronic gadgets

De Morgen ran an article on the fact that gadgets seem to have a shorter and shorter life cycle. Moore's law combined with a general tendency to replace stuff faster and easier?

Read all about it (in Dutch):
Elektronische gadgets steeds sneller uitgespeeld

Gadget Tsunami?

Did you get flooded by gadgets this Christmas? Or did you take the recent shopping time to spend your savings on an iPod accessories, a new phone and a set of games for your PSP? I can tell you, I did :-)

While discussing gadgets over Christmas dinner we found that every succesfull electronic gadget is based a tangible consumer benefit (no real surprise here). However, most of the time this benefit is not the genuine invention. Take 'video' (in the sense of moving images) as an example. The brother "Lumière" may have invented how to reproduce moving images, but TV, VCR, DVD players, TIVO, iPod video or the PSP re-use this invention with a new consumer benefit in the distribution or experience:
- TV: watch moving images in your living room
- VCR/DVD: watch TV on demand (kind of)
- TIVO: real on demand watching, including time-shifting
- iPod/PSP: location shifting (watch basically video anywhere)

So, wanna get rich? Don't try to invent new stuff but take something existing and improve it somehow. Look at Microsoft ...!

Contemporary art & advertising

Visited the museum of contemporary art this weekend. I was together with Don Scales (CEO of Agency.com) and in the Sergej Bratkov exhibition we found this great work that would fit perfectly in the lobbby of a major advertising agency ...
Symbolic for the future of traditional advertising?

"Ter Zake" on Podcasting, look out for the green guy :-)

"Ter Zake", a daily TV news magazine in Belgium, did an item on Podcasting. Look for the guy in flashy green, that's me.

Missed it? Check out VRTnieuws.net:
"Bert in "Ter Zake" op Canvas over Podcasting"

Joseph & Steve on Across the sound

The "Across the sound" podcast is one of those podcasts I keep synchronised on my iPod. A bit long sometimes, but always full of interresting ideas and opinions. The latest show ("N° 12") is a special issue based almost entirely on listener feedback, which makes it into a reflection of what the community around this podcast thinks. THAT's a great concept!

By the way, the music in my audio feedback that Joseph & Steve like so much is obviously from the podsafe music network:
Girl fight by BMs Beds and Bumpers

Find out more:
"Across the sound" podcast on new marketing and pr by Steve & Joseph
"Jaffe Juice" blog on new marketing by Joseph Jaffe (also a podcast there)
"Micro pursuasion" blog on PR by Steve Rubel

Companies Blogging

Should all companies start their own blogs just because? Don't think so! Blogs offer great opportunities for new marketing, or rather, new PR. But as always one must be clear on the objectives before starting to communicate.

Obviously you need to have something to talk about. It could be the life in the office if you have enough entertaining people around, a high profile company may use it to share and clarify strategic choices or you could share some know-how with the world.

The big difference with old school marketing however is that blogs are not fully controlable. In big organisations different people in different departments will spread their vision from their point of view, that's the nature of blogging. And a real blog has the possibility to comment on blog posts turned on. So your respondents will build your image with you.

Solution: Make sure you have your strategy and objectives figured out, and communicate them correctly and consistently, especially internally. In fact, just get your act together as a business and you won't get into trouble.


PS
It's probably a good idea to have the legal department look at the terms & conditions of your blogs ... you never know :-)

Related reading (in Dutch):
Aandacht voor bloggende bedrijven in De Morgen