Month: February 2009
-
Ian Jindal on retailing
Ian Jindal was on top form at the Sense Loft where he presented some interesting ideas about the future of retail. I know Ian from my work with Econsultancy. Ian Jindal is also the editor of Internet Retailing and consults for the great and the good of the retail sector. Some of the observations about…
-
The Writing On The Wall China And The West In The 21st Century by Will Hutton
Before we get into The Writing On The Wall I thought it would be best to talk about how I got into reading books like this. I didn’t start reading economics for fun until I read Will Hutton’s The State We’re In when I was in college. I was interested to find out what Hutton…
-
Cyprus notes
I spoke earlier this week at an eTourism Forum in Cyprus. It was my first time on the island. It is an interesting mix of contrasts: The main language is Greek, but everyone speaks English Everyone drives on the leftside of the road and the even the road signs look British The island has a…
-
Spook Country by William Gibson
I read Gibson’s seminal cyberpunk works a decade ago and felt it was time to visit Gibson’s more recent work. I am not reading them in order, just as they come off the shelf. Spook Country is set in a world similar to the one that we know, and closer in time to now, than…
-
Pattern Recognition
William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition moves his stories from a fantastical future to a world at the bleeding edge of today. A curious advertising company seeks to find out more about a series of video clips that have developed a cult following. The story evokes viral marketing similar to the complex story lines of games like…
-
Jet lag alarm clock
Great design comes from problems, the jet lag alarm clock solved a problem for me. One of the things I most dislike about staying in a new hotel room is confronting the alarm clock by the bed and trying to work out how to set it. I usually manage to do this, but not without…
-
Authority beats leadership
I had been thinking about authority versus thought leadership for a while and my interest in it got reignited over lunch with Wadds just before Christmas. We were discussing the pros and cons of sharing expertise on a blog or other social media, particularly when it comes to marketing and marketing communications disciplines. On the…
-
Industrial Action
The recession has brought industrial action that we haven’t seen since the 1970s as union members blame foreign workers for taking British jobs. The flashpoint has been at Lindsey refinery operated by Total. Lindsey sits at the mouth of the Humber river. The inciting incident involved an Italian subcontractor doing maintenance on the refinery who…
-
Wired Style Guide
I was looking through my first edition copy of Wired Style guide – Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age edited by Constance Hale and it struck me that many of the sections in the book were also maxims for bloggers and those involved in social media. Hale isn’t a technologist or a staffer…