Some photos of a beautiful sunset

January 4, 2009

Here are three photos that I took on my way home from upstate NY just a few hours ago. Sadly, I was unable to capture what I thought were the most breathtaking scenes. There was just no place to stop my car on the side of the highway. But I saw what I saw and […]

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Preying on impulses

December 31, 2008

Marketers spend quite a bit of time thinking about how to encourage impulse buying. In a sense, trying to encourage impulse buying is a form of gravity fighting. You’re trying to get people to do something that they didn’t really want to do. [See my earlier posts on the folly of gravity fighting. http://adam-1001words.blogspot.com/2008/06/gravity-usually-wins.html http://adam-1001words.blogspot.com/2008/12/innovation-rule-5-dont-fight-gravity.html] […]

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Sales without selling at Nordstrom

December 30, 2008

Below is a card I received from a shoe salesman that sold me one or more pairs of shoes at Nordstrom several months ago. For me, it is a perfect example of how I like to be sold to. Fred knows he’s trying to sell. I know Fred’s trying to sell. Fred knows that I […]

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A "consume to live" economy

December 29, 2008

Imagine a continuum. There. Isn’t that fun? No, wait, there’s more. Imagine a continuum that has on its left a “live to consume” economy and on its right a “consume to live” economy. What do I mean by those phrases? Well, a “live to consume” economy is one where people’s thoughts and activities are organized […]

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Calcified relationships are useless

December 27, 2008

I recently wrote about leaving T-Mobile for AT&T. I did it largely because I want to get an iPhone, although my employer’s significant discount with AT&T definitely helped. But I’ve been thinking about why I left T-Mobile and what they could have done to keep me. As I wrote in my last post on this […]

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Restaurant 2.0?

December 24, 2008

I’ve been getting a good education over the past year from people, like the indomitable Jer979, who are considerably more internet savvy than I. I understand that the pace of life on the internet is fast. Very fast. I don’t want to be the one to sit astride the internet shouting stop. [And not just […]

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Innovation and mediocre sex

December 23, 2008

I’m seeing a lot of misguided application of innovation techniques. The biggest problem I’m seeing is that people are following process and using techniques but without the right attitude and behaviors. Without the soul. And the soul, I’m afraid, is the secret sauce. That’s what really gets you to new and different ideas. One way […]

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Innovation or ideation?

December 23, 2008

One of the problems with encouraging innovation is that people learn to love the hammer so much that in addition to using it on nails, they start using it on screws, kitchen appliances, the air… Heck, sometimes they use it on each other. It’s crazy! Now I love me a bit of wild fun as […]

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Kudos to T-Mobile

December 22, 2008

I’ve been a T-Mobile customer for 7 years. I had 3 phone lines so I was a pretty good customer. But I’ve decided to switch to AT&T. I’d really like to get an iPhone. Plus, I get a hefty discount because my employer has a nice arrangement with AT&T. I ported two of my phone […]

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Innovation and the human soul

December 20, 2008

Below is a section of a letter I recently sent to friends. I think too much time is spent on trying to “manage” innovation and not enough on trying to get out of the way so that the human soul can do what it does best. “Emerson wrote that “Society never advances. It recedes as […]

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