Thursday August 03, 2006

Don't miss the Dave Norton experience

I had a chance to see Dave Norton of Stone Mantel present at last year's ridiculously insightful Experience Architecture Forum at Harvard and have had the chance to follow up with him since. He has a great take on what it means for brands to communicate by experience-making in ways that are both relevant and resonant.

Well now, here's your chance to learn more: Dave's giving a two-day seminar through the DMI: Strategies for Designing Meaningful Brand Experiences. The dates: September 8-9 in NY; October 19-20 in L.A.

By all means, highly recommended. And by the way, if you're anywhere near Boston, drop in on Greg Beck and the EA @ Harvard TODAY or tomorrow if you can to say hello and meet the architects behind today's (and tomorrow's) most compelling physical experiences.

( Aug 03 2006, 12:05:45 PM PDT ) Permalink

Sonic branding, the mashup version

When I introduce the concept of "audio branding" to people unfamiliar with it, one of the easiest ways to talk about it is in terms we're already familiar with -- you know the Intel chimes, the Yahoo! logo, and you want to teach the world to sing. At its simplest, purest form, it's a way of creating sounds that suit the brand for strong identity in an otherwise overbanded marketplace.

Alternatively, it's just as easy to demonstrate the role of sound in our lives when you talk about sounds that clearly don't fit a brand: imagine, for instance, a Rocky soundtrack written by Barry Manilow. or Tony the Tiger that featured the voice of Clara Barton (Where's the Beef!)? Or a Harley Davidson that zipped down the street with the sound of an electric scooter. The cache that we associate with these brands would be about as flat as Floyd Landis' cycling future.

Fortunately, someone's taken the time to do some real-world subverting for us. No, I'm not talking about your call-center -- which I guarantee is losing you customers right now -- but something a bit easier to laugh at: music for Gap commercials that didn't make the cut. Happy lunch-hour clicking.

(As for that call-center your company uses: go ahead, I challenge you to give it a ring and sit through it like a real prospect or existing customer would. Does the system -- decision-tree, voices, music -- work for you or against you? Are you gaining brandshare, customer loyalty and revenue? Or losing it? If the answer is the latter, don't worry, most of your competitors probably haven't caught onto their problems, either. But they will soon...)

( Aug 03 2006, 11:38:01 AM PDT ) Permalink

Speaking of Great Ideas...

Okay, so Marc and Bruce (see entry below) had a great idea and ran with it. Which got me thinking about something I came across recently that's been on my mind in the last few weeks since I've read it: success is rarely built on a great idea, but rather on a pretty good idea exedcuted very well.

In fact, The Great Idea is a big fat myth, says Ramit Sethi:

The myth of The Great Idea is a dangerous one. It makes you constantly search and search for something that you'll probably never find. My friends, for example, are still searching, and it's two years later. How many of you know an older person (maybe a parent?) who is always tinkering and muttering about the Great Idea he wants to find?

Follow that link for some practical ideas on how to execute. And get to work on something simple.

( Aug 03 2006, 11:16:12 AM PDT ) Permalink

Solar wi-fi a reality?

Sun employees -- current and former -- are moving forward with a plan to make solar wi-fi a reality in places where it's needed most. Seed financing by the One Laptop Per Child Initiative.

Kudos to Marc Pomerleau and Bruce Baikie for choosing a damn hairy audacious goal in ways that certainly make the rest of us (okay, me) jealous.

( Aug 03 2006, 11:07:34 AM PDT ) Permalink