Marketing

A Research Bonanza

Tuesday, April 8, 2008 9:18 AM (permalink)

Loads of data being presented over the next two weeks. First, if you are interested in the changing digital platforms for audio, I am co-presenting the 2008 edition of The Infinite Dial: Radio's Digital Future with Pierre Bouvard, the President of Sales and Marketing for Arbitron. The webinar is free and you can sign up here. So far we have over 1200 people signed up, so the "Q&A" should be a hoot.

Next, a subject close to my heart--the state of web design for radio stations and other Internet audio players. I will be giving a short (but punchy!) talk at the Radio And Internet Newsletter (RAIN) Las Vegas Summit. If you are going to be in Vegas for the NAB, do drop in (sign up at the RAIN site). It should be a great day, keynoted by Joe Kennedy and Tom Conrad from Pandora.

For you podcasting aficionados, I have some great new data to premiere as part of the Association for Downloadable Media's forum at ad:tech in San Francisco. This forum, called "Get The Download", will feature some great presentations from the board and members of the ADM and will feature success stories, case studies, and of course a big ole' bucket of Edison numbers at 9 AM (what better way to wake up?").

Finally, if you can't make it to SF next week, I will be presenting a much longer version of our new Podcasting data at Podcamp NYC on April 25, after which I will have the whole report online. Lots of news, stats and insight on the current state of podcast consumption coming up, so I hope you can check it out!

I Don't Normally Drink Folgers...

Monday, October 23, 2006 8:32 PM (permalink)

But I think I am going to have to start. Good god, this is brilliant.

Big Doings at Edison

Saturday, June 24, 2006 9:36 PM (permalink)

After several weeks of hard work, and with the excellent design assistance of multi-talented Mike Rundle, I managed to get two new sites launched for Edison at once: our newly redesigned main site, plus The Infinite Dial, Edison's new blog on the future of audio entertainment. Y'all come by and visit, now.

Three Thoughts about 3 Cups

Sunday, May 28, 2006 8:45 PM (permalink)

Yesterday I discovered a new (to me) independent coffee shop here in Chapel Hill called 3 Cups. As a work-at-home kinda guy, I frequently take my laptop out to our local Starbucks or Borders to work, since I have a T-Mobile Hotspot subscription. This at least gives me the illusion of going to an office and forces me to shave now and then--both good things. Someone at my gym told me that 3 Cups had opened recently and had great coffee, so I altered my routine a bit and brought my Powerbook over for something different. I discovered to my initial annoyance and surprise that they had no wireless. No Wireless! Philistines!

I resolved to slug down my coffee as quickly as I could, and salvage my morning by heading back home to work as soon as possible. "Trouble" was, I couldn't--3 Cups doesn't just give you a cup of coffee, they give you a coffee press filled with freshly ground beans and a timer. I had to wait a few minutes before I could even serve my coffee, let alone drink it! Luddites!

What I quickly discovered, however, was that this was far better coffee than I am used to getting elsewhere, and exponentially better coffee than the lukewarm swill I had gotten used to enduring at Borders. Now, maybe they will get wireless at 3 Cups someday, maybe not--they are fairly new. I hope that they don't, however. What I got from 3 Cups was a damn good cup of coffee and a little quiet time to enjoy it. It is true that places like Starbucks have cashed in on the telecommuting trend by becoming surrogate offices for people like me, but there are negative aspects to this, as well. Often these places are booked to the gills with laptoppers, all fighting over 4 measly outlets, and are certainly too noisy to conduct business over the phone. The coffee becomes an afterthought--maybe not to the coffee bar (I still think Starbucks generally has great coffee, and a well-trained, attentive staff) but certainly to me, since I am generally too busy typing to enjoy my coffee before it gets stone cold.

In any case, I learned 3 things during my first of many visits to 3 Cups.

• I am a devout believer in hotelier Ian Schrager's philosophy that he doesn't care if 90% of the people hate his hotels. as long as 10% love them. 3 Cups doesn't make lattes, frappucinos or superflappicinos--they serve coffee. The folks who drink venti white chocolate mochas (there are two thousand calories in those!) won't like 3 Cups very much, but I love their coffee, and I will be back again and again
• Working in coffee shops means I never really take an effective break--I just slurp and type in one long blur. I should slurp, then type. My home office really is quite nice--treating a coffee break like it is actually a break has tremendous upside.
• Maybe I don't need to pay T-Mobile 30 bucks a month after all.

So, please, 3 Cups, if you are reading this--don't get wireless. I will buy just as much coffee, and probably get more done.

Problem Solving With Tinderbox

Sunday, May 28, 2006 8:09 PM (permalink)

Tinderbox is a wonderful tool for writing, organizing information and brainstorming. I have used outliners, text files, cocktail napkins--you name it--and all have their uses. If I am really thinking in outline form (such as a presentation based around an existing report), an outliner such as OmniOutliner Pro is my tool of choice, though Tinderbox is an equally fine outliner in its own right.

My brain, however, rarely spits things out in outline form. While most of the people I work with have brains like Rolodexes, mine is more like a gigantic spinning cork ball, with thousands of yellow stickies attached to it. Ask me a question, and I spin the ball. While I might grab my mental sticky before others sift through their Rolodex, I am just as likely to come up with the capital of Micronesia as I am the right answer.

Tinderbox is awesome for organizing disconnected thoughts or complex patterns that resist simple hierarchies. It's like having a gigantic whiteboard full of Post-It notes, except they never lose their stickiness, you can find every word, and you can reuse them under multiple categories.

I use Tinderbox for problem solving because it allows for divergent and convergent thinking on the same canvas. McKinsey alumni would call this making a "logic tree"--you start with one problem or concept, then break it down into all the possible reasons or issues that comprise the problem (that's the divergent part), continuing to branch until each issue has been broken down to its core components.

Once you have done this, you can then look for ways to "close" each branch of the tree--what are the action steps to solve each problem? Often, by allowing yourself to "open up the problem" with as many little sticky notes as you want (mine are generally a lot messier than the one above) you open yourself to a greater view of the connections between the parts. You close each branch of the tree by looking for the possible causes for each of the issues on the diagram, and then look for commonalities. It is this convergent thinking stage that outliners don't handle well, but Tinderbox is fabulous at:

Often you see that even complex problems, when thoroughly broken down, can be boiled down into just a couple of central issues. The folks who live within the confines of one box or another (say, Marketing, or Sales) might only look at how to solve the problem from within their functional view. When you take the time to spread out the whole "canvas of pain" from all functions/factions, however, you might just see that everyone's problems really boil down to just two or three root causes. Then you can begin the process anew--with divergent thinking around those root causes, and convergent thinking to find commonalities in possible solutions.

Turns out, all you need is more money. Anyway, I sit through loads of strategic planning issues with my clients. "Let's think outside the box" ranks up there with "step up" and "bring something to the table" as the three most nausea-inducing business/Apprentice cliches. Let's not think outside the box. In many of the business problems I have tackled, the challenge isn't "inside the box thinking," it's a lack of thoroughly exploring all the boxes. Until you know what's really in all of them, you can't possibly think outside them.