Richard Branson still gets it

I am reading Richard Bransons autobiography for the second time now and it amazes me how far ahead of the curve he was and somehow manages to be. He has to be one of the most inspirational entreprenuers in the history of modern business, certainly has a better hairstyle than Donald Trump (sorry Donald, why does he have that combover anyway??) and a lot more charisma and guts than Bill Gates. It is a fascinating story, well told by him persoanlly, lots of great insights to his business and his ideas. His story is truly amazing, if you need a “pep me up” at the beginning of this year, take a read, you can order it here.

Buy wine by SMS!

So we all know that South Africa produces great wines, but how many times have you been at a restaurant and someone ordered a really great bottle of wine. You promise yourself to buy one, but the next day, you cant remember what it was called. You do a google search, but to no avail. Well, that seems to be changing. An SMS service in the US offers wine by SMS. All you do is simply SMS the name of the wine, its vintage and they will tell you how much it will cost and how you buy it from a near retailer. Maybe one step more might be to offer special offers on a case if you order it right there and then. Wonderful stuff!!

Moleskine, an icon!

About a year ago, I bought my first Moleskine diary. It is a great tool, I use it to jot down all sorts of musings and ideas that pop into my head. The diary itself is a high quality, well bound leather diary. I have a smallish version but they come in various sizes and shapes. It would seem that in the past year, they have become somewhat of an icon, so much so that a guy who put up a blog about his moleskine has just sold his blog to the producers of the diary. Pretty weird, but hey, well done to him. Take a look at the site here, for EVERYTHING moleskine: www.moleskinerie.com

Is print dead? – Long live Print!

In an interesting debate on the Fast Company Website, an email debate (not fax debate) took place between Jeff Jarvis (Former print editor, now blogger and consultant at BuzzMachine)  and John Griffin (President of National Geopgraphic Society’s magazine group) Both these men put forward interesting cases for whether print is dying or not. I wont go into the detail here, but take a look at the online debate here!
What do you think? is print here to stay or will it simply morph? What about newspapers in 20 years from now, will they be around? Interesting times and questions….enjoy!

Do pictures work?

In the business that I am part of (www.artstorm.biz) we believe that picutres make a huge difference. Why? Well becuase you can see at a glance what would take ten pages of text to explain. If someone asks for directions to your house, do you write an essay or draw them a map? In most cases you will draw a map from the nearest point that they recognise. To further illustrate this point, there is a trend growing in the US that more and more information is being generated in graphical format. Take a look at this link to see the US petrol price in graphical format, pity we dont have pricing competition here, but in the US, this kind of picture can literally save millions.Also, take a lokn at worldmapper and see how the world morphs based on things like population, births and so on. So, do pictures work, absolutely, we just need to use them more!

The latest marketing tool….

Yes, it seems that blogs are getting some traction in South Africa. In some of the meetings I have had over the past 2 weeks, many people are excited about the prospects of blogging and having a blog. So, is blogging the latest marketing tool? Well, it could be, it has some amazing advantages over the usual static websites and it is much easier to update and run.

The question is always, “will people read it”

This really gets to the heart of what a blog is about. People will only read a blog if it adds value to them. So the topics need to be relvant, they need to be fresh and they need to keep coming. A static blog is a dead blog!!!

From a marketing point of view, blogging could be the next big thing. I believe that they are and thats what this blog is about. Its about how you can harness the power of blogging and make sure that you get the most out of it from both your clients and your staff.

Ungoogleability?

Wired News – The internet has become more and more pervasive, maybe to the point of us not even noticing it. This means that more and more people are leaving “breadcrumbs” on their internet trail for the likes of Google and other to vacuum up. This brings a whole new meaning to privacy and a host of new challenges for avid Net users like most of us are.

There are however a few people who are managing to avoid being “Googled” hence the name “ungoogleable” hwo do they do it, well for one, they dont blog, they dont build web pages using their own name and so on. As we know, identity theft is becoming more prevalent this this more transparent digital world, so how do we protect it. Take a look at the article.

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,68998,00.html?tw=rss.CUL

Coaster detector whattie?

Fast Company – Two German students have invented a coaster that detects when the beer glas is getting empty and notifies the bartender. Talk about spending too much time in bars!! but what it does highlight is just hw much the new world of nanobots and microtechnology has and can continue to add value. The interesting thing is that in general, retail hasnt yet caught onto this in a big way. This should be a no brainer, Pick n Pay could do stocktake in 5 mins as opposed to 3 days. BMW could be notified when a cars brake pads start getting dangerously thin, shoes could tell you when they need to be resoled or tossed and your firdge can keep inventory of everything in it and in time in the kitchen. So why is this technology taking so long to catch on? Is it cost? is it fear? is it lack of innovative thinking? What probably needs to happen is more everyday people like these guys need to come up with useful everyday ideas of how to harness and capture this kind if useful technology!

The $100 laptop from MIT

Rediff – MIT has given an update on their progress on the $100 laptop that they are producing for emerging economy children. It seems that this is starting to gather momentum and it is a great idea. I mentioned this in one of my other blogs, but this could be the big break into the realm of bridging the digital divide. So the laptop basically is a functional device and has an AC adaptor for places where there is electricity and a hand crank for places without electricity (Hey, that would be nice on my laptop now!!) Below is an excerpt of the article:

The $100 laptop computers that Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers want to get into the hands of the world’s children would be durable, flexible and self-reliant.
The machines’ AC adapter would double as a carrying strap, and a hand crank would power them when there’s no electricity. They’d be foldable into more positions than traditional notebook PCs, and carried like slim lunchboxes.
For outdoor reading, their display would be able to shift from full color to glare-resistant black and white.
And surrounding it all, the laptops would have a rubber casing that closes tightly, because “they have to be absolutely indestructible,” said Nicholas Negroponte, the MIT Media Lab leader who offered an update on the project Wednesday.

Read more FAQ’s etc at these links:
http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2005/sep/30laptop.htm

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/

Innovation the healthcare sector please!!

My wife was feeling a little queasy over the past few days. After having been to India, we both decided that maybe it would be a good idea to get this checked out sooner rather than later (Malaria and Hepatitis being some of the nasties that one can pick up there) So we went off to the emergency rooms at Wilgeheuwel at 9pm at night. We arrived at the desk in the emergency are where the gent behind the desk asked us if we were on medical aid. The answer is yes and no. We are on a hospital plan with Discover for a few reasons.

1. We downgraded ourselves as we never used up the out of hospital benefits and were wasting money paying for it
2. We dont have children who “eat” through that benefit as many people who have children do
3. We have resorted to saving the difference on a monthly basis so that we can pay for any of our medical bills cash.

So, upon telling the gent that we would be paying cash, he informed us that we would have to put down a R 600.00 deposit to be able to see the doctor and then the doctors fees and other sundries would be deducted off this, but the bill could be up to R 900.00 – RIDICULOUS. We left and went to Flora Clinic where a far more reasonable R 270.00 was charged and the total bill was R 344.00 after seeing the doctor.

So, how about a solution. Why dont the hospitals put in a system whereby they can instantly check my credit rating and see if I am a good “risk” to them or not. This could be done on a card basis, and with one swipe it could check me to see what deposit I need to put down.

• If I am a good risk, then maybe R 200.00 is appropriate
• If I am a mediocre risk then R 300.00 down
• If I am a bad risk then R 1000.00 down

Just some suggestions, sadly for Wilgeheuwel, they lost my business and to be honest, I wont go back there again for any emergency. Surely thse guys need to understand how technology can benefit them today. Comments!