trends

When I talk to clients about getting into a 'digital mindset' I often end up talking about the differences between distributed and destination thinking. Destination thinking is the kind of media approaches that have been with us for many years. We create content, attract (or 'drive') users to that content in order to keep them there for as long as possible, serve advertising at them, or make money from them in some other way.

A few years back I crowdsourced a presentation - curating a bunch of individual slides contributed by the readers of this blog into a talk about community that I then gave at a conference. It was a wonderfully positive (albeit a little risky) experience.

In our Brooklyn Brothers Cultural Brainfood, I was suprised to see the difference between Avatar 3D’s first weekend takings of $27m and Call of Duty’s first day takings of $360m. It's not suprising to see this difference given the price difference between the two. I am assuming Avatar tickets were on sale at $10, so thats 2.7m viewers and Call of Duty were at $49.99, so that’s 7.2m purchasers.

Guest Post by: Mark Jennings

WaveMetrix have published their review of Q4 2010 social media trends and it highlights some interesting moves for fashion brands using social media, especially Facebook.

One of the most interesting parts of my job is working wirth each January to curate what the firm sees as the key trends that we think our clients and teams need to think about in the year ahead. This is the second time Steve and I collaborated on this effort. What I really like about our 2011 effort is that we don't just gaze into the crystal ball but we provide actionable insights along with recommendations on what you should be doing.

There's a lot to be said for viewing the year just passed through the rear-view window.

Toyota's hybrids hit the wall, so to speak, in terms of being seen as a paragon of safety. BP spouted all too vividly the perils of the petro-based economy. The bigger peril, climate change (or global warming, or whatever it's called) became, somehow, a non-issue, politically speaking. Indeed, the political climate in the United States turned against pretty much all things environmental. Meanwhile, toxic substances and gender-bending chemicals found their way into everything from mattresses to baby bottles. I could go on.

Originally published at Harvard Business Review

It was a banner year for social media growth and adoption. We witnessed Facebook overtake Google in most weekly site traffic, while some surveys reported nearly 95% of companies using LinkedIn to help in recruiting efforts. In my outlook for last year, I cited that mobile would become a lifeline to those looking for their social media fixes, and indeed the use of social media through mobile devices increased in the triple digits.

I am not a superfan of Muji but I am very impressed with their last three years of repositioning or fine tuning of the brand and after spending 15 mins in one of their stores in Tokyo I can see why they are doing well. The concept is exporting well to the US too. If you’re in Tokyo, check our their fashion line, you’ll know what I mean.

This month’s HBR has an article titled: “Trends that could shake up your business.”



The commentary that interested me was that explaining why companies fail to leverage trends – like sticking their sand in sand and hoping the population ageing will go away.

From my latest contribution to Harvard Business

If you are a pundit, or get paid to watch trends, then this message doesn't apply to you. It's your job to go out and find the next shiny object that could influence how we live and do business.