Now Blogging at www.gosmalldigital.com
Hi All
Apologies that I have not been active in this blog for the last year or so. I have been working on some other projects and I am now blogging at www.gosmalldigital.com.
The Go Small Digital website focuses on helping small business owners and managers build effective and low cost websites and embrace digital internet technologies to grow their business. I hope to see you over at the new site.
Regards
Brendon
Revolution in Our Relationship with Technology
Our relationship with technology is going through a revolution.
A week and a half ago my Mother came back from a 5 week trip to Egypt where she was researching for her PhD. Last weekend we used Google Earth to look at the places she had been. The fun thing was we didn’t go off to the study to look at Google Earth on the PC, we weren’t tethered to a desk, we didn’t use a mouse or a keyboard. Instead we looked at Google Earth on my iPod Touch sitting at the dinning room table, engaging directly with the technology through the touchscreen. In other words, the conversation did not have to go to the technology, the technology came to the conversation.
I am seeing a number of new innovations in technology at the moment that I believe will change the way we engage with technology. Here are some examples:
iPad
Okay so the iPad has taken a bit of criticism for lacking in some features. But I once heard Seth Godin say on an interview that successful people and organisations ‘ship’. They don’t wait until the product is perfect, because that time will never come. Apple do this well – they ship product early, capture a market, and then enhance the subsequent generations of the product.
Despite the negative feedback, some commentators such as Mitch Joel in his Six Pixels of Separation post Game Changer – Game Over have heralded the iPad as the next evolution in computing. And I too see the potential – no longer tethered to desk, or a keyboard or a mouse the iPad will change the way we engage with technology.
Gaming Platforms
A couple of years ago Nintendo changed the gaming world with the introduction of their Wii technology. Both Microsoft and Sony are responding with technologies of their own so that game players are no longer tethered to the game station. The Microsoft Xbox Project Natal is bringing out a controller free Xbox – players interact with the game and other applications by using gestures, movement, and voice with no controller. In my opinion, once this technology makes it into gaming consoles, it will quickly move into other technologies and become ubiquitous changing forever our relationship with technology. Check out the demo video of the Project Natal Xbox. If you can’t see this video click here.
Milo
Thank you to my wife for introducing me to Milo. Built on the Microsoft Xbox Project Natal platform, Milo is a virtual boy who you can interact with as though he were real – he recognises emotions and can respond to circumstance. Imagine the future possibilities with this sort of technology. Check out the video of Milo – while the video is a little bit over the top, it does show the potential of this technology. If you can’t see this video click here.
This is just the start. Currently we engage with technology by typing, clicking, selecting, and so forth. This is all going to change. My prediction is in a few years we will only sit at a desk and keyboard when we need to do in-depth writing. For everything else we will use much more interactive means to engage with technology.
Education is your Best Marketing Tool
Last week my family and I were on holiday in Napier, New Zealand and on one of the days we visited the Arataki Honey Visitor Centre in Havelock North. The centre was fun for the kids and we all learned something more about bees and honey, as well as the damage caused by the varroa mite to the beekeeping industry. However, what was most interesting to me was the reinforcement of a view that education is your best marketing tool.
John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing defines marketing as ‘getting your market to know, like and trust you’.
Know: Did I know Arataki Honey before our visit? No not really. Do I now? Yes.
Like: Do I like the Arataki Honey brand more as a result of the visit? Yes – kids had a good time, we all learned something, and we got to taste honey.
Trust: Do I trust Arataki Honey more as a result of the visit? Yes – through their centre they engaged me in their world and demonstrated their credibility in all things bees and honey.
Note: Arataki Honey could have chosen to use their visitor centre investment for more traditional marketing approaches. They could have done what most other businesses do and advertise the features of their product, in this case honey – 100% natural, a naturally sweet alternative to sugar, zero fat, great taste, etc. Would this have been as effective? In my opinion no.
So what does this mean for your business?
Let’s move away from the full frontal marketing assault, where we interrupt our market (and those not in our market), present our product or service, and list out the features. Instead let’s not interrupt our market, make available valuable educational facilities or content that in someway relate to our products or services, and engage with our community that gets value from this education.
For example, if you run an environmentally friendly residential waste disposal business, you could do a mail drop presenting your service, and listing bin sizes, prices, pickup days and your environmental policy. But, perhaps a better approach would be to do a mail drop in your area inviting a people to a free seminar covering topics such as how to create a home compost, items that can be recycled, and how to minimise the cost of home waste disposal. Through these free seminars people in your area would get to know you, like you, (and through your useful information) trust you. When they need a waste disposal service it is likely that you would be the organisation they look to.
Until now I have purposefully stayed away from mentioning the internet in this post. However, a quick note on it now to finish off. The internet provides a fantastic platform to educate your market. You can provide educational content, whitepapers, ebooks, and posts on your blog or website. You can put educational content into podcasts or videos. You can engage in forums and answer peoples questions in your area of expertise. In addition to adding educational value to your community (leading to know, like and trust), you also build valuable content that:
- If useful people will link to – a key factor in increasing your search rankings in search engines
- Is loaded with relevant keywords for your product or service – another key factor in increasing your search rankings in search engines.
So team, let’s not just market, let’s educate.
What Business can Learn from Avatar
Over the last couple of days the Avatar movie has broken a Billion dollars in sales just 3 weeks after its release. I saw Avatar a couple of nights ago and was blown away. While I see a few people criticising aspects of the movie, it is difficult to deny the power of the totally immersive entertainment experience that this movie provides – unlike any other movie I have seen.
While I’m sure there are hundreds of things business can learn from Avatar, in this post I present four ideas that came to mind as I reflected on the movie over the last couple of days.
1. A visionary leader. James Cameron has had a vision for this movie for 14 years – he first wrote the movie script in 1995. The details were incredibly specific down to documented descriptions of the plants, animals, equipment on the Pandora planet. The ability and unwavering determination to take that vision and execute it with such precision across the hundreds of people involved in the making of the movie is remarkable.
Lesson for business: Do you or your leader have a remarkable vision for your business and an unwavering determination and passion to make it happen?
2. A vision that forces incredible innovation. The vision for Avatar was not able to be executed with the technologies that existed prior to the movie. The vision forced game changing innovation – 3-D camera innovations, facial expression camera technology, and computer generated visual effects advances.
Lesson for business: Will your business vision force game changing innovation that will alter the landscape of your industry and catapult you into the industry leader position?
3. Engage people emotionally in your story. I see that some people have criticised Avatar as being strong on visual effects but weaker on storyline. I have to disagree (although I would be first to admit that I am not an experienced film critic). Avatar really engaged me. I got weaved into the story. I’m still thinking about it a few days after watching the movie.
Lesson for business: Are you just selling clients on the features of your offerings? Or are you wrapping them up emotionally in the a remarkable breathtaking story that excites them and sticks in their mind like superglue?
4. Human profits should never come ahead of life. This point is a little different from the ones above – it is more about a key message in the movie rather than the approach to the movie itself. The message I took away from the story is that humans have destroyed their own planet and are prepared to destroy life on Pandora in the name of business and industry profit. My conclusion from the movie is that the value of preserving the rich living environment on Pandora is far greater than any value of profits to human business and industry.
Lesson for business: Let’s not get to the point where we have destroyed our planet and need to search for another planet to destroy in order to fulfil our profit needs. Instead let’s find ways to generate profits while preserving our precious resources, environment, and society on Earth.
On a final note, as a Wellingtonian (New Zealand), well done to Weta Digital who did much of the visual effects for Avatar - you make us proud yet again.
To find out more about the background of Avatar, check out the video below. Click here if you can’t see this video.
Business – the Decade for Making a Difference
The fresh air of the Wairarapa, New Zealand
I’ve been reflecting on something Seth Godin wrote in his New Year’s day post welcome to the frustration decade:
…And, to top it off, savings are thin and resource availability isn’t what it used to be. A lot of people ate their emergency rations during the last decade. Look for this frustration to be acted out in public, and often.
My concern is whether our businesses and industry also ate our emergency rations during the last decade – the rations of resources, environment and society.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that businesses and industry make a critical contribution – creating employment, providing necessary products and services, fueling economic growth, and providing returns to investors. But they also consume resources, impact the environment, and influence societies. As businesses and industry move into the new decade I believe that you and I (who operate within businesses and industry) need to pay as much attention to the latter set of considerations as we do to the former set. As a powerhouse in our communities our businesses and industry have the muscle to make a difference in the world – let’s make it for the good.
Many leaders have already shown us the way, making a contribution to profit AND purpose:
- Terracycle – a business that creates value from waste (see my post TerraCycle – A Business Built on Waste and Worm Poop)
- Interface – a petroleum intensive flooring manufacturer well on their way to having zero impact on the environment by 2020 (see my post Interface Looking after Tomorrow’s Child)
- TOMS Shoes – for every pair of shoes sold TOMS Shoes gives a pair of shoes to a needy child (see my post One for One – TOMS Shoes)
Our world, our society needs us to step up and to continue this same lead in our own businesses and industries for the next decade and beyond. Small changes now can make a big difference in the future.
iPod Touch MityMic Samples with Background Noise
I have been asked a couple of times how well the TouchMic.com MityMic microphone records when there is background noise. This post provides a couple of samples of MityMic recordings in environments with background noise. For further details on the MityMic microphone refer to my previous post iPod Touch MityMic Review and Audio Samples.
MityMic Microphone Package
MityMic Audio Samples
The following MityMic audio samples were recorded using the MityMic microphone, my iPod Touch 2nd Generation, and the Voxie Pro audio recording application. I edited the files using Audacity, but only to manage the sample lengths and to convert the files into .mp3 format. To maintain the quality of the recordings I used Voxie Pro set to the highest quality setting (CD Quality 44kHz) and the files were converted into .mp3 format at 128 kbits/s bit rate.
Sample 1: Lambton Quay (37 sec, 592KB)
I work on Lambton Quay, Wellington New Zealand. Lambton Quay is our busiest shopping street in NZ, so recorded myself on the street during lunch break. And yes I did feel like an idiot standing there talking at my iPod.
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Sample 2: Vacuum Toy Oliver (29 secs, 464KB)
Started the vacuum cleaner, kids’ toys, Oliver crying in background – me trying to record above the noise.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
If you can’t see these samples click here.
Review
I’ve noted before that the MityMic microphone records best for close sound. Distant background noise does tend to get filtered out relatively well. So I believe the MityMic microphone works well for field recording, outdoor recording, and other recording with background noise. One possible issue I can see is where the person or sound to be recorded is not close to the microphone. In this situation it could be more difficult to capture a quality recording if there was also background noise. For both samples above I was speaking with the microphone about one foot away from my mouth.
Disclosure: TouchMic.com provided the MityMic microphone for the purpose of recording the samples in this and previous posts. I have not paid for this microphone. Brendon
When Lighting your House is Unexpected
In this blog we have looked at various unexpected ideas, and often these are big ideas or innovations from organisations, such as electric bikes, worm poop plant food, and plans to mine the moon for rocket fuel.
But unexpected ideas may also be things you and I take for granted – like lighting and water.
William Kamkwamba was a village boy living Malawi. When Malawi was struck with food shortages in 2001, his family with 6 other children lived on one meal a day and his parents could no longer afford for him to attend school. William started reading science books at the library to continue his education and one day read a book on how windmills could generate electricity and pump water. At age 14 William built his family a windmill using branches, bicycle parts and scraps from a scrapyard. At first it lit one light for the house. Later William enhanced this to four lights and then added a second windmill to pump water for the village’s irrigation.
Like many unexpected ideas William’s windmill generated attention and media coverage. William has now spoken at TED twice and his most recent presentation is included in the video below. If you can’t see the video click here.
William is now studying at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa on scholarship.
William can be an inspiration to us all to try something different to change our circumstances for the better.
Lemonade – what does it tell us about ourselves?
I would be very keen to see the Lemonade movie when it comes out (see trailer below). The 30 minute documentary tells the story of 15 advertising professionals made redundant during the recession and how they they turned this lemon of a situation into lemonade by finding a new creative calling in their lives. The man behind the movie, Erik Proulx, was himself laid off from a copywriting role in October 2008.
Like any good story this one has the potential to tell us something about ourselves. Employment is important – we need to pay the mortgage and feed our families. But when we go off to work do we leave a piece of ourselves behind, and take on a slightly new persona to meet the expectations and objectives of our organisations? In the name of being professional do we spend 40+ hours a week hiding a small part of our true selves away? For these 15 advertising executives, the redundancy would no doubt have been devastating, but was perhaps also a release allowing them to be true to themselves and pursue a new calling.
What’s your true calling and how do you fulfill this while also paying the bills?
See Lemonade trailer. If you can’t see this video click here.
One for One – TOMS Shoes
You’ve got to love TOMS Shoes‘ business model: “with every pair of shoes you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need – One for One“. Since starting in 2006, TOMS Shoes has given away more than 300,000 pairs of shoes to needy children in the United States, Argentina, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Uruguay. TOMS Shoes provides an exciting business model that we can learn from.
First, this is just a fantastic thing to do that makes a contribution to people in need.
Second, if you are an employee at TOMS Shoes you certainly have a higher purpose to work towards. You’re working hard to make a difference, and not just to maximise profit as is the case in most commercial businesses.
Third, they have such a powerful story and point of difference that is at the core of their business. The story is unexpected and people will be naturally interested. There is no need to come up with some superficial marketing and advertising gimmick to get people’s reluctant attention. The business naturally gets people’s attention – willingly!
Fourth, as Seth Godin mentions in his post of TOMS Shoes, people who wear the shoes make a statement. Of all the shoes they own, their TOMS Shoes will be the ones that they talk about. They will pass on the TOMS Shoes story by word of mouth, and those who identify with the story will buy their own pair and make their own contribution to the TOMS Shoes movement.
TOMS Shoes was foundered by Blake Mycoskie after a holiday in Argentina, where he saw children without shoes in local villages. The TOMS Shoes shoe design is based on shoes worn by local Argentinian farmers. The brand TOMS is derived from the word ‘tomorrow’.
See the TOMS Shoes story in the YouTube video below.
How to Transfer Audio Files from Voxie Pro to your PC
I use Voxie Pro on my iPod Touch to record audio files using my TouchMic.com MityMic microphone. I then edit these files and convert them into MP3 format using Audacity on our PC. A question I have been asked a couple of times is how to transfer audio files from Voxie on the iPod Touch (or iPhone) onto the PC. This post tells you how.
There may be other ways of doing this, but the way I know requires both your iPod Touch and your PC to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network. In my case we have a wireless ADSL modem at home that we use to connect our home PC, my work laptop, and my iPod Touch to our home broadband internet.
1. Record the audio file in Voxie (refer to my post iPod Touch MityMic Review and Audio Samples for more details).
2. In Voxie select the VoxieSync button as shown below:
3. Voxie will present a screen with an IP address. On my iPod Touch it states http://10.1.1.3.8080 (but this may differ from time to time and will most likely be different on your iPod Touch or iPhone).
4. Ensuring that both your PC or laptop are connected to the same Wi-Fi network or wireless modem, type the Voxie IP address into your PC or laptop browser address line. You should get a screen that looks like the one below. In the browser, right click the name of each file that you wish to transfer to your PC or laptop and select ‘save link as…’. You can save the file as normal into the appropriate file location on your PC or laptop. The file will be saved as ‘filename.aif’.
Once you have finished transferring files, select the Finish button in Voxie on your iPod Touch of iPhone. With the audio file(s) on your PC or laptop you can now open and edit these files in Audacity or another audio file editor of your choice.