Slashdot Mirror
Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices
Christopher Locke, one of the co-conspirators of the best seller The Cluetrain Manifesto, has again set off to teach companies how to talk, not just offer lip-service, to their customers. In Gonzo Marketing: Winning through Worst Practices, Locke takes on the myths and monuments of marketing armed new ideas and a razor sharp wit. Buckle up. Hold on. Mr. Locke is going to take you on a wild ride to the new world of marketing.
While the book's frenzied style will be compared to that of Hunter S. Thompson, I view the book instead as the first real book written in hyperlink-style. Jumping all over the map and all over the mind in search of gonzo marketing. Scrolling from idea to author to tactic and back again around the horn again.
Locke devotes a portion of the book to a refresher course in The Cluetrain Manifesto?s teachings: Markets are conversations. The Web is a micromarket made up of individuals. Your mass market mind tricks won't work on us. Gonzo Marketing picks up from there with a deeper examination of how companies must understand how micromarkets operate.
Locke accomplishes this by giving readers a detailed examination of the evolution of current marketing thought. The experts and evangelists range from Marshall McLuhan to Noam Chomsky to Sergio Zyman and Seth Godin. I stopped counting books and articles Locke mentions or dissects when it hit 32. Gonzo Marketing is quick to point out when grand ideas, like Godin's "Permission Marketing," were nothing more than underhanded tactics to send us spam.
What Locke pushes forward instead is this notion of gonzo marketing. Gonzo marketing "is marketing from the market's perspective. It is not a set of tricks to be used against us. Instead, it's a set of tools to achieve what we want for a change." No more tricks. No more schemes. No more mass market messages.
Gonzo Marketing also explains the evolution of the micromarket. Mass production created the need for mass markets. But globalization has been cutting the mass market into smaller and smaller pieces for many years now. The rapid proliferation of the Internet has only increased the growth of these micromarkets. While only global giants were once exposed to the power of micromarkets now companies of every shape and size must learn to deal with them.
The bad news for companies is that micromarkets are here to stay. As Locke puts it, "The web is a non-stop planet-spanning celebration. And we ain't goin' back in the box." The good news is that companies can be active participants in these micromarkets. But Locke isn't talking about "hashbrowned or refried databases" but instead "genuinely social social groupings." Micromarkets are "collections of people, communities joined by shared interests." And the big catch is that you need to belong to these groups to have a conversation with them.
This all sounds very 1960s commune-esk. And some readers may quickly label Locke's ideas as being as foolhardy as those he criticizes himself. But the evidence of micromarkets in action are all around. Internet chat rooms allow micromarkets to flourish and communicate like never before. Interested in rare coinage from the ancient world? There's a micromarket and somewhere people are talking about it, and telling people where to buy the best Tiberius Aureus Tribune penny. Online personal Web logs, also called blogs, allow micromarkets to share ideas, discuss new products, and to speak their mind in a way that traditional journalism never allowed for. Think, Oprah Winfrey's Book Club x 50 million and growing. Get the picture
Locke points to companies like Ford Motor Company, Delta Airlines, Intel, and Bertelsmann who are already reaching out to micromarkets. In February 2000 Ford announced that it was giving each of its 350,000 employees a computer and Internet access, and it didn't take long for those other companies to follow suit. Sure, Ford wants to put technology in its people's hands, but "the real deal is that Ford has unleashed 350,000 independent and genuinely intelligent agents to fan out online and listen carefully." First people start listening, then they start talking.
Gonzo Marketing doesn't tell companies they can't market to customers -- but that they need to radically rethink how they communicate. Before the automobile, the transcontinental railroad was the only easy way to get to the west coast. Before the Internet, mass marketing was the only easy way you could communicate on a global scale. And the railroads of old were just as inefficient and costly as the bloated marketing budgets of today.
Where as Cluetrain described the disease in detail, Gonzo Marketing concludes with a cure for companies to begin using. While Locke often sounds anti-big business, he notes that it is these larger companies who have the best advantage in making the early "transition from traditional marketing to more intimate micromarket relationships." They can begin to experiment with gonzo marketing by skimming a little bit off the top of their massive advertising budgets. Companies need to value their employee?s individual interests, and to find ways to nurture those interests. Allow people to go out and be ambassadors for your company, even if their interests have nothing to do with what the company is selling. People are more likely to talk to people with whom they share common interests than to corporate talking heads that share no common ground. Think about it.
Gonzo Marketing makes for great reading because it gets the gears in your mind turning. Everyone says their employees are their best advertisers. What if you really put that kind of attitude into action? Taken individually, micromarkets may seem insignificant, but collectively they have the power to move mountains. Locke concludes Gonzo Marketing with instructions for those pioneers that want to make first contact with micromarkets: "Hook up, connect, co-create, procreate. Redeploy. Foment joy. Brothers in arms, sisters of Avalon, champions of the world get to work."
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.
Nothing like irritation to inspire me to buy a product, eh?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
From the /. article:
Whether micromarketing of this sort really takes off will depend chicken-and-egg-like on whether a few companies escape being annoying and actually get people interested in what they have to offer.
Wonder if someone at X-10 is reading this...or reading the book?
This sentence, in particular, is rather confusing: Whether micromarketing of this sort really takes off will depend chicken-and-egg-like on whether a few companies escape being annoying and actually get people interested in what they have to offer.
Run-on alert!
The best way for marketing to be effective on me as a consumer is to... wait for it... show me products I am actually interested in.
Micro/macro/viral marketing call all suck it as far as I'm concerned. Show me things I have even a remote chance of buying and watch as advertising becomes effective for the first time in it's history.
Wakka wakka wakka!
Then I read the fine print. and I was all excited too...
Course, if you also realize that 'gonzo' also is a method of filming low-budget porno, this book takes on a whole new meaning.
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
story's been up 15 minutes and there are a whopping 17 comments on it?
Yes, If you want to be paranoid, you can call this mind control. Or you can give some other politically correct name and feel better about it.
But in any case what has happened with the internet is that the monkeys have escaped from their cages, so to speak. This is what the concept of micromarketing has tapped into, but it is more global than that.
This is because marketing is not just for business. It is also used for political agendas.
Marketing tries to aggregate people into masses. This is because it is easier to deal with the demographics of large groups of people. Also, large masses of people are easier to manipulate with images and emotions such as fear, sex, etc.
If you cut the visceral reactions to various images out of the loop, then there is a problem. Then you end up with dealing with individuals with individual thoughts and ideas and experiences. It is far easier to market to a million people as a mass market that to market to a million independent thinking individuals.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Man, you don't want much, do you?
Well, maybe not you per se, but a vocal segment of the slashdot community. There's something fundamental missing for the advertiser. Something simple... maybe he should ask you what you're interested in. That might be a little less annoying than current methods, and allows you to control what information they recieve.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Sorry, I'm going to whine. Moderate me down if you must, but...
If there's one thing I'd rather not hear about it's marketing. For the love of Bob, make it stop! *sobbing*
Thank you.
(from http://staff.norman.k12.ok.us/~lkramer/image%20gra mmar/teachers/strats/strats9/strat91.html)
Strategy 1: Administer the Grammar Income Test
The Grammar Income Test is one of those ideas teachers wish scholars had invented. It is a test that measures a student's grammatical knowledge and then uses that measurement to predict the student's potential income. To motivate interest in conventions, give your students this test.
University of Mottsburgh Occupational
Inventory of Grammatical Knowledge
As demonstrated in the research of Dr. Edward McCormick, an individual's habits of grammar correlate with her or his income. Test results indicate that one can predict with 80% accuracy the income of an individual based on his answers to the questions below. Use this quiz to see what income level your grammatical patterns place you.
Instructions: Mark each sentence as "C" if it is grammatically correct, "I" if it is incorrect, or "?" if you are uncertain. Wrong answers count as a minus two. A question mark, indicating you are uncertain, only counts as a minus one. Keep in mind that errors may be of any variety: spelling, punctuation, capitalization, or usage.
1. Her choice will strongly effect the outcome.
2. We have alot of work to do.
3. Mottsburgh is a busy industrial city, thousands of cars and trucks move through it every day.
4. "I suppose", she remarked "that success comes only with time."
5. The company should receive the package tomorrow.
6. Its impressive to hear what she has done.
7. She was late, however, she did make the presentation.
8. Give the book to whom?
9. When the ship arrives we can begin the journey.
10. We rafted down the grand mountain river.
11. The name of the book was "Outbreak."
12. There were four in the group: Ann, Jim, Theo, and Amanda.
13. He sings good.
14. You shouldn't lie on the wet grass.
15. He paid all the interest on the principle.
16. I wish to go irregardless of his decision.
17. He doesn't know history very well. As you can see from his answers in class.
18. He imagined that Hawking would have all the answers but Hawking just posed more questions.
19. Spiraling in the Andromeda Galaxy, Dr. Vilhelm insists that there is alien life on the Andromeda planet called Lanulos.
20. We packed all of our luggage, then we were on our way to the airport.
Scoring Answer Key: 1. I, 2. I, 3. I, 4. I, 5. C, 6. I, 7. I, 8. C, 9. I, 10. I, 11. I, 12. C, 13. I, 14. C, 15. C, 16. I, 17. I, 18. I, 19. I, 20. I. (Click here for corrected sentences.)
Number Wrong Projected Salary Occupational Level
0 to -4 $150,000 and above top executive
-5 to -6 $90,000 to $150,000 upper management
-7 to -8 $60,000 to $ 90,000 key personnel
-9 to -12 $25,000 to $ 60,000 semi-skilled
-13 to -18 $10,000 to $ 25,000 unskilled
-19 or more $0 to $ 10,000 unemployable
After students have taken and scored this test, explain that over the next few days you are going to increase their incomes by at least $30,000 each. Later, after you have worked with some of the grammatical concepts in this test, reveal that the test was fabricated. However, explain that the concept of the test is very real.
Every day individuals who make grammatical errors are victims of a pervasive but seldom discussed prejudice. People assume that those who make frequent grammatical errors are unintelligent, not very knowledgeable, and incompetent. None of this may be true. Language habits are more indicative of social background than education and ability. However, any business executive will support the notion that grammatical skill directly affects promotion. So, the idea behind the Grammar Income Test is valid, although the scored income level may not be.
it's the same thing. these guys are very friendly with each other.
How To Win The U.S. Public's Approval
With Groupthink
authored by Bush and Cheney
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...all dead CowboyNeal penis! Seriously, though, what is the best operating system? Also, what is the best UNIX text editor and the best UNIX window manager/ desktop environment?
Of course Disney own Gonzo...
- but they're so afraid of Hunter S. Thompson, they'll never enforce it.
Any journo who shoots his own typewriter is OK by me 8-)
Micromarketing does a much better job than mass marketing. If an ad company sees that I am looking around for car prices, then hell, let them show me ads for cars. If they collect the data from my web surfing, and see that I am in the market for a new PC, then by golly, show me prices and products! Personally, I would much rather see MegaUltraSuperComputerWorld's prices on new CPU's than a "new herbal cure for arthritis". We're not going to get rid of marketing, so why not settle for targeted marketing? Any ad agencies reading? My interests are BMW's and BWM accessories, Linux, and PC hardware. Let the ads come!
how long do these "temporary" account blockouts last?
72 Hours (cause by like 5 "down mods" within 24 hours), but auto -1 accounts (Karma < -5) don't usually get modded down. Although, if they get annoying Taco & Co. usually slap the 72 hour ban on.
and also when a post gets modded down with no comment like flamebait or troll does that mean its the work of our friend timothy?
No, its an "Overrated" vote. And, as I've said before, if your karma is under -5, you automatically post at -1.
All my Gonzo marketing attempts set off the Lameness filter.
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
* Please try to keep posts on topic.
* Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
* CmdrTaco is a flaming homosexual.
* Read other people's messages, blah blah blah...
* CowboyNeal is also a flaming homosexual.
* All comments will be moderated
* Where the fuck is egg troll?!?
Perhaps I don't fully understand "Gonzo Marketing" (advertisers are so cutting edge and wacky) but from what I understand of micromarketing it is what the scum of the earth will use to get you to own worthless crap(as Deltron says "Flame on, baby, flame on").
Seriously though, I am assuming this is a wider version of target marketing which basically says that you advertise certain products to certain markets based on things such as where you live (ie certain zipcodes are broken down into more or less "Trucks and Guns," "Ferraris and Hottubs" etc) so that those money isn't wasted on those who aren't considered part of the intended audience. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this in theory. The problem comes, I think, on more subtle planes. MacLaughlin writes But globalization has been cutting the mass market into smaller and smaller pieces for many years now. This is true and this is where target marketing comes in. It takes those small slices and feeds them only the type of items that they as a group are expected to want. Sure, this is pure theory, but what certain folks like Joseph Turow argue in his book Breaking Up America explicate, in a manner much more lucid than this, is that target marketing just further divides Americans into small non-interchangeable sections that have images as ideals that are only created for them (to bastardize his arguement).
So, Gonzo marketing. Ford is giving its employees computers to go out into the web community, watch them and figure out what they like, what they want, how they talk, how they communicate. But what is the goal? The goal is to create images that reflect what small segments of the population want. Life becomes less of a search and more of a pick and choose. Employees become employees around the clock, walking viral marketers. Citizenship takes a backseat to selling and we all become full time spies for our companies. Great.
Anyhow, personally I don't like it.
It's off-topic and needs moderation.0
Please moderate.
Hey, it works!!!
Taco & company score as "unemployable"!
All these principles make sense and on paper work great. However, it's been tried before - it was called viral marketing (and don't tell me that employees of .com-s in 98-early '00 were not enthusiastic about their jobs and true embassadors, I was living in the bay area at the time and could feel it from every friend I had). Most companies found that in order for the "viral" part to work they had to give away a service/product that costs them money for free. Later, they started charging for it and that's when the real test came and in many cases the virally added consumers that came for the freebies left. The only viral service I can think of that I still use now that it isn't operating on a loss is Snapfish. I like their processing and posting (good for overseas parents) and this way I don't have to remember to pick up my photos. Still, if I found out that they were way more expensive than other alternatives I'd drop them in a heartbeat. Lucky for me they're priced well.
This post is off-topic, so please mod it down.
This is an off-topic post. Moderate promptly.
Privacy advocates are up in arms about this kind of research, but these people have to get it through their heads that these companies don't give a fuck who you are. To them you're just a number.
And this is precisely why I am up in arms about that kind of research: because, to them, I am "just a number." Companies don't care that I am am human with notions of privacy and dignity. I'll take my privacy and dignity over someone else's notion of "what I might want to buy from them" every single time. To companies trying to make money, my privacy and dignity are barriers to their profit-making abilities. What gives them the right to take it?
And if you argue that people have no privacy, then I reserve the right to clandestinely take photographs of you masturbating and send those photos to everyone who knows you, including your employer, potential employers, and your extended family.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
So, we had: people at company -> communication/marketing dept -> you
And the dream is: people at company -> marketing dept -> people at company -> you
Which is best for all of us, as it puts social responsibility and accountibility back in the hands of a community (ie, community of exployees) rather than the all-or-nothing super-hygenic communication that comes out of board-meeting-inspired mass ad campaigns. Note that I am not saying that the form and message of that communication won't still go through the marketing dept and PR-sanitizers, but for the most part, humans want to talk to humans; not answering machines, billboards, or any other one-to-many communication platform.
I mean, at the end of the day, we all work for companies, and I don't believe we're all evil. We are just capable of intrusive or annoying behaviour far better when our names and individuality is 'trimmed' from the communication. People are very very cynical today about advertising, but we have to understand that we all, to some extent, depend on it. The goal is to balance the needs of the consumer (to allow them to distinguish between marketing and personal communication) while bringing marketing more inline with the types of communication that we actually enjoy and participate in every day.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Moderators, do your thing...
There was a lot of excitement around "The Cluetrain Manifesto" when it was first published.
Personally, I found it to be similar in many ways to "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People": a couple of useful observations and good ideas, wrapped up in many pages of useless blather, pseudo-religion, annoying condescension, and obviousity.
Has anyone seen any effect, anywhere in the world or the world's economy, resulting from the publication of "Cluetrain"? From the perspective of late 2001, that is, with all the dotbombs now fully buried, not 1999.
sPh
I would LOVE for my PVR to track my viewing habits for the networks/ cable syndicates. I would love for my grocery store to have a profile of how I buy my groceries. In return it would be nice if I could get a discount for allowing by personal habits to be tracked, but I'd settle for just not haveing the information linked to me personally.
I love the idea of easly aggregated data. Maybe then someone will figure out that there are untapped "micro" markets outside the mainstream.
I don't buy most of the crap that is sold and most of the crap that is sold isn't aimed at me. But that doesn't mean that there aren't 100K just like me out there (maybe more!) And I'm sure there is someone out there that would love to provide the services I am interested in so I'll part with my cash!
Moderate.
http://www.bemusmusic.com
What happened to the time when companies would start small and then grow? In the "internet age" people want to get rich quick, which doesn't work unless you're in a tech bubble (pop!)
There are definately good internet businesses out there. My favorite is DreamHost. All Debian, hosting 30,000 domains now, handled my site getting slashdotted last month, and no annoying money-making-schemes. It's a place that's run by programmers, for programmers, and therefore it is excellent for people wanting php, mysql, perl, shell, encryption, etc etc etc.
The only companies that need agressive marketing are the ones that people would not normally buy products from.
Travis
Basically some sort of communal respect in the form of verbal or written salutations
There are real economic trends that support "Gonzo Marketing". Much of it will come true. But this kind of bad writing isn't helping. One trend is that everyone is this future will be a writing. Hopefully MacLaughlin takes some time between now and then to learn how to write effectively.
Locke wrote the book, but I want to hear Demosthenes take on the book and subject before I buy it.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
"Americans are now worse than terrorists,"
wrong but please try again
" with their precise bombs, bombing civilian targets, and dead airports. "
maybe they should have thought of that when they decided to create a group of people who really just want to create havoc for the world and it's inhabitants.
"Fuck you."
the same to you with tassels
"And I hope all of the anti-freedom shit goes through in USA, you poor pussys. "
Oh are you hurt? Do you actually live in Afghanistan? If you are you are most likely not all that connected to the world in which you live as most people don't even have enough to eat in any conceivable manner.
However more likely you are one of the new breed of hippies which need something to whine about.
How about you actually think and do a little research about these problems. The ideas of these terrorists are about as flimsy as you can get and most of them are the result of their own problems that their governments don't do very well. These people are stupid thugs who are good for nothing.
The Palestenian view of things is waaay off. The entire area that they claim as the center of everything was almost totally vacant when we decided to help the Jews (you know those people who a guy named Hitler had a few years before decided he didn't like and decided to "convince" to "leave").
The Arabs are mainly idiots. If the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia decide to do business with us on our terms then that is their and only their business. Just because some spoiled Saudi Arabian hippie (yes it's about that level) decided to join up with people like the black panthers in America dosn't make him smart or right.
Which makes it just as useful as Slashdot!
sulli
RTFJ.
please grow the fuck up.
ya, i know, IHBT.
Oh yeh, I forgot, Eric Raymond. Well, carry on then I guess.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
this is ripped (poorly) from:1 .html
http://www.uakron.edu/noden/strats/strats9/strat9
In the mean time, you could acquire this trendy set of URLs, including a year's free hosting, due to your ability to follow some simple directions.
fud is dead? IT died from bad ?pr?.
marketer: "gonzo marketing"? what the hell is that? wow, this guy must be some kind of "guru" on the "bleeding edge". i want to be sure i'm up to speed on the latest techniques in this "new economy" world. gosh, maybe us marketing guys will finally have an impressive array of lingo and abbreviations like the programmers do. woo hoo!
sigs are for suckers
* You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You go up to her and say, "Hi, I'm great in bed, how about it?".
That's Direct Marketing.
* You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You give your friend a $10. She goes up and says "Hi, my friend over there is great in bed, how about it?".
That's Advertising.
* You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You somehow mop up her mobile number. You call, talk to her a while and then say "I am great in bed, how about it?"
That's Tele-Marketing.
* You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You recognize her. You walk up to her, refresh her memory and get her to laugh and giggle and then suggest, "I am great in bed, how about it?".
That's Customer Relationship Management.
* You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You walk around playing Mr. Busy. You put on your best smile and walk around being Mr. Congenial. You stand straight, you talk soft and smooth, you open the door for the ladies, you smile like a dream, you set an aura around you playing the Mr. Gentleman and then you move up to the girl and say, "Hi, I am great in bed, how about it?".
That's Hard Selling.
* You go to a party, you see an attractive girl across the room. SHE COMES OVER and says, "Hi, I hear you're great in bed, how about it?"
Now THAT is the power of Branding.
James Burke has already done that sort of thing, in The Pinball Effect and The Knowledge Web -- any time a subject in the book (histories of technology, effectively the companion books to TLC's Connections 2 and Connections 3 series respectively) has references in other parts of the book, he provides the page number and an id for that reference in the margin, so you can switch gears and see where the same invention or event had other effects described in the book instead of just following the text in order or having to check the index to cross-reference the subject.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
You forget that Raymond was/is both a programmer and a project maintainer. When you read his technical opinions you can tell whether or not he is cluefull.
And none of us needs him to tell us who's clueless, its fairly obvious. Perhaps the people be so labeled may regard such a statement as a flame, where others look upon it as merely accurate.
The reason anybody listens to him is because he's good at explaining what a lot of us already know- especially to people who dont.
Dearest inio,
:a mmar/teachers/strats/strats9/strat91.html)
I am saddened by your insuation that I dishonestly plagerized my troll. I clearly state at the head of the posting
(from http://staff.norman.k12.ok.us/~lkramer/image%20gr
How could I be any clearer than that.
In addition, I would like to point out that I did not originate the test, and therefore am not responsible for any inaccuracies in such.
I was merely supplying fuel to the fire, seeing that slashdot is such a cesspool of poor spelling and bad grammar.
I heartly support any more ambitious troll to take it upon themselves to tailor a version of this test so that it better reflects the troll eco-system here on slashdot. I think it a properly tweaked version could stand with such notables as "*BSD is dying". (Of course, it could nver hold a candel to something like "ESR -- surprised by cock"!
I hope this clarifies my position on the matter.
-19 or more ?
President of the USA !
Crap. You'd think I had some sort of electrified grammar error making machine![*} Actually, it's just native talent.
[*]There's a challenge for you, write a "spelling wrecker" or "grammar smasher"
Several people here are saying that the "don't show me things I don't want" mentality is wrong because then you don't know about any products. I'm sorry, but the "how can you learn about my products if I don't show them to you" argument is idiotic.
This is 2001. If I want a product, I will go to my favorite search engine (which I probably found by friend saying he or she liked it and it didn't have annoying ads), and I will search for the product category I want. I will then read what's available. If your product is in that category, I'll see a link to your website, and I'll decide whether to click on it and learn about your specific product. I will also read competitors web pages, and reviews of your products and theirs.
Or, alternately, I'll go to a store (again, probably one recommended by a friend), and see what products they have in that category. I will ignore flashy packaging and prominent displays, and will make my decision based on my ability to figure out if your product will actually do what I want.
This involves no advertising at all. It only involves learning what people I trust do when they need to product (and I don't trust you or your corporate shills), and doing a little bit of research, only when I feel like it. If people actually did this, product quality would be significantly higher than it is today, as people wouldn't recommend crap to friends.
-D
I took the test, and three of my answers were incorrect according to the answer key. However, based on my knowledge of grammar and the reasons underlying my decisions, in each case I overruled the answer key. I presumes this means I may eventually out-earn whoever wrote the test. ;-)
:-P
I agree with the writer who objected to earning capacity as a measure of self-worth. Nobody likes a rich, stupid guy. On the other hand, a strong command of grammar is an intrinsically worthwhile skill.
The score-to-income correlation table is ludicrous. Few of the engineers with whom I work could achieve a score better than -12, yet as far as I know, none earns less than $25,000 per annum. My SO, on the other hand, would have earned a perfect score, yet earns less than $25000/yr.
Finally, I want to know what the writers of the test were smoking and if they brought enough for everyone. They think key personnel earn $90K and upper management $150K. Ha! Maybe they do on Lanulos, in the Andromeda galaxy, but no executive in my neighborhood would work for so little.
The first that I owned which was written in a hyperlink style was Unix Power Tools. In fact it is probably more directly applicable to the average /. reader than a book on marketing techniques...
This is sad, but it is true.
You might also try finding a "Thompson's Chain Reference Bible." It's not that new of an idea.
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
The parent should be +1 Informative. This is sort sort of stuff you don't want to read through yards of FAQ to find. :)
Roadkill is yummy.
what's IHBT? and while I'm asking, what's IANAL?
Roadkill is yummy.
Actually, a few years ago... and before the blitz of annoying adds, X10 devices were often subjects of slashdot stories. Cool little devices that do various neat things. And they weren't that expensive. Gadgeteer's delight.
Now, it seems that the only time X10 is mentioned on slashdot its about their annoying adds.
You tell me. Is moving a perfect customer base (gadget-loving geeks) from a focus on a product to a focus on an advertising campaign all that good of a move?
We've all heard that the phrase "there's no such thing as bad publicity." I'm sure there are industries where this is true. However, I can't see how the message "avoid buying this product, whatever it is" is really going to help hardware sales.
Which is great, except that I know a guy that does ISP support for the company (PeoplePC) that they operate from, and the Model E program has now been canned.
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
funny, but also sad, like the last thing is my dream on earth, what i wish for but never get - that so lame its unbelievable. go watch some porn.
/. spelling mistake]. how much do you know about computers or marketing - in terms of hours invested over a lifetime? or sports? and sex [watching porn does not count]? how imporant are these things really? match?
sex is not just about sticking your thing somewhere. get a clue and read deida.com
i am always ALWAYS surprised how little people know about something that is pretty central to our existance [-obligatory
Leave it to marketing to lie about the product (misrepresent, confuse or mislead), sell using FUD, and generally attempt to mess with the design process w/o regard to small things like "details."
... and still people shop there.
Oh yeah, and they can draw pretty pictures that are supposed to grab your (the consumer's) attention.
Why don't they just do like Sony and keep everything a "secret," limit supply, and fix prices so people will want it even more? (e.g.,
PS2)
Or you can buy things sold by spam or go to the store you know you hate (Fry's Electronics), because it might be $0.01 cheaper, wait 10hrs in line, and have to spend another 40 hours returning it. They're not hurting, their marketing people can't even proof read their own ads! Some time in 1993-1994. "OS/2 WRAP" (sic) (WARP) in 200 pt font; I'm not joking, 4"(9cm)-high font, full page color, San Jose Mercury News.
It's kind of like M$FT windoze in a way...
Anyhow, that's my take.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
Or say to one girl "Hi, with you, I'll be great in bed, how about it?"
That's targeted marketing
Or pull your dick out of your pants, and say "Hi, I am great in bed, how about it?"
That's pop-up ads
Wouldn't pop-up advertising be when she sits on your lap?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
An airline that let its planes get old, very old... runs out of $$$'s... gets bought by New Zealand Air (which -also- runs out of money...)
etc.
So, now - in the midst of the federal elections - Australia's Labor Party promises to keep this turkey flying, no matter how much it may cost!
So, good businesses -don't- get gov't support (since, of course, they don't need it...), but lousey ones do!
Your tax dollars at work... (i.e. if you're Australia-based).
Recent calls from the administrator of the failed company (after a handful of Ansett planes were brought out of mothballs and sent up again) sounded like:
Fly Ansett, we need your custom!
Virgin Blue (a new kid on the Australian block) had earlier come on-line with NEW jets...
So, where would -you- buy your tickets... from an airline that hasn't bothered to keep its fleet up-to-date?
Or a new player (here) that brings new ones in?
As always, the choice is yours...
Oh, Qantas is still alive, & trying to compete with Virgin Blue...
How perfect is Locke's analogy of the dancing hamster (pg 23) when exploring how organizations 'predict' what will sell? Instead of reaching the conclusion, "Oh my God, we know nothing," they infer quite illogically that maybe they should rush Web services into developing an animated GIF of a dancing gerbil, or dancing frog--oh yes, or a dancing iguana--to display proudly on their homepage (assuming the magic must have something to do with animals small enough to fit in a glass fish tank). Can't see the forest for the trees. It's not an equation; it's an experience, stupid.
Flame grilled