“Science” is a word that gets thrown around a lot. We hear that “scientists say” so and so and then hear later that other scientists say something totally different.
We often ask for “scientific proof” and hucksters are always happy to provide “studies” to support their claims. Unfortunately, much of what is passed of as science is really pseudoscience.
Just because someone in a white lab coat or with an alphabet soup of letters behind his name says something doesn’t make it true and it certainly doesn’t make it science. It gets worse when the term is invoked in relation to a business function, especially marketing. So how can we tell the difference between science and pseudoscience? Here’s a guide:
There’s probably nothing that’s more likely to make ordinarily sober faced businesspeople wax poetic than the word “brand.” Even finance guys have been known to break out in sonnet.
That’s because brands are conceptual. They allow us to dream, to think of things other than logistics and pricing and firing people. Reflecting on brands help us escape from the drudgery of work.
However, it’s important to remember that brands are quantifiable financial assets, just like buildings, machinery and oil wells. Moreover, they are incredibly valuable assets, often accounting for more than half the value of a business, so we need to take them very seriously. Here’s four things you should know about brand value and how to increase it.
Everybody knows the Mona Lisa. She’s iconic; as much of a symbol of art as art itself. Housed in Paris but reproduced everywhere, there is probably nothing else on earth that so thoroughly fuses the ridiculous and the sublime as the Mona Lisa.
We usually view her in simulated form, but, when seen at the Louvre, up close and in person, she takes on a completely new significance. It seems as if every brushstroke is infused with essence and meaning.
The centuries old masterpiece and the digitized (and often satirized) versions stand side by side in our minds eye. The digital Mona Lisa, of course, is not made up of brushstrokes, but code and, as we shall see, that makes all the difference.
I hate numbers! They’re confusing, hard to keep track of and make my eyes water if I look at them too long. Ugh!
Nevertheless, people insist on throwing them around. They like to talk about them, crunch them, live and die by them, put lots of them in PowerPoint slides and generally find ways to torture me with them.
But I’ve found a way to fight back! I beat them at their own game. How do I do it? I cheat. Hah! There’s really no reason to be oppressed by numbers if you can find simple ways to work around them. In fact, you can win the numbers game if you simply refuse to play it fairly. With that in mind, here’s a few of my favorite math hacks.
Some time ago, I wrote a post about the bureaucracy myth. My point was that whenever a company starts to have problems, the blame tends to be laid unfairly on “bureaucrats” rather than on management.
I got passionate responses, some in the comments section, but especially on social media.
Some were supportive, others derisive, but I still stand by the original point that blaming bureaucrats for systemic problems is a cop-out. One comment by a former government bureaucrat, however, helped me to see the problem in a new light. The reason that “bureaucrats” tend to be nameless and faceless is because they are, in reality, ourselves.
Some people are dishonest, some are just plain stupid and lots write articles and provide commentary. Inevitably there’s going to be some intersection between the three sets.
However, since media charlatans often come with impressive titles, adoring fans and fast facts, it’s easy to get taken in. We simply can’t check every assertion that’s thrown at us.
Nevertheless, even the most accomplished frauds leave behind telltale signs. They use rhetorical devices that give them away and, with a little foreknowledge, are not hard to spot. With that in mind, here’s my guide to the most common modus operandi employed by fools and liars. When you see them coming, be on your guard!
Some time ago, Mathew Ingram of Gigaom asked in a post why it is that the NY times and other newspapers don’t create new innovations, like daily deals .
The question inspired an impressive variety of comments, from those who denounced newspapers as “old fashioned” and “change averse” to those who pointed out that a newspaper’s primary mission is journalistic.
Whatever your sentiments about newspapers, clearly the problem isn’t exclusive to them. Why didn’t Yahoo invent the search engine? Why can’t Google get social media right? In other words, why do exciting innovations tend to come from the edge rather than from the center? The answer has a lot more to do with ecologies than individuals.
The ancient fable of the blind men and an elephant has served as a source of both caution and inspiration across cultures and millennia.
In various versions, each blind man touches only part of the elephant and arrives at a different conclusion.
One feels the tusk and believes an elephant is like a spear; another the side and perceives a wall. A third, who grabs the tail, believes it to be like a rope and so on. I can’t think of a better description of digital marketing today.
Ask just about anybody and they will say “I get it” and then explain one aspect or the other. They’re often quite knowledgeable and informed until you move the discussion an inch to the left or the right. Then they become babbling idiots. Obviously, it can’t go on this way.
We all love Carrie Bradshaw. And why not? She’s beautiful, charming, witty and intelligent. She lives glamorously, goes to cool parties, meets fascinating people and provides insightful social commentary.
Yet her story is not just about sex. As the title implies, at least half of it is the city. If Carrie lived in rural Kentucky rather than Manhattan, we wouldn’t admire her, but consider her lifestyle “trailer trash.”
Many would attribute this strange dichotomy to bias and perhaps there’s some truth to that. However, there’s a growing body of evidence that cities and the social activity that they catalyze are the key to our future. Even with our ability to connect across great distances, it is our local environment that spurs innovation.
Last September, Chris Anderson of Wired magazine proclaimed that The Web Is Dead. Ten months later, events have shown that he couldn’t have been more wrong.
That’s not because the Web is still alive and kicking. To be fair, Mr. Anderson never argued that it would collapse, just that it would become irrelevant. That hasn’t happened and it’s looking less and less likely that it will.
In fact, thanks to the Web’s amazing ability to evolve, we’re soon going to see more innovation than we have in a long while. In a few short years, the web will be more mobile, interconnected, data rich and visually exciting than anything we’ve had before.
Or install manually
Copy and paste the following Google tag code onto every page of your website, immediately after the element. Don’t add more than one Google tag to each page.
