Fool me once. Shame on you. Fool me twice… I won’t get fooled again!
How about a third time?
Almost as soon as Apple came out with the iPad, it became fashionable for the technorati to point out its flaws. However, Apple will surely prove the naysayers wrong, just as they did with the iPod and the iPhone.
Here are 5 reasons why Apple will win again:
For many, Social Networks begin and end with Social Media, but network analysis is about much more than tweeting. As the tools improve, Social Network Analysis will become as important to marketing as target group analysis was a generation ago.
Understanding networks will help us bring order to the complexity and chaos in the world around us. From how information spreads to managing sales and finding the information we need, networks can help us run our businesses better.
We like to have rules.
Rules make it easy for us, they absolve us of responsibility. With a little bit of work, we can learn the rules and apply them. If we can show that we’re following them, we can prove that we’re doing our jobs. Unfortunately, we won’t be doing them very well.
For a system of rules to be effective, it would have to be verifiable, internally consistent and complete. Unfortunately, that is a logical impossibility. Effective management isn’t about following rules, it’s about showing good judgment in the face of uncertainty.
The New York Times announced that they will indeed switch to a metered model in 2011. This is an incredibly bad idea.
Let’s call this move what it really is: the subsidize paper – charge online model. Most newspapers lose money on print and distribution, why do they expect to charge on the web where marginal costs are zero and low barriers to entry make competition incredibly voracious?
Most of all going to a metered model will distract them from the real task at hand: learning how to run an online business.
I’m a big fan of the New York Times web site, and the company in general. So when, the chairman, Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr., announced that they are seriously considering a paid model online again, I took it personally. It will surely end just as badly as last time they tried it.
Taking a page from Rupert Murdoch’s playbook will do more harm than good. What they need to do is fix their business in three areas: web product development, online ad revenues and print ad revenues.
And I’m going to tell them how…
Why do ideas spread?
By all rights, they shouldn’t. Ideas are valuable things. They can launch multi-billion dollar businesses, win wars and bring fame to those who possess them. Moreover, an elaborate legal infrastructure has evolved to protect them. Yet they not only spread, they often get better as they do.
Biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, to make the point that cultural evolution is very similar to biological evolution. If we want to know more about how ideas are created, disseminated, that’s as good a place as any to start.
Many people doubt the future of the advertising model. However, while new strategies for supporting content financially such freemium and e-commerce partnerships are exciting, predictions of the demise of a half trillion dollar global industry are foolish, juvenile and utterly unsupported by the data.
Advertising continues to prosper and it’s share of the global economy is stable, if not growing slightly (mostly due to emerging markets). In fact, it is much more likely that we are entering an advertising renaissance.
Here are 5 trends that will drive the future of the industry:
Apple is one of the most successful companies in the world today by almost any measure, except one. They seem oblivious to the wisdom of today’s business experts.
Sure, everybody loves their products and they are immensely profitable. Yet they fail to answer basic strategic questions that management gurus believe are key to running a successful business.
While much business discourse focuses on high concepts and complicated theories, a lot can be accomplished simply by paying attention. Unfortunately many people, even CEO’s, consultants and other “experts” often don’t even make a minimal effort to check their facts.
The reality is that a lot of people who should know better, don’t. Many well known “truths” are actually false. The following is a guide to my favorite fallacies.
