Davies McDonalds Happy Meal Project

If you leave McDonalds Happy Meal on the table it remains unchanged for at least half a year.
See the pictures of 180 days and notice any changes.




What does it say about the food quality ?

McDonals Happy Meal Project

Spoofs Viral Old Spice by Sesame Street and Will it blend ?

Sesame Street’s spoof of Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” commercials has reached 2.6 million views in just five days.





Old Spice won an Emmy, doubled sales, and launched a film and TV career for its star with Wieden + Kennedy’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” marketing campaign. It was even imitated by Cisco, Conan and Elmo — but will it blend? This video has the answer



Original post http://mashable.com/2010/10/12/will-it-blend-old-spice-video/ 

The youtube original can be found here.Old spice original campaign

How android is transforming mobile computing

An article in newsweek paints an interesting picture about the rise of the Android platform mobile phone.

The business model behind it is interesting. If people use the android phone, google earns money from advertising. By making the android platform open source software, available to customize it by other manufacturers you will gain quick marketshare. The danger might be the fragmentation to many incompatible versions of the android operating system.

Huge market potential
By 2013 the mobile Internet ecosystem–money spent on access fees, online commerce, paid services, and advertising–will be worth more than half a trillion dollars per year, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker. As users keep downloading services and apps, every device sold generates an ongoing revenue stream


Desktop shift to mobile
The top companies in desktop computing–Apple, Google, and Microsoft–must shift their focus to mobile devices to remain competitive. But that pits them against traditional phone makers like Nokia and Research in Motion. Nokia, which has developed its own smart-phone software called Symbian, remains the industry gorilla. There are already 1.3 billion Nokia phones in use, and 200 million of them are smart phones. The huge customer base is a big advantage, according to Tero Ojanpera, an executive vice president at Nokia. By collecting location information from mobile phones, for example, Nokia can make traffic predictions.

Advantage android
But Google has a few advantages of its own. Instead of trying to modernize an older system originally created for voice-centric phones, Rubin and his engineers started with a clean slate, developing a modern mobile operating system for a new kind of device–a small computer that happens to make phone calls. Unlike older operating systems, Android was created to be good at rendering Web pages and to run many applications at the same time.

Business model Indirect revenue stream
Google also counts the very nature of Android as a strength. The company does not make money from Android directly. It gives the software away to hardware partners. Google reckons that Android gets more people onto the Internet, where Google can show them ads. Google CEO Eric Schmidt says Android-based phones already generate enough new advertising revenue to cover the cost of the software’s development. Google could make money in other ways too, for example, by opening an online store to sell music and videos to Android users. Schmidt envisions a day when there are 1 billion Android phones in the world and notes that if Google could get just $10 from each user per year, it would be a $10 billion business. That’s real money even for Google, whose revenues this year will be $21 billion.

Offer full customisation options to gain rapid market share
In addition to making Android available for free, Google also lets phone makers change the code and customize it so that an Android phone made by, say, Samsung has a different user interface than an Android phone from Motorola. Rubin believes this open-source model gives Google an advantage over rivals selling closed systems, like Apple, which also operates its own online stores. Apple’s tight control enables it to deliver an exceptionally smooth user experience, where everything works seamlessly together.


Read the original article at:
how android is transforming mobile computing

Engaging readers in the digital age

An interesting presentation about the strategic challenges internet poses for publishers. Authors can now build up their own audience and  publish without publishers. With all the possiblities in the social media publishers run the risk of becoming obsolete in the book publishing proces. Some interesting solutions from goingsocialnow at a keynote presentation at digital book world.

Engaging Readers in the Digital Age

View more presentations from Digital Book World.

engaging-readers-in-the-digital-age?

Destination: Green Tourism

Destination: Green Tourism

A forward global strategic outlook into the need for green tourism.

In an era of environmental consciousness, every locale that wants to remain attractive and competitive needs a strategy for sustainability.Feeling the push from tourists, leading tour operators such as TUI and Thomas Cook Group are giving marketing and booking preference to environmentally sustainable destinations and demanding higher green standards from hotels and resorts. In addition, major global travel societies such as National Geographic now use environmental sustainability as a key criterion in their destination rankings. In short, if tourist destinations are to stay competitive, they will need to adopt sustainable policies or risk alienating an important and growing customer base.

A good dutch example who has won the Eden award for most sustainable tourism destination in the Netherlands. But it is still relatively unknown as a tourist destination to most people.

http://www.hetwaterreijk.nl/











Near this nature reserve is the more famous Giethoorn "Venice of the North".

Business model

I just recently came across the business model from Alexander Osterwalder.

It uses 9 building blocks to structuring rethinking your organisation.

A very interesting slideshare presentation shows how they are connected and what you can do  to rethink your business to create value for your customers by innovating your business model.
Food for strategic thought.

Business Model Innovation Matters

View more presentations from Alexander Osterwalder.

For further reading, which I plan to do later,  there is a Book: Business Model Generation by Alex Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur.

As the website explains. " Disruptive new business models are emblematic of our generation. Yet they remain poorly understood, even as they transform competitive landscapes across industries. Business Model Generation offers powerful, simple, tested tools for understanding, designing, reworking, and implementing business models. Business Model Generation is a practical, inspiring handbook for anyone striving on business model design and innovation. In this unique project we based the book itself on an innovative business model. "


Website of the book businessmodelgeneration

The social technographics ladder

You used to have the 1-9-90 rule. 1 person creates someting new, 9 persons comment on it , and 90 persons watch what is happening. A more targeted approach to behaviour on social media is the social technographics ladder introduced by Forrester.  The story behind this is pretty clear. The initial wave of consumers using social technologies has halted. Companies will now need to devise strategies to extend social applications past the early adopters. This means that you need to understand how your consumers use social media. Do you know the Social Technographics Profiles of your customers?





Read more information at the interesting blog of Forrester.
Latest_global_social_media_trends_may_surprise_you

2010 year of the Lip Dub ?

2010 is going to be the year of the University lip dubs. They could be used as marketing tools to attract new students or confirm current students that they have chosen the best university. Because the number of views is visible, you could make it competitive. Who can make the best university lib dub in terms of number of views.

According to Wikipedia a lip dub is

A lip dub is a type of video that combines lip synching and audio dubbing to make a music video. It is made by filming individuals or a group of people lip synching while listening to a song or any recorded audio then dubbing over it in post editing with the original audio of the song. There is often some form of mobile audio device used such as an iPod. Often, they look like simple music videos, although many involve a lot of preparation and are well produced. The most popular lip dubs are done in a single unedited shot that often travels through different rooms and situations in, say, an office building. They have become popular with the advent of mass participatory video content sites like YouTube. Tom Johnson, a technical writer who blogs about Web 2.0's effect on communication, describes a good lip dub as having the characteristics, or at least the appearance, of:[1]

• spontaneity: "It appears as if someone thought up the idea on the spot, pulled out their personal video camera, and said hey everyone, let’s all lip sync this Flagpole Sitta song."
• authenticity: The people, production and situation appear real.
• participation: "The video doesn’t consist of one person’s spectacular lip sync, but that of a group, all participating together in this one spontaneous effort, which seems to communicate the attitude and mood of the song."
• fun: the people in the video are having a lot of fun.
• Just a few clicks on the internet



Some nice examples of university lip dubs



Boston University LipDub 2009 329.933 views on youtube





  Hochschule Furtwangen University 233.911 views on youtube



HEC Slow motion lipdub from Augustin de Belloy on Vimeo.


There even is a website which has collected 54 different international University lip dubs
University lip dub collection




And of course Windesheim has a lip dub as well. Performed by a student union in the evening in our new X building.