entrepreneurship Archives - Page 85 of 235

Content vs Context

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

While reading the Age newspaper on my iPhone yesterday I happened upon an unfortunate advertisement. Have a look at the series of screen shots I took to see if you can notice it:

No doubt you too can see that a red Double Decker bus ride is probably not so compelling in the middle of a street riot. Although it is pretty funny, this could and should have been avoided. Why digital media providers don’t have a simple tagging system where certain advertisements don’t run is beyond me. Simple example;

Key word for advertisement: Flight & London. (run adv)

Don’t run advertisement tag: Flight & London & Crash (don’t run adv)

Pretty simple really, so why the GUI internet is nearly 20 years old and these mistakes still happen is beyond me.

If your startup ever runs digital placements, be sure you include your ‘do not run’ tags too.

I'm in love with Shwood

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

I saw this video below and fell in love with all of it. Every single P. Of the 4P’s that is…

The Product: So cool. Who doesn’t want something hand made, that has a story, that looks uber cool, and is recycled?

The Price: I almost don’t care, so long as it wasn’t more than what I would expect to pay for this product, then it is fine. Really. In fact, I’d probably pay a little more.

The Place: I hate shopping. I like ordering over the web and not have to go find a car park, pay for parking, deal with condescending retail worker fashionistas. In fact, I’m not even sure how these will look on my head. But I figure because they are so cool, I’ll feel cool and they’ll automatically look cool on me. (hey, I’m not pretending sunglasses are not a fashion accessory)

The Promotion: Well let’s put it this way. All I have ever seen is the video below. No one has ever spoken to me about this brand or product. In fact it is my first exposure to it. I loved the film, the light and most of all the story. It was beautiful to watch. I have already placed an order over the web. I found out via a tweet that someone sent. (By the way over 10 million tweets a day are about brands). That was all it took.

And now I’m in, part of the brand and spreading the word. This is how startups gain traction. Making cool stuff and embracing new methods to go to market.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/26124634]

New rules of media

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

The new rules of media are pretty simple. The only type of messages pretty much anyone is interested in these days are:

Anticipated, personal and relevant messages.

Anything else is just noise, or maybe even SPAM. It’s also easy to conclude that this is only relevant in new media. Not true. These changes in the landscape have modified our worldview to the point that all media must now abide by the rules in bold above.

So next time we talk to our audience, we should ask ourselves if we abiding by the rules of the new world, or damaging our brand by living in the past.

The first 10

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

When we build our next project we should only worry about the first 10.

The first 10 people we tell.

These first 10 people are people that we know, people that like us, trust us and value our opinion. If they don’t tell anyone, we need to start again. Re-build our project, or find another one. But if they tell another 5. And then that 5 tell another 3. Then we can be pretty sure that it is start start of work that matters. Work that people need.

At the start of our next launch we should really think hard about these three words: the first 10.

Open pay display

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

I think companies should have everyone’s pay on display. A publicly available intranet site in alphabetical order with every employees name, salary and benefits next to it. Ok, so this is a bit of a shift from the secret salary world we currently live in. It might even cause a little bit of a distraction in the short term. But one thing is for sure, it will move our society to a far more accountable culture than we currently have.

Let’s consider for a moment the type of behaviour this is likely stimulate:

“I work harder than Joey, and he earns $20,000 more!”
“I want a pay rise”
“Holy shit, I better start working harder, I’ve been found out.”
“I wont get a pay rise in years”
“She doesn’t deserve that”
“Why do sales people earn so much?”
“Our company is a rip off, they don’t pay well”
“I can’t believe how little Mary earns, she’s a gun”
“I’m gonna work my ass off to get that job – I never knew I could earn that much!”

I really believe the initial chaos would lead to a better and more transparent workplace. One where everyone understands their role, impact and the investment the company makes in its people.

In my next startup, this will be policy number one. Total transparency in all financial documents, including salaries.

Moving to 'open'

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

The world is quickly moving to ‘open’ whether we like it or not. Companies that lean this way will invariably do better than those that lean to ‘secret’. It is also important to know that our philosophy can’t be segmented. It is a cultural decision.

Which way is your organization leaning?