I often wonder as we have access to more or more information, why is it that it is getting more and more difficult to take decisions ? Jeffery Phillips had a very interesting perspective on the same.Jeffery writes:

"I spotted a statement on a whiteboard that's stuck with me for a few days.  On the white board, in big, messy handwriting, was the statement:

The point of the statement is that what we are missing - what many of us lack in today's working environment - is not enough information, but enough attention to the important things.  We've migrated from decision makers who had to "go with their guts" and could focus their attention on important things, to those who simply cannot (and will not) get enough information and who are distracted by the search and analysis of information, rather than focusing the right amount of attention and effort on any particular problem."

We just need as much minimum information as possible( or just the right information)  and enough  time for attention amongst ourselves to make the decisions.

Michael Lowenstein has some nice advice on how employees can drive customer loyalty:

..most managers and executives in almost every company, are familiar with the terms "employee satisfaction" and "employee engagement." Not so familiar, though, is employee commitment.

Employee satisfaction and engagement will both have relatively passive linkage, but employee ambassadorship and commitment will result in stronger financial performance on every key measure.

There is growing recognition .... which relates and links employee perceptions and actions to company business and financial missions and strategies, particularly regarding customer behaviors on behalf of the employer; and very little employee research (qualitative or quantitative) has been conducted, and no proven technique had been created, in these areas. We call the concept forming the research method we have developed employee ambassadorship. This represents the new reality of optimizing employee productivity, connecting to the organization, and focusing on delivering value to customers; and it addresses the direct and indirect behavioral linkages between these stakeholder groups.

Employees are the common denominator in optimizing the customer experience. Making the experience for customers positive and attractive at each point where the company interacts with them requires an in-depth understanding of both customer needs and how what the company currently does achieves that goal, particularly through employee loyalty.

One of the effects of a globalized economy and the degree to which cultural sharing has taken place through mass consumer culture is that consumers learn more about the customs and popular art forms of other nations, making viable a degree of mass cultural sharing that has never been accomplished on this wide of a scale.

The latest example? News that famed Columbian singer and dancer Shakira wants to film her next music video Bollywood style, after the success of a Bollywood-inspired dance routine at the MTV Video Music Awards.

According to a story from the BBC's Monica Chadha, Shakira plans to work with Bollywood director Farah Khan, who helped choreograph Shakira's dance on the awards show.

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Xerox has come out with a great customer innovation.Take a look:

Inspired by the fact that many print outs have a life-span of a few hours (think of the emails you may print out just to read, or the content you proof read on the train journey back home), the specifically prepared paper will preserve its content for up to 16 hours.

The paper has a “photochromic compoud that changes from a clear state to a coloured state under ultra-violet light.” The print face will then fade with time. I really wish we could develop a paper that we could specify how long it takes to clear, but I suppose Xerox is still working on that one. Xerox told PC Pro Magazine that “further research is being undertaken to give the option of subsequently preserving the content if the user desires, which might literally involve warming up old data through the heating of paper.”

thro' caffeine marketing.com

The Indian bloggers have come together to unconference, as they call it, on Sep 9 & 10. The conference is happening in Chennai and there is also an opportunity to participate virtually. The conversation topics are:

• Blogging and Governance - How blogs are being used to provide assistance during times of crisis, uncovering potential crimes, activities, taking on the government, etc.
• Blogging and Entrepreneurship - Many professionals are using blogs to change their world. Here we talk about how blogging can work towards career development and related areas.
• Corporate Blogging - Many corporates have started blogging, taking them closer to customers. Here, you could share your stories on why you are incorporating blogs in your products and media strategies.
• Getting Geeky - The Art and Science of Blogging, how to go about it, tips and tricks of trade and taking blogging to the next level.
• Blogging as New Media - As blogging goes mainstream, it complements journalism. Here we talk about why traditional media should care about blogging as a form of citizen journalism.
• Blogging as a Hobby - How blogs help you in showcasing your talents and skills, in sharing your deep thoughts.
• Blogging and Community - As a tool for action, collective or distributed, as a binding force, as a way for individuals to contribute, and to get back something.

Know more and Register here

The Hug Shirt (F+R Hugs) is a shirt that allows people to exchange the physical sensation of a hug over distance. Embedded in the shirt there are sensors that feel the strength of the touch, the skin warmth and the heartbeat rate of the sender and actuators that recreate the sensation of touch, warmth and emotion of the hug to the shirt of the distant loved one.The system is very simple: a Hug Shirt (Bluetooth with sensors and actuators), a Bluetooth java enabled mobile phone with the Hug Me java software running (that understands what the sensors are communicating), and on the other side another phone and another shirt.

When touching the sensors on your shirt your mobile receives the data (hug pressure, skin temperature, heartbeat rate, time you are hugging for, and the name of the person you want to hug) and delivers it to the other person. If the other person or the sender doesn’t have the shirt she can just send an SMS text message, and it will be transformed into a hug! If you don’t need a hug you can switch it off.

"More than 90 percent of large companies believe that consumer recommendations are important in influencing other consumers' purchase decisions," says Emily Riley, JupiterResearch analyst...Nevertheless, many of them "are not focusing efforts on managing the conversation among consumers," she says.

Some 66 percent of small companies monitor WoM regularly, compared with only 33 percent of large companies...

"Online consumer dialogue has become both widespread and efficient, allowing consumers to wield enormous power over the buying decisions of their peers," said David Schatsky

thro MarketingVox

Consider this : There are tens of millions of iPods and about 700 million PCs already capable of playing podcasts. These are small numbers compared with the 2 billion mobile phones now in use around the world. The cell phone will become the next podcast-listening device.

Mobile Broadcasting Network has some interesting casts - Business casts, Education casts, Food casts. For a marketer, it looks like a lovely set of niche audiences one can reach to. There is also an alliance with Nextel.

The key questions that come to my mind, for this phenomenon, to be widely adopted are:

• What is the cost of access of these casts? Wireless internet has to become affordable to catch-on.
• What about ubiquity of cellcasts? These services have restricted access to US customers but the net is a "country neutral" media. But, mobile carriers still have restrictions on country codes, tariffs etc. Today, I can listen to podcasts sitting anywhere in the world. I can't do that with Cellcasts. These barriers have to be broken. Mobile phone service have to understand that, if they want to monetize their user base.

thro' mopocket

Enter certified email. It's the online version of the postal concept in which the sender pays a fee to ensure that mail is delivered to the proper address. For email, companies pay a fee to have a special label affixed to their communications that signals the consumer that a third party has inspected the item for authenticity.

Two companies are making certified email a reality. CertifiedMail has already executed several campaigns and appears to have Microsoft's blessing to work within Outlook. Later this month the first mass market applications of certified email will launch on Yahoo! and AOL via an agreement struck between the ISPs and GoodMail.

According to Jupiter Research, the average consumer received 3,253 spam emails in 2005. If you're using email as a marketing and communication tool, that's 3,253 too many.

Read more (subscription reqd.)

thro' Peppers & Rogers Group

The Chicago-based upscale grocery chain Potash Bros. Markets has become the first MobileLime merchant in Chicago to offer its customers savings and rewards through their mobile phones.

The deployment of the MobileLime system at Potash Bros. apparently marks the beginning of MobileLime's national expansion as it moves beyond its existing merchant base in Boston, MA.

How it works

Rather than issuing a typical membership card or number, MobileLime turns a shopper's mobile phone number into their unique identifier for the loyalty rewards programme. The cashier simply enters the member's mobile phone number at the check out, and the shopper receives any appropriate item-level savings toward their purchases in real-time.

In the Potash Bros. Mobile Rewards programme, members can opt-in to receive weekly e-mails, interest-oriented text messages, event alerts, special offers and savings on a selection of items every week.

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