Why this blog?

A friend and I were having a debate on whether or not there was such a thing as a digital planner. Did being a good offline account planner automatically mean you could be a good digital one? What does it take? Since I love my job and the power it gives me to be a consumer champion I've decided to embark on a journey to prove that a 'traditional planner' can embrace the digital world.

Realising that I am going to be pulling from several sources who know what they are talking about and that there must be other planners out there in my shoes, I thought it would be worth blogging what I find. At the very least it's a good place to pull together everything for me. Without this I have a strange feeling that I will be as redundant as the banker who said 'yes buying another bank's bad debt is a really good idea'; wish me luck.

Friday 13 August 2010

Apple of my eye

I've realised that I treat Apple like a favoured child. Apple is definitely the younger one who is beautiful and cheeky, and gets away with daylight murder, or robbery if we were truer to reality.

An iFaux Pas
Apple didn't handle the whole iPhone 4 antenna issue well. First they try to deny the fact, then they delete threads relating to the issue, and worse still any thread that referred to the negative consumer report was taken down too. That's like trying to hide your less than glowing school report card.  Naughty Apple.


Fabulous name Mike Gikas (pronouced geek-cus) explains the antenna issue

With any other brand, this would have seriously damaged its reputation and sales. But not so with our favoured child. According to ChangeWave Research 73% of iPhone 4 owners are satisfied with Apple’s free case offer to overcome the antenna problem, and an astonishing 93% saying they are satisfied with their phone .  As for sales, they still outstrip supply, topping the three million mark in the USA alone, with Apple's latest quarterly profit surging 78% according to the Wall Street Journal.

It's not loyalty, it's iLoyalty 


Source: The Nielson Company Smartphone report
 So how do Apple do it? It's not the puppy dog eyes of Steve Jobs, or his admission of being less than perfect, it's the unstinting loyalty of its customers. According to The Neilson Company's survey 89% of iPhone OS owners say their next phone will be another iPhone OS, compared to Android's 71%, and Blackberry's 42%. Parents dream of this kind of loyalty.

Apple is most definitely a favoured child. Or perhaps Apple is a brand that has gained the respect I talked about in my last post?

Wednesday 11 August 2010

Respect: The Key to a Brand's survival in the Social Age

With the blossoming of social media a brand's failing is often recorded and spread quickly through peer to peer reviews which is trusted by 78% of people. That's over five times more than the number of people who trust the brand's own TV ads. Pretty powerful stuff. Every brand will deliver customer experiences that are not up to scratch, that is the nature of this imperfect world. In order to survive these hiccups brands more than anything need to gain the respect of the people it is hoping to engage.

I believe that respect is even more important today than ever before. You see, if you respect someone or something you talk about them generously, you allow yourself to agree to disagree with them because you believe in them even if you don't always share in their beliefs, and you forgive their foibles because you trust they get it right most of the time.

Brands who have earned respect will fair better than others in this transparent Social Age.


Location:Sulgrave Rd,Hammersmith,United Kingdom

Tuesday 3 August 2010

Social Gaming - Jargon for today

Officially: Social games are a structured activity that has contextual rules through which users can engage with one another. To state the obvious, Social games must be multi-player and have one or more of the following features: people take turns to play, are based on social platforms so you can share your progress easily, invite participants and provide users with an identity, and/or are casual.

Unofficially: A social Bermuda Triangle of time and a reason to connect when you don't have anything but lost socks to comment about

Statistically:
Useful summary 
Full report: Information Solutions Group: 2010 Social Gaming Research

Wikily: Wiki on Social Gaming

Visually:
Social Games: A Bermuda Triangle for Time