kSensei Blog

fplanque: IT world - Understanding marketing

You see a fabulous girl/guy at a party. You approach them and say, “I’m fantastic in bed.” That’s Direct Marketing.

You’re at a party with a bunch of friends and see a fabulous girl/guy. You have one of your friends approach them, point at you and say, “She’s/He’s fantastic in bed.” That’s Advertising.

You see a fabulous girl/guy at a party. You approach them to get their telephone number. The next day you call and say, “Hi, I’m fantastic in bed.” That’s Telemarketing.

You’re at a party and see a fabulous girl/guy. You get up, straighten your clothes, walk up and pour them a drink. You open the door, pick up their bag after it drops, offer them a ride, and then say, “By the way, I’m fantastic in bed.” That’s Public Relations.

You’re at a party and see a fabulous girl/guy. They walk up to you and say, “I hear you’re fantastic in bed.” That’s Brand Recognition.

Source: fplanque: IT world

HBS Working Knowledge: Globalization: Trends in Latin American Business

In Buenos Aires, Harvard Business School’s Latin America Research Center has been charting the region’s volatile business conditions for four years, and sees opportunities. Q&A with Executive Director Gustavo A. Herrero.

Source: HBS Working Knowledge

gapingvoid: how to be creative

If you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever, here are some tips that have worked for hugh “branding is dead” macleod, over the years.

1. Ignore everybody.
2. The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to change the world.
3. Put the hours in.
4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
5. You are responsible for your own experience.
6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
7. Keep your day job.
8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.
9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.
11. Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.
12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
13. Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside.
14. Dying young is overrated.
15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.
16. The world is changing.
17. Merit can be bought. Passion can’t.
18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.
19. Sing in your own voice.
20. The choice of media is irrelevant.
21. Selling out is harder than it looks.
22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.
23. Worrying about “Commercial vs. Artistic” is a complete waste of time.
24. Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.
25. You have to find your own schtick.
26. Write from the heart.
27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.
28. Power is never given. Power is taken.

Check this out the post for more details, is really good.

Source: gapingvoid

UPDATE: Changethis has published the article and is one of the most popular in the site.

Knowledge-at-work: Patterns for change

Patterns capture expertise in the form of vetted solutions to repetitive issues. This is a key knowledge representation and a neat way to leverage learning. Patterns are an advanced knowledge practice that combine best practices and distinctions with community adoption

Denham Grey is exploring patterns for Knowledge management.

Source: Knowledge-at-work

There is a story of a man who came to see the Buddha because he had heard that the Buddha was a great teacher. He had some problems in his life, and he thought the Buddha might be able to help him straighten them out.

The Buddha listened patiently to the man as he laid out all his difficulties and worries, and then waited for the Buddha to say the words that would put everything right for him.

The Buddha said, “I can’t help you.”

“What do you mean?” said the man.

“Everybody’s got problems,” said the Buddha. “In fact, we’ve all got eighty-three problems, each one of us. Eighty-three problems, and there’s nothing you can do about it. If you work really hard on one of them, maybe you can fix it - but if you do, another one will pop right into its place.”

The man was furious. “I thought you were a great teacher! I thought you could help me!”

The Buddha said, “Well, maybe it will help you with the eighty-fourth problem.”

“The eighty-fourth problem?” said the man. “What’s the eighty-fourth problem?”

The Buddha said, “You want to not have any problems.”

- Steve Hagen
Buddhism Plain and Simple

How to explode your blog’s traffic by writing Articles

How to explode your blog’s traffic by writing Articles by Christos Varsamis from ProBlogger, Tips and Advice on Blogging for Dollars

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

Albert Einstein
(1879-1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate

Source: Gurteen Knowledge Quote

Marketing for Geeks

Eric Sink writes a series of articles entitled “Marketing for Geeks”.

The central theme is that if we demystify marketing, it can be competently done by technical people.

The series is still being written, with new articles coming soon to an RSS feed near you.

The Eric Weblog is great. Plenty of good readings for technical people who wants to understand business.

HBS Working Knowledge: Negotiation: Yahoo CEO Describes Art of the Deal

When the formidable deal maker and Yahoo CEO, Terry S. Semel spoke to MBA students at Harvard Business School, he passed along a few tricks of the trade.

Source: HBS Working Knowledge

The Zoomquilt, a collaborative art project.

Great!!

Contentious � Blogging Style: The Basic Posting Formats (Series Index)

After reading blogs for awhile, I’ve come to see some patterns in the ways postings in text-based blogs are formatted. As I see it, there are seven basic formats for blog postings. Each serves a different purpose for bloggers and their readers.

The format of a blog posting, if chosen consciously and carefully, enhance communication – particularly the delivery of certain types of content. Consequently, some formats work best for commentary or explanation, others for alerts and references, etc.

Here are the seven basic blog posting formats:

1. Link-only
2. Link blurb
3. Brief remark
4. List
5. Short article
6. Long article
7. Series postings

Keep in mind that these types represent points along a spectrum. A specific posting might blend aspects of two or more formats.

Source: Contentious

Knowledge-at-work: Knowledge mapping tools

Tools for knowledge mapping vary from MS Visio or Inspiration for flow charts and concept maps to specialized software such as InFlow and NetMap. I guess the important question to ask is, what are you mapping for?

Source: Knowledge-at-work

Portals and KM: Small Business Needs KM too - Jack Vinson

Start-ups are one of the most information intense and fastest changing organizations in Business. Yet most start-ups rely only on the basic tools like email and maybe a file-share to manage information. It’s crazy when I think about it…

Jack Vinson comments about a post on KM for startups.

Using Blogs for Business - Blogging for Business

Tips, articles, and ideas on the use of blogs in businesses and careers

Source: About.com

Blogging for Business: A presentation by 37signals

Presentation about blogging for business. It defines what a blog is, show some business blog examples from around the web, discuss tools you can use to create a business blog, and explain some of the benefits and pitfalls of blogging.

Source: 37 Signals

i-neighbors

I-neighbors is your neighborhood’s home on the Internet. I-neighbors is part of an ongoing project in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (”MIT”).

The goal of this project is to help neighborhood residents communicate, share information and become involved in their communities.

Use i-neighbors for:

• Meet and communicate with your neighbors.
• Find neighbors with similar interests.
• Share information on local companies and services.
• Organize and advertise local events.
• Vocalize local concerns and ideas.

The concept behind is also know as proximity networks.

Only for USA and CDN!

paris doors

Hugh “cartoons drawn on the back of business cards” Macleod tell us a story about Paris and a primitive way of Permission Marketing in the real life.

Weblog as Online Community Management Tool

Recently Lee Lefever wrote about the differences between weblogs and message boards inside online communities. In the comments of that entry, a reader asked for more information about the best uses of the resources inside an online community. This entry is focused on the weblog as an online community management tool.

“Self-knowledge is not according to any formula.

You may go to a psychologist or a psychoanalyst to find out about yourself, but that is not self-knowledge. Self-knowledge comes into being when we are aware of ourselves in relationship, which shows what we are from moment to moment.

Relationship is a mirror in which to see ourselves as we actually are. But most of us are incapable of looking at ourselves as we are in relationship, because we immediately begin to condemn or justify what we see. We judge, we evaluate, we compare, we deny or accept, but we never observe actually what is, and for most people this seems to be the most difficult thing to do; yet this alone is the beginning of self-knowledge.

If one is able to see oneself as one is in this extraordinary mirror of relationship, which does not distort, if one can just look into this mirror with full attention and see actually what is, be aware of it without condemnation, without judgment, without evaluation - and one does this when there is earnest interest - then one will find that the mind is capable of freeing itself from all conditioning; and it is only then that the mind is free to discover that which lies beyond the field of thought.”

- J. Krishnamurti

Wired 12.10: The Long Tail

Forget squeezing millions from a few megahits at the top of the charts. The future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream.

Source: Wired 12.10