I remember in the early days of the Web it wasn’t uncommon for a site to tell you that you could only view the site in a particular browser, or that if you didn’t have a specific resolution you might not see everything. Eventually, web designers figured out that rather than telling the user how to browse, they would design for the user and ensure the site rendered correctly in the major browsers and most common resolutions.
Mar 192009
Ball State University, a member of the Indiana state university system, is further differentiating itself from its better-known siblings IU – Bloomington and Purdue by pouring money into new media:
Jul 202008
It’s been a long while since I posted here, and I apologize to those readers who noticed. It’s been an interesting time in the last few months, including the sale of a major community website and taking on some new responsibilities in the post-sale environment. I have been keeping up my posting at Neuromarketing, and I hope a few of my readers here have followed some of the interesting developments in applying brain science to marketing.
Jan 012008
While flipping channels, I ran across an episode of City Confidential, a show that takes viewers on a trip to an American city while recounting a murder there. This particular episode involved two business partners – one was convicted of killing the other. The murder victim was apparently exceptionally hard working and capable, and was abandoning the shared business due to the poor performance and lack of effort on the part of the other owner. The slacker parter, seeing that the business was already in trouble and would certainly fail without the other’s contributions, was found to have killed him – apparently to take advantage of a hefty “key man” insurance policy that would have paid the firm’s debts and left the remaining partner well-capitalized and in full control. While few business partnerships will lead to murder, lots of them do generate hard feelings when the partners seem to have different expectations for their effort and performance. Nowhere is that more true than with Web businesses.
Nov 012007
Tired of high tech designs that look hopelessly dated in just a few years? Longing for a more Victorian sensibility? You may need to get up to speed with steampunk, a design movement whose participants hack new tech devices (and more) into steam-era exteriors. The photo is a late-model Hewlett Packard computer repackaged by Richard Nagy into something that Arthur Conan Doyle might use to peck out Sherlock Holmes’ next adventure.
Jul 272007
How frustrated are you when you have to reboot your PC in the middle of the day? A full shutdown and reboot cycle can take a several minutes – instead of staring at your screen watching the icons flicker to life, the hourglass grind away, etc., why not capture a few minutes of productivity? You’ll spend less time thinking evil thoughts about Bill Gates, and you’ll get a mood boost from being productive!
Apr 162007
Entomologists have been buzzing about a strange decline in bee populations around the world. The phenomenon, known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), is characterized by older bees dying prematurely and leaving the colony unable to sustain itself. A study at Landau University in Germany proposes that cell phone signals may interfere with bee navigation:
Sep 082006
HP didn’t just shoot itself in the foot, it blew its whole leg off. In what will surely go down in business history as one of the more bizarre exercises of corporate paranoia, Hewlett-Packard is in the midst of a public relations disaster after engaging in unethical and perhaps illegal behavior. In an effort to track down a board member who gave information to the press, investigators hired by the firm used “pretexting” techiques to obtain confidential phone records of HP board members. “Pretexting” is a form of social engineering in which an individual provides false identity information to access data that would normally be confidential. This incident is a case study in how an effort to control the firm’s image in the press resulted in negative publicity several orders of magnitude greater than it experienced before.
May 022006
It may not be high tech, but you’ve got to love the marketing chutzpah of Parking Stripe Advertising. Just in case you thought all of the areas exploitable for ads had been claimed, this firm will convert those boring white lines in your parking lot into a dynamic advertising venue. The asphalt expanse outside your door used to be an annoying money sink, what with repairs, recoating, and striping… now it can be a 24/7 revenue generator. As customers step out of their cars, they’ll place their foot squarely on a targeted advertisement. The stripes are supposed to be durable, and last for at least 90 days. (I wonder if these guys have seen what a pickup with a plow blade can do in a Midwest winter…)
Feb 102006
In an earlier post, I speculated that Steve Jobs joining the Disney board of directors had a few parallels to Ross Perot’s time at General Motors. Both joined the board of a much larger firm as big shareholders following the acquisition of their company. Both have a strong maverick streak, and neither has been reticent to say exactly what he thinks. Perot, of course, was eventually bought out by GM when he became too much of an irritant. Now, a new BusinessWeek article, Steve Jobs’ Magic Kingdom, suggests another alternative: rather than getting rejected like a xeno-transplant, there’s some chance that Jobs could end up as Head Mousketeer. While not considering it highly probable, BusinessWeek suggests that Jobs could, eventually, take over as chairman or even CEO. They point to his assurances that he didn’t want CEO Gil Amelio’s job at Apple not long before he took over as CEO.