How you describe something—the words you use—can dramatically affect perception. That's the entire principle behind the business concept of "market positioning" as laid out in the seminal book, Positioning by Ries and Trout. Call Government insurance...
Business
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The Internet will destroy commerce
Last week I wanted to buy product X, locally. I couldn't. Every search phrase I could come up with took me to a custom site from a big company. "Widget, Miami, FL" didn't go me Miami Florida local businesses, it gave me specially crafted, search engine optimized pages...
JetBlue speeds towards brand destruction
The essence of a strong brand is differentiation in a way that makes customers want to use your product or Service. JetBlue has announced a decrease in legroom and increase in baggage fees in an attempt to boost lagging profits. All I can say is, "idiots." The entire...
The ongoing joke that is Silicon Valley Privacy
SnapChat just revised their privacy policy. I decided to read it. It looked pretty good. Then I got to the section How We Use Your Information. How does SnapChat use the information? To provide services. To communicate with me. To monitor trends. And so on. The final...
What’s your industry? The answer may surprise you.
The way people define industries is really quite interesting. I've once again been asked to be a judge for the Harvard Business School New Venture Competition. They asked what industries I'm comfortable commenting on. It's a surprisingly hard question to answer,...
Betrayal of Users. Market forces just don’t work.
Chuckle. I deleted WHISPER because it was vapid beyond all belief, and not particularly interesting. It turns out that the stuff people say if they're anonymous is droll, predictable, and mainly drivel. Except ... it turns out that Whisper was tracking people after...
Please work for free. Not.
I'm sure you have never asked someone to work for free. But just in case you know someone who has---or if you've ever been asked---here's the kind of thing you really should say. Today I received this letter: Hello Mr. Stever, I am writing to you on behalf of...
Income inequality is simple math
Simple math is a great way to understand a system's behavior. I picked up this trick from Warren Buffett's writing and speaking. Warren often figures out which mathematical elements drive behavior of a stock or industry, and then uses that to set a boundary on his...
Is the very concept of work doomed?
I just read an excellent article on XConomy by Wade Roush in which he asks the question: is technology destroying the very basis of our economy to offer employment? And assuming it is (as a thought experiment), what might we do to stop it? First, read the article....
Targeted Ads are the Worst of all Possible Worlds
The justification used for the incredible invasions of privacy on the part of the internet marketers of the world is that they want to serve us "targeted" ads. Targeted ads are ads that relate to what we're doing at the moment. Theoretically, if I'm having a...