Dear Jony, we need to talk.
About your design sensibilities, that is… This past week, the few opportunities that I’ve had to actually get online or use a computer, have all been on this very beautiful (the CMF oooh la la!) Mac of some sort. Its a tiny box, a slim keyboard that still works for an old touch typist and […]
Flux and the Farmer: the evolving concept of marketplace and of “online” in Africa
There is a digital convergence happening in rural Kenya that echoes, somewhat faintly, the combination of factors that led to the first phase of market growth and creation. In the late 1980s, for about a decade or so, enough market forces converged in rural Kenya, particularly centered around the Chuka to Meru market region just […]
Pondering the bazaar, in context of the cathedral
Someone did me a favour, back in 2008, when I was requested to synthesize the first chapter of Eric Raymond’s book for a workshop in Bellagio. This is best introduced by the first paragraph from Wikipedia: The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary (abbreviated CatB) is an […]
Questioning the global mobile Apparatgeist (timely, from the archives 2010)
The Economist recently put forth an argument strongly reminiscent of Theodore Levitt’s 1983 HBR classic “The globalization of markets” (PDF) where he first framed the concept that global consumer preferences were converging, thus companies could develop, launch and market the same product across the globe – “Different cultural preferences, national tastes and standards, and business […]
Gamer Gen: Civ III as virtual MBA?
This post was written on 29th November 2005 in San Francisco Back in May 2005, I wrote a post on the book “Got Game: How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever” where the authors, John C. Beck and Richard Wade, argue that gamers glean valuable knowledge from their pastime and that they’re poised to […]
Thinking like a user centered designer about brand management
Design is fundamentally a value system, a set of principles, that is then manifested in tangible form. Conventionally, this has been known as setting the design criteria. However, rather than specification guidelines, as used in engineering, if one were to change metrics and numbers into values or emotional responses, one could, in fact, create a […]
Empowerment and co-creation – Entering new markets with a long established brand
From personal experience, the biggest frustration with being a cog in the remote outpost of a global behemoth that actually has to implement or execute the marketing, advertising or branding strategy in the field is tussling with the brand’s identity. Clausewitz has said, It may be of interest to future generals to realize that one […]
Part 3: Three weeks waiting for Result
This is part three and was first published on December 2nd, 2005 while I was living in San Francisco. You’d think that the coolest thing that could happen to you in the world would be to come into work whenever in the morning as long you managed to saunter in by 11ish, have lunch that […]
Part 2: Result in transition
Hmm, I was overwhelmed there for a minute, for this post is about the events of that one day when the future existence of Result, as an entity, as a company, as the direct marketing arm of McCann Erickson Worldwide would still exist. For there were just six people in the office, not counting the […]
How Result became Result:McCann – A trilogy of tragedy and comedy
This is part one and was first published on December 1st, 2005 while I was living in San Francisco. Life was a peach for Rajat Sethi while he was at Tara Sinha McCann-Erickson in the mid-nineties. As senior vice-president he was looking after an array of brands and serving their ‘traditional’ communication needs. His world […]
