Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Great Blog on Creating Customer Experiences

Stephanie Weaver has been very consistent in publishing her blog on creating great customer experiences; although the focus is on creating such experiences mainly in museums and other cultural institutions of note - there is a lot here for every marketer and business person to learn from!

Great Examples of Major Product Flops

Great product flops courtesy of Fast Company.

For some more excellent examples from the dot.com era pick up Philip J. Kaplan's F'd Companies.

But never forget, failure begets success.
Those who don't fail - haven't tried.
Those who haven't tried - never succeed.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Search Strategies for the Web and Databases - Part III

(previously published as "Search Strategies for the Web and Databases - Part IV" on Raging Academic Notes on... Marketing)

A Brief Introduction to Boolean Search Strategies

The following tips should help improve your search capabilities several-fold, and you can use them on almost all Web and database search engines (e.g. databases available through academic and public libraries such as Proquest and ABI/Inform etc. - typically you can gain access to some of these types of resources from your home PC through a simple Internet connection) - the good news, however, is that if an engine doesn't support these options - it'll just ignore them.

1) Use quotes to specify terms - if you want to search for material about online marketing, for example, search for
"online marketing" (with the quotes)
rather than just -
online marketing (note - without the quotes).

The quotes will guarantee that the engine only returns pages where "online marketing" appears as a phrase, rather than returning every page on the Web or in the database where both "online" and "marketing" happen to appear.

2) Use "And" to further focus your search - for example, say you were only interested in "online marketing" of books - your search should look as follows -

"online marketing" and books

This kind of search will only return sites that include the term "online marketing" and also the word "books"

3) Use "Or" if you're trying to limit a search, as above, but would like to try a few different options - for example, perhaps you're searching for material on wine but don't care if it's red or white - try searching on the following combination -

"white wine" or "red wine"

This type of a search will return any page where either "white wine" or "red wine" can be found

4) Use parentheses to organize and combine searches. Let's return to the "online marketing" searches - say you're interested in online marketing of various types of media. Media can include books, CDs, videos and DVDs (among many other formats). You could structure a search as follows -

"online marketing" and (books or CDs or videos or DVDs)

The parentheses help ensure that your search is executed in the order you would like it to be - just like one would use parentheses in a mathematical calculation if you wanted to ensure that addition is completed prior to multiplication etc.

5) Use a negative sign "-" to exclude sites that include specific words or phrases - suppose for the above search you notice that most of the results in the first few pages are coming from McGraw Hill's site, but you want to get to results from other sites - run the search again, as follows -

"online marketing" and (books or CDs or videos or DVDs) -www.mcgrawhill.com

...and - voila - you should only receive search results that exclude pages from McGraw Hill's site.

In summary...

Search strategies can get a lot more intricate and complicated than the little that we've covered here. But - you've got to start somewhere. Typically successful searches will require some degree of iteration. Stay tuned to this space for more elaborate advice about successful search in the near future - and please don't hesitate to ask for clarifications, and to offer your own hints and tips, by responding to this post.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Steiner's Law of Competitive Survival

Steiner's Law of Competitive Survival: "The more information there will be out there, the more you will have to differentiate yourself to be able to compete effectively." (C)(big time...)

Google is now listing hotel prices on Google Maps...

Can you begin to fathom what this means for the hotel industry???

Let's get analytic...the competitive effort required to maintain the same position increases with the reach and scope of the network. That means that the effort required to continue to grow increases logarithmically??

Rainmaking...Changemaking...Some Key Tips for Effecting Change and Driving Innovation

Here are six great pointers on driving change, adapted from HBR's Management Tip of the Day (March 25 2010):

+ Connect people who have common interests but don't know each other.
...use Linkedin, Facebook
...make a successful connection and you strengthen your own!
+ Create innovative new business models by bringing together people and resources in new ways.
...almost everything ever created was derived from something that existed before
...try to look at things in new ways!
+ Keep driving forward with your ideas (granted that you believe in them!) until you find success.
...don't necessarily stick to the same idea
...be flexible
...remember that failure begets success!
+ In the networked age, ideas frequently are more powerful than credentials
...don't give up on someone just because he didn't go to the right school...
+ Recruit supporters early on in the change and/or innovation process
...it's tough to go it all alone!
+ Delegate, delegate, delegate!
...empower others to effect change
...provide a safety net

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Search Strategies for the Web and Databases - Part II

Keeping on top of new developments in the search space

Basically, one Web site, and one newsletter, started by Danny Sullivan, the guru of search, more than ten years ago - should suffice to keep you on top of the search space. The newsletter link will lead you to a page where you can sign up for Search Engine Watch's paid service - or just for the free service. The value-add vs. the free version is not incredibly substantial for those of you not following the space profesionally; analysts etc. will definitely want to for-fee newsletter. There is also a Search Engine Watch blog, of course...

Danny himself has gone on to start Search Engine Land - destined to be a terrific search resource as well, I'm sure. I've been following Danny since back when I was Director of Marketing for Data Research Associates (DRA, acquired by SIRSI spring 2001 - now SirsiDynix), so I should know :-)

Google has its own blog where you can check out what the search behemoth is up to. If you look down the rightside column of GoogleBlog you will see a long list of other Google blogs, as well as a list of blogs and newsletters the Google team finds to be useful.

Google Labs is another wonderful source for new and exciting developments - check it out to see what may become actual product a few months or years hence.

Not to be outdone, Yahoo! has developed its own labs site.

If you would like to recommend any other great search sites, write me! (by posting a comment to this note)
Ragingacademic

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Henry Mintzberg on Management

Henry Mintzberg is one of the top authorities on management worldwide. His personal Web site is quite a resource and offers a lot of material in support of his books, papers and articles.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Search Strategies for the Web and Databases - Part I

Search Strategies for the Web and Databases - Part I
(previously published in 2006 on Raging Academic Notes on... Marketing)


In the next few days I'll be posting, in parts, an edited version of a guide I had been providing my students with since 2002. In this first part I'll try and give you a taste for the type and logic of search resources available to you through the Web. The second part will provide lists of what I perceive to be the best search engines and directories available. The third installment will include tips on how to keep abreast of new developments in the search and research space. The fourth and last installment will include a short tutorial on Boolean searching.

So - What kind of search resources are available on the Web?

Asked to name a search engine, most people would likely come up with either Yahoo! or Google. But Yahoo! and Google are as different from each other as night and day... Yahoo! is a directory - typically, directories work by cataloging entries that Web site owners and other interested parties submit. Therefore, if you don't submit your Web site to a given directory, you don't exist in that directory. But in the case of Yahoo!, even if you do submit your site, you may not appear in their directory... Why? A number of reasons. Yahoo! has cut back significantly on manpower in its directory department, and has built up a several months-long backlog (if not longer...), so they may just about be getting around to approving and cataloging sites submitted mid-year (if that). Some sites, Yahoo! librarians won't approve - or they won't approve them for the classifications for which they were submitted. And, Yahoo! has gotten into the nasty habit of trying to charge everyone for everything that they once happily provided for free (because they used to earn umpteen-hundred million dollars a quarter from Web-vertising! For an interesting perspective on Yahoo's new attitude, see for example Fast Company - http://www.fastcompany.com/online/60/jellis.html).

Google, on the other hand, is a true search engine. To appear in a search engine's results, you don't have to submit your site - in fact, in many instances, you can't. Rather, you need to structure your site in a way that will make it easy for search engine "spiders" and "crawlers" to find you. Spiders and crawlers are softbots (for software robots...) which "live" on the Web and constantly search and traverse Web sites, continuously feeding their "owners" (the search engine companies, typically...) with data. In order to ensure that such softbots find your site, you can employ many different strategies, beginning with well-defined and well-targeted "meta tags" in your html source code. An entire industry has sprung up around the very idea of developing strategies that will improve the chances such engines will find you - and that when individuals go to search for something relevant to you, your site will appear among the very top hits.

Search engines use various algorithms to index the Web - Google uses an algorithm called PageRank (after one of the company's co-founders, Larry Page) - but most engines index only a fraction of it; by some estimates, more than 70% of the Web is never returned in a search, meaning that effectively, unless you know of a specific site or page and go there directly - you'll probably never come across it. Google indexes more of the Web than any other search engine, and indexes it in a more efficient manner, which is why you are guaranteed to get results back lightnin' fast.

To summarize this section, then - there are basically two types of search resources on the Web - search engines and directories. Engines are better when you have less of an idea of what it is you are looking for, and vice versa. For example, if I am trying to locate the Web site for American Airlines, my best bet is probably to head over to Yahoo and search for "American Airlines" - Yahoo pulls the "American Airlines" category directly from its directory; click on it and you will be whisked off to a page that includes several links to "American Airlines" sites. But if I am looking for information about, say, "tropical birds" - I'm much better off heading over to Google - I'll get a much richer and more up-to-date result set. In other words, engines are good for a subject or concept search, while directories work better for "object" searches (company, person, product and so forth).

On writing emails that get read...

I write A LOT of emails...and I'm always wondering what % of them get read, what % get proper follow-up, etc. There are some simple things you can do to increase the likelihood your emails get read - for example, ALWAYS use the SUBJECT LINE (it's truly unbelievable how often I receive emails from people who are supposed to be Net-savvy - yet they fire off email after email without a subject line!)

Here are some more useful tips...

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Passionate Leadership

Great comments from Cameron (director) and Jobs (no need...) on passionate leadership - and a passionate discussion to boot.