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Monday, March 15, 2004
Locke 'n load 
| | Remember to stand behind him, guys. |
Feed on
Stern expectations
| | I want so see Howard on Sirius for two reasons: Tom Reilly and NPR, both of whom/which are on Sirius and not on the larger XM. |
| | Me, I'd just love to see Howard start webcasting, finding the best way to stay inside the rules imposed by the Library of Congress rather than by the FCC, and leading the way to vitalizing an industry that was strangled in its cradle and left for dead by the LOC and its Copyright Office, acting as puppets for the RIAA. I guarantee you'd see webcasts to cars, somehow, within three years. |
Everything in moderations
| | I'm heading up to OSBC tomorrow, in San Francisco. Leaving at, like, 3am or something, for an 8am opening session. I moderate a panel on Wednesday afternoon, right before driving home. Kind of a whirlwind thing. |
| | Then it's off to PC Forum on Sunday morning. Topic: The Big Picture: In Focus. I've been going since forever (it remains my favorite conference), but this is my first time on the program (a roundtable). I feel like I've finally arrived, somehow. |
| | Meanwhile, today is a huge deadline day. If ya'll have some last-minute thoughts on what techies are doing for democracy that they never (or nobody ever) did before, lemme have 'em. |
Mumbai? Where's the heck is Mumbai?
| | "Branding" is the word producers use for burning their names on the brains of consumers, much as ranchers burn their brands on the hides of cattle. Naturally, the metaphor for the former was supplied by the latter. Why else would marketers want to "capture" your eyeballs and "impress" them with "messages" that carry no information other than their freaking names? (More on that whole thing here.) |
| | Anyway, I usually avoid the subject. But Brian Millar brought it up, on the occasion of his professional moveage to Notting Hill. He's a regular now at a nameless coffee shop the prime virtues of which are their highly personal service and the fact that they aren't Starbucks. |
| | Fundamentally most of the service problems we experience stem from the transition of micro to macro in the economics of our everyday lives. We now benefit from economies of scale at the cost of any modicum of humanity creeping into our dealings with brands. |
| | But there's no reason why you can¹t create a service organisation of people who all just "Get it." Virgin do this brilliantly. I recently had to travel to Mumbai. I called Virgin and asked if they flew there. "No," said the booking woman, "but God, we'd love to!" |
| | In those few words you realise that this person (who can supposedly be replaced by a few lines of online shopping code) was actually party to the kind of decisions happen in Virgin boardrooms. Of course Mumbai fits their brand perfectly - a hip, glamorous town with the world's biggest movie industry. She understood that as well as anybody on their board. |
| | Which suggests that personalisation is a cultural thing as much as it has to do with technology. Markets, as the Cluetrain.com people told us a few years ago, are conversations. They've just got a little one-sided in the last few decades. |
| | Like I said. Modern life. Who needs it? Excuse me, I have to go for a monocle fitting. |
| | More about the Brian brand here. |
| | Something about Mumbai here. |
There are responses to this message:Re: Monday, March 15, 2004, Michael Bernstein, 3/16/04; 12:51:48 AM Stern aint going to XM, lou josephs, 3/15/04; 10:29:21 PM Re: Speaking of branding, Ann O'Domini, 3/15/04; 9:29:06 PM RSS at NYT Gone?, Tim Merritt, 3/15/04; 10:23:07 AM
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