Archive for category Business Models
Dennis Gaboury & ZimKids
Posted by Michael Opperman in Business Models, Zimbabwe on October 11, 2009
Mary Jane LaVigne invited us to an event at House of Balls. Dennis Gaboury and his wife spend most of their time in Zimbabwe, working with orphans. Juliette and I purchased a couple of the dolls made by the kids in Zimbabwe. Thank you, Mary Jane, for inviting us; Alan for hosting; and Dennis for doing such an important thing.
ZimKids from Dennis Gaboury on Vimeo.
From the Zimkids site: “Zimkids Orphan Trust seeks to create a self-sustaining, neighborhood-based program that will provide artistic, recreational and educational opportunities for orphans and help provide them with the tools essential for self-reliance. Zimkids provides food assistance to orphaned children and youth in difficult circumstances and provides an after school program they will find a safe haven, educational, social, artistic and recreational activities and support for their development.”
More on Newsweek’s Green Corporate Rankings (thanks to Joel Makower)
Posted by Michael Opperman in Business Models, Consumption, Economy, Environment, Ethics on September 22, 2009
“The Newsweek rankings assess the S&P 500 — the 500 largest publicly held companies that trade on either the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ, the two largest American stock markets — on three metrics:
1) an “environmental impact score,” based on more than 700 metrics, compiled by Trucost, a leading provider of data and analysis on company emissions and natural resource use;
2) a “green policies score,” an analysis of corporate policies and initiatives by KLD Research & Analytics, one of the pioneers in socially responsible investing research; and
3) a “reputation survey score” resulting from a survey of CEOs, corporate environmental officers, and academics conducted by CorporateRegister.com, an online directory of company-issued CSR, sustainability, and environment reports from around the world.
Each company’s score, and thus its ranking, was based on a weighted average of those three components: 45% for the impact score, 45% for the policies score, and 10% for the reputation score.”
A Boy Can Dream: Falcon Motorcycles
Posted by Michael Opperman in Business Models, Motorcycles on September 15, 2009
Falcon Motorcycles are custom built, original bikes, that begin as the salvaged frames and engines from vintage British motorcycles and are then rebuilt entirely from the ground up.
Facebook Launches ‘Lite’ Version
Posted by Michael Opperman in Business Models, Social Networking on September 11, 2009
Successful online evolution often means taking the best (& proven?) components from competitors. Facebook Lite is garnering comparisons to Twitter with ‘@’ nomenclature, stripped downed UI.
http://www.switched.com/2009/08/12/facebook-testing-easier-abbreviated-facebook-lite
Andreesen & Skype
Posted by Michael Opperman in Business Models, Digital, Economy, Phones, Social Networking, Solutions, Trends and Research on September 1, 2009
Andreesen continues to do interesting things. From his work on Ning, to his board positions on Facebook and eBay. Though the possible acquisition of Skype is being led by Silver Lake, Andreesen VC group Andreesen Horowitz is closely tied.
With the imminent arrival of Google Wave, does Skype represent a integration component for a complimentary or competitive offering? Facebook/Ning community functionality with Skype for the teleconferencing (if for business). And with the R&D dedicated in the Research Triangle Park and the surrounding universities on crunching data across spectrums, real-time full wall video interactions, etc., this kind of solution could be a forerunner in the evolution of doing business virtually. Or maybe, Skype technology just improves and works better with Facebook . . .
Shifting Dollars
Posted by Michael Opperman in Business Models, Direct Response on October 21, 2008
A number of our clients are reallocating (reducing) budgets in anticipation of further hits in 2009. One-to-one marketing has been a mantra for decades now. There are opportunities to shift mailed direct response to online. We’ve had a great deal of success – measurable – in gathering incremental data on users, aggressively segmenting and targeting both e-marketing and online experiences to those consumers. But for this to work, an user advocate approach is necessary.
What are the goals of the consumer? What do they want? How can you anticipate life cycle to introduce new products and services in a manner that is non-invasive?
Business Tech Spending In Decline?
Posted by Michael Opperman in Business Models, Economy, Trends and Research on October 10, 2008
There were some hopes by those inside the industry that technology would be immune in the economic crisis. This appears not to be the case, at least for large scale investments. But this appears to be a crunch on technology infrastructure spending and not on marketing/consumer user experience technology spending. Of course, we’ll all be watching.
You “Complete My Album”
Posted by Michael Opperman in Apple, Business Models on March 29, 2007
Sometimes it’s simply about the incremental smart changes. Apple has announced that consumers will now get credit for songs purchased when they decide to purchase the entire album. Previously, consumers would pay again for the song as part of the entire album purchase. The credit is effective for up to 180 days after the purchase of a single. A song costs $0.99 and an album typically costs $9.99.
Too Little Too Late
Posted by Michael Opperman in Advertising, Business Models on March 26, 2007
Nike announced that it will be looking for other agencies to help with their business, changing the nature of their longstanding relationship with Wieden+Kennedy. The reason is digital. Nike is demanding more expertise in the interactive space. I think what is unfortunate is Wieden+Kennedy’s missed opportunity (more common than one would think for ad agencies). Wieden+Kennedy considered partnering with AKQA (an interactive firm) about two years ago. They decided to hire up internally instead. Investment, concerns about internal culture come into play. I’m the last to consider such decisions easy, but I think it points to both a timidity and an arrogance endemic at many ad agencies. Both hesitancy to invest and fear of interactive, and a strange hubris around the management of interactive. Interactive is an expertise and different from what agencies are used to doing. The sooner a good partner is found, the better.