Paths to enlightenment

There are many paths to enlightenment. One often associates enlightenment with sufferings. One must suffer, and be striped from all materials in order to find true happiness. One Diamond Mountain (a group based their practice on a new branch of Buddhism. Note - some may call them a cult. I'll leave you to be the judge of that.) member died from dehydration during a three year three month and three day long retreat in the Arizona desert. 

I'm actually not interested in the group nor the death per se. I'm intrigued by the idea of finding happiness through sufferings. Why can't one find happiness through actually living the lives they already have? Could it be that enlightenment is within all of us already? I have found my path to enlightenment. (I know it's a big claim, but no one can be the judge but me.) And it can not be any further from suffering. I choose to live life. Explore new things, places, emotions, perspectives, opportunities, thoughts, tastes... Yes, I'd rather explore than to retreat. I'd rather consume than to conserve. I'd rather to be than to search. And it feels great to be enlightened. 


Related reading-
Diamond Mountain retreat death: Ian Thorson dies after fleeing mysterious yoga retreat with wife | Mail Online:

'via Blog this'

my take on career advice

Forget about dress for the job you want. Just act the one you want to be.

iPhone 5 preorder sold out in record time. Genius marketing.

iPhone 5 is a flop. Let's not debate this. It just is.

What would you do if you were the chief marketing officer in light of the less than enthusiastic media and blogger response? Create demand. How? By faking it. I haven't read anywhere the stock number of initial supply. For all I know, it could be 10 units. It's not that hard to sell out in 'record time' with a small amount of supply. It doesn't reflect actual demand. It's simply a numbers game. The trick here is to create shortage which is no new technique in the marketing playbook. People want what they can't have. And in turn, it stimulates real demand.

This is a genius marketing move. But let's not be fooled by the 'sell out' headlines anymore.

Pepsi Refresh a total failure or too early to tell?

I recently read an article by Bob Hoffman, The Ad Contrarian, summarizing the results of the Pepsi Refresh project. He concluded that it was a total failure.

‘The Refresh Project accomplished everything a social media program is expected to: Over 80 million votes were registered; almost 3.5 million "likes" on the Pepsi Facebook page; almost 60,000 Twitter followers. The only thing it failed to do was sell Pepsi.

It achieved all the false goals and failed to achieve the only legitimate one.’

He made a very convincing point. But the skeptic in me says ‘Hold on. Dig deeper’. Of course the ultimate objective of all marketing activities is to drive sales. However, there are broadly two types of results: immediate and long term. Pepsi Refresh did indeed fail to deliver on short term financial results. However, don’t underestimate the 80 million votes, 3.5 millions likes and 60,000 Twitter followers just yet! They may eventually deliver your long term financial success.

If you don’t believe me, at least read this Adage article (Of course social media works, if you measure it right). The value of the Refresh program was to acquire new consumers into Pepsi’s community. This is important because consumers opted into targeted advertising. This is important because consumers agreed to let Pepsi to mine their data. Pepsi now knows how old you are, where you live, who your friends are...

However, Pepsi hasn’t hit the jackpot yet. I don’t think we can tell the success or failure of the program just yet. The key to success is what Pepsi are doing with these new contacts. How do Pepsi engage them and guide them further along the purchase funnel? Turning acquired fans into advocates and sales is the holy grail.

Success or failure? Only time will tell.

What is Web 3.0?

I just came back from one of the largest and growing interactive conferences, SXSW. One of the hot topics was - What is Web 3.0. My impression was no one has quite cracked it. Some say mobile will be big, and data analytics is crucial. OK. Please tell us something we don’t already know…

There’s nothing 3.0 about mobile. It’s totally 2.0, and 2.1 at best (one can argue QR codes driving traffic to mobile sites is quite 2.1). Even with social location and augmented reality, they still don’t tip us over 2.x.

What is Web 3.0 then really? Well, if I have the answer, I wouldn’t be writing a blog post, but instead doing heavy coding in my garage. (Not that I have a garage either…) My take on the evolution of web 2.0 lies all in the long tail. Not exactly the long tail coined by Chris Anderson in 2004. Anderson’s theory was that most of the revenue comes from many niche products, and only 20% of revenue is from big hits, mainstream products. In general, one can interprete that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail.

To build on the long tail theory, my take is that we are using the long tail to identify and connect with like minded people. Our attention and needs will become more fragmented. We will breakdown our interests to finer levels. And with the vast amount of data the web has on us, it will become much better at understanding our fragmented interests, and connect us with people who share those interests. Case in point -Twitter. Twitter lets us connect to people with very specific interest. If you like baby blue peep toes platform shoes, there’s probably already a hashtag for this on Twitter. The Lists feature on Twitter is a tool to help you segment your contacts. What missing is the ability to post tweets to specific groups.

Having that said, the need to connect to the 20% ‘mainstream’ people will not go away. And this is where Facebook comes in.

But this is no where near Web 3.0 either. So let me know if you have a better idea, I got some savings. Perhaps I’ll be your angel investor ;)

The Relevant Hooks!

Thanks to the cold Finnish winter, I’d prefer to stay home this Sunday evening. And finally manage to sit down and put these thoughts into words. I’ve been researching examples of consumer engagement programs. And trust me, there’re plenty out there. Some are hits, while others are flops. Question is what makes or breaks engagement programs?

I don’t think I have all the answers to it, but at least I think I have identified a critical factor – the relevant hooks. Brands ask consumers for their participation in exchange for a reward. Rewards are what motivate people to participate. I shall call these rewards – the hooks. But not just any hooks would do it. We need to offer the relevant ones.

Types of hooks:

The prestige – rewards that fuel the participants’ social influencing power within their communities. And it increases their social currency, and propels them to higher level in the social/influencing hierarchy. They are rewards that money cannot buy. They are exclusive and hard to come by. E.g. recognition in forms of awards, visibility and exposure.

The content – rewards that provide exclusive, interesting, useful, and relevant content. Consumers participate, either through consumption or active participation such as retweeting, sharing and commenting, to enhance their experience. E.g. articles and videos of subject of interest

The fun – rewards that provide entertainment. E.g viral videos, games, interactive banners

The prize – a monetary reward or reward with a tangible value. E.g. discount, loyalty program

Note that the same hook can fall under different categories depending upon to whom you are targeting them.

To whom and which type of hooks to offer?

We need to keep in mind the communication target audience when designing rewards. I will use the below engagement model to explain to whom and which type of hooks to offer. And I will use the Nike Write Your Future – The Chance engagement program as an example.

Final words

The point I’m trying to make here is when design engagement program, one needs to understand:

·         Who is your communication audience?

·         What is your word of mouth model? Whether you would leverage on the influencers to spread the message or go directly to the community or the mass.

For different audience at different level of the engagement hierarchy, you would need to employ a different hook to get them motivated to participate. If you look closer, you can find the same model everywhere. Be it American Idol, Project Runway, Nike’s The Chance or Nokia’s PUSH Burton.