But of course, the way that you sell a book these days is you talk about it to as many different audiences as possible.
And the people who invite you to speak may choose to film these talks.
And if the people who've invited you to talk are Google, then they'll probably film them, and upload them to a Youtube channel, in a series of talks they've invited authors to give at Google.
So, courtesy of Google, here's Richard Thaler from last year talking about the ideas behind Nudge...
...and Barry Schwartz from 2006 talking about the Paradox of choice...
I guess the only choice you have now is whether to read the books, or just watch the movies...
Yep; if you select just eighteen apps from the app store, you are selecting one of the 1.56E+74 possible 18 app iPhone combinations.
Which is a very big number indeed.
To put it in context, if you multiply the number of hydrogen atoms in the galaxy (5E+68) by 311,907, then you get to the number of possible iPhone permutations.
(EDIT: This is an update on the maths from Andrew... I misinterpreted original email)
Interesting? Maybe, depending on your take on what 'interesting' is... but it's certainly important.
Why? Because it represents just how unique and customisable the iPhone platform has become... the chances of you ever running into someone who has the same iPhone as you are entirely remote.
...which means that not only is your iPhone unique, it continues to be a social object even when everyone around you has one, because you're always likely to have something new, different and interesting to show each other.
So next year, when the Orange and Vodafone iPhone deals have really kicked in, it's not like everyone in the UK is going to have the same phone...
...they're going to have the most unique phone they've ever owned.
It's just they're all going to have the same case for it...
I'm honoured/scared/excited to have been asked to speak in the innovation section of the APG / Campaign annual 'Battle of Big Thinking' event, which is on November 26th.
That's now less than a month away, so it's time to start worrying about ideas...
...and I think I might have one (it occurred at 4am this morning as I was trying to persuade young James Willshire to sleep for a bit...).
Not that I want to let the cat out of the bag, you understand.
I just want to put a stake in the ground to try and form more solid thinking around it. And if I do it in public here, maybe that'll convince me to not leave it to the last minute...
So I'm not going to tell you what it's going to be about. Not just yet, anyway.
Yes, it's those folks from Improv Everywhere, back again with another spontaneous musical...
As always, the best bit is the reaction from the people there...
...my favourite is the older gentleman at the end who just very matter of factly states "just something spontaneous, but I guess... well, they do this here maybe...".
Yep, he now thinks there's a grocery store where people regularly just randomly burst into song...
I just came across this, as it started sending traffic to Feeding The Puppy...
...it's called Trendsmap, and it lets you look at Twitter Trends by location on a map of the world. Oh yes, yes indeedy...
...then if you click on one of the words hovering over the area you're looking at, it will bring up the box on the left with the most recent tweets from that area on that subject.
I've been off, as you may know. I've returned to 413 emails, and many more items to read in my RSS reader...
Did you know, by the way, that when you accumulate more than one thousand items in your Google reader it gives up telling you exactly how many things you've got to read, and just says '1000?+'...
...it might as well say 'more items than you'll ever get through, idiot.' Just because of that, I'm going to read every single one.
But until I get through all of those, I thought I'd just make a note of the things that are the first things I've got a sense of that went on...
i) Google W.A.V.E. = WhatAVexingExercise
There was obviously a huge hoopla around Google Wave's release, and it seems that some folks out there would have (and maybe did) put their grannies on eBay for an invite...
...and on that, I'd like to thank Graham and Simon for both getting me one...
Now, I've not honestly had the chance to use it 'in anger' yet, as it were. So I'm really only going on what a wide variety of other people have been saying...
By and large, the sense that I get is one of frustration, bemusement, annoyance... people are having a bit of a hard time coming to terms with what it is, what it can do, why it's different etc. Why? Maybe two things contributed...
i) Lack of Patience - it was never going to be something that worked for everyone immediately, but maybe folk are just too used to finding 'the next big thing' online that you just 'get' in about 5 minutes.
ii) Crap Launch Strategy - dropping it in the laps of lots of people all at once isn't helpful... instead of giving people invites to the equivalent of the first telephone (hello? anyone there? HELLO..?), maybe it should have been an invite to a few folk join a wave that existed already...
However, everyone's still talking about it, so maybe that was the goal... I'm going to try out some specific projects on it, and see how using it properly pans out.
If you're still unsure what it is, This video I found via Fiona will give you a simple overview...
ii) Foursquare comes to London
I've been quite excited about Foursquare for a while. In their own words, Foursquare is "all about helping you find new ways to explore the city. We'll help you meet up with your friends and let you earn points and unlock badges for discovering new places, doing new things and meeting new people."
Basically, when you go to a bar/restaurant/coffee shop etc, you 'check in' using Foursquare. You get points for checking in, and you can achieve different badges for checking in for all sorts of different reasons... see the list here.
You can compete with your friends to earn points, get rare and better badges and so on. So, on the face of it, it's a fun local game you play with your friends...
All well and good, a simple GPS enabled game. But where I think it gets interesting is that once they know where players are, what badges they earn, the points they collect and so on, they can serve them up special rewards and offers...
It's this sort of thing that I think means Foursquare could have a big, big future... advertisers have spent years trying to think of different ways to encourage people to visit their shops, restaurants, venues. This offers a way not only to find out how many people visit, but to create ways that encourage them to do so more often, and reward them for being the most frequent visitors too. It certainly gives us an insight into how GPS might be used in future.
iii) IPA Social was... very social indeed
After spending six months working on the project, it was a bit of a shame to miss the event, but the IPA Social event on the 6th October went off very well indeed it seems... some quotes from a few things people posted afterwards...
"Every strategist and brand owner needs to understand social, and what
role it should play in building their brand. A social strategy should
be an integral part of a brand and comms strategy, and should sit
across every discipline within an organisation – it can’t just be the
responsibility of the social media manager. That’s not to say there
isn’t a role for social specialists. Implementing a social strategy
requires a robust understanding of how to behave in the social space,
and experience in these craft skills counts for a lot. Specialist
practitioners implement media planning and buying, advertising
creation, packaging design, PR, POS, call centre operations, and pretty
much every aspect of implementing a brand strategy you can think of.
Social’s no different – specialist implementation is both valuable and
necessary."
"It seems that the term
social media itself is counter productive - a fundamental change in how
people are able to communicate with each other will naturally have
knock-on effects to all businesses that deal with communications. But
it will affect each differently. So 'social media' means something
different to an ad agency than to a PR agency because it impacts what
they have traditionally done in different ways. So the advice that
clients get from their roster is that 'social media' means a range of
different things."
"In the future, I'd predict only seeing agencies getting involved in
campaign activity, with the ongoing rumble of conversation being
handled purely client-side. All it requires is an understanding of how
to use the various platforms appropriately; no specialist skills are
required to participate to the full. In the beginning, agencies will be
needed to help out educating their clients on how to use the platforms
with case studies and such, but that should be the extent of it."
So, what next for IPA Social? Well, if you want to find out, and get ivolved, maybe you should join in the conversation here on the IPA Social facebook group...
Meanwhile, I'll get on with reading 1000+ articles... or maybe I'll just hit 'mark all as read'... :)
...and this is the one for @feedingthepuppy (which is a bunch of us from PHD):
The differences make sense to me, at first glance. I talk more about social malarkey, and so obviously more people who include 'social' in their bios follow me. The general 'feedingthepuppy' one looks more like the agency as a whole.
So with that as a very quick test, TwitterSheep works I guess; it'd be good for looking at other people, maybe, and seeing who you should follow.
It's not a precise science, or course. It's kind of woolly...
Well, some people's top tips about products won't be as helpful to a company...
...take Jake Robinson's video, which he's entered into the Instructibles 'Teach me fast' competition (run by Forbes.com) for the most useful 30 second video clip.
Jake's tip is this; don't throw away your disposable razor. Keep it sharp... on a pair of jeans:
I've not tried it, but assuming it works... well, the folks at Gillette must be spitting feathers... especially given their whole business model is built on selling razors that get blunt so you have to buy new ones.
It's the most viewed video in the competition so far, it seems.
