Coffee, viral marketing and social media

Earlier this week I was involved in a Jaiku thread on free coffee.

And yesterday this campaign caught my attention. Perhaps it doesn't solve Annika's need for "instant" coffee, but anyway.

I guess I fit the target audience. And as social media, viral marketing and free coffee sounds like an interesting combination I of course signed up for the beta. And got accepted into the test. Hooray.

And now I am blogging about it, probably together with some of the other bloggers that signed up. Obviously the campaign works ;-)

Looking around a bit it seems like the initial seed was placed the 26th. In three places, including a Java forum, of course...

I am a bit surprised that they didn't use other Social Networks. But looking at this site which appears to be run by the seeder you find:

1. The seeder runs one of the seed sites.


2. He doesn't like MySpace or Facebook.

And it seems like this PR agency is behind the campaign.

Now I have two questions while waiting for my coffee:

• When was the alpha test?


• Will they ship to Sweden? I looked hard, but couldn't find any limitation. But perhaps they understimated the global reach of todays media?

I'll be back with an update and review of the coffee eventually. Until then I'll continue with the free coffee served at my workspace...

Freeconomics

Is the saying "there's no such thing as a free lunch" becomming obsolete?

There is a clear trend, especially on the Internet, that more and more services are free of charge. This has become possible mainly because the marginal cost of adding yet another user to the service is essentially zero.

Take some time and watch this video with Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail. (Sorry, no embedded version available.) He discusses the drivers behind the "free" business model, and especially how the decreasing marginal cost of processing power, storage and bandwidth has transformed the Internet.

This is great for the majority of users. As we say in Sweden - gratis är gott.

I almost wrote "many people will never sign up for a service that would cost them, regardless how small the fee might be". This is not entirely true. There is plenty of examples where people pays for services, and are happy with that.

And in many cases people will continue to pay for high quality content and services. The "free" business model will not take it all.

But I still believe that the trend of free services are here to stay. And many free services are good. Really good. You probably uses a number of free services yourself.

Of course any (or at least most) services or products that are offered for free, without any other revenue stream, are doomed in the long run. If the business is not run by a true philanthropic there is probably a business model that will monetize the business one way or another in the background.

There is a number of business models that might apply. On Chris Anderson's blog you can read this post for some ideas and discussions.

Some of the models that can be identified includes:

• Ad revenues
  Very common of course. With several sub-types that can be outlined.
  
• Get bought
  The dream of many start-ups. Provide a service, get popular and get bought (for big money) by someone. Yes, we have seen this several times. But a truly gamble.
  
• Freemium
  This is my personal favourite in terms of attitude change. As opposed to (earlier) models where you could get a demo version or a version with very limited functionality for free, the Freemium model provides a free, fully functional, version for the majority of users. But for a small group of power users some extra features are unlocked for a fee.

Now, what about this blog? Oh yes, I do have ads on it. And for this post I created an Amazon Associates account. So please click on the ads and buy the book from the link above...

I truly doubt that I will make any revenue though. With a bit of luck I might cover the fees for the domain name and web hosting. Maybe.

What do you say? Would you pay to read it? Or pay to get the posts 24 hours before non-paying readers? Probably not (or? - let me know otherwise...).

The value for me to blog here is something else. And as you have read to the end of this (free) post, you hopefully found some value in it.

Now off to a not-that-free lunch.

"Nyskap", creativity and more...

It's Friday. Looking for something to watch during the weekend? Then watch this! (The videos are in Swedish though...)

I just found this lecture on YouTube. Fredik Härén from interesting.org speaks about the changing world.

All in all there's five videos. Shall be watched in sequence. It is actually two separate talks at the same event. The first talk is in video #1 and 1 min 50 secs into the second. From that on the second, longer, talk starts. But if you start watching the first I am sure you will continue through them all. A good speaker!

Some related notes before we jump into the show:

• Fredik uses a newlish Swedish word; "nyskap". It's a word game based on the Swedish words kunskap [knowledge] and ny [new]. So far it might be translated into "newledge". However in Swedish we also have the word nyskapande [to create something new]. Anyone have a good suggestion for a new English word along these lines? (Also note that there is a web site called nyskap.se - as of today just one screen as it seems.)
  
  
• While browsing YouTube to find all parts of the lecture I noticed that SvT (the Swedish television) has a YouTube channel. I must admit I had missed that. I knew about the SvT Play initiative, where a large selection of the archive is made available over the Internet. I didn't know that SvT uses YouTube as a channel.

Now, here's the videos. Enjoy!

Part 1:


Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Statistical storytelling

After a few posts on Facebook statistics and a post on Powerpoint as killer app I here give you two videos with Hans Rosling.

He shows that statistics both can entertain and educate. And he's a good speaker and story teller.

The first video is from TED :


(In case the above video does no start, try this link)

The second one is from LeWeb3:



There is also a number of "Gapcasts" available on YouTube to explore and enjoy.

The software he uses is from Gapminder and was acquired by Google earlier this year. Hopefully this will be added to the set of Google services soon.

The "Kollektomat"

I must admit I don't go to church regulary. But on some occations you find your way to a church. Especially at this time of year with Christmas around the corner.

Last week I found myself in Viksjö kyrka. And there I found something I hadn't seen before. A "Kollektomat". An ATM machine designed to take donations at church.

A natural opportunity in todays cash-less society I guess.

You are able to select how much to donate and to what cause. And the receipt you get can be put in the collection basket (or what is "kollekthåv" in English? Anyone?) instead of cash.

Here is a snapshot of the instructions (sorry, in Swedish):

Of course there is a business opportunity here as well. I haven't looked at the business case, but here is the pricelist for the terminal (and the prices excludes the actual ATM terminal).

When I Googled for this type of stuff I found an article from the Washington Post, that incidently was published almost exactly one year ago.

Finally, the Kollektomat has a marketing video on YouTube:

DN-phone. Not iPhone or Gphone.

Or "DN-mobilen" in Swedish. The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter today launched the DN-phone. Read the article (in Swedish) here.

In summary; it's a Nokia phone (pity it wasn't a SonyEricsson) with a subscription from the Swedish operator Telenor. Sold by Dagens Nyheter, and only to current subscribers of the paper version of the newspaper.



The converged arena
So - what's this? A newspaper acting as a mobile operator? Basically that is what the proposition looks like in general. That it is actually a "real" operator behind it is not that important.

This is another example of the converging and new media landscape. That newspapers have a web site is an old example of this. Today you also see the next steps of this, like newspapers being a provider of blog spaces. Also to a large degree you see interaction with readers being enabled. As one example comments to articles are often enabled.

Mobile services are not new either. Mobile versions of newspaper web sites are there. You can subscribe to newflashes via SMS or MMS. And you can send in news via eg MMS and get featured in the newspaper.

This is however the first time I have seen a newspaper phone being marketed!

The packaging
The neat lesson from the DN phone story is how an existing product (phone+subscription) is modified slightly, rebranded and brought to market through a new channel. They have essentially applied a new business model and go-to-market model for an existing product, and with that opened up a completely new part of the arena.

A lesson similiar to the one about repackaging of candy cars.

The reaction
Apparently the interest was high enough to generate a large number of calls to the switchboard. Will be interesting to see the next chapter on this story.

The numbers
The subscription costs SEK 199 per month ("call-for-all") and must be kept for at lest 12 month.
The same phone with similiar subscription (SEK 199/month and minimum 12 month) would cost SEK 1170 if bought from Telenor directly.

With the DN option you basically get the phone for free (save SEK 1170) and you get free access to the mobile version of the DN web site (mobil.dn.se).

mobil.dn.se
It was only a few days ago that DN also launched an improved version of their mobile site. What I like the most with it is how they use the vertical scrolling in the browser to display comic strips. Try it! Might not be new, but it was the first time I saw comics in the mobile in this way.

A Social Media Oracle?

I must admit I don't know much about Oracle as a company. I know they have a database product, but apparently they do much more.

Blog
A while ago I started to follow the blog of Oracle Appslab. I picked up one of the posts on my radar and found it interesting enough to follow the blog. Sure enough, it has provided interesting reading. And it is from that blog I have picked up most of the things I mention below. Thus this blog have been my main interface towards Oracle as company, and has shaped my impression of Oracle. And that has been a positive experience.

But that's not all. Oracle seems to have their own blogosphere. Have a look at blogs.oracle.com - a long list of blogs both by Oracle employees and others blogging about Oracle stuff.

Appslab
The blog I started to follow is the voice of Oracle Appslab. If you read the first post from March this year you get a short introduction to the objectives. And quouting from oracleappslab.com:

Oracle AppsLab is a think-tank developed to drive adoption of new web patterns
and technologies across Oracle’s business and products. We’re a small group
dedicated to living and breathing Web 2.0.

Connect
One of the outcomes from Oracle Appslab seems to be something called Connect. An internal, Web 2.0-ish, social networking, thing. Read here for some part of the story. As this is an internal application I have not seen it in action, but I'd love to.

Mix
Mix, howver, is something I have tried. Mix is a community for all Oracle customers, where you can interact and discuss product features. read more about the Mix objectives here.

The Working Group
And a few days ago I noticed that Oracle have started The Working Group. A group to discuss how to drive Enterprise 2.0 change from the inside. Sound interesting, and a perhaps a more live-as-you-learn approach than the Blog Council? This is an initiative I will monitor closely, and try to participate.

OpenSocial?
The last item is OpenSocial. Oracle was part of the initial announcement, but it is not clear to me how Oracle will participate. And apparently it was not clear to Jake from Appslab either.

All in all, Oracle is definately more than just a maker of a database. I am especially impressed by the overall approach around Social Media. What I highlighted here is probably only a subset. So they might be moving towards a Social Media Oracle?

Office apps as killer apps - part 2: Powerpoint

As a follow up to the post about spreadsheets I now turn to Powerpoint.

If spreadsheets was the Killer App for knowledge sharing, Powerpoint is sometimes the Killer App for presentations. And again, in a negative way.

How many times have you attended a presentation where the presenter simply read statements from slides?

If you haven't seen this video, have a look (and if you've seen it before, it is worth watching again). It highlights a common way to use Powerpoint, using that common way... This might be the only presentation where it is suitable to use Powerpoint in this way!


Don McMillan has a website here.

Now, there's a number of reasons for this. We tend to use Powerpoint for different purposes.

1. As background for a speach
   To simply serve as a background, highlighting parts of the speach. In this case you probably are best of using as few, and more important simple, slides as possible. The message shall come from you and not from the slides.
   However on many occations people tend to use slidesets which have a different purpose to highlight a speach. This is probably the main reason for Powerpoint being percieved as a speach killer.
   
2. As stand-alone reading material
   This is when Powerpoints are sent around to serve as a reading material. People tend to create slides rather than to write documents, which is fine. Compare with reading a comic book rather than a novel. It is easier to browse through in some cases, and the threshold to create the material might be percieved as lower.
   You can pack more details into the presentation. More text to guide the reader is also good. Just think twice before using such a presentation to present something.
   
3. More fact based presentations
   This is the tricky area. Should you or the slides speak?
   Most often people let the slides speak. Slides packed with text (and in this context the definition of a "packed" slide has a low threshold).
   I suggest that you consider to speak yourself. Perhaps with a few slides. Distribute a more detailed presentation (before or after) to enable the audience to dig deeper and repeat the information.
   If you include a Q&A part have the detailed presentation handy, so you can bring up specific slides to address the questions.

You can probably define other usages as well. Any suggestions?

And of course there is always exceptions to this. Due to the topic, audience or speaker.

Finally I include two other videos worth watching. Both for the presentation style and for the content of the presentation.

First out is Dick Hardt, speaking about Identity 2.0. He uses many slides. A lot of slides. But it works. At least in this format (video) where Dick acts more like a narrator to the slides. I would love to see a presentation like this live to find out if it works as good when in a live audience.


The second one is from TED, where Larry Lessig speaks about the current copyright laws and argues why these are outdated in the digital age. It is an interesting message, a good disposition of the talk and a nice exampel of a speach where the balance between the slides and the speaker is kept.

Google OpenSocial revealed

The news is out.

Techcrunch yesterday broke the news on Google OpenSocial, stated to go live tomorrow (Nov. 1st).

I first captured the news while walking to the bus, reading my morning tweets.
@jkuramot noticed how the news spread. Indeed - a blog search reveals a number of recent posts.
I also noticed that @jsmarr states that Plaxo is implementing the API.

So - what is this about?

OpenSocial is not another social network site.
It is partly capturing the need and discussion around the Social Graph, but goes beyond that.

The intention seems to create a common platform for developers that target SoNets (social networks). The API will publish a set of information from the SoNets that connects. Techcrunch mentions Orkut, Hi5, Plaxo, LinkedIn, Ning and a few others as initial partners.

Again, according to Techcrunch, the inital set of APIs will cover:

OpenSocial is a set of three common APIs, defined by Google with input
from partners, that allow developers to access core functions and information at
social networks:

• Profile Information (user data)
• Friends Information (social graph)
• Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)

So, for developers it will mean common way to develop applications and widgets for all major social networks (excluding Microsoft Live Spaces and Facebook, at least initially as it seems). Leveraging the data around a user, and making it easy to develop things that will work with more than one SoNet. This is mainly a value proposition for each SoNet towards the developers community.

I also expect that the participating SoNets will to some extent be able to interwork. Perhaps not to the extent that you can "friend" an Orkut user from LinkedIn initially, but let's see...

...and for the user?

Yes, what will it mean for the user? We will find out pretty soon I expect, as the first implementation goes live.

I personally hope that I finally will have a way to find my friends and connections across all social networks. In an easier way than by importing my address book. Ie solving, at least partly, the Social Graph problem.

No doubt that a number of interesting usages of this API will emerge the next few month.

But where is Google Contacts?

Still, this does not address the lack of a decent address book utility among the Google set of applications. That was my prediction earlier around the awaited Google move. Seems I was wrong?

This surprises me. Surely Google must have a plan for this area?

Environment matters!

Funny. I started to draft this post last week. After that two things happened:

1. Al Gore was rewarded the Nobel peace prize.
2. I learned that Blog action day named today the day to blog about the environment.

So - here's my contribution that fits to both of these events (which I didn't know when I started the draft).

I have enjoyed the videos from CommonCraft on various topics. Mostly related to web applications like social networking, wikis, RSS and social bookmarking.

Last week I stumbled over this video, which covers how the environment benefits from using CFL lightbulbs.



There's some discussion on if especially the mercury component of such lamps makes it a bad choice for the enviroment. See eg. here, here and here.

It seems like:

• As for the risk if you break a CFL lamp at home: Shall of course be avoided, but a broken lamp does not bring any immediate health issues.
• CFL lamp shall be re-cycled (of course...) in order to avoid mercury to leak into nature.

Sound good.

However, what does the equation look like for Sweden? In Sweden we have a large degree of hydro- and nuclear power production. Does that affect the figures? I have not looked deeper into this - anyone?

Podcasters, please get into my mobile phone!

Hey podcasters, why don't you deliver to my doorstep?


The main device I carry around, is connected and ready to receive your shows is my phone.

If you push (or rather let me subscibe) to your podcasts on my mobile the probability that I will listen to it increases. Serve it to me and I might listen to it at work, in the car, on the bus or wherever I am.

It seems like a large part of the podcast culture hoovers around iTunes and iPods (correct me if I'm wrong). Meaning that podcasts are mainly listened to on portable mp3-players.
In some cases also on a PC. Sometimes in the PC mp3-player, sometimes from a web interface.

However, as Christopher S. Penn noted after Podcamp Europe, the mobile phone is a under-utilized device for podcasts.

Today, most phones can double as an MP3-player. This together with the "always connected" nature of a mobile phone makes them a perfect podcast player.

And it's simple!

There's a number of options to get a podcast into a mobile phone. The first one is the very easy way mainly discussed in this post. The other options are listed more to make the list as complete as possible. Let me know if you can think of any other.

1. Simply SMS the link to download the podcast
   Very simple and straight forward. Just send your audience a text message (SMS) with the link to the latest episode ("Here is my latest show: http://mysite.com/myshow.mp3").
   The subscriber can then click on the link and download your show. Just like that. It will end up among the MP3 library on the phone.
   
   Two questions that you are likely to have:
   A) Will my audience let me have their cellular number?
   B) How do I mass-distribute SMS:es in a good way?
   
   No doubt there is a number of solutions to this, depending on your specific situation. A quick Google search reveals a number of links to explore further.
   
   However, there is one interesting solution using Twitter (yes, one of my favourites) or any of the twitter clones out there.
   
   Create a Twitter account with the name of your show. Then tell your audience to send "follow myshow" to the Twitter number. Take it from there.
   
   You probably should consider to limit the tweets from this account to only new episodes. Also ensure that you explain the basic stuff for your users.
   
   There is a number of really good benefits from this approach.
   * First, the subsciber does not have to reveal their mobile phone number to you.
   * Second, they do not need to use a PC. At any stage. Promote your show outside the internet. Have people sign up immediately. Even those who never will touch a PC.
   
   The persons you target this way does not need to be interested at all in the rest of the Twitter world. It is up to them if they would like to explore it.
   
   (You may note that the Twitter application Twittergram is closely releated in terms of functionality. But if you already host your media somewhere you just need to push the URL.)
   
   
   
   Some other options includes:



2. Syncronize with the media library on your PC
   As the phone in many cases doubles as an MP3-player it should be possible to use eg iTunes to do this. Haven't tried this though. And more important - a majority of the user does not conect their phone to their PC at all!
   
   


3. Download a dedicated java application
   A very common approach when doing something for mobile phones is to build a java (J2ME) application and let people download it. I am not aware (have not looked that far though) of any java podcast player for mobiles (any pointers?). However, downloading a java app is for many people a big step, and thus is probably not a good way towards the real mass market.
   
   Update! I was just made aware of the Mobilcast java client. Any more?
   
   


4. Use built in applications
   I expect more and more phones to have built in capabilities to connect to podcasts. Eg through an RSS reader.
   



5. Phone into a podcast
   A very natural way to listen to audio on your phone is of course to dial a number and listen. This is what eg Podlinez offer. Will work with any phone. However I see some drawbacks.
   * Firstly the audio quality of a phone call might be lower than of a MP3 file.
   * Secondly you will be busy on the phone while listening.
   



6. Use MMS as delivery
   MMS is another option, which I feel I have to mention since I earlier worked with MMS Traffic Growth. Packing your podcast into MMS messages. To solve the packaging I found this article. Here is one product in this space.
   
   


7. Stream through the browser
   Finally, simply provide a (mobile) web page where the audio is streamed is doable. However I have not found any examples live for audio only (I have tried a nice video demo). Any pointers?

While writing this I also found this article discussing the topic.

Some last considerations
I have not discussed download time and cost for the consumer here. In general the trend moves quickly towards high speed mobile data and 3G access, and that the cost for data is going down or is offered as flat rate.

Mind you, this might not be true for all of your potential audience. Some might also have phones that does not support eg MP3 files.

I also suggest that you consider to select a suitable MP3 bit rate - remember, you might not need a high bit rate to get enough audio quality. And a lower bitrate will make the size of your file smaller and faster to download. Thus giving a smother experience for your audience.

I must admit I am not a big consumer of podcasts (perhaps due to you not delivering to my doorstep?) but when I occationally stumble upon a podcast I'd like to listen to I copy-and-paste the media URL into the SMS from desktop application I use and sent it to myself so I can download it. Works perfect. Yesterday I downloaded and listened to a 40+ Mbyte podcast. Took me a few minutes and the I had more than an hour of listening.

And Christopher S. Penn issued this contest after Podcamp Europe. I suspect he rather meant SonyEricsson, taking the handset route. This is not a formal entry to the contest from Ericsson, but I believe the 1st option outlined above come close to the stated rule. And it will work on many handsets.

(Disclaimer: I do work for Ericsson, and in areas that are related to this post. I do not blog on behalf of Ericsson. However I am probably somehow biased.)

Podcasters - what do you say? Will you deliver to my doorstep?

Office apps as killer apps - part 1: Spreadsheets

"There's no killer app - only a killer attitude" - but evidently there has been a few "traditional" killer apps around.

I will make a couple of post on some office applications that has turned into real negative killer apps. At least partly.

The first area is spreadsheets.

VisiCalc was one of the first spreadsheet programs around. It was a traditional "Killer App.", since all of a sudden there was a good reason to put a PC on every desk in the office.

Spreadsheets really innovated the way people dealt with calculation. No more calculators with a paper roll for long calculations. Instead you got a multidimensional view that was easliy updated.

Today everyone in an office environment are using Excel every now and then. For various purposes. both for calculations and for more database like purposes (see this post for one view of this).

Enter Knowledge Sharing and Knowledge Management. Suddenly we have some issues!

Even if it is possible to share Excel sheets as a multiuser application still a majority of spreadsheets are kept as individual files. Mostly on your own hard disk. Sometime as a file on the LAN. In both cases we have a problem.

All of these spreadsheets contains information. Information that is valuable to the whole organisation if it is turned into Knowledge.

The standard way to turn this information into knowledge is to pass a copy of the spreadsheet around.

What happens?

You get a copy of a spreadsheet. Filled with information from someone. This information is now part of your knowledge.

You add your information to the spreadsheet. Creating another version. Eventually you pass it around, making it part of someones knowledge.

It doesn't take many rounds to end up with many versions of the original spreadsheet. All with some parts of the truth. Not good.

Of course this is not really a technical problem, as solutions exists. Either using a multi-user environment with Excel or another tool.

It is more a cultural problem. People do what they always have done.


How does you and your organisation approach this issue. Or is it not an issue for you?

(And don't get me wrong. I believe Excel and spreadsheets are great.
But in some cases you need a different approach, especially if the spreadsheet and its content may be of interest to others than yourself. Here's another article on the subject)

Creating the buzz, one potential way?

I just signed up for yet another Social Media startup site, Dorbit.net. This one was quite funny.

The site is not in English originally. You can tell from the usage of the English language. However it is a bit funny. Makes you want to explore the language rather than the features.

I invited my friend and collegue Daniel (it takes two to tango). His profile displays like this:
I like the text:

I am this way
Hello, my name is Daniel Glifberg, I have 36 and my birthday is the 2 of April. At the moment I live in Sollentuna, Stockholms Lan, Sweden and I am in couple. I am heterosexual. I would like to contact with people of my country.

Profession
I am Telecom. I am working in an office.


Physical aspect
I have 1.8m of stature, 94Kg of weight approximately, tengo some kg of more, and physical aspect white.



Makes you want more - right? A potential way to create the buzz and get visibility in this crowded arena.


And thanks Daniel for letting me use your profile as an example. (Mine is here)

(And a clarification. The text in Daniel's profile was generated by Dorbit, not written completely by Daniel)

Leadership 2.0

I have for some time argued for "Leadership 2.0" as a natural member of the Web 2.0 family tree. I also see "Leadership 2.0" as a needed ingredience for "Web 2.0-success" (whatever is meant by that), as well as part of The Killer Attitude.

However I locked my thinking into "Leadership 2.0 as an individual competence". I have changed my mind. Leadership 2.0 is probably related to the overall leadership/management profile of an organisation.

I was triggered into this direction by a very interesting thread on LinkedIn answers.
The original question in this thread was "A good Manager does things right, while a good Leader does the ...right things. What does it take to do the right things, right?"

This triggered a number of very good answers. One example:
"I read somewhere that a manager maintains the status quo and a leader upsets the status quo." (posted by Doug Miller)
On spot if you ask me... This is one of my favourites from the thread. (To be fair Doug continues "I think that statement is a little blunt")

The overall thread (read it!) shows a clear opinion around the difference between a manager and a leader. I assume that there exist individuals that are clearly both, but you are more likely to find a good manager or a good leader, rather than both in the same person.

The next step in the reasoning is that, depending on what phase an organisation is in, the overall profile of the management shall be blended with different portions of "managers" and "leaders". For startups and organisations that need more change management you need a higher degree of leaders.

Do you agree?

Twitter stuff

I like Twitter. It might be such a rare thing as a combination of both a killer app and a killer attitude.

A killer app, since I believe it really has opened up a completly new way of interaction (micro blogging or mood blogging). It's a natural combination of two mainstream behaviours (blogging and SMS), but still it took until last year until someone created such a service. Still some time before we can call Twitter mainstream, but I am convinced Twitter (or some other brand with the same service) will become mainstream over time.

A killer attitude, since the SMS generated are "free of charge" for you as a user (see eg this post). The SMS costs are seen as OPEX by Twitter. The business model is not obvious either, as stated by some recent investors.

Oh well, two reasons I posted this today:

1. I just answered a question on LinkedIn Answers around Twitter.
2. Yesterday I found evidence that I am a Twitter pebble (see my previous post), at least in Sweden. According to this post I was the fifth person in Sweden to start Twittering. I am also on the top 5 lists for number of 'followers' and 'following' in Sweden (and not for number of tweets, trying to keep down on them :-)

And find me at http://twitter.com/johan to follow my tweets. Or tweet 'follow johan' if you're already on Twitter.

Jailhouse Rock

Just had a look at one of the YouTube videos that got some attention the last week:


Apperantly a prison in the Phillipines is using show dance as a way of prisoner rehab.

To use this type of activities with inmates is not new. This old article is one other source I found. And I especially liked the quote "There are some talented people in there. They've failed as criminals, so they'd better find another line of work."

Just make sure you do not run into the same situation as happened a number of year ago in Sweden, when a theatre play was staged. It ended up with some of the actors escaping. This even turned into a movie as it seems.

Well, back to the Phillipines. This video seems to summarize the overall approach to prisoner rehab.

And by the way, out of all the dances from the prison published by bryonfgarcia I noticed the "Algorithm march". It seems to be a Japanese popular line dance (see here for full instructions) related to "Fågeldansen"... The Algorithm march have even reached Stockholm (wonder how I missed this craze...)

Candy car product packaging - a hint to product managers?

I attended a presentation yesterday. A few examples with consumer candy (chocolate and ice cream) marketing principles were highlighted.

In Sweden we have a perfect example. Are you familiar with "Ahlgrens bilar"? It's candy cars, quite popular in Sweden, that have been manufactured since 1953. More or less unchanged.

Each bag contains candy cars in three colours. It is a regular discussion subject if each colour have a separate flavour or not... (The answer seems to be "no", but I have not seen a confirmation on this. On the contrary - the formal statement is that this is a company secret).


A perfect product targetting traditionalists (?). I can imagine that any changes to the concept will trigger protests.

The brand of "Ahlgrens bilar" have been used in various campaigns. A few years ago two complementary products was launced - Spare tires and road signs.

Nice way of refreshing the brand. But of course these are essentially new products, with investments in new production lines etc.

Now comes the magic!
This might be a temporary marketing campaign, but I think it's brilliant. How can you evolve a product which contains cars in three colours?
The answer: create three new products. One for each colour. A fresh approach while keeping the old concept.
It will not upset the consumers. No investment in new production lines. It rides on the old question "same taste or not?".

Bonus information. During the intense research for this post I found two additional related products. One seasonal variant, with the candy as sleighs. One evolution towards chocolate dipped cars.


Me? I like the candy. I like the attitude. But I will continue to buy the original, mixed, product. I guess I am a traditionalist.