QVIews

Leave it to The Economist magazine to note the profitable advantages of having customers who want to participate in new product development–it’s free. Well, it can lower the cost of innovation, but only if companies show the proper appreciation of the customers who contribute. GE has a group of customers they call luminaries and they…

Perhaps the hardest job in marketing is to see your opportunities with clear eyes, unclouded by past success, as the Proctor & Gamble Director of Corporate Sustainability, George Carpenter, discussed with the Development Gateway Foundation, over at GreenBiz News. …while only the rich lobbyist and stockbrokers had cell phones in New York, if you went…

Last month I observed that the new ‘picture of the block’ visuals for A9 was a welcome and innovative addition to our shopping options. Looks like there are more coming our way. I’m going to start frequenting A9 for ideas as well as purchases. Link: Questions for Amazon.com’s Barnaby Dorfman, VP of A9 via Zachary…

Popular Science magazine has developed a totally new scale for measuring how "high-tech" a city is, and Houston did better than it usually does… Houston Business Journal: Popular Science ranks Houston a top 10 tech metro – 2005-03-09. Popular Science ranked cities in six categories. Houston placed: 2nd in use of technology in education including…

Link: MediaPost Out to Launch by Amy Corr (subscription required) The "World Poker Tour" Season III returns to The Travel Channel and to celebrate, Agency.com created an online campaign that allows surfers to test their skills at Texas Hold ‘Em. After the hand, the banner tells players what the right moves were, so they can…

Wharton professor Karl Ulrich is a wonderful role model for innovators, not only inventing but constantly tinkering with everything in his life to find new and better ways to do things. He invented an adult scooter called the Xootr. He designed his own personal ‘Kyoto Protocol’ to make sure he invested at least as much…

This month’s issue of the design magazine I.D. has an article by Tom Vanderbilt on futurists and includes wonderful insights from Peter Bishop who heads the soon-to-be-resusitated Studies of the Future program at UH/Clear Lake. The Houston Company of Friends was started by Kaye Patterson and one of Peter’s students, Christian Crews, whose career as…

One of the reason I like to read blogs is to see new and interesting points of view. I also scan the editorial page of the paper, but I never find anything as insightful as this. Link: apophenia: Are Bloggers Journalists? Wrong Question.. Paper. What do people use paper for? They take notes, write lists,…

Marketers are under increasing pressure to serve up a customer experience in which the customer can participate. Promo Magazine: Live from IEG: The Rise of ‘Culture Marketing’. "The relationship between brands and society will be a major opportunity and chafing point for the next century," said Zolli, founder of New York-based think tank Z Partners.…

In my business, I often find that customers avoid making decisions because they are overwhelmed with confusing information and competing pressures to perform along many dimensions–keep costs down, anticipate future problems, exploit existing resources, etc. Jeff Thull seems to have a handle on the situation. In this article he explains how to anticipate and deal…