Web 2.0 brought about mashups and started the push to mainstream service oriented architectures (SOA). As a result the technology that drives companies has begun to hollow out. What would happen if one of these technologies, say for instance google, went away? What technologies does your organization rely on, and how long do you think they’re going to be around? Read the rest of this entry >>

As a Washington Post experiment Joshua Bell, one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made stood against a wall in a crowded Washington subway during the morning rush and played for 43 minutes.  1,097 people passed by.  Seven paused to take notice.  Three days earlier Bell had filled the house at Boston’s stately Symphony Hall where merely pretty good seats went for $100 each.  In the subway he earned $32.  This is the power of context.  What great things are your customers missing about you? Read the rest of this entry >>

Recently NetFlix found a winner to their long standing, million dollar, contest designed to inspire freelance teams toward creating new algorithms which would "…substantially improve the accuracy of predictions about how much someone is going to love a movie based on their preferences."  The goal was to improve on NetFlix’s existing algorithm by 10%.  Most teams approached this as a math problem.  One guy in a garage, however, saw it as a people problem and made some significant advances. Read the rest of this entry >>

We talk a lot about customer delight and how to turn irate customers into loyal ones, but how often to we prepare ourselves for the opposite?  What happens when we come up with that great idea but just can’t support it?  When we turn happy customers into irate ones bynot supporting our marketing?  In the end, is it a good thing or a bad thing? Read the rest of this entry >>