╠ Twitter is Broken ╣

Whilst most marketers would believe Twitter has had it's time on top, ranking with the likes of facebook and myspace. I beg to differ

My first thought for Twitter was that it's really gimicky. First twitter in unique location here, unique individual twittering there. That's most of the news around it.

I think Twitter in it's current state has run out of steam, however it's not actually the gimickyness that has caused it in my opinion. Thanks to programs like Twollow the entire follower/following dynamic is blown, accounts can auto-follow you that will never actually read what you post. To prove my point I've made an account to follow anyone who talks about Gruen :P

Because of this I think Twitter needs to change its dynamic before it gets more flooded with Twollows than Twits.

PS: Interesting note, as I was writing this Twitter was actually not working, fail whale and all.

╠ The world IS mine ╣

For a career management plan, one of the requirements was to draw a picture of how you would like to see your career future.

Pictured on the left is my entry. I must admit I was surprised that at least 50% of the class simply stole pictures from google images. Those left simply drew a metaphor, doors, gardens growing/sprouting etc.

In a class with the majority doing marketing/management as a major and the students could not even attempt to be innovative.

It is days like these that I am so glad I discovered blogging. Without it I could easily had been as scared of open ended activities like this.

╠ Ditch the Suit ╣

During the weekend just passed I met up with my family and since it's now my final year, conversation moved to my career. Also being close to my birthday the prospect of buying me a really good suit arose. I declined, however this was because when it comes to a suit I would want to pick it myself, because I don't want just a generic suit.

Now they used this as me trying to put forward an excuse for me just wanting to be cheap because I would never spend a lot on a suit myself. Now they were rather certain about this so I had to take a new viewpoint and sort of make the challenge to get a good job without resorting to buying a fancy suit. Which is actually a little bit of a shame because I am quite fond of one day looking spiffy in a suit.

Those of you who read Marketing mag may remember Zac Martin's post about ditching the resume. The resume is simply a way of trying to make yourself look fancier than you are, and suits are the same. In fact they work just like branded goods, you buy them for the social value. Basically you spend $500 on a suit to say that you spent $500 on a suit. Yet somehow this makes you better for a job than someone else.

Zac manages to use the fact that he ditched his resume and replaced it with a blog to spark conversation. However suit's are not so easily replaced, there's not exactly an alternative attire that isn't considered directly inferior to a suit in an interview situation.

That being said I'm going to give it a go. See if I can be a little different and see how far I can get without a suit. Odds are I'm fighting a helpless cause however it will be an interesting challenge to trial none the less.

Amusingly the actual final part of the challenge was to write a book about it if succesful and use the proceeds to buy a suit. But who needs to write a book when you have a blog. So I'll be keeping you up to speed here. As for the proceeds buying a suit...well I may just be waiting a while for that :P

╠ Is waiting for when I'll apparently love coles ╣

Now I must start this post with saying I am actually a woolies boy, I've worked there, got the discount card and also got the credit card. So therefore my view of Coles may be a bit skewed.

However one thing that has been popping up on Facebook is 'Which you'll love coles item are you?'. What makes it more curious is that people are doing it and liking it. When prompted as to why the answer I got was you have to shop there to understand it. Seems shopping at Coles makes you part of some special club...

Whilst I am confused at the succesfulness of this quiz I must admit it is quite good for Coles. Once you get an item you identify with that item and I would think that in most cases you would pick up and have a look at yourself as a product. When you're raking in 4000 of these quizzes a month that's a pretty good investment for something that probably cost them nothing.

It's also an eye opener because it shows that for some people at least the value that they must get back for interracting with a brand isn't high at all.

FYI I'm you'll love coles milk apparently...

╠ I don't talk to people ╣

Recently I have been thinking about communication. The way I've looked at it I perceive it to be be broken down as talking to people and talking at people and this is decided by the socially expected requirement of instant response.

In a normal real life conversation you talk and then the socially respected return is to respond. The same exists for phone conversations.

However email and SMS are different. Whilst a response usually may be expected, the uncertainty of when the message is received by the user leads to the social acceptance that an instant reply back is not required usually. While it may be required the social norm is that an email response isn't as socially expected as a response in conversation. This is what I consider to be talking at people.

There are some mediums that can seem unclear. MSN for example is a good step closer to talking to someone however again that reply is not instantly expected, MSN is most cases an activity done while engaging in something else, be it surfing or whatever, the point is you can usually give a minute or two to wait for a reply without getting too irate depending on the situation. It is this that makes it a talking at medium.

The benefit of talking at someone is that you get the chance to structure a response, however this is usually at the cost of emotion. Emotion is a powerful tool in communication and is a large factor when it comes to building relationships.

Brands can only talk at people.

╠ Maccas to the Rescue ╣

Two nights ago I was asleep and woke up in the middle of the night just before there was a power outage. I noticed this because not only did the music stop but the low hum as well as a bunch of lights turned out. It was a rare experience for me. No sound, no light. It was so odd that I couldn't get back to sleep until it turned back on. However the experience was so odd that it was burnt in my mind the turn off and back on time.

This demonstrates my dependence on technology. Now the root of all this of course is the internet as I spend my life basically connected. If I don't check my emails every hour or two then something weird is happening. Now the reason I'm saying all this is because in the power outage the router got damaged and is now unable to connect.

Hearing that McDonald's has free internet I thought I'd check it out and here I am quite happy with the experience. You only get 50mb per session so there's no real chance for foul play, but plenty for me to get my fix.

I didn't realize how effective it would be though. Not only do I feel more positive about McDonald's but beyond that I actually feel hungry...hungry for Mcdonalds. Which I would go and fulfill however the line is nearly to the door. I'm sure it would be even stronger were I not next to a bin. At one point someone sat down with their bag full of goodness and I had to take a second and third glance at the line.

Cross this with Nathan Bush's view on wifi as a marketing tool and I think Wi-Fi is really underutilized as a marketing tool.

Now excuse me as I go and sing break up songs about the Internet and I. Goodbye my lover, goodbye my friend...

╠ I, I say, I dammit! ╣

Haven't had the chance to discover content recently due to capped internet but just wanted to show off what has to be my favourite outdoor ad this year.

Too often people focus on what is being shown over the finer details of where and how to utilize that to their advantage.