15 10 / 2011
Any color that you want as long as it is white
Slate published an article “The Apple Color Cycle” examining how Apple launches products in very limited colors: white and black and then cycles through a number of other colors before returning to white and black.
Apple’s launch in white and black is probably partly design and almost definitely, strategic. It’s the strategy of focusing on what features are really important and then on the customer adoption cycle.
Features
By holding several features steady (color, size, whole designs), product visionaries can focus on features that truly differentiate or that truly matter to the customer. For example, Nike launches a new shoe design that purports to help with say, impact on knees and ankles, and then launches a series of colors holding that design steady through several seasons. Lulu Lemon does the same. But it’s the design (for Nike customers - design that leads to better running and for Lulu Lemon customers - design that leads to better looking butts) that customers would pay a premium for, above all other features.
Customer adoption cycle
What’s also fascinating to me as I reflect upon this is the crafting (note not understanding) of the customer adoption cycle. There appears to be a clear view of not only to onboard the customer but also to keep them captivated and thrilled through subsequent purchases.
Where does it all begin
But where does it all begin? Does it begin at white? Or does it begin at emerald green? Well I think it begins at emerald green. I can’t imagine that an architect builds a house starting with a vision of the blue print. I would bet he sees the entire house before him, in it’s full glory of color and life. Then he deconstructs it into fine blue lines that obey the laws of physics.
09 6 / 2011
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. ~ Steve Jobs, 2005
08 6 / 2011
One of my favorite orchestra music pieces. Listen to it to be uplifted, when you need to believe in the impossible, to know whatever you choose - if it is for good, the winds of the Universe shall be behind you.
Simon Jeffes on the Origins of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra
In 1972 I was in the south of France. I had eaten some bad fish and was in consequence rather ill. As I lay in bed I had a strange recurring vision, there, before me, was a concrete building like a hotel or council block. I could see into the rooms, each of which was continually scanned by an electronic eye. In the rooms were people, everyone of them preoccupied. In one room a person was looking into a mirror and in another a couple were making love but lovelessly, in a third a composer was listening to music through earphones. Around him there were banks of electronic equipment. But all was silence. Like everyone in his place he had been neutralized, made grey and anonymous. The scene was for me one of ordered desolation. It was as if I were looking into a place which had no heart. Next day when I felt better, I was on the beach sunbathing and suddenly a poem popped into my head. It started out ‘I am the proprietor of the Penguin Cafe, I will tell you things at random’ and it went on about how the quality of randomness, spontaneity, surprise, unexpectedness and irrationality in our lives is a very precious thing. And if you suppress that to have a nice orderly life, you kill off what’s most important. Whereas in the Penguin Cafe your unconscious can just be. It’s acceptable there, and that’s how everybody is. There is an acceptance there that has to do with living the present with no fear in ourselves.
29 3 / 2011
A truly inspiring video to watch. Best 10 minutes I spent today.
The first step, before anybody believes it, is you have to believe it. No reason to have a Plan B, because it distracts from Plan A. There’s a delusional quality all successful people have, you have to believe that something different is going to happen.
Being realistic is the most common road to mediocrity.
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24 3 / 2011
The future of mobile per Eric Schmidt. Old but good to review.
Paraphrased Eric Schmidt quotes:
“It could replace your credit card. It’s called Tap-And-Play.”
“Bump for everything.”
“Mobile first. I don’t think people really understand how powerful mobile devices is going to be. Much more powerful than the desktop. It’s personalized. Its location aware.”
“We see ourselves as a technology provider in this. Ultimately this technology is personal, secure and an aggregated technology.”
November 23, 2010 video. The first 10 minutes of the video are related to mobiles and NFC.
23 3 / 2011
3 out of 4 billion phones are only sms-enabled.
What do people use their mobiles for?
Games 61%
Weather 55%
Maps/Search 50%
Social networking 49%
Music 42%
News 36%
Entertainment 33%
Dining 25%
Video 21%
Learn More about Mobile Tagging at Microsoft Tag.
23 3 / 2011
"Angry Birds was the 52nd game that Rovio made. They made 51 games before their “overnight” success with Angry Birds."
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23 3 / 2011
Eat the marshmallow or not? The secret of self-control and success. Click on the photo to read the article in the New Yorker.
“Once you realize that will power is just a matter of learning how to control your attention and thoughts, you can really begin to increase it.”
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17 3 / 2011
Just in case you didn’t know what exactly each social website was for, heres an infographic to make things a little easier.
(Source: , via wardrants)
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17 3 / 2011
Super fears of the super rich
Several nuggets of human nature in this article worth ruminating over, such as “needs are infinite”. Several insights too like “rich” rhymes with “bitch”.
Other worthy mentions:
“ONE OF THE SADDEST PHRASES I’ve heard,” Kenny says of his time counseling the wealthy, is when the heir to a fortune is told, “‘Honey, you’re never going to have to work.’” The announcement is often made, Kenny explains, by a rich grandparent to a grandchild—and it rarely sounds as good to the recipient as to the one delivering it. Work is what fills most people’s days, and it provides the context in which they interact with others. A life of worklessness, however financially comfortable, can easily become one of aimlessness, of estrangement from the world. The fact that most people imagine it would be paradise to never have to work does not make the experience any more pleasant in practice.”
“As they get older, many children of privilege take either too many risks, because they know the consequences of failure are minimal, or too few, because they feel assured in their financial well-being. Kenny says they, like their parents, can grow bored with one line of work and make consequence-free shifts to other jobs—until finally they reach middle age and discover that they have put together the résumé of a dabbler and haven’t made the impact that they had hoped. “They get to be 50 years old,” says Kenny, “and all of a sudden they say to me, both in their love life and in their work life, ‘I have to stop hitting that reset button.’”
STOP. Spoiler below.
“But the truly wealthy know that appetites for material indulgence are rarely sated. No yacht is so super, nor any wine so expensive, that it can soothe the soul or guarantee one’s children won’t grow up to be creeps. When the rich man takes his last sip of Château d’Yquem 1959, he tips back the wineglass to find at its bottom an unforeseen melancholy. Like Leontes in The Winter’s Tale, he notes in horror, “I have drunk, and seen the spider.” It is as terrifying a realization in Saint-Tropez as it is anywhere else.”
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09 3 / 2011
I have 2 minutes to blog this but this is a powerful photo.
Everyone’s thinking about the all-powerful Android and iPhone. But how many in the world are using these low-tech phones? This photo says everything.
I’m brainstorming with friends what are the opportunities in the low tech phone market, and how to achieve positive change in a few lives, while we’re at it. Got an idea or comment? Let’s hear it.
07 3 / 2011
Tina Brown’s first issue of Newsweek features Hillary Clinton on its cover. Brown also featured Clinton on the debut issue of her short-lived “Talk Magazine.”
>Click to read more about Brown, Clinton and the intensified focus on female readers
(Source: eleanorguide)
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