Communications
As mobile devices are embraced by a wider audience of consumers, a new mobile class has emerged.
The freedom and control that connected consumers get from their smartphones and tablets carries new sets of challenges and opportunities for brands and retailers trying to keep in step with consumers’ needs and expectations and for market researchers …MORE…
I’m the first to admit that I have a texting problem. But it’s comforting to know that I’m not alone. According to the Pew Research Center, the typical texter sends or receives about 42 text messages per day, which is about 1,260 text messages per month. I wasn’t fully aware of my textual behavior until a recent visit with my not-so-cellphone-savvy grandmother. MORE…
This past week, I came across an article from the Wall Street Journal titled “Putting on the Brakes: Mankind Nears the End of the Age of Speed.” The story links the final voyage of the Space Shuttles flight this June with the seeming end of a two century long conquest for speed. Since the 18th century, humans have been able to increase the speed of travel 10x every hundred or so years. From the 6mph of a horse to the 60mph of a train and finally to the 600mph of jet, we have maintained an incredible pace of speed advancement for quite some time. MORE…
When I came home from work the other day, I swung by my mailbox in hopes of finding something exciting. Instead, seven out of the nine items were junk (the other two, of course, sadly being bills). Okay, I won’t call it junk because I’m sure someone worked very hard building a beautiful direct mail piece for me to immediately discard in the trash, er, I mean recycling bin. Alright, next stop, Gmail. Surely a friend would want to catch up with me, maybe some information from one of my professors about next week’s class, or maybe just pictures of my parents’ puppy. Nope! Just deals, deals, deals. I didn’t open any of them because, quite frankly, I just tuned out.MORE…
Social Co-creation is a big buzzword now; it’s sort of crowdsourcing, evolved. Using customers to help you throughout the new product (or service) development process is an exciting opportunity that’s been made vastly easier by social technologies.
Most of the case studies in this area talk a lot about idea sites or e-suggestion boxes. What these platforms do is allow for companies to publicly collect ideas from their customers or employees through a community-like environment. The companies that have done a good job with this have a process for vetting these ideas and building on the good ones to help them innovate. Doug Williams, an analyst with Forrester, recently wrote a great case study on Ford’s ideas site, “Your Ideas.”MORE…
One of the most iconic symbols of the early days of online community is iVillage – and the company’s founder and former CEO, Candice Carpenter Olson, recently visited us at Communispace. It was fascinating to hear about her original vision for iVillage, her philosophy about how women would connect with each other on the web, and her next big idea in the learning space.MORE…
For many of us, the dawn of the “Information Age” and computer illiteracy are far behind us, like dinosaurs roaming the Earth. Or even like buying encyclopedias from a door to door salesman (I was told at a young age that I was LUCKY to have my own set, HA!) Although for many Baby Boomers, finding information and products on the Internet is a daunting task.MORE…
I was 21 when I bought my very first laptop. One week into my purchase I reached a revelation: I can learn how to do ANYTHING online! It started with learning how to make granola. (I was on a health kick at the time.) I went to the trusty Google and typed, “How to make granola.” Sure enough, hundreds of thousands of granola recipes, tools and tips came up. After that, all of the questions I’d ever wondered were entered into that search engine:MORE…
