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Nicola Mendelsohn and the Four-Day Week

posted on May 9, 2013

4 day weekNicola Mendelsohn has a new job. This British mother of four is about to become Facebook’s Vice-President for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. But that’s not the big news. Rumor has it, she’ll also be a rare tech exec who only works four days a week.

In the past, Mendelsohn has insisted on the 4-day week so that she can balance her family and work and so far it hasn’t been an issue. Her current position is as executive chairman of creative agency Karmarama where half of her staff takes advantage of the option to work flexible hours or work from home.

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Facebook Autoplay Video Ads! Get Ready to Get Mad

posted on May 9, 2013

mute buttonThe Financial Times (and everyone else who saw the article) is reporting that Facebook is going to start inserting autoplay video ads into your Facebook feed.

I sense a brouhaha coming on.

But really. . . let’s talk about this.

First, is it even true? I’m not questioning the integrity of the reporter who wrote the story, but Facebook talks about doing a lot of things that either never happen or they happen and then go away. Even the changes that stick quickly become part of our routine – with one exception – I do wish they’d put Facebook Page updates back in my main feed because I always forget to check the separate feed. (Is there a way to combine them that I’m missing?)

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52 Percent of Customers Have Taken Their Business Elsewhere: But Why?

posted on May 8, 2013

customers are pickyIf you didn’t have a competitor in this world, you could afford to be out of stock, leave broken links on your website and provide poor customer service. But here’s the thing — 95% of the time customers do have another option. They can type a new web address, drive down the street, or switch service providers (what a pain, but we’ll do it!).

Redwood Software conducted a survey to find out what it is that makes consumers want to take their business elsewhere and it was the little things that added up to big problems.

The one thing that irks customers more than anything else (61%) is having to repeat personal information to a human on the phone after dealing with an automated machine. As far as I’m concerned, that machine is a big part of the problem in the first place. Instead of helping people move through the queue faster, all it does is aggravate. (Human! Operator! Person! Help!)

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Want to Know the Mood in America? Check the Twitter Hedonometer

posted on May 8, 2013

sad dayAs a nation, we’re not shy about expressing our feelings in public. When things happen – good or bad – we react en masse, pouring our heart out in blog comments and on social media. When it comes to tragic events in particular, Twitter is like the first responder on scene. People close to an event will begin Tweeting within minutes, long before the news crews have the story. From there, the circle grows and grows until the whole country is talking and reacting. It’s at that peak moment when the Hedonometer goes to work.

Hedonometer.org is an instrument that measures our populations mood in real time using social media reactions. At the moment, it’s all Twitter based but researchers Peter Dodds and Chris Danforth say the concept can be expanded so it works with any social media input.

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For Maximum Productivity People Would Rather Work Alone but Not at Home

posted on May 7, 2013

332483_office_and_working_place_pics_7I sat down to write this post two hours ago. Then I got distracted. I took a phone call, that led to a couple of follow-up tasks, and then two emails came in that I could deal with in under ten minutes, so I took care of those, too. Then I had to deal with the coffee pot someone left brewing on the stove. . . (burning coffee. . and I don’t even drink the stuff.) Now, here I am, trying to get back on task while part of my brain freaks out about how late it is.

Imagine how much we could get done if we worked in a distraction free environment? Since that’s not going to happen, Ask.com distracted office workers all over America by asking them what could be done to help them achieve maximum productivity.

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LinkedIn Celebrates 10 Years of Bringing Business People Together [Infographic]

posted on May 7, 2013

membership on Linked inLinkedIn is celebrating its 10th Anniversary this week, so I thought I’d join the party and give you my thoughts on what their success means to you, the marketer.

To begin with, if you’re ever feeling discouraged about your company’s growth, spend a few minutes flipping through “A Brief History of LinkedIn” on Slideshare. The creator was kind enough to share snapshots of start-up meeting notes, original site designs and early comments from the first users.

This is blurry, but I think it’s worth noting, so bear with. . .

Right off the bat, users found some pretty big flaws in the site design and concept.

linkedin comments

 

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Will People Pay to Watch YouTube?

posted on May 6, 2013

cat videoThere’s a rumor running around the internet that says YouTube is going to start charging for certain content streams. Don’t panic yet. You’ll still be able to watch people doing embarrassing things in public and cats doing cat things for free. The move would initially involve about 50 specific channels of curated content.

And when they say “channel” they mean a locked library of related content. For example, a studio might create a package of children’s programming, another partner might list a collection of business tutorials. For some, it’s a way of recycling old content that was previously created for TV, DVD or the web. For others, it’s about capitalizing on YouTube videos that are already working – why give it away if you can charge?