Time To Start Posting Again

It's been a while since the last Dillinger post, so I recently made a personal pact to publish regularly, starting in April- seriously.  Recently, I've focused more on the Brand Visual blog for my current employer. In the past, I've kept the blogs separate; but what the heck, I really like "Overcoming The Absence of Tactility In An e-Commerce Era," a post I published in January.

"Whether we realize it or not, shopping is a tactile experience. Before making a purchase, shoppers typically touch, test, open, or try on products. But that type of interaction isn’t possible yet for online shopping. As a result, in-store purchases continue to be the preferred method of consumption." (click here to continue reading)

Items of A Personal Nature

Top 3 Pandora Radio Stations Are: 
- Beirut

- Gui Boratto

- Sigur Ros

Favorite Local Radio Stations:

- WCBE 90.5

Favorite TV Shows:

- Community, Parks & Recreation, & How I Met Your Mother

3 Things Most People Don’t Know About Me:

- I create a hand written to do list every morning

- I hate cheese but LOVE pizza

- I bought a didgeridoo, but still don’t know how to play it

Personal Goal: To Be a speaker at a TEDx conference-someday

Favorite Apps: Pandora, Shazam, Spotify, Skitch, Evernote, Dropbox, Trello 

Currently Reading:  Pragmatic Thinking & Learning: By Andy Hunt
Last Book I Read:     Making Ideas Happen: By Scott Belsky
Last Movie I Saw:    How To Think Like A Man, Starring Kevin Hart

Brands as Patterns

I love this publication, Brands as Patterns, written by Marc Shillum, Principal at Method.  I've read it multiple times in the past year and always take away a new bit of insight.  It's a nice companion piece to the last post, hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

An Arsenal of Online Willpower

Darn you internet and your intuitive (like) algorithms!  There was a time when I prided myself on not giving in to impulse purchases and web-enduced consumerism; however that is no longer the case.  I remember "back in the day" when there were no free apps with banner adds, and information gathered from my digital foot print (while surfing the web) was less specific.  Now-a days my will power is constantly tested- on an hourly basis.  I Shazam a song and boom, pop-up add appears.  Go to Pandora for some sweet melodies and  bam, banner add staring me in the face, oh and those 10 second commercial spots when switching artist radio stations, ahhh!  Admittedly, the aforementioned adds typically aren't enticing; they tend to be less specific to the individual and mostly annoying.  But when checking Facebook or visiting Amazon, OMG!  These days I better be equipped with an arsenal of willpower.  The resulting effect of algorithms and aggregated consumer information produces what Resource Interactive refers to as Triple-Threat Touch Points, capable of luring consumers into a brands Venus Fly Trap.

Introduction

After procrastinating for several months, I finally sat down to begin constructing this blog.  I'm not quite sure where I'm headed with it or even the intended purpose, so I'm just going to jump right in and start spewing out whatever comes to mind.  WARNING, it might get weird.

Eight months ago I adopted (into my digital repertoire) the amazingly handy app, Evernote, which has proven to be flip'n awesome!  I use it to capture personal thoughts, creative ideas, and interesting web based content.  After several months of clipping online articles and web pages, I finally took time to refer back to many of the "clippings," which is how I've spent the majority of this dreary wet day.


It's late now, and as I reflect on my earlier reading escapade, there's one article I can't stop thinking about, Big Brands Like FaceBook, But They Don't Like to Pay.  I've been wondering how brands determine the value of Facebook Likes & then monetize those Likes and other consumer responses/activity.  Emily Steel and Geoffrey A. Fowler helped clear up some of these questions in their article published in the Wall Street Journal.

"The centerpiece of Ford Motor Co.'s online campaign for the 2012 Focus was a free Facebook page hosted by an orange-colored puppet that in a few weeks won over a new, younger audience for the once-stodgy compact."  

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