How much of your time and effort goes into protecting yourself from the things you fear?
And how much is spent serving your muse and your tribe and your potential?
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/11/to-protect-and-serve.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Fsethsmainblog+%28Seth%27s+Blog%29
Actually, I don't.
I know what I would do in this situation, but I'm not you.
I know what your customer should do, but I'm not her.
I know (and you know, and we all know) what we would do in a given situation, but that's not the same thing.
Empathy requires something extremely difficult: accepting the fact that we are not and never will be in the other person's shoes. There's no rational, universal course because individuals have different goals, different worldviews and different experiences.
Search marketing harvests demand, it doesn't create it (ht to Drew at Dropbox).
Most small businesses believe that they're too small to have an impact on the whole market, so they resort to picking the fruit that's already grown instead of planting their own seeds. It's far easier to wait until someone is ready to buy than it is to persuade them to buy.
Except the answer isn't to poach demand at the last minute. The answer is to redefine the market into something much smaller and more manageable. You don't need to persuade everyone that you have a great idea, you merely need to persuade one person. And then make it easy for that person to share.
One last semi-related thought: Wenda Millard quotes a Mercedes Benz exec, "If the only time I show you a Mercedes ad is just before you're about to buy a fancy car, I've lost." The fact is, advertising to build brand and recongnition and demand is a very long-term proposition, not something you measure with clicks.
A last-minute swipe of purchase intent is a tactical win. It's not, however, a long-term way to build your organization.
The biggest, best-funded non profits have an obligation to be leaders in innovation, but sometimes they hesitate.
One reason: "We're doing important work. Our funders count on us to be reasonable and cautious and proven, because the work we're doing is too important to risk failure."
One alternative: "We're doing important work. Our funders count on us to be daring and bold and brave, because the work we're doing is too important to play it safe."
The thing about most cause/welfare non-profits is that they haven't figured out how to solve the problem they're working on (yet). Yes, they are often offer effective aid, or a palliative. But no, too many don't have a method for getting at the root cause of the problem and creating permanent change. That's because it's hard (incredibly hard) to solve these problems.
The magic of their status is that no one is expecting a check back, or a quarterly dividend. They're expecting a new, insightful method that will solve the problem once and for all.
石滋宜/全球華人競爭力基金會董事長
台灣蘋果迷們翹首企盼的iPhone5在台開賣，想必又會占據媒體的版面，掀起新一波熱潮。
今日蘋果公司(Apple)產品能夠一再掀起風潮，搶占世人眼光，成為全世界數一數二大企業，要從賈伯斯一九九七年回鍋Apple，帶起一股ｉ旋風開始。
被Apple逐出後的十二年間，賈伯斯的思維改變了，他從想要改變世界為理想，轉變為如何造就一家賺錢公司為目的。因此，這段時間的思考，成就了Apple。一是「集中與選擇」，從多樣化產品集中到僅選出幾個經營。二是經營模式以「產品加服務」為主(也就是1998年我所創PROducts＋serVICES＝PROVICES)。三是絕對的保密機制。
這三件事使得Apple市價總值一度打破微軟所創紀錄，成為全球市值最大公司。2012年9月21日iPhone5首度開始銷售，三天就賣了五百萬支，這種所向披靡的氣勢，不僅使Apple成為真正最賺錢的公司，同時也改變了世界。
自從互聯網變得與人們的生活息息相關，傳統的消費行為AIDMA（Attention關 -> Interest -> Desire -> Memory -> Action）也變成了AISAS（Attention -> Interest -> Search -> Action -> Share），當然伴隨著的還有搜索營銷和社區營銷等新營銷理念的出現。
絕對佩服電通公司，它提出的這個AISAS新理念真的很強大，隨著搜索引擎的發展，Desire和Memory漸漸被搜索所弱化，有了搜索引擎，渴望和記憶中的東西都能被搜索到。有了搜索需求和搜索行為，便產生了搜索營銷，而搜索營銷又衍生出搜索引擎廣告和搜索引擎優化（SEO）兩種主要的方式。在AISAS新營銷法則中，Share分享大大的促進了社區傳播的應用，在早些年，社區只是人與人溝通和閑聊的集散地，雖然在當時也有一些有遠見的公司利用社區進行口碑營銷，但那時受制于傳播的受眾有限，影響力還遠遠沒有搜索引擎出現之后那么大，有了搜索引擎，利用社區進行口碑營銷可以病毒式的擴大傳播受眾而不僅僅是局限于同一社區內用戶。
社區這個東西，其實它的誕生要遠遠早于搜索引擎的。早在1978年，兩位芝加哥兄弟就發明了最初的BBS系統-Computerized Bulletin Board System，而我認為BBS系統絕對算是社區的始祖。而搜索引擎則要晚了很多年，1993年，第一個搜索引擎的原型World Wide Web Wanderer才冒了出來。
雖 然WEB2.0類的網站在國內國外都有大量的表現形式和應用，眾多的網站也是由用戶來產生內容或者決定內容，比如digg類、點評類、社會化書簽類網站， 但是不可否認，社區BBS仍然是絕大多數用戶創造和分享內容的前沿陣地。與其把社區的大發展說成是因為中國人的社交需求旺盛，還不如說是國人的八卦娛樂精 神造就了BBS社區和即時通訊在中國的異常火爆。在這種情景下，社區影響用戶的消費行為是肯定的，那么影響力有多大？從天涯、貓撲等大社區的熱門帖子瀏覽 量動不動就達到數萬級別就可以看出來。
在AISAS這個全新的營銷法則下，“搜索”和“分享”的出現，不僅代表了搜索引擎和社區對網民的重要性，也讓我們了解利用搜索營銷和社區營銷的重要性。來看一段用戶行為：
