December 2008
10 posts
2 tags
The six mantras of ABT User Service
2009 is coming closer and we should all prepare for a great start into the new year. It is going to be another exciting year at ABT, we are moving into a new space early in 2009 and we hire the first interns that will help us on our mission. I will handle the user support/evangelism with 1 to 3 part-time interns, which have been recruited out of our user base. Basti is the first one; he started a...
2 tags
Poker from a different perspective
Inspired by a blogpost written by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of zappos.com, I would like to add a couple of thoughts on this from a different perspective. It is great fun to evaluate the analogies and differences between these two “games”. He focussed his initial post on the parallels, I try to find differences.
Don’t pay too much attention to your competition. In poker it is essential to base your play...
3 tags
The Walrus and his tribe
People belong to tribes. Tribes are people who share the same passion for something. The web for humans consists of different tribes. Please learn more about tribes here and here. Tribes are lead by individuals who connect the tribe. Please meet a great tribe leader, John Lennon. His tribe is the human race. His connection is music.
What tribe do you belong to? Who do you lead? Merry...
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R.I.P. Online Marketing Düsseldorf
you will not be missed. Having experienced the OMD before, you might know that this exhibition was like a “beautiful” (because of the nice hostesses, parties, and food everywhere) dinosaur from the ancient times. Big brands pushing boring products meeting mostly horrible channels like email marketing, banner ads, etc… This year it was just unreal. People where bagging for more...
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Knowledge worth billions of dollars...
for only 40$/month. Really cool what I read on mashable earlier today. The example for a commerce game changer is the online shoe retailer zappos.com. For 40$/month you get exclusive insights into the learnings of zappos. What zappos does:
trying everything to deeply understand customer needs
no shipping costs (both ways!)
365 days return policy
24/7 support toll free, right up on their main...
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Go viral the easy way
In a web for humans great products spread virally by Word of Mouth (which is not exactly the same, but more on that topic soon). Since there is so much information out there, our capability of grabbing and promoting interesting stuff is reaching its natural limits.
You might end up with a great product but very limited virality. Besides other factors , it should be your highest priority to offer...
2 tags
Contacts are flesh and bone
From time to time I meet people that almost obsessively delete contacts from their networks like Xing, facebook, LinkedIn, etc. The often very well connected claim that they are then more effective managing their contacts.
Take a look at this from a different angle and you will soon realise that this is a pretty dumb act. It is not only insulting or at least rude to the deleted person but almost...
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Twitter for marketing your business
What the heck is going on out there? All of the sudden, every company wants to be on twitter, needs to be on twitter, has to be on twitter! People write books on this topic, Guy blogged about it today and endless discussions are going on on twitter. But why? In a web for humans, using twitter for companies and humans is the most natural thing. The top three “best of all time” hints...
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Deutsche Bahn, worst service company of all time
German railway company Deutsche Bahn sucks! The total prize structure for bookings is completely messed up. You have to book 3 days in advance to secure a special prize, which is round about 50% the normal fee for a one way trip. I need to go to Berlin on Friday, so i was late today for that offer. Frustrating but ok, i chose the normal rate, went through the ordering process and just before...
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Silliness is a silly excuse
I just read an interesting article on techcrunch. Please do not follow the path that a lot of commenters do there. MySpace users are of course not dumber than the average educated internet user (including you and I). Sooner or later big budget marketers will understand that banner ads as a main driver simply dont work anymore (if they ever have). Especially not in a social environment like a...