What is twitter used for?

I have had a twitter account for a while now and I have found the following uses for it:

- Feeling guilty that I haven’t updated my blog, my facebook and now my twitter page which only takes 10 seconds.

- Sending short hello type messages once in a blue moon

- waste time clicking randomly around the web

But when I have time to waste, I have decided to focus on the pupose built tool stumbleupon.com.  You pick some areas of interest and just keep stumbling around the web looking at sites that are cool.  You can pass time faster than watching cricket.

So I have been thinking about the optimum use for twitter- and I have  noticed others using it really well:

- One of my friends will send a twitter when he is at a pub or cafe and happy to have company

- Some people “retweat” articles they find interesting.

- Rollerfink uses it to propagate new world philosophies and sophisticated new thinking paradigms

-The Agile Academy are running a whole marketing campaign on Twitter to drive up their sales and the cause of agile goodness throughout the world.

However, I finally found an article that explains twitter in a way that does seem to make sense of it – sadly I lost the link because I was moving between multiple social media sites.

 

A database model of the game of cricket

A few days ago a friend’s son showed me his new board game – which was really just a set of scorecards for a cricket match, a set of dice and a pencil.

He and his friends sat inside on rainy days and played a game based on the statistical analysis of cricket scoring, without even having to wait for a game to unfold in real time.

But now I am even more impressed.  I discovered that someone has created a database model that actually models the game of cricket.

http://theprojectfactory.com/the-game-of-cricket-as-a-database/

It is extraordinary how bright people are and how hard they will work to improve and apply their thinking if they think it is to do with cricket.

Now if only we could turn this amazing passion to building games based on modeling the environment or dealing with disasters such as tsunamis.

 

What is wrong with old movies

I recently Dogma, which I also saw a long time ago

When I saw it a long time ago it was really really funny, but when I saw it recently it was “OK but hardly mind blowing”.

This is a trend I have noticed with a number of shows -

- I saw Charlie’s Angels and Magnum recently and they seemed a little lame (the Angles more than Magnum).  I put this down to them being dated.

- I saw The Goodies, which I tried really hard to like (but failed) and I even saw an episode of The Young Ones a year ago.  Again they didn’t seem as cool as they used to be.

- Finally I saw an episode of Southpark and it turned out to be lame rather than cutting edge and shocking.

Since I am having a year of continuous improvement ,I am focussed on improving the inner zen nature of enjoying TV (If you missed previous bogs – my theme for the year is cts improvement and I have decided to focus mostly on the key areas that will impact my life – my relationships with those close to me, my ability to deliver extraordinary customer service and watching TV).

So my dilemma now is to find out if :

- My tastes have changed as I matured.

- TV shows are so much better now that the old ones seem poor by comparison.

- There is some evil force out of the X files that is sucking the mojo out of old tapes.  Thus leaving them devoid of coolness, hilarity and fun.

On balance, there is probably about the same amount of evidence to support each of the three hypothesis.  So I will have to investigate further over the coming months.

Frighteningly though, I saw a couple of episodes of Frasier and Scrubs that were brilliant – and they were both really old.  So a logical assessment of the evidence would suggest that the last hypothesis is the most likely.

Can you let me know if you have any evidence or hypothesis that will guide me on my path to finding my inner zen or experiencing more  enlightened television watching?

 

Theme for 2010

Stealing an idea from another of the worlds gurus, I have decided to have a theme for the year.

So instead of making a new years resolution like “I will eat more chocolate to increase my iron intake” I am setting a theme of continuous improvement.

I have decided to let the spirits of fortune take care of the big changes in my life and focus on improving the things I do step by step.

So, for example, I will be eating better chocolate rather than more chocolate and while this might mean no change to my chocolate budget, it will mean more lindt and less cadburys as part of that budget.

It also means I will need to reflect more on my actions (and inactions) to find ways of improving them.  So, for example I will think about whether I enjoyed the chocolate each time I eat it and let this govern my future chocolate consumption decisions.

 

All I want is a tv

My mother in law came to visit and was shocked at the primitive audio visual support we provided to her while she was here.

We have a cool music system (speaker to plug ipods into) and we have access to free to air television.  But she was disappointed by the thick, cumbersome and rather small tv we are forced to put up with.

In fact even our talk about the WFC (ie recession with good marketing) and our claim that we are living in poverty did not avert her obvious disappointment that her daughter was living with a shameful lack of modern viewing technologies.  How could my mother in law bring people to visit if she had to actively keep them out of the tv room to hide the families shame.

So my wife and I discussed things and agreed that she was right … and went out to rectify things.

By skipping sushi and yum cha we have raised the capital needed and we did some initial research.  We found out that you need digital and either plasma or lcd.   So far so good.

But now we have discovered that very few people can survive without at least 42″ of viewing pleasure.  And most happy couples report that their relationship is based on respect, making time for fun, honesty and a tv that is at least 46″.

Sadly we then found out that to have a 46″ tv you need a bigger room than we have or you go blind.  So now we need an extension to make the room suitable, or we need to go back  to a small tv.  But digital tv also fades sometimes so we might need to update our cruddy old ariel.

I will let you know if we resolve these dilemmas but in the meantime I think I will find a broker who can assess our needs and then go and source the optimum tv.  The analysis alone seems to be beyond us

 

Red dust

When I woke up yesterday I looked outside to see a spectacular sunrise.

Then as I walked to the train it was almost like being in a scifi movie. There was dust all over the cars, trees had a red tinge to them and the sky had a dark Armageddon like look to it.

It was all pretty cool.

Today, our car was covered in dust, the tv had somehow become covered in red dust, as was the bookcase and some of the other furniture.

That was less cool and less fun.

So next time Sydney has a giant dust storm I think we should hold it “offsite” or only have dust blow in that lasts for a day before disappearing of its own accord.

With those minor enhancements though, this freaky weather was a cool idea – and certainly better than the giant wave of bogon moths we had a few years ago.

So thanks to the weather gods or the weather bureau or whoever is responsible for these things. It was certainly gave us a helping hand in our small talk when we wanted to talk about the weather.

 

Even dinosaurs have brand consultants now days

I read in the paper that we have discovered a new Australian dinosaur.  The first thing I noticed was that he/she is far more colourful than dinosaurs discovered in previous years.

I am not sure of the sophisticated techniques scientists use to see the patterns and skin tones of a fossil, so I may be jumping to conclusions.  But I suspect the colouring is more to do with the “new” dino’s PR team.  The dinosaur appears well muscled, trim and quite similar to the cooler set seen in Jurassic park.

Even the name is marketing genius.  To his friends (regular fans and groupies) he has the approachable name of “Banjo” (I am now assume he is a he because I don’t think Banjo is a girl’s name, but again I am just assuming).

Beyond this though, his name is Austra-lovenator.  I can’t think of a cooler name for an ancient beast than “the lovenator”.

All the other dinosaurs must be getting back to their agents this week to either try to get associated with him or rush out some of their own press.  But they are too late.  The Lovenator’s website already has him pictured next to a Charlie’s angel like silhouette of a woman he is chatting to at some undisclosed nightclub; he already has the name and he is breaking new territory with his his modern styling and colour scheme.

Kudos to his team and sympathy to the old dinosaurs who look they will soon be going the way of the dinosaurs if they can’t grasp the concept that brand is everything to the modern dinosaur.

 

Innovative marketing strategy

Here is a test of you creative, innovative thinking and your common sense.

My brother in law came to stay with us while he was in Sydney.  I noticed a surprisingly large tag on his bag which my sister had put there.  All it had on it was a large A-K but, I am told, it really stands out when you are waiting for your bag.

So here is my new and unpatented advertising idea.  If you travel a lot and are a trainer/consultant, why not put a giant business card on your bag as a tag.  Or why not run some ads in large baggage tags.  Lots of potential clients are standing around board and just watching you bag go around anyway.

I will let you know if I try it and gain any clients.  In the meantime you can decide if it appeals to you creative and innovative mind … or if you common sense tells you that the idea is just plain silly

 

Published my first article on my business blog

Hey guys

I have created a new blog to focus on business and consulting information to maintain the purity of the obscure comments and chaotic thinking of this, my personal blog.

If you want to have a look at my new blog, this is the first article I have published - http://kingsinsight.com/2009/09/02/modelling-the-choices-we-make/

You should see a new articlethere  every Monday night, and a new one here everytime a someone mentions that Pluto is still a planet.

 

Yet another reminder that the future is already here

I was running a workshop on continuous improvement and lean approaches yesterday.

One of the examples I like to use in explaining effective processes is to talk about coffee shops and the way they serve (hopefully) good quality quickly to a large number of people.

So I was amazed to find in the coffee shop where I got my coffee that I could pay via SMS. So I order my coffee and then instead of giving them cash I just sms a particular number with “pay ___ $x”.

Its a small coffee shop at a train station so I was amazed that they had this technology set up. But then I remembered that they don’t need to build the technology, they just need to exploit it.