–+ ROAM DIGITAL +–

I am not so sure. The dull blog format work because as users we are relatively dull – I reckon. Consistency helps find information, or evaluate whether we want to read past the first sentence.

Formatting a blog like a magazine, where potentially every post has a different look and feel is nice, and in some cases, appropriate – but I still think we are a lean-forward state when it comes to online experiencing. The content overrides the design – still… But yes – it may change soon. Definitely though, design acts as a differentiator – and maybe that’s where the blogazine model will succeed.

For more: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/the-death-of-the-blog-post/

Time for the macro post to shine
Longer blog posts with valuable content might not get the recognition they deserve, because the 140-character mindset turns people off of reading several pages of text. One way to combat this and make your content more appealing is by creatively altering the layout, using the blogazine technique.

Roberto Verganti’s DESIGN-DRIVEN INNOVATION

Changing the Rules of Competition by
Radically Innovating What Things Mean

How to create innovations that customers do not expect, but that they eventually love? How to create products and services, that are so distinct from those that dominate the market and so inevitable that make people passionate?

Design-Driven Innovation unveils how leaders such as Apple, Nintendo, Alessi, Whole Foods Market build an unbeatable and sustainable competitive advantage through innovations that do not come from the market but that create new markets. These leaders compete through products and services that have a radical new meaning: those that convey a completely new reason for customers to buy them. The cases, data and stories in the book show how to create this new vision and how to successfully propose it to customers. A strategy and a process that leverage the rich and multifaceted network of a firm outsiders, looking beyond customers to those “interpreters”– such as scientists, customers, suppliers, intermediaries, designers, artists – who deeply understand and shape the markets they work in.

Once upon a time, I thought that ‘anyone could an anything’… But I don’t think this now – not so much… Crowds  are useful to get a sense of trends. The world is curated and our stories are edited by a top down machine that, as written above, “convey a completely new reason for customers to buy them”.

But within that curated (=controlled) space, there still remains holes to intervene and glitch the system. A little hope…

Also see The Customer Isn’t a Human Being and the more comprehensive Marketing, Innovation and the Creation of Customers.

NielsenWire’s A Pocket Guide to Social Media and Kids looks at how kids are using social media.

SUMMARY: When is a phone not a phone? In the hands of children and tweens, today’s cell phones are primarily used as text messaging devices, cameras, gaming consoles, video viewers, MP3 players, and incidentally, as mobile phones via the speaker capability so their friends can chime in on the call. Parents are getting dialed in to the social media phenomenon and beginning to understand—and limit—how children use new media.

Check out the full article.

Trendwatching predicts embedded generosity will be big in 2010…. Here’s what they say:

It was big in 2009, and it will be even bigger in 2010. In particular all things EMBEDDED GENEROSITY. It incorporates all giving initiatives that make giving and donating painless, if not automatic (after all, pragmatism is the religion .
On top of that, with collaboration being such an integral part of the zeitgeist, expect lots of innovative corporate giving schemes that involve customers by letting them co-donate and/or co-decide.

So check out these innovative, corporate EMBEDDED GENEROSITY examples that are worth copying or improving on in 2010:

• Australian Baby Teresa manufactures and sells a variety of 100% cotton onesies for babies, and, for each one purchased, donates another to a baby in need somewhere in the world.
• IKEA’s SUNNAN LED desk lamp is powered by solar cells. The product retails for USD 19.99, and for every unit sold in IKEA stores worldwide, another one will be donated to UNICEF to give to children without electricity in refugee camps and villages in remote areas.
• Still going strong, Procter & Gamble and UNICEF have joined forces for the fourth year running, in an effort to raise money for tetanus vaccines. Each time a pack of the Pampers or Fairy brands bearing a “1 Pack = 1 Life-Saving Vaccine” logo is purchased, P&G will donate the cost of one vaccine to UNICEF.
• TOMS Shoes donates a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair they sell online. As of August 2009, TOMS has given over 150,000 pairs of shoes to children in need. TOMS shoes plans to give 1 million shoes by 2012.
• Sage Hospitality is encouraging consumers to complete 8 hours of volunteer service in exchange for 50% – 100% off published room rates in their 52 hotels. To take advantage of the ‘Give a Day, Get a Night’ scheme, customers must present a letter from the organization they worked for.
• Give a Day, Get a Disney Day aims to celebrate and inspire volunteerism. Disney is working with HandsOn Network to highlight a variety of volunteer opportunities with participating organizations across the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada. Starting in January 2010, those who contribute their time can have it verified by HandsOn and they’ll receive a voucher from Disney for one day admission to a Walt Disney World or Disneyland theme park.
• Servus, a Canadian credit union, began handing out CDN 200,000 in ten-dollar bills, giving 20,000 people the opportunity to create a Feel Good Ripple by spending the money on someone else. By pledging CDN 200,00 to the effort, the company hopes to start a ‘ kindness movement’ that will positively affect at least 20,000 people. Servus is distributing the bills through its branches throughout Alberta, and asking participants to write up stories of their kindness online.
• Campbell’s Help Grow Your Soup campaign aims to raise money to maintain farm buildings in need of refurbishment. The campaign asks consumers to vote for one of ten barns in need of work, and for every vote until January 2010, 1 USD will be donated, (up to USD 250,000) to restore the five barns which receive the most votes.
• In October 2009, Twitter’s owners announced that they will begin selling wine through their label, called Fledgling Wine. The wine will be bottled from August 2010 and USD 5 of every bottle sold will go to Room to Read, a charity that organizes literacy programs for children around the world.
• Chicago’s Hotel Burnham launched the charity based initiative ‘Casual Blue’ in 2009. A USD 10 room credit is given to patrons who leave a pair of (old) jeans, which are then donated to local charities.

Also, worth checking out the Generation G write up:

GENERATION G | “Captures the growing importance of ‘generosity’ as a leading societal and business mindset. As consumers are disgusted with greed and its current dire consequences for the economy—and while that same upheaval has them longing more than ever for institutions that care—the need for more generosity beautifully coincides with the ongoing (and pre-recession) emergence of an online-fueled culture of individuals who share, give, engage, create and collaborate in large numbers.

In fact, for many, sharing a passion and receiving recognition have replaced ‘taking’ as the new status symbol. Businesses should follow this societal/behavioral shift, however much it may oppose their decades-old devotion to me, myself and I.”