FredericMartin Blognotes

Save and Find Anything Anytime Anywhere

Evernote is now beta. It is an amazing service that lets you capture and store anything including notes, web captures, pictures, audio and video. Everything is saved in your Evernote page and can be easily found in seconds with their search engine. Even texts in pictures are automatically indexed. Which means you can save visit cards or tickets for instance and find them instantly by tipping some key-words. Their video gives a good overview of the service which you can also use on your mobile phone.

Collective Intelligence 2.0

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[click 'view>full' to enlarge] This picture shows the ecosystem which I'm trying to develop on my new vertical blog to enhance a collective intelligence in the tv & new media business. This is also a tentative model for information workflows in an open world where every stakeholder inside and outside the company contributes and interacts thus maximizing the global knowledge in a specific field.

Tech gadgets: Who's the buzz master?

Three continents, three top buzzers: Nokia for Europe, Sony for Asia and Apple for the US. Who's winning? The Americans are still far ahead. After an amazing buzz in January with the MacBook Air at the Apple Expo, the Californian company is back with the launch of the new 3G iPhone. They do have a sense for launching products there. As shown on this Blogpulse graph, they set a new record today and equaled their january buzz. Sony and Nokia still have a lot to learn on how to organize a successful launching campaign online, despite doing pretty well in PR 2.0.

My new blog - TV and New Media

I'm starting a new blog called "TV & New Media". My purpose is to share information on the digital tv and media convergence. I'm also looking at interacting with other experts. I used to work in the tv business on the consumer side with Thomson, Sony and Samsung. I joined recently the broadcasting industry as a business development and new media expert. My current focus is on mobile tv, iptv and sports business. I follow worldwide the evolution of technologies, media and business models in those areas.

Give an iPhone touch to your mobile

Goojet is a new web 2.0 service for your mobile and desktop. At Le Web 3 start-up competition, the French company won the first prize for the most innovative concept. With their service, you can widgetize the web and move in one click the so called "Goojets" (widgets) to your destop or mobile. This gives a kind of iPhone touch to your mobile. Further, you can exchange your Goojets with other Goojeters. They have a huge library of Goojets which includes a webcam, Euro 2008 news, Twitter and many other interesting applications.

Smart Business Intelligence

Everyday, I spend lots of time online for my business development. I work in a complex and fast moving environment where I must be aware of the latest trends in media, sports, broadcast, IT, telcos and consumer electronics. Worldwide. And that's where the Internet is a tremendous help. It delivers a huge quantity of high quality and confidential information that helps your business plans. When you use Google the right tools. I follow five principles: 1. Use specific tools 2. Combine the tools 3. Let the information comes to you 4. Dig large 5. Dig deep 6. Organize your information for today, tomorrow and after tomorrow 7. Build a network of collective intelligence .
1. Use specific tools -
2. Combine the tools -
3. Let the information comes to you -
4. Dig large -
5. Dig deep -
6. Organize your information for the long run -
7. Build a network of collective intelligence -

... will be updated

4 outstanding Management Books

I've read those 4 books recently. All of them are brilliant in their category. They describe new management practices for the 21st century. The Long Tail is about the digital economy and its brand new business models. Blue Ocean Strategy details how to leave the bloody red oceans of competition and instead create uncontested market spaces where the competition is irrelevant. Wikinomics is on the new collaborative management 2.0 inside companies and with their partners. Last but not least, Blog Marketing is on the new communication 2.0 inside companies and with customers by leveraging blogging platforms.

Mobile office 2.0 - 20x25cm high tech to work on anything anytime anywhere

I always carry my new mobile office with me. It consists of the latest technology to be able to blog and work on anything, anytime, anywhere with anybody. With it I can achieve and instantly communicate the most productive and creative work while sitting in the sun at a café terrace. The whole equipment cost me less than 500€ and fits in a 25cm cm tiny bag. Here are the details:
1x Asus Eee pc, tiny pc: 299€ - the perfect tiny pc which fits in one hand and with which you can work and connect to the world everywhere on the go
1x Logitech Io, electronic pen: 149€ - I write some documents and mails with it or draw some sketches and things get uploaded automatically to my pc.
1x Fujitsu Siemens, tiny wireless mouse 19€ - the ideal companion for my tiny pc
1x Eastpak, tiny bag: 25€ - my whole equipment fits in perfectly
1x Idea, blocknote: 2€ - sometimes you further need some paper
TOTAL fixed costs: 498€ + variable working costs: 1 drink at a café terrace (4€) + wifi network (free)
Additionally to this already perfect equipment, I also use a free iPhone I got from my company, a dream phone. With it I can connect to the Web anytime anywhere and read long articles without any annoyance. Last but not least, with my Samsung 1GB USB stick I can record mp3 voice memos on the go. For webconferencing, my Eee pc and its integrated webcam are perfect. This is for the hardware. On the software front, I use free online suites, mainly Zoho (everything there for free, including all kinds of documents, project management, CRM, database, wiki etc) and Google Apps with which I also work offline (my offline documents automatically synchronize with mw online documents). I also use Diigo to highlight, bookmark and prepare nice reports on whatever subject. Last but not least, my Netvibes intelligence platform is my eagle eye to track all worldwide news and market trends I need for my work.

Yaquos 1920x1080! The perfect wedding

Strange title isn't? Behind it, a revolutionary wedding made in Japan: last week,Yahoo! said 'yes' to Sharp Aquos for a common life in high definition 1920x1080. And the dreaming team is coming soon to you living room. >more details

Twitter: you have a voice message

There is not a day without a new Twitter service, lots of them being boring. Twitsay is quite  an interesting one: you call a regional number, leave a voice message, it appears in seconds on your Twitter account and your followers can listen to it.

From PR1.0 to PR2.0 for startups

 In the digital connected world, Public Relationship management is a brand new exercise where smaller companies can achieve tremendous results too, even with limited budgets, as long as they master the new rules. On TechCrunch, PR specialist Brian Solis details some secrets on how they can be successful with the PR2.0 exercise.

Cannes behind the curtain

Nice time this week at Cannes Festival. I had the chance to move inside the palace where I met with KM Prod teams. And I could approach Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie, a great moment.

 

Digsby makes your digital life easier

  Do you have the same problem like me: Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Google, MySpace etc. It's getting hard to follow and manage all your accounts ... unless you get Digsby. Digsby is the new sidebar companion that makes your digital life better.  Any new message pops up automatically and browsing across your communities and mailboxes has never been  easier.

Microsoft multitouch display demo

After showing the revolutionary surface computer last year, Microsoft demonstrated today another brand new concept: their new software transforms any surface into a multitouch display as seen in Minority Report. Really impressive. More on CrunchGear.

Organize your floaded mailbox and save precious time

If you cannot battle anymore against your Outlook mailbox or if you are spending too much time reading your mails everyday (some statistics mention a daily average of 2 up to 4 hours), then you should install the new service Xobni (Inbox the other way round). Xobni is an Outlook sidebar which turns the Microsoft nightmare into a nice experience. You find anything in seconds, easily track conversations and documents, get immediate information on your contacts and enjoy nice mail statistics which help reduce your working time. A must have.

Productivity to the next level with Gmail

Top blogger and marketing guru Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion has an interesting article on how to leverage Gmail and bring your productivity to the next level. I didn´t know that you can do that much with GMail. He has some interesting combinations with other tools including Twitter, Typepad, Yahoo Alerts and del.icio.us to create a powerful database, to get real-time news updates, to automatically store your bookmarks, to manage calendars and to-dos and to blog from Gmail. An interesting tool to fight against info overload.

MP3 new design trend made in Korea

Not, it´s not jewelry, it´s the new Samsung S2 MP3-player that will come into our stores in next June.

(via Akihabaranews)

New - Blognotes has a voice

This blog gets a voice: you can listen to our articles and download our podcasts on your mp3 player. The technology behind this is RSS to podcast, a breakthrough technology which is provided by the French startup Xfruits. Our articles are automatically and instantly transcoded into an audio version. The result is not perfect but impressive and good enough to follow an article. As an additional service, this blog can be read on mobile phones which are equipped with QR barcode reading. Blognotes anytime anywhere.

My latests Micronotes (Twits) on productivity and Twitter tools

• Zimbra is a strong ajax-based suite to add to your mail and calendar suite for more productivity and collaboration - http://snurl.com/258rn
  another great twitter toolbox (50+) - http://snurl.com/254i4
• Pleegs is a new buzz tracker. Looks in 16 blog engines with filters. and resuts with specified frequency per mail - http://snurl.com/254gl
• looking for more people to follow on twitter? the answer is twubble - http://snurl.com/24zm0
• a nice collection of 50+ Twitter apps here - http://snurl.com/24xsm
• unlimited text in twitter with twitzer - http://snurl.com/24xqz
• Mixxt is a new service to create your social network in minutes. sthing similar to Ning, more powerful and easier - http://snurl.com/24v0p
• AlphaTwitter ranks web links discussed in Twitter. good to know what is hot - http://snurl.com/24sn8
• Summize is a nice Twitter search engine with language filter and RSS feed - http://snurl.com/24sn4
• hundreds of twitter apps here in 60+ categories - http://snurl.com/24ns1
• 100+ Tips and Resources to Become an Authority Site in Your Niche - http://is.gd/6d0
• with Crowstatus, make groups of Twitter buddies and keep tabs on them in one place. great, was actually missing. http://snurl.com/24cj8
• Flokoon: nice picture-based search engine made in France for music, videos and photos with suggestions to find similar stuff.
• Searchme: tremendous search engine with an interface a la iTunes

Marketing and Sales - 10+ key-things you might not be doing...*

 * ... and which you could start now by leveraging online resources:

1. Interact live with your customers / consumers individually
2. Lead an ongoing live conversation with your salesreps
3. Micro-manage each of your retail shops
4. Track your competitors in real time
5. Boost your market intelligence to stay ahead of your competitors
6. Bring your marketing creativity to the next level
7. Get your marketing & sales people work as one single & highly productive team
8. Know anytime any detail of your sales status and business environment
9. Outsource cheap and highly creative marketing ideas
10. Prepare a nice word of mouth for your new products
11. Expand your brand reach and market channels

(will be continued / your comments welcome)

In a next serie of posts, I will detail each of those points.

Google Apps + Salesforce = easy collaborative Sales

Google Apps and Saleforce.com are getting together to propose a free integrated sales communication solution. This nice video explains the benefits in short.

Business Communication with Twitter and Co (part 5: ideas)

In the previous posts, I commented on the current utilizations of Twitter. This simple but efficient communication tool will lead to a multitude of new business models and applications in the near future, with great potential for both single users and groups, and especially for companies. The tool can be easily combined with other applications so as to create powerful mashups. Twitter can be combined under others with maps, pictures, video, voice-to-text apps and Excel (RSS feeds are supported in Excel, Excel being a gateway to ERPs). And of course Twitter might become an advertising platform, some people in the twittersphere are currently heavily discussing on the subject, including top bloggers Michael Arrington, Robert Scobleizer and Darren Rose. What I think could be interesting and easy to do apps for companies:
<sales> merchandizing (Twitter+Maps+geolocalization): real time shop overview on a map
<sales> order taking (Twitter+Voice-to-Text+Excel+ERP): real time order taking overview, consolidated and per salesrep
<sales> merchandize stock overview (Twitter+Excel+ERP): real time stock availability to drive the sales on shop level
<projects> project management (Twitter+ToDoList+Calendar+Planner): real time management with deadlines tracking and alerts
I feel Twitter is a good tool to manage businesses where speed and flexible communication are required. I personally find it interesting to interact with the salesteams so as to track the competition movements and the stock + business variations in the market (e.g. TV business). I wanted to implement it in my previous company but unfortunately there was strong resistance to change as it is often the case in large organizations.

(will be continued /your comments welcome)

Business Communication with Twitter and Co (part 4: cases)

In this post, I will list some best company practices with Twitter.
[Customer Service]  DELL Computers has several customer service people on Twitter who find complaints and address them appropriately
[Customer Info.] Southwest Airlines is using Twitter to inform their customers on good deals
[Customer Info.] RedCross is using Twitter to inform on their centers location
[Press Coverage] Magazine L'Express is covering "Printemps de Bourges" music festival via Twitter
[PR] Professional blogger Darren Rowse is launching PayPerTweet: get paid for tweeting by writing about web sites, products, services, and companies

Other companies on Twitter:
GeneralMotors
FoxNews

(will be continued /your comments welcome)

Is your marketing dpt confused about web2.0? Read this

    (via ShopTalk and HarvardBusinessOnline)  A new interesting publication on web 2.0 and its impacts on companies. In their own words: "Corporate executives are struggling with a new trend: people using online social technologies (blogs, social networking sites, YouTube, podcasts) to discuss products and companies, write their own news, and find their own deals. This groundswell is global, it's unstoppable, it affects every industry--and it's utterly foreign to the powerful companies running things now. When consumers you've never met are rating your company's products in public forums with which you have no experience or influence, your company is vulnerable. In Groundswell, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of Forrester, Inc. explain how to turn this threat into an opportunity..."

The answer to hyper connectivity: the digital cube

  (via Yanko Design) Turn the cube ... to get your online status automatically updated. Each face of this cube is programmable: define various status (e.g. currently driving, working offsite etc) for each and  the cube does the rest, it answers accordingly on your various electronic platforms (e.g. phone, email, Facebook, Twitter etc).

Business Communication with Twitter and Co (part 3: tools)

To get the full potential of Twitter, you need the right tools. There is already a long list of applications developed for Twitter and other microblogging services. I would recommend those apps:
1. Twhirl as a client to easily send and read from your desktop
2. Tweetscan, Tweetmeme and Quotably to track conversations
3. TwitterLocal to find people in a specific area
4. TwitPic to share photos on Twitter
5. Grouptweet to send private tweets to your group(s)
6. Friendfeed to see what your contacts are sharing on their social platforms
7. Twitterholic to check the top 100 twitter leaders
8. Twitterfeed to feed Twitter automatically with your blog entries

(will be continued /your comments welcome)

Business Communication with Twitter and Co (part 2: usage)

In this second post, I will try to list all you can do with microblogging for the good of your company:
- Increase the audience to your website
- Establish a permanent listening to your customers
- Track the buzz on your company and products and address appropriately
- Track the buzz on your competitors
- Inform on your company and products
- Manage projects and keep the deadlines
- Secure a live communication with your salesforce and promotors
- Order taking per mobile phone to your ERP
- Guerilla marketing and promotions
- Geomarketing per SMS
- Start the WOM for a new product
- Aftersales service follow up
-  Communicate an important info straight away e.g. price change or spot promotion
(will be continued /your comments welcome)

In my next three posts, I will mention some company practices, list the online tools related to Twitter, and finally suggest new ideas.

Business Communication with Twitter and Co (part 1: context)

After just one and a half year, conversation platform Twitter has established as one of the favorite online services. The success in America is tremendous and the penetration in Europe is booming (I don´t know about other continents, if someone has fact data, it would be interesting to know). After the gadget and trend fever last year, it seems that Twitter (and microblogging in general, not to forget Jaiku and Pownce) is progressively entering the business world, some major companies start using it for their internal communication and to enhance the conversation with their customers. I also noted some interesting guerilla and promotional marketing activities carried with Twitter. I first submitted a year ago the idea that companies should leverage Twitter (see my CE2.0 project) and it looks like this is what is happening now. Lots of new applications develop rapidly around Twitter leading to some big buzz over the last weeks and months. Furthermore, a large number of bloggers is leaving the conversation in the Blogosphere to join it the Twittersphere. And for those who don´t, a big trend these days is to tweet your new blog post to your "followers" on Twitter so as to get attention. So, the Twitter fever is infecting everybody and even prominents like UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown (http://twitter.com/DowningStreet) are following. I decided, it would be time to write more on this trend. In this new serie of posts, I will detail the latest Twitter applications, write on best company practices and suggest new ideas how microblogging can be implemented in the business world.

LINKS:
What is Twitter? video tutorial (CommonCraft, US)
Tweet, tweet, here comes Twitter (Daily Telegraph, UK)
Now, Blog on the spot with mobiles (Times of India)
Too busy to blog? Go micro (Globe&Mail, Canada)
Je twitte, tu twitteras, les marques twitteront (Le Soir, Belgium)

Map of Global Trends 2008+

  (via Issu) This map on global trends 2008+ is a must see. Looks like you have all the meta trends here what politics, society, technology and economics are concerned. It reminds me of the web 2.0 map which was published last year.

Pour les francophones, voir également la présentation Powerpoint sur Entretiens du Futur réalisée par René Duringer, fondateur de Smart Futur et animateur du groupe Yahoo Futur prospective.

Dear Marketers, just forget about the stupid Consumers

I like this picture very much (via Webilus). It symbolizes the old perception of mass marketing on the left and the new perception of the world 2.0 on the right . Through the live web, everybody tends to be involved both in the purchase as a unique person and in the economy production process. The concept of consumer is weakening and is transferring to the old notion of customer (with the new web and social software, I can treat any single person in a unique way) and to the new concept of prosumer [with the new web, anybody can at the same time define and consume what is needed]. It means for marketers, they should start changing their unilateral vision and address each of those dimensions appropriately: consumers are actually single customers, users, producers, participants to the brand and product definition and members of communities. A true conversation is needed (conversational marketing) where marketers interact 1:1, learn from people [customer listening / some people at Sony America created the nice word "Listenomics"], create something with them and in the end have the opportunity to sell something. With the two-way web and the proliferation of excellent platforms including blogs with comments, communities, microblogging, buzz analytics and watch tools, this new marketing has become a reality and the best companies are now far ahead ... and most companies far too late. To adapt to the new conversational world 2.0, the "only" things marketers should do is change their mindset, accept the new rules of the marketing game and upgrade their knowledge rapidly and constantly by reading a lot from advanced marketing specialists in online communities and blogs (books being too rapidly obsolete). The implementation is the most difficult part, especially in Europe where many brands claim to be innovative but where their top executives are actually too conservative [they grew up with Philip Kottler, many of them stick to it and know better than the new generation of marketers since it always worked that way, so why shouldn´t it work like this in the 21st century?] or self-protecting to lead the change properly. It means for marketers a tough job to influence their top management through strong argumentation and appropriate behavior [which should not be too political to avoid dilution; this would lead to burry your company and yourself with it. Innovative marketing management is the only way to survive]. An appropriate way to carry the marketing revolution and change marketing processes is probably  through best case practices: start something small but strong and enlarge the circle.