Fredrik’s home on the Internet
David Meerman Scott has posted a video on YouTube which is based on his promotional campaign for his new book, World Wide Rave. More than 100 people from seven continents contributed to the campaign. One of the pictures my brother and I took in Lindvallen, Sweden, in December 2008 can be seen in the video (1:54 min). Thanks for including it David!
I have embedded his video below:
David Meerman Scott is a thought leadership strategist and online marketing expert. He is also the author of three books on marketing including the bestseller ’The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to use news releases, blogs, podcasts, viral marketing and online media to reach your buyers directly’. David is now in the news with his new book, World Wide Rave, which is due to be released on the 3rd of March.
I had the opportunity to meet David during a workshop he did for the EMEA Marketing Team at Dow Jones in London back in June 2008. David is currently promoting his new book and he approached me and some colleagues at Dow Jones a few months back and asked if we could help him out by putting up his poster somewhere interesting in our respective countries. His aim is to get a bunch of countries, cities and locations around the world represented.
My contribution to his campaign can be found below. The photos are taken in Lindvallen, Sweden. The first two represent David’s poster together with my brother Carl-Johan’s dog Pukko. My brother also helped me with taking the photos.
Update: David has now posted one of my photos on his book’s blog.
Click on the photos for a High Resolution version.
More information on David’s new book can be found here.
BusinessWeek, a business periodical, has published its ranking of the world’s 50 most innovative companies. The list, which was compiled in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group (BCG), features Apple, Google, Toyota, in first, second and third place, respectively.
Here are the 10 most innovative companies in the world according to BusinessWeek and BCG:
An interactive table of the full ranking of the 50 most innovative companies, a breakdown of the most innovative companies by industry and region and a full methodology is available here.
I recently wrote a report in a course called Management of Human Resources at Cass Business School on General Electric (GE) and its Human Resource Management (HRM) practices. When researching for this report, I came across a very interesting article published by The Economist, a news and international affairs publication, on golf and the game’s importance in business.
GE, for example, is famous for being a ‘golf company’. Jack Welsh, the company’s famous ex-boss, is according to many the best golfing CEO of all times and golf has over the years become an essential tool within the company for any manager looking to move up the career ladder. The Economist claims that Welsh used the game as a character test to see whether a person had the guts to work for his organisation. Many other organisations value the game very highly too. For example, John Mack, the boss of Morgan Stanley, is said to have made it a habit to appoint golfing friends to the board.
The Economist addresses a very interesting and important issue in the article. Is it possible that there’s a correlation between the very low number of female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and the fact that they don’t get the opportunity to play golf with the male counterparts (e.g. because of mens-only clubs such as Augusta National in the US)? On the rare occasions when women get to play golf with their male colleagues, they play off a different tee. At the time of print, there were only eleven female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and sadly, I don’t think the number has increased dramatically since then.
What’s your option? Do you think it’s possible that there’s a correlation between the very low number of female CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies and the fact that they don’t get the opportunity to play golf with their male counterparts?
You can read the original article here.
I have seen many students use Wikipedia as a source for academic reports. Perhaps even worse, many of these students have referred to articles published on the website in their bibliographies. Wikipedia is great for checking general knowledge you have forgotten and some articles do provide a good reference list. However, you shouldn’t under any circumstances use the online-based encyclopaedia as a source.
Wikipedia is what many refer to as a “wiki”, a server program that allows its users to collaborate in forming the content of a website. Companies can use wikis to create effective intranets and for Knowledge Management activities. A detailed article on the wiki concept and its pros and cons can be found here.
One of the primary concerns about Wikipedia is that it’s openly edited, i.e. anyone can change or update entries. Even the website’s co-founder, Jimmy Wales, has said that it shouldn’t be used as an academic source.
You can use a tool called WikiScanner to get an understanding of how inaccurate information published on Wikipedia can be. The tool allows you to cross-reference the IP address of thousands of Wikipedia edits made anonymously with the IP address of organisations from around the world. This result in a service which allows you to see which organisations were responsible for editing any article you choose.
Wired, an American magazine, has published a list of salacious edits made by different organisations. For example, an IP address belonging to Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft’s PR firm, edited a page about MSN Search to say that it was a major competitor of Google.
A panel of experts, which included Clive Holtham of Cass Business School, has named Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web in 1989, the most influential figure in technology over the last 150 years. The nominees were given marks across the following five categories: innovation; ground-breaking technology; industry success; impact on society and influence.
Here are the 10 most influential people in technology:
The complete list, which was sponsored by Intel, can be found here.
There has been a lot of speculation in the media during the last year about Internet’s latest phenomena Facebook and its profitability. An article by the Economist published in October 2007 suggested that Facebook might generate revenues of some $100m this year. Microsoft later paid $240m for 1.6% of the company – which valued the company to as much as $15bn – an amount many experts think is mad.
It now looks like the finances of the private-held company finally have been leaked onto the Net. Kara Swisher at AllThingsD.com, part of the Wall-Street Journal, has published the following financial metrics – which she claims comes from a meeting held by Facebook’s CEO and founder, Mark Zuckerberg, yesterday:
*EBITDA = Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization
Sounds like a fantastic investment opportunity – doesn’t it? But of course, the figures can change dramatically if Facebook would make a breakthrough in social network monetization – such as their very own version of Google Ads.
Read Karen’s article for more information.
I have just started to take a course called IT for Business at Cass Business School. The course touches upon everything from IT Management issues to Web 2.0.
Ron Young delivered the first lecture yesterday and talked about Knowledge Management (KM) and technology. Ron is the CEO of a company called Knowledge Associates. He is acknowledged as a leading expert in KM and has worked with leading organisations in the US, Europe and Asia Pacific.
Ron outlined five key challenges that he reckons companies will face within the next 10 years:
For more information, visit his blog on the URL below:
I found a great magazine last week called Entrepreneur. It is an American magazine but can be found at selected bookshops such as Borders in London. The magazine offers some great information and interesting reading on sales and marketing, management, technology and business strategy.
The November issue features an interview with Guy Kawasaki, known as the former chief evangelist for Apple. He has recently launched a social media site called Truemors and shares his start-up experience so far.
What I found most interesting with the interview was his comparison between the old internet start-up and his way of doing it – which I think applies to a lot of new internet based businesses today that does not require a significant amount of funding from VCs to get functioning.
Are you looking to learn more about a candidate you are considering for an opening at your company? Or perhaps you are keen on knowing how your company is described in the media? Then you should try a service called Google Alerts. The service, which is free to use, gives users the possibility of learning when and where a certain keyword, e.g. a person or competitor, is quoted in the media. Updates are sent via e-mail in either plain text or HTML format.
How to use the service:
Google Alerts is relevant for a range of business activities, from HR to market research. Learn more about the service on the URL below:
