Despite a reputation for having both sheets aft, in Practical Imagineer, Leonard Stoat offers us yet another tome full to the gunwhales with useful tips and tricks for disciples of brand marketing and value creation.
Practical Imagineer is a hard and fast guide to reverse engineering your dreams into rational thought and making them available for practical application. Once you fathom out the lessons in this book, there will be no stopping you anchoring your ability to transform imagination into value creation.
Stoat splits the book into 7 "seas". Each sea represents a step in walking the plank backwards, from a dreamworld awash with counterfactual alternatives to reality, to the waters of more concrete cognitive processes.
Having reached the conclusion of this copper-bottomed tome, I'm convinced that Stoat deserves his rightful place in the Pantheon of Imagineers who have truly raised the boom.
The Practical Imagineer - Turning Dreams into Thought by Leonard Stoat. Available where books are sold.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
The Sirens' Golden Gaze
Ever heard the Siren's call?
When it comes to Twitter, I'm amazed by the number of attractive young women who seem to like the cut of my jib and choose to Follow me. Until I realize that all of them are singing the same shanty, luring me like Odysseus to the island of Anthemusa, into an amusing cul-de-sac awash with alluring images, identical tweets and click-through links to heavily-monetized aggregation websites.
So, especially if you have a Follow Back policy, how often do you vet your Twitter Followers? How easy is it? And why should you vet at all? The answer to those questions depend upon a variety of factors.
It depends first and foremost upon why you're using Twitter. If it's a social medium to keep in contact with acquaintances, then you're unlikely to have a huge following, so vetting and blocking users should be plain sailing.
If instead your Twitter account is a medium for advertizing yourself, your products or services, whether that be material goods or ideas, you might like to take a different tack. Who follows you can have a serious impact on your Klout as well as the usability of Follower data for trending marketing metrics.
Whatever way you use Twitter, the more you're followed, the harder it is to keep track personally of who it is that's following you and to clear the decks of those Sirens, pirates and other bucaneers.
Various sites, such as SocialOomph and TrueTwit, offer automated vetting services to help you weather the storm of spam followers. These can include the requirement for followers to validate themselves. But this validation step can also put off a lot of potential followers, some of whom may see this firewall as either self-aggrandizement or an intervention by the World State. It's counter-culture to what Twitter stands for.
Ultimately, the choice is yours on how to pump the bilge.
Star spangled shades shade your eyesHave you ever answered it?
But could never hide your golden gaze.
Red summer skies bright your smile
And could never hide your golden gaze.
When it comes to Twitter, I'm amazed by the number of attractive young women who seem to like the cut of my jib and choose to Follow me. Until I realize that all of them are singing the same shanty, luring me like Odysseus to the island of Anthemusa, into an amusing cul-de-sac awash with alluring images, identical tweets and click-through links to heavily-monetized aggregation websites.
So, especially if you have a Follow Back policy, how often do you vet your Twitter Followers? How easy is it? And why should you vet at all? The answer to those questions depend upon a variety of factors.
It depends first and foremost upon why you're using Twitter. If it's a social medium to keep in contact with acquaintances, then you're unlikely to have a huge following, so vetting and blocking users should be plain sailing.
If instead your Twitter account is a medium for advertizing yourself, your products or services, whether that be material goods or ideas, you might like to take a different tack. Who follows you can have a serious impact on your Klout as well as the usability of Follower data for trending marketing metrics.
Whatever way you use Twitter, the more you're followed, the harder it is to keep track personally of who it is that's following you and to clear the decks of those Sirens, pirates and other bucaneers.
Various sites, such as SocialOomph and TrueTwit, offer automated vetting services to help you weather the storm of spam followers. These can include the requirement for followers to validate themselves. But this validation step can also put off a lot of potential followers, some of whom may see this firewall as either self-aggrandizement or an intervention by the World State. It's counter-culture to what Twitter stands for.
Ultimately, the choice is yours on how to pump the bilge.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
The Green Pea Analogy
If you selected a hundred (102) average-sized peas, you would find that they occupy roughly a volume of 20 cm3. A million (106) peas are just enough to fill an ordinary household refrigerator and a billion (109) peas will fill a three bedroom house from cellar to attic. A trillion (1012) peas will fill a thousand houses, the number you might find in a medium-sized town. A quadrillion (1015) peas will fill all the buildings in one of our larger cities such as Seattle.
Obviously you will run out of buildings very soon. Let us try a larger measure, for instance the state of Washington. Suppose that there is a blizzard over Washington, but instead of snowing snow, it snows peas. Washington State is covered with a blanket of peas about one metre deep all the way from Bellingham to Walla Walla. This blanket of peas drifts over the roads and banks up against the sides of the houses, and covers all the fields and forests. Think of flying across the state with the blanket of peas extending out as far as you can see. This gives you and idea of our next number. There will be in this blanket about a quintillion (1018) peas.
Imagine that this blizzard of peas falls over the entire land- North America, Africa, South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. All of the continents are covered with peas one metre deep. This global blanket will contain sextillion (1021) peas.
Then imagine that the oceans are frozen over and the blanket of peas covers the entire land and sea area of Earth. Go out among the neighbouring stars and collect 250 planets the size of Earth and cover each of these with a blanket of peas one metre deep.
Then you have a mole of peas.
Furthermore, go out into the farthest reaches of the Milky Way, and collect 250,000 planets, each the size of Earth. Cover each one with a blanket of peas one metre deep.
You now have cotillion (1027) – a number corresponding to the number of atoms in your body.
Obviously you will run out of buildings very soon. Let us try a larger measure, for instance the state of Washington. Suppose that there is a blizzard over Washington, but instead of snowing snow, it snows peas. Washington State is covered with a blanket of peas about one metre deep all the way from Bellingham to Walla Walla. This blanket of peas drifts over the roads and banks up against the sides of the houses, and covers all the fields and forests. Think of flying across the state with the blanket of peas extending out as far as you can see. This gives you and idea of our next number. There will be in this blanket about a quintillion (1018) peas.
Imagine that this blizzard of peas falls over the entire land- North America, Africa, South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. All of the continents are covered with peas one metre deep. This global blanket will contain sextillion (1021) peas.
Then imagine that the oceans are frozen over and the blanket of peas covers the entire land and sea area of Earth. Go out among the neighbouring stars and collect 250 planets the size of Earth and cover each of these with a blanket of peas one metre deep.
Then you have a mole of peas.
Furthermore, go out into the farthest reaches of the Milky Way, and collect 250,000 planets, each the size of Earth. Cover each one with a blanket of peas one metre deep.
You now have cotillion (1027) – a number corresponding to the number of atoms in your body.
Global conferencing - the new shift work
OK, the sun is up, just about, but Starbucks on Westlake & 9th won't be open for another hour and I've already finished my first global conference call of the day.
Or is that the second? It was only four hours ago that I finished yesterday's last call, with people talking in what still is the future. Whatever. I'm craving a mocahlattecino and some biscotti to get me going.
Hey, and both calls - first with London, UK and Budapest, HU, then with Chennai, India and Atlanta, GA - revolved around Mobility Development. The global village it may be, but it's not the walking distance that's got smaller, it's the talking distance. Presuming, of course, that you can shout loud enough over the static, feedback, awkward pauses and multi-layered developer speak. I hardly feel mobile, just a slothful wreck slumped in a swivel chair.
Once upon a time you needed Union representation to do this kind of shift work. Now we're all being sucked in to activating our wireless devices every time you get pinged, poked, or peddled with spam.
Maybe I should just plug in my tablet for a quick charge and go listen to the dawn chorus in Denny Park.
Or is that the second? It was only four hours ago that I finished yesterday's last call, with people talking in what still is the future. Whatever. I'm craving a mocahlattecino and some biscotti to get me going.
Hey, and both calls - first with London, UK and Budapest, HU, then with Chennai, India and Atlanta, GA - revolved around Mobility Development. The global village it may be, but it's not the walking distance that's got smaller, it's the talking distance. Presuming, of course, that you can shout loud enough over the static, feedback, awkward pauses and multi-layered developer speak. I hardly feel mobile, just a slothful wreck slumped in a swivel chair.
Once upon a time you needed Union representation to do this kind of shift work. Now we're all being sucked in to activating our wireless devices every time you get pinged, poked, or peddled with spam.
Maybe I should just plug in my tablet for a quick charge and go listen to the dawn chorus in Denny Park.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Scaling the vortal - a guide to monetizing vertical metrics
Today's e-service paradigms allow for synergistic utilization of vertical metrics through rapidfire delivery architectures. But for many, the algorithms for embracing such intuitive catalysts, rather than being as north-south as traditional magnetic sources, are instead as unfathomable as a Yemeni yak hurder's attempts to sell you a camel.
But there are now many synergistic initiatives, often harnessing e-fficienies gained by disintermediating granular markets, that are breaking down those incongruent barriers. Modern e-businesses are learning to streamline such collaborative convergences and empower impactful, multi-diverse communities with the ability to monetize their offerings via metrical disevolution.
It's now commonplace to see organizations recapitalize professional high standards through action items brought about by aggregation of 24/365 ideas, and exploit direct channels.
In addition, complete syndication-enabled information can be pushed through many extensible enterprise products. This further, and often dramatically, productizes interdependent vortals with the bleeding-edge synergy that results in the eyeballs, click-throughs and mortar-boarding so desired by the enfranchized.
But there are now many synergistic initiatives, often harnessing e-fficienies gained by disintermediating granular markets, that are breaking down those incongruent barriers. Modern e-businesses are learning to streamline such collaborative convergences and empower impactful, multi-diverse communities with the ability to monetize their offerings via metrical disevolution.
It's now commonplace to see organizations recapitalize professional high standards through action items brought about by aggregation of 24/365 ideas, and exploit direct channels.
In addition, complete syndication-enabled information can be pushed through many extensible enterprise products. This further, and often dramatically, productizes interdependent vortals with the bleeding-edge synergy that results in the eyeballs, click-throughs and mortar-boarding so desired by the enfranchized.
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