The culture of participatory social media is having some surprisingly significant effects on both the way satisfied customers play a role in contributing to the marketing message development of products and services. And it is also playing an increasingly important role in defining the key touchpoints that customers use in the deciding factors one what to purchase. What makes this all the more noteworthy is that much of this is rooted in offline purchases. I’m putting this together from two recent studies…

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Okay, so being who I am. A guy that grew up at the tip of Africa in my lovely country of South Africa. A person who visits his homeland for several months a year, has lived in Oakland, CA and studied at UC Berkeley. I have one question that always comes back to me - how can we in America/Europe/Japan etc use this great technology and resources to provide opportunities and development in the countries in Africa to improve the lives of the multitude? So maybe it is a silly question - I know that there are many efforts at taking technology to the people of Africa ($100 MIT computer to mention but one laudable effort).

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