Día: 14 septiembre, 2010

Helping Journalists Become Hackers and Entrepreneurs

Journalism schools are useful for many things, including research into ethical standards, traditional skill development, and so on — but increasingly, some journalism schools are focusing just on building their students’ digital chops and entrepreneurial spirit alongside interview etiquette and the correct use of the off-the-record comments. One of the most recent projects in that vein is called Local East Village, a joint venture between the New York University’s journalism school and the New York Times that launched on Monday.

The website describes the venture as an attempt to “help foster a journalistic collaboration with a third partner, our neighbors in the East Village,” and to “give voice to its people in a wide-reaching online public forum and create a space for our neighbors to tell stories about themselves.” As NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen — who helped create the project — notes in his blog post about the launch, the area of the city that the site aims to cover is already well-covered by local blogs, but the LEV site states that it hopes to bring the “academic and intellectual resources of NYU [and] the vast journalistic experience and high professional standards of The Times.” It also adds that:

We hope, too, to provide innovation: For years now the lines between those who produce news and those who consume it have become increasingly blurred. And so we hope to bring our readers even more into the process of producing news in ways that few other sites have tried before.

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Journalism schools are useful for many things, including research into ethical standards, traditional skill development, and so on — but increasingly, some journalism schools are focusing just on building their students’ digital chops and entrepreneurial spirit alongside interview etiquette and the correct use of the off-the-record comments. One of the most recent projects in that vein is called Local East Village, a joint venture between the New York University’s journalism school and the New York Times that launched on Monday.

The website describes the venture as an attempt to “help foster a journalistic collaboration with a third partner, our neighbors in the East Village,” and to “give voice to its people in a wide-reaching online public forum and create a space for our neighbors to tell stories about themselves.” As NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen — who helped create the project — notes in his blog post about the launch, the area of the city that the site aims to cover is already well-covered by local blogs, but the LEV site states that it hopes to bring the “academic and intellectual resources of NYU [and] the vast journalistic experience and high professional standards of The Times.” It also adds that:

We hope, too, to provide innovation: For years now the lines between those who produce news and those who consume it have become increasingly blurred. And so we hope to bring our readers even more into the process of producing news in ways that few other sites have tried before.

One of the most interesting features of the project is what it calls the “Virtual Assignment Desk,” which is an application — essentially a plugin for the WordPress blog-hosting platform, which the site uses to publish its content — developed by a team led by Daniel Bachhuber, who is the digital media manager for the City University of New York graduate journalism school. The plugin makes it easy for anyone who wants to contribute to the site to see what stories or events need to be covered, so that they can volunteer. Readers can vote on the topics or news stories they want to see covered as well. Leer más “Helping Journalists Become Hackers and Entrepreneurs”

Problem Solving Skills Different Than Intelligence

Professor Mylonadis suspects that the reason that our problem-solving ability in management is limited is because our models of problem-solving are devoid of people while actual problem-solving isn’t. As useful as a decision tree might be as an analytical abstraction, the issue is how do you actually define a problem with the help of others around you? Who should these people be? What kind of input should you be asking from them? Which part of that input should you disregard? Which part of that input should you take into account?

He says further, “If you look at engineering or architecture the ability of people to explain the problem they’re working on, and ask questions so they can get feedback is very high without their need to resort to either dogma or trivia. They are helped by reference to blueprints which are a highly codified way of communicating. Our equivalent in management is jargon. Like blueprints, jargon was invented to make our exchanges efficient (we all know what is meant by a “functional organization”.) But the analogy to the blueprint ends when jargon becomes meaningless. It is also a sure way of eradicating any arguments left standing from the onslaught of dogma or trivia.”


Putting More Smart People On A Problem Might Not Be The Answer
by Idris Mootee

Problem Solving Skills Different Than IntelligenceEarly breakfast in a Boston hotel and I’m ready for an executive workshop. There are so many decision to be made in one day and just over breakfast we’re made several important decisions on some strategic issues. I realize 70% of my time on a day-to-day basis are spent on problem solving – organizational, strategic, customers, people and resources etc. It is pretty much the biggest part of any managerial job. Problem solving skills development is therefore critical for young managers.

If you’re a well educated, highly intelligent person and have a well-respected job in your chosen career, it usually means you are a good problem solver both in professional and personal settings. Professor Yiorgos Mylonadis at London Business School research is finding otherwise. His recent research shows that people can be extremely well educated with many years of experience, they may be successful managers who have accomplished great things, but frequently their ability to solve a problem is severely limited. Leer más “Problem Solving Skills Different Than Intelligence”

Facebook Vs Zynga: The Ultimate Showdown [Infographic]


Posted by Nick O’Neill

Ever wonder how the most popular online game developer compares to the world’s largest social network, the Platform which it built its fortune on top of? We decided to take a look at how the two companies stack up against one another. The image below depicts how the two companies would compare in a face off. We’ve broken down all the important numbers including funding, revenue, and more.

http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-vs-zynga-the-ultimate-showdown-infograhpic-2010-09

La nueva gestión de marca

Se podría decir que, de acuerdo al enfoque convencional, la gestión de la marca trabaja fundamentalmente en la fase inicial del proceso de decisión de compra (conocimiento y notoriedad), quedando muchas veces desligada de las acciones implementadas en las fases posteriores, que cuentan con fines comerciales directos (compra). Además, sólo de forma puntual, y sobre todo en determinados sectores, se desarrollaban actuaciones en el resto de las fases intermedias (consideración y preferencia).

Además, la crisis se solapa con la Revolución Digital. Llega un nuevo tipo de consumidor cuyas motivaciones, percepciones y comportamientos (incluso su proceso de decisión de compra) difieren del de siempre, dado que digitalización y la interconexión de los consumidores está cambiándolo todo y a todos los niveles. Todo ello hace que muchos demanden un nuevo modelo de gestión de marcas más acorde con lo que viene que con lo que ya pasó.


por Javier Suso
//yorokobu.es

marcas

A veces me preguntan si hay alguna forma totalmente incuestionable de cuantificar el rendimiento económico de la inversión en construcción de marca. La respuesta siempre es la misma: NO.

Si ya de por sí es complicado estimar en qué medida la inversión en comunicación se desglosa entre objetivos de marca y comerciales, conocer la parte de los ingresos que son consecuencia de tener una marca potente es imposible. Hasta hoy hemos podido vivir con ello, pero ahora más que nunca se nos exige demostrar de forma inapelable la rentabilidad a corto plazo de cada euro invertido, algo que nos pone en un compromiso.

Es posible que el problema tenga su origen en el énfasis por desarrollar vínculos emocionales entre marcas y consumidores. Este enfoque hizo que la construcción de marca se centrara en conseguir el conocimiento, el recuerdo y el posicionamiento de la marca (y, en el mejor de los casos, la generación de predisposición a la compra). Leer más “La nueva gestión de marca”

Why Entrepreneurs who want to ‘Change the World’ should learn from Damien Hirst and Harry Potter


by jeremywaite

Heartfelt criticism of your idea or your art is usually right (except when it isn’t…)

Check out this letter from the publisher of a magazine you’ve never heard of to the founder of a little magazine called Readers Digest:

“Personally, I don’t see how you will be able to get enough subscribers to support it. It is expensive for its size. It isn’t illustrated… I have my doubts about the undertaking as a publishing venture”.

Of course, he was right–given his assumptions. And that’s the except part.



Criticism of your idea is usually based on assumptions about the world as it is. How was the publisher to know that the world would change it’s reading habits and turn Readers Digest into a multi-million dollar empire.

Think about Damien Hirst for a second. The world’s richest living artist. He could never have made it as an artist in the world as it was. He was one of the first modern artists to sell directly to buyers (cutting out the dealers and auction houses).

He also took the unprecedented step of having a price list of his obscenely expensive creations without explaining the logic of their existence to justify their price tag – fine art, cows in formaldehyde, bottles of religious drugs, diamond encrusted skulls… He broke many barriers to clear the way for a new generation of artists who now don’t know any differently.  In the beginning though, Hirst himself was written off by the art world because he was too rock’n’roll!

  • Harry Potter was rejected by just about everyone because for it to succeed the way kids read would have to change.
  • Starbuck’s didn’t listen when they were told, “No-one will pay $4 for a cup of coffee. Not even in New York”.
  • Analysts said that the world’s biggest book retailer needed to be on every High Street. Apparently no-one told that to Amazon.

Big ideas are always resisted initially because things need to change in order for them to succeed. Leer más “Why Entrepreneurs who want to ‘Change the World’ should learn from Damien Hirst and Harry Potter”

Chrysler Aims for February Deadline to Open U.S. Fiat Showrooms

Sergio Marchionne, chief executive officer of both Chrysler and Fiat, has said the Fiat 500 will go on sale late this year in the U.S. as the Turin, Italy-based automaker reintroduces its namesake brand to the world’s second-largest auto market. Fiat, which owns 20 percent of Chrysler, took control of the U.S. automaker as part of its bankruptcy restructuring in 2009.

The company said it will pick new Fiat franchises based on several criteria, including plans to create a standalone facility. Dealers have been told to build a business case for a Fiat franchise based on gross margins of as much as $1,500 for each Fiat 500 sold, people familiar with the planning have said.

Free Space

Some Chrysler dealers will have open space for a Fiat franchise after the closing of General Motors Co.’s Saturn and other brands, said Alan Helfman, vice president of River Oaks Chrysler Jeep Dodge in Houston. Helfman said in a telephone interview that he’s planning to submit a franchise application.

“I can have preparations in place, but I think it’s going to take a little time” for a showroom, he said. “Anytime I’ve built anything, if I thought I could do it in three months, it took six.”

Marchionne is scheduled to attend his first large-scale meeting with Chrysler dealers today in Orlando, Florida. The meeting, the first since 2007, comes as Marchionne is introducing 16 new or refreshed vehicles before the end of the year.

2011 Lineup

The heads of the automaker’s vehicle brands — Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram and Fiat — are also expected to attend the meeting, Kisiel said. For most dealers, it will be their first chance to see the 2011 model year lineup, much of which will reach showrooms later this year, he said.


Whitehouse Chrysler Group

By Tim Higgins

Sept. 14 (Bloomberg) — Chrysler Group LLC, the automaker run by Fiat SpA, said dealers who want to sell the Fiat 500 subcompact car in the U.S. should have their new showrooms completed and running by the end of February.

Dealers will need time to train staff for selling the Fiat 500 and should have a separate showroom in place prior to the start of marketing in March, Ralph Kisiel, a Chrysler spokesman, said yesterday.

“We’d like it up as soon as possible so they can get their Fiat franchise and start selling the vehicle,” he said in a telephone interview.

Dealers must submit their Fiat franchise proposals to Chrysler by Sept. 22, and about 165 winners will be picked in October, the Auburn Hills, Michigan-based company has said.

Some dealers may be allowed to open later, Kisiel said.

“The key here is you don’t open something if they’re not ready,” Kisiel said. Leer más “Chrysler Aims for February Deadline to Open U.S. Fiat Showrooms”

When Twitter becomes real life. Where’s the line?

I saw something happening on Twitter a few days ago, and ever since then I’ve been thinking more and more about the role it plays in our lives and at what point it actually stops becoming something that we ‘do’ and actually starts to replace real life altogether. I don’t want to name the person involved in the incident, but they were very publicly tweeting about something upsetting, as it was happening. As much as I was upset by what they were going through, when I stopped and thought about it, I realised how disturbed I was by the fact that this person had chosen to tweet about this thing, as it happened, instead of giving it the real attention it needed. It was as if Twitter had replaced the real-life situation and it was incredibly strange to watch it happening.

Twitter has always been a different animal. Never quite hitting the mainstream in the way that Facebook has, yet always finding itself in the headlines (or responsible for them). It has hugely affected online communication in ways that we never could have imagined in its early days. But it has had such an odd effect on so many people (myself included). I’m sure I’m not the only one that will think, when something particularly exciting happens or you spot a celeb etc.. that you can’t wait to put it out on Twitter. You think this, even as you’re going through something and you almost forget to enjoy it or notice it as you’re composing your tweet in your head. I find it fascinating that for so many people it’s fundamentally changed every human experience.


//thenextweb.com
By Lauren Fisher

I saw something happening on Twitter a few days ago, and ever since then I’ve been thinking more and more about the role it plays in our lives and at what point it actually stops becoming something that we ‘do’ and actually starts to replace real life altogether. I don’t want to name the person involved in the incident, but they were very publicly tweeting about something upsetting, as it was happening. As much as I was upset by what they were going through, when I stopped and thought about it, I realised how disturbed I was by the fact that this person had chosen to tweet about this thing, as it happened, instead of giving it the real attention it needed. It was as if Twitter had replaced the real-life situation and it was incredibly strange to watch it happening.

Twitter has always been a different animal. Never quite hitting the mainstream in the way that Facebook has, yet always finding itself in the headlines (or responsible for them). It has hugely affected online communication in ways that we never could have imagined in its early days. But it has had such an odd effect on so many people (myself included). I’m sure I’m not the only one that will think, when something particularly exciting happens or you spot a celeb etc.. that you can’t wait to put it out on Twitter. You think this, even as you’re going through something and you almost forget to enjoy it or notice it as you’re composing your tweet in your head. I find it fascinating that for so many people it’s fundamentally changed every human experience.

Your other Twitter life

I think this has contributed to many people almost creating a ‘Twitter self’ that needs to be maintained. I’m often surprised for example, when I see couples talking with each other on Twitter when I know they’re in the same room. But I’ve realised now that it’s not so much about using Twitter as a way of talking to someone next to you, but more contributing to the content around your online self, and talking to your online community. Your Twitter self is something that has to be maintained and so in this way, it almost starts to take over from your real self. For all the benefits of Twitter and all the ways it can enhance your life, there comes a point when it almost replaces your life. And it’s easy to forget this, because it’s just somehow not the same as sitting in front of a chat window. In that case it’s always there and it’s pretty much all you’re doing. But Twitter can run in the background while you watch telly, you can dip in every now and again and work and it doesn’t seem like all you’re doing is reading updates that actually have nothing to do with your work. Leer más “When Twitter becomes real life. Where’s the line?”