Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

My 12 Best Marketing Conversations of 2007

As 2007 draws to a close, I'd like to take a moment to thank all of my readers and contributors. I consider many of comments guest posts and have often elevated the conversation in subsequent posts for that reason. We conclude the year with a celebration of the best marketing conversations we had here. An Unlikely Blend started as a simple question: why aren't there any Starbucks in Italy? We had a couple of Europeans in the comments, admittedly invited to participate. Gianandrea as a fan of the US coffee chain, Tim on the side of unlikely. Joe reminded everyone... Read more →

Will New Media Re-Imagine Journalism?

The way we consume news has changed. With the proliferation of social media and networks, we find that we rely more and more on each other for a local angle on global issues -- not only the words and opinions, also facts, figures, and pictorial testimonials of what's going on. The news has an expiration date and time -- and our attention spans have given the cycle an even shorter leash. It is not a secret that TV broadcasting has become more entertainment than news these days. In her passionate conversation with us last month, Christiane Amanpour was decrying the... Read more →

Rebecca Thorman: Social Media doesn't Create New Generation Leaders

We have a deep desire to feel that rise in our chests, the quickening of our breath, the spread of a smile. Generation Y wants to change the world. Not the environment. Not healthcare. Not education. Not poverty. Not racism. Not sexism. Not war. Not cancer. Not anything, really. Just the world. We want to change the world. And in wanting so much, we get so little. Restlessness courses through our veins, for we are never doing enough or being enough. Volunteering, leadership, and entrepreneurship, nor the eventual acceptance of the mundane satisfies our edge. And there's a majority of... Read more →

Dan Schawbel: the Future of Branding

Dan is the leading personal branding expert for the generation-y audience, with an award winning and world recognized blog, a TV podcast series that he directs, awards that he judges, and a magazine that he publishes. He has written over 30 published articles in major magazines and online resources such as MarketingProfs and The American Marketing Association and has been featured in Fast Company Magazine, BrandWeek Magazine, Boston.com, Providence Business News, Brand Strategy Magazine (UK) and Yahoo! Finance. Dan established the first 360 degree personal brand website, DanSchawbel.com, creating a new standard for career development. Also, he engaged and facilitated... Read more →

Arun Rajagopal: Creating Effective User Experiences in Global Conversations

Classical communications theories propound a number of requisites for creating meaningful and effective conversations. One of them is clarity of expression. When a message is transmitted from a sender to a receiver, a process of encoding and decoding occurs. If you are looking forward to generate some response or result from your act of conversation, the message should be delivered in a form and content that makes it easy to be decoded or understood by your recipient. More importantly, this message should be what your recipient really, really wants to hear. If you are talking to your customers, a community... Read more →

The Christmas Tree

To those who love to sleep but wake up in a good mood. To those who still greet you with a hug. To those who work hard and play harder. To those who are late and make no excuses. To those who turn off the telly to talk. To those who have the enthusiasm of a child and the thoughts of a grown up. To those who get up early to help a friend. To those who see the glass always half full. To those who do not wait for Christmas to be better. Merry Christmas [Christmas tree made of... Read more →

The Making of the John Lewis Christmas 2007 advert, "Shadows"

This year I am pretty impressed by UK Christmas ads, like this one for John Lewis. The John Lewis Christmas 2007 ad titled "Shadows" is great cinematography and shows the making of the image. They remind me of the days when I actually wanted to watch the ads on TV. As Pier Luca Santoro wrote in a recent post (Italian translated liberally) once upon a time, the ads used to finance TV programs we were interested in watching. In the last few years, the programs are created with the goal of finding an audience for the ads. Read more →

Connection Kata: The Coffee is an Excuse

In Italy coffee shops are at every corner and in between, just in case. The aroma mixing with the sweet smell of fresh pastries and the bustle of pedestrians in cities and towns across the country. When winter time comes, these are the places people repair to in order to escape the rigor of the short days; in summer they are a welcome respite from the heat -- an opportunity for being social in every season. Many are small affairs, where standing room is the only option and sometimes two-people thick. People don't mind at all, because the coffee and... Read more →

Ryan Karpeles: When you come to a fork in the road, will you pick it up?

People are finally getting what they've always wanted: Choice. And not just choice alone, but the choice to choose. There's a significant distinction here, so allow me to explain. Choice vs. Choosing Your Choice If someone offers you an apple or a banana, you get to choose which fruit you want. But you only have two choices. So what happens if you don't like apples or bananas? All of sudden, your choice isn't very meaningful. You're still getting stuck with a fruit you don't like. Now imagine the same scenario as before, but this time you get to choose before... Read more →

Seni Thomas: 2008- The Year Networks Become More Than Social

The primary purpose of online networks, up to this point, has been to congregate around interests, hobbies, and passions to create communities. In 2008 I predict networks will become more that social. In 2008 we will see the growth of innovation networks, or i-Nets. Networks that allow ideas to attract people and people to discover ideas. Networks that catalyze serendipitous moments. i-Nets, in a nutshell, are networks that layer advanced people search capabilities, democratic content voting, and collaborative applications over a social foundation. Think of a mash-up between Google Apps, Spock, Digg, and Facebook. Imagine a scenario where you work... Read more →