Lecture @ TUDelft, Strategic Product Development

20 November 2009

Back to the roots for me today - presenting a lecture on strategic product development & being an entrepreneur at the Technical University of Delft where I once graduated (what feels like a century ago). The world has changed beyond recognition since I left there: no email, the internet bubble hadn't even started and Beavis & Butthead still had new episodes coming out. For the undergraduates in front of me, the world will be equally different by the time they look back like I did today.

Picture of a riveted audience

Dodge Viper Logo & Daffy Duck

06 November 2009

Amazingly - the Dodge Viper's logo has an unintended "trompe l'oeil" effect: upside down it looks like Daffy Duck.

Check out the duck

Product types named after their action

25 October 2009

A typical weekend insight, while working on a report for my dear friends at Cadbury: 'Chewing Gum' is not only the product name, but also the activity. What others are there?

Thanks (so far) to Titika, Mel, Pacino, Bartel ... who's joining?

Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture on 1,000 synchronized cellphones

23 October 2009

Sometimes the geek world trespasses into the artsy partsy world. Sometimes the outcome is horrible, sometimes it is breathtaking. Check out the ad by Vodafone NZ, synchronizing 1,000 cellphones to blurt out Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture. [via Engadget.com]

View the 'making of' here

The Dieline's top-40 beverage pack designs

09 October 2009

This year's best drinks' pack designs as rated by TheDieline.com. And they know.

Advertising in 2009

21 September 2009

In case you were wondering if the media via which you're promoting your product in are really the right ones, or that maybe your agency is just trying to fill its starving departments with your cash. This diagram will show you there are more options than ever. [via HiddenPersuader]

View the diagram full size

Eco Warrior Bag

20 September 2009

From Tokyo: Eco Warrior Bag. Not sure why/when you're supposed to empty your shopping on the floor and wear the bag on your head - but it's kinda cool. In a very Japanese kinda way. Probably involves a lot of screaming and running around.
[By Rezon, via ItsNiceThat]

View picture

The Ugly, Evil Twin of Operational Excellence... Systemic Inertia

13 September 2009

Operational Excellence - the mantra that came into fashion in the early nineties of the previous century and one that is still fanatically preached across the globe. It beholds the complete mastery of one's primary business processes. It allows for surgical accuracy in delivering output to spec. It lives in Centers of Excellence clustered on every continent. The business breathes, eats and drinks Lean, Six Sigma, 5s, TQM.

Who would have thought there could ever be a downside to delivering a job to perfection? Well, it turns out there is. Many of the process superstars that grew to dominate their markets through Operational Excellence have fallen prey to its stillborn twin: Systemic Inertia. Think Dell, Circuit City and even the superheroes at Toyota.

Read more about Systemic Inertia

Implicit Assumptions - Expectations Influence Sense Of Taste

12 September 2009

When you expect the wine in front of you to taste good - it will. Or at least it will taste much better than when you expect it to be so-so. A research done by Michael Siegrist and Marie-Eve Cousin on the influence of a renowned taster's critique upon the experience of flavor by respondents shows they are heavily influenced by expectation, perhaps even more so than the flavor itself. Are they tasting the wine, or their own assumptions? Now that is one research I would have loved to be guinee pig for, bring on the placebo! [via ScienceDaily]

Integrity and Trust appearing in banking PR

11 September 2009

Well, they probably do have most to make up for in the public's view, so it's no surprise the banking sector is weaving the values of integrity and trust into its PR. The latest commercials from HSBC and Barclays strike exactly the right chord and are very different from the typical 'let's get rich together' themes they followed in the past. Let's hope this new outlook finds its way beyond PR and into their daily business reality too.

View the videos