Topic: Business
Building the right marketing strategy can be tricky if you see your customer only through a bubble of research. Peter Merholz strives to construct better models for understanding customers as something more than sheep, highly-rational Vulcans, or Type A personalities. Peter's case studies include connecting consumers to a financial services program and redesigning insulin pumps.
Elephants have long memories and, as far as PostgreSQL is concerned, are no longer slow or lumbering. EnterpriseDB's Ed Boyajian and Bruce Momjian discuss the many improvements, benefits and features in PostgreSQL, as well as its success as a commercial database. Alternatively focusing on the business and technical components of the database, Boyajian and Momjian present the new and improving PostgreSQL.
A lot of R&D still puts the front-end last. But considering the user experience throughout product development pays handsomely, say Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone. One study shows design-led businesses outpacing the FTSE 100 by 100 pct. Crumlish and Malone provide cases for Twitter, Dropbox, Hipmunk, and Etsy, outlining how good UX pays, at the 2011 Web 2.0 Conference.
Despite negative media portrayals in the United States, Africa is ranked as a place where it is easier to do business than either China or India. So says Thomas Barry, founder of the Zephyr Management investment firm, in this university podcast. Speaking at the Stanford Africa Forum, Barry outlines what makes Africa an attractive place for investors, pointing to its natural resources and growing workforce.
"Incumbents, Attackers, and Disruptors" are accelerating mobile Internet development. The ability to gain market share through innovation and motivating shoppers will sort winners from losers in the smartphone market, according to Mary Meeker. Currently, mobile Internet adoption is accelerating because of the demands of modern life, while angles such as flash sales and virtual goods are opportunities still not fully exploited.
As many mobile phone companies have discovered, users have changed how their view their device, moving from a general communications tool to something that now has become a major part of their everyday life. Morten Hjerde, formerly of Vodaphone, discusses how mobile operators are learning how users value their devices and how this value has changed over the past decade.
Ray Kurzweil has spent most of his life imagining what the future might be like, and then inventing it. In this keynote from 2010, Kurzweil shares his vision of the future with Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media. The interview begins with a discussion about the Blio, the future of digital publishing, and finally the Singularity. This interview precedes the September 2010 release of the Blio, a TTS-enabled, full-color, web-enabled eReader.
Dr. Moira Gunn talks with WCG CTO and Media Officer, Bob Pearson, about how buying online has changed from E-Commerce to Pre-Commerce.
"Cutting through the hype," game designer and social architecture expert Amy Jo Kim breaks down the process of creating games. She presents 'gamification' and game design with target audiences in mind. The underlying goal, she stresses, is to know your audience and meet it's desires in terms of technology, fun, and trends. Whether your are a game designer or game player, you'll enjoy learning core principles of game design.
What is a Transmedia Producer? Although this new role was recently recognized by the Producer's Guild of America, many people are unaware of it. Jeff Gomez explains how a Transmedia Production works, weaving in examples from Avatar and other projects, he introduces the audience to a new creative phenomenon in our culture. Transmedia story telling is the process of conveying storylines to a mass audience through the artful, well-planned use of multiple media platforms.
