First up, as I’ve publicly posted this and have helped out myself, my friend and colleague Hasan Abu Afash is in Palestine, and I don’t need to tell you what he and his people are facing. If you can help out, here’s a link to his Paypal. Apparently, August 11, 2023 marked my 20 […]
Tag: Beyond Branding
My first tech post in a while: how I use my social-computing time
Refreshingly, I’ve noticed that my more recent blog posts haven’t been about Big Tech as often. I haven’t changed my views: the ones I’ve stated earlier still stand, and Google and Facebook in particular continue to be a blight on democracy and even individual mental health. A lot of the posts were inspired by […]
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I don’t do paid blog posts here (so don’t ask)
I know we all get these emails from time to time, but they still annoy me. If ‘Peter’ had visited this blog, he would know that every single post since 2006 has been my own, unpaid, unsponsored thoughts. Why would I change that now? You may say it’s a fair question, and […]
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A farewell to Tim Kitchin
For the second time in two months, I found myself announcing to the members of Medinge Group another passing: that of my good friend Tim Kitchin. Tim passed away over the weekend, and leaves behind three kids. I always admired Tim’s point of view, his depth of thinking, and his generosity of spirit. […]
Farewell to Thomas Gad: a friend, a colleague, and a uniter
Tonight, I had the sad and solemn duty to announce publicly the passing of my friend Thomas Gad. I’m still waiting for someone to come out and tell me that I have been severely pranked. Thomas was the founder of what we now call Medinge Group. After working for 17 years at Grey […]
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Google and Facebook should not head “top brands” lists when consumers do not trust them
I’ve always been surprised when I see Google or Facebook appear on any “top brands” lists. It’s branding 101 that a strong brand must have loyalty, awareness, positive associations, perceived quality, as well as proprietary assets, based on the model from David Aaker, and implicit in this, I always thought, was trust. You can neither […]
The religiosity of the superbrands
Another friend asked the Windows laptop v. Macbook question on her Facebook today. You can predict what happens next. The cult came by. As with the last time a friend asked the same question. The cult always comes and proclaims the superiority of the Apple Macintosh. And it is a blinding proclamation, of […]
Finance is broken, and we still haven’t learned
I posted this quotation from I Acknowledge on my Tumblr today: The news that should have us all worried is: the derivatives market contains $700trn of these debts yet to implode. Global GDP stands at $69·4trn a year. This means that (primarily) Wall Street and the City of London have run up phantom paper debts […]
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Mind the gap
People have rightly asked me my positions on transport, the environment, the Basin Reserve flyover, and libraries. These weren’t put in my manifesto in April 2013 because I expected that candidates (whomever they might be—since only Dr Keith Johnson had declared then) would have largely the same views on them. I was wrong. […]
Cringely gives Facebook till 2014 to peak—and he may be right
Bob Cringely wrote (found via Stowe Boyd): Facebook is a huge success. You can’t argue with 750 million users and growing. And I don’t see Google+ making a big dent in that. What I see instead is more properly the fading of the entire social media category, the victim of an ever-shortening event horizon. […]
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