All of (Capitalist) Life is But a Stage

All of (Capitalist) Life is But a Stage

September 5, 2009 • Book Reviews • no comments


American Girl dolls casting their branded charms (Courtesy of Lauren-xo)

“Lights, cameras, action!” Put on your “costumes”, don your best “branded” behaviour, and perform in the stage of life’s biggest commercial brands.

That seems to be the key message of Maurya Wickstrom’s volume Performing Consumers which described the multiple ways in which big brands endear themselves to their customers through performance and theatre. Peppered liberally with theories of performativity and theatricality, the book illustrated how the creation of brandscapes in the retail environment induces deep emotional connections between man and merchandise.

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Are Museums All Things to All Men?

September 2, 2009 • Blog • 1 comment

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Dinosaurs are a surefire hit, but should all museums have them? (taken at Melbourne Museum)

Should museums and galleries always attract the largest and widest crowd possible, attracting/attacking every customer segment? Can they be scholastically superior, operationally efficient, highly entertaining, marketing savvy, and customer oriented at the same time? Are major blockbuster exhibitions the only way to draw a big crowd?

Some of these issues were tackled in this excellent post by Nina Simon (of Museums 2.0 blog) in an interview she conducted with John Falk and Beverly Sheppard, authors of the book “Thriving in the Knowledge Age: New Business Models for Museums and Other Cultural Institutions”. Admittedly, I haven’t read the book yet but I am definitely going to check it out.

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Who’s Your City – A Review of Florida’s Book

August 25, 2009 • Book Reviews • 1 comment

I first heard about Richard Florida’s ideas from a public sector conference back in November 2008 and was intrigued by his ideas on how the world isn’t flat (ala Thomas Friedman) but is in fact spiky and dominated by mega-regions. Florida’s earlier assertions about the rise of the creative class and their catalytic roles in urban regeneration have been so significant that they are often cited by cities around the world as reasons to invest in more heavily in cultural infrastructure.

Who’s Your City was a highly ambitious undertaking by the urban theorist and economist Richard Florida to understand the importance of place in both economic and social spheres. Working with armies of researchers and statisticians from Gallup and various universities, Florida plowed through an impressive mountain of economic, social, geographic, psychographic and even cartographic (yes Florida is pretty big on maps) data to substantiate his findings.

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Sandy Beaches, Windy Cliffs and Artistic Rocks

August 23, 2009 • Blog • 1 comment

One of the most amazing things about Kangaroo Island is its vastly varying landscapes and breathtaking environment. From one end of the island to the other (which is at least a two hour drive considering the distance), you can experience the South Australian wilderness in a wide spectrum of rustic surroundings – sandy deserts, craggy cliffs, luxuriant forests, sparkling rivers, to rolling hills and scenic bays. Drives along the winding roads of the island are always pleasant as there are very few cars around, plus the fact that virtually every square kilometre of the island is bursting with gorgeous scenery.

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Our first scenic stop was the renowned beach at Vivonne Bay, which was once voted as the best beach in Australia in a survey of 10,000 beaches on the continent and its islands.

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Skittles & Social Media – Success or Scuttle?

August 21, 2009 • Social Influence • 2 comments


There are almost 20,000 photos tagged with “Skittles” on Flickr (courtesy of PaPeR.cLiP)

First made in 1974 as a hard shelled candy, Skittles is part of the MARS stable and is easily recognisable for their multi-coloured sugar shells with the letter “S”. The candy brand shocked and awed the world back in March this year when they transformed their corporate website into a real-time social media portal. The new website also incorporates a floating widget pulling in content and inputs from Youtube, Flickr, Wikipedia and Facebook. To get onto their home page, all content producers – photos, videos, tweets – need to do is type the word “skittles” or tag them and Voila!

Skittles was able to initially generate a huge amounts of traffic (more than 1332% in a day) by people who were simply curious to see their own “skittles”. It also generated a tremendous amount of publicity and buzz online.

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Addressing the Absence of Attention

August 19, 2009 • Blog • 1 comment


I love this pie chart! (Courtesy of Creating Passionate Users)

One of the most prominent phenomena in this present age is its move towards slicing and dicing everything down to its simplest and most fundamental parts. This relish for reductionism has resulted in an ever increasing number of people who acquires information in a vast number of areas without ever dipping below the surface.

The latest I read was that mini-MBAs are now growing in popularity. Who has time to spend 1 or 2 years of their lives pursuing a fast ubiquitous qualification these days – other than the few oddballs like me?

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Clay Shirky on The Future of Organisations

August 17, 2009 • • 1 comment

Broad and sweeping, yet detailed and penetrating, Clay Shirky’s volume “Here Come’s Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations” is a tour de force of how technology influences group activity and organisation. Shirky skillfully blended social sciences like psychology, sociology and anthropology with elements of the social web – mailing lists, forums, blogs, Youtube, Flickr, MySpace, Facebook, Wikipedia and Twitter.

Weaving his words into an easily digestible narrative, Shirky isn’t afraid to borrow theories and concepts to back up his claims. A notable example is the Coasean Theory, which states that high transaction costs make hierarchical organisations more efficient than individuals striking agreements with each other. Shirky’s argument is that the lowering of coordination costs to practically zero through social tools like forums, emails, and blogs make it possible for new loosely structured groups to form outside traditional organisations. Hence the Coasean Floor of transactional costs are lowered, making it efficient and cost effective for such groups to form.

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The Feeding Frenzy of Feathered Friends

August 16, 2009 • • no comments

From the busy buzzing bees at the apiary at Kingscote, we next ventured to the Penguin Centre of Kangaroo Island which was located just around the corner to catch the feeding of the pelicans. Unlike other more docile Australian creatures like kangaroos and koalas, pelicans are fairly gregarious and sociable birds. They can often be found flocking next to each other and either swimming or flying close to each other. Well, it was pretty fun for us to catch them fobbing each other off in their attempts to stuff their face – or bills rather – with fishes!

Here’s our story told in pictures for your viewing pleasure.

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The setting at Kingscote Wharf was serene, placid and picturesque as we approached it, with the Sun low in the horizon at 5 pm.

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Should I or Shouldn’t I? – Ethics in PR

August 14, 2009 • Public Relations • 1 comment


Courtesy of Keith Maguire

As a public relations professional who deal with the media on a regular basis, I am often faced with situations which require a judgement call. These may take the form of a series of deeply probing questions by journalists who are determined to weed out the grains of dirt, or to develop a more sensational story from an otherwise run-of-the-mill piece.

While I believe in telling the truth, I am also aware that certain facts presented in the wrong context may end up leaving a false impression. The worst thing that can happen is to end up losing control of an unfolding story, and to be perceived as being uncooperative and unwilling to provide information to a hungry media circus.

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