New Words for Office Bullsh*t Bingo

von | Feb. 12, 2007 | Blog

I just found a few new words for the evergrowing vocabulary list of bullsh*t bingo on Yvonnes blog:

Blamestorming
Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.

Seagull Manager
A Manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, shits over everything and then leaves.

Salmon day
The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

Chainsaw consultant
An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee head count, leaving the brass with clean hands.

CLM
Career Limiting Move – Used among microserfs to describe ill-advised activity. Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM. (Also known as CLB – Career Limiting Behaviour)

Adminisphere
The rarefied organisational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

Dilberted
To be exploited and oppressed by your boss. Derived from the experiences of Dilbert, the geek-in-hell comic strip character. „I’ve been dilberted again. The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week.“

Flight Risk
Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave the company or department soon.

404
Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web error message „404 Not Found,“ meaning that the requested document could not be located.
„Don’t bother asking him . . . he’s 404, man.“

Ohnosecond
That minuscule fraction of time in which you realise that you’ve just made a BIG mistake.

Percussive Maintenance
The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

Prairie Dogging
When someone yells or drops something loudly in a „cube farm“ (an office full of cubicles) and everyone’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on.

Assmosis
The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss.

I just realised – you better never win at this kind of bullsh*t bingo…

Second Life user statistics by country

von | Feb. 11, 2007 | Blog, Digital Culture, Digital Marketing, Marketing Trends, Social Media Marketing

Finally, finally, there are some numbers on the nationalities of Second Life residents. OK, you might argue, they’re all Second Life citizens – true. But nevertheless it was interesting for me as an advertising person to know who actually visits this virtual space.

Now Reuters writes about the latest statistics.And it seems like Europe is well represented – something I never thought:

Europeans make up the largest block of Second Life residents with more than 54 percent of active users in January ahead of North America’s 34.5 percent, according to new Linden Lab data.

Interestingly enough it was especially the French who boosted the european numbers – mainly due to the fact that during their presidential elections in January both parties got actively involved in this virtual world – opening up offices and such.

France has the second-highest number of users after the virtual world became a battleground for the country’s presidential election. Although French residents had long been a part of Second Life, thousands more joined Second Life in January as demonstrators picketed the virtual offices of Jean Marie Le Pen’s far-right National Front party. Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal also established a Second Life presence.

Here is the complete overview:

Active residents by country

  • United States 31.19%
  • France 12.73%
  • Germany 10.46%
  • United Kingdom 8.09%
  • Netherlands 6.55%
  • Spain 3.83%
  • Brazil 3.77%
  • Canada 3.30%
  • Belgium 2.63%
  • Italy 1.93%

The numbers add up to round about 85% – which means that 15% are spread out over the remaining +/-150 nations worldwide. And I guess that China makes up a large part of that 15% – even though I would have expected them within this list…

The average resident is 33 years old, and:

58.9 percent of residents declared themselves as men when they registered, compared with 55.5 percent a year earlier.

I like the way that is put: „declared themselves as men“. But it’s true. On the web, you never know – and in Second Life this is just as well the case…

One more link: these news were posted within the Reuters Second Life News Center Website. (I just want to keep track of this link for myself…)

There seem to be five rules of viral marketing

von | Feb. 9, 2007 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Marketing

Following a viral, almost guerilla-type marketing incident that went horribly wrong, Sean Carton of Clickz deducts 5 rules for this kind of marketing that should be obeyed.

  • If you want to generate word-of-mouth, don’t try to be hip.

Just because it seems to the latest buzz around the blog, doesn’t mean it spreads. Don’t try too hard, people will inevitably notice and block it.

  • Destruction of property or intruding into people’s comfort zones will only backfire.

Some viral marketing is very obtrusive and tries to surprise people by being as drastic as damaging or at least defacing public spaces. This might cause more trouble than anythings else.

  • You can’t fake authenticity.

No, of course you can’t. And marketers should never ever think they can, because the truth behind every little marketing trick will surface these days.

  • Know your audience.

You better do! Obvious, as it seems, but sometimes viral marketing expectations are formulated in a way that goes completely beyond what would be sensible or even possible with a certain target audience.

  • Love your customers.

This shouldn’t be a new concept to anyone, otherwise – well…

A study about user generated content

von | Feb. 6, 2007 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Online Advertising

Clickz references a study about user generated content – or consumer generated content, as it should rather be called. This is from August 2006, but nevertheless quite interesting, as there seems to be some interesting findings even related to „traditional“ internet advertising:

Almost three-quarters of people who publish amateur video content online are under 25, and of those, 86 percent are male. […] Other findings of the „Generator Motivations Study“ include that as many as 73 percent of content generators notice Internet advertising, a much higher ration than what’s found in the male 18 to 24 year-old demographic as a whole. Also, 57 percent of all content creators surveyed said they are willing to feature brands in their videos, and many within the group have already done so. […] The report suggests opportunity for marketers, if campaigns are executed properly. „Approaching the right communities, with the right tone and incentives can motivate users to generate content featuring brands,“ the report said.

Sounds good, being from Germany, I now wonder if the situation is (or will be) similar in Germany?

Ageless web2.0: 80+ year old digital immigrants on the rise.

von | Feb. 1, 2007 | Blog, Digital Culture, Marketing Trends, Social Media Marketing

Seems like there is no age limit for any web2.0 application. We were already amazed with geriatric1927, who started fiddling with a webcam and quickly gathered a huge crowd of fans.

As of August 16, 2006, geriatric1927 was the most subscribed user on YouTube. His rise to the #1 position took place in just over a week.

Not quite as „multimedia“, but a little older instead, is Don. He blogs on his blog „Don to Earth“ and with 93 years old, he is probably one of the oldest, if not THE oldest blogger on earth.

I am certain, that in 40-50 years time, there will be millions of 80+ year old webusers blogging and youtubing away (if blogs and youtube then still exist). But at the moment this is an amazing step by these two guys. If I look at my grand dad, who has trouble understanding the concept of any modern digital device, I cannot imagine him writing a blog. (He does own and use a cell phone, though).

At the same time, I am curious (as I already wrote earlier on), how much (personal) content will float around a most probably gigantic social web. There might be 80+ year old bloggers who have an archive of 40+ years of blog posts…

Superadvertisers skip advertising during superbowl

von | Jan. 31, 2007 | Ad News, Blog, Marketing

Interestingly enough, many super-advertisers skip this years super-bowl. P&G, Unilever, Microsoft all won’t show a single ad during the game.

There are some noteworthy quotes in that article:

A quote of John B. Williams, general manager-Windows global communications

We think we have a product and a message that stands alone. Borrowed interest is always something you look at, but [our marketing] will give us more pop, in our opinion, than going into a Super Bowl environment.

A P&G spokesperson stated via email:

Simply put, we’re looking to optimize the intro of the new campaign, and the Super Bowl was not part of the strategy

Seems like the main advertising sports event had reached its peak last year and is now on the decline. At least as long as they don’t change something about the setup – i.e. prices, integration with other media/events/channels, whatever. Does that mean advertisers will shift more to online? Not necessarily so. Dove experienced good results with outdoor last year and expects more resonation of the academy awards.

In the end it shows that currently everything is under close scrutiny, even events like the superbowl…