Customer Think Archives - Page 20 of 24

A Silly Left Right Brain Test

June 9, 2006 by Liz

Here’s a Fun Test

Here’s a fun test on right and left brain thinking with only a few questions. If you know this stuff you can easily skew it. I tried not to, but I did anyway. We know that I am very right brain. But I also have left brain qualities. I won’t give you my results before you take the test.

Have some fun with it, but don’t plan your life on the results. Click on the title below to try it out.

We all use both sides of our brain and we can develop the side that we don’t use.

–Me “Liz” Strauss

Do You Know Where Your Eyes Go?

June 5, 2006 by Liz

The Eye Is Quicker Than . . .

We know that we have only a blink, a mere second, for a visitor to decide to stay . . . or go. What they see is the gating factor. They take the page in and the decision is theirs.
A few days ago on Seth Godin’s blog, he showed the results of an eye-tracking study. It’s worth a few seconds to see how those “eyeballs,” that marketers talk about, actually take in what they’re looking at. Click the title to go over to youtube tape on Seth’s blog.

Is it what you expected? How does a designer design for that?

Gives the term page view a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

7 Steps & the Key to Spotting Trends

June 5, 2006 by Liz

Getting the People Data

It’s easy to get the people data. Just become obsessive. No, I don’t mean get clinical. Don’t be grabbing people off the street and pulling them in under interrogation lights. I mean get steeped in the culture, become a saturation learner. You can see it in trendspotters — Seth Godin, Tom Peters, Prince Campbell — that they live people. breathe what people think. People aren’t just information on paper to them. People are what trendspotters think about, talk about, even when you’re not around.

They do it so much their significant others say, “Honey, don’t make me live it.” [Read more…]

Trendspotting — Where 97.9% Fail

May 31, 2006 by Liz

Learn Everything

We all want that ability to be able to see the next big trend before it happens — what people will be wanting, doing, needing, going to, and buying NEXT. We want to be there ready and waiting for those customers.

Some folks can see that next trend and hit it fairly often. No one can do it 100%. No one can get any customer base to behave 100% predictably.

Good morning, Class.
Find the next trend. Oh yes, 97.9% of you wll fail this test.

[Read more…]

Don’t Read Your PR, Read Your Marketing Copy

May 29, 2006 by Liz

Diverse Portfolio

A high-power company in educational publishing, bought three smaller companies and put them together. They think they offer a diverse portfolio. I think they offer a menu of bacon, ice-cream, tofu, and cognac. They are quite equipped to make the district-wide, state-wide sale. But rare is the sales rep who has the time or experience to speak to the details and nuances of the four individual product lines that they offer.

The Emperor has clothes bought by the bean counters. The bean counters think in BIG NUMBERS. The PR says that’s wonderful. The enterprise doesn’t see the world becoming niches and moving online. [Read more…]

Customer Solve Your Own Problem

May 24, 2006 by Liz

That’s Customer Centered

I still keep my personal blog at two click exchanges. I do that for lots of reasons. I feel a little sentimental. My little blog found it’s first friends in such places and I still like exploring them. I also like to watch how such things work. The business models interest me. I want to watch as they introduce new features. I want to see how each community reacts to them.

Brand You and Me

Over the last year, I got to be good friends with a tech at one click exchange. Rachel was like me, a nice one. They had a problem for a few weeks with a spell of trojans. It seems everyone tried to crawl onto my computer I caught four or five in three weeks. [Read more…]