As you came through airport security this summer, did you pop one of those smiley faces as you scooped up your bags and swung past towards your departure gate? The company behind them, HappyOrNot, says that using faces rather than numerical scores increases positive ratings. That seems appealing. But it misses the point. Positive ratings are over-rated.

There’s a host of reasons for low scores, from ad hoc operational failures through to structural factors that are slow or costly to change, Read More

“Creativity is not a talent. It’s a way of operating.”

John Cleese, comedy genius Read More

“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.”

Katharine Hepburn Read More

“Time is the only unit of scarcity on the web. You only have 24 hours a day per person.”

Tony Haile, CEO of Chartbeat, a digital analytics company. Read More

“THE EDGE, there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”

Hunter S Thompson, gonzo journalist Read More

Four tips for marketers to get the most out of the tech start-up scene

The appetite among marketers to get close to the tech city scene is such that one enterprising chap is selling Shoreditch tours. I’m not sure how you measure the ROI of looking at Google Campus from the outside, but it tells me the days of shrinking marketing budgets are over.

Many marketers from big brands are dead keen to engage with tech start-ups. Read More

The UK start-up scene is hot. There are lots of incubators, accelerators and shared workspaces. The biggest growth sector in London is probably TechSeedCityHubbery. There are similar set-ups in half a dozen other UK cities. Both big brands and agencies are keen to get close to tech start-ups, and some are investing, providing mentoring, office space, and more.

I see a lot of start-up and small business pitches. In this post I’ll focus on what I?ve seen in the start-ups themselves. Read More

“I think as a species we’re not designed to be able to think more than one year into the future – if that. Even trying to imagine one year from now makes most people feel like they’ve been given a huge boring chunk of homework that’s too hard to do.”

Douglas Coupland, American author Read More

What do Chelsea tractors and email overload tell us about forecasting?

Picture yourself in a trends workshop, innovation brainstorm or scenario planning day, one day in the not-too-distant past. Your task is to help an automotive company see what sort of vehicles people in Europe will want in the future. Here’s what you’re being told. Fuel prices are rising. There’s a lot of talk about “peak oil” (whatever happened to that?). There are more and more cars on the roads, Read More

“Big data doesn’t replace big ideas.”

Tom Fishburne, Marketoonist Read More