How ideas spread and culture eventually changes
In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell wrote about how an bar fight might grow. Everybody has their own “tipping point” for how many people have to be fighting to engage themselves in the fight.
Something similar is seen in this video, from the Sasquatch Music Festival 2009, where this one guy just needs to dance. [...]
What you measure influences how much word of mouth you get
It is interesting to see how different rules within businesses shape the way people within them behave. It is even more interesting to see how what these result in over time.
Even though they might have a short term benefit, rules and incentives can hinder a business on a longer perspective. The boundaries an employee has [...]
8 favourites from 2008
Happy New Year! It is a little late as I haven’t been blogging for about 10 days, I know, but nonetheless I wish you a happy new year! I think 2009 will be great!
But, before I start the new year for real, I’d like to indicate some of my own favourite posts from 2008. I [...]
New vs. existing customers - who do you put your money on?
In business literature, we are used to reading about the costs of customer acquisition. And usually, these costs are pretty high, typically a lot higher than the costs for keeping an existing customer.
So, it is always pretty surprising to see how businesses treat existing versus new customers and what kind of incentives they offer. [...]
How the rule of reciprocity affects word of mouth
What is it that actually drives word of mouth?
One obvious driver is that people like to talk, and actually benefit from it. Throughout history, communicating good and bad helped our close ones learn things that were important to survive in hard times.
Our survival is not as dependent on it anymore, and whether we [...]