Is the AirBnB situation a gift?
“Customer service here, we’ve decided to do whatever we can to put right this terrible thing that happened to you when you used AirBnB. For a start, can we have your bank details, so that we can immediately deposit a million dollars”
Dyslexia and a PhD
Die-hard sceptics still regarding it as little more than a convenient excuse for a lack of interest in or dedication to study may be surprised by this video, which reflects impressive academic achievement in a discipline which simultaneously challenges, derives value from and provides support for the cognitive distinctiveness that dyslexia represents
What will Google do now search is suddenly dying?
Investment legend Roger McNamee says mobile has already killed search. Smartphone users hardly use search. Is Google no longer the gatekeeper to the web, business, the world? Will Google+ put them back in the money? Does today’s ‘Facebook for business’ launch roll the dice once again?
Myths and truths of customer loyalty in online communities
Free workforce? Marketing substitute? Unpaid website content generators? If you’re hoping for a way to ‘exploit the well-proven willingness of loyal customers to contribute tirelessly to your online promotion, generating enormous traffic and business, and asking for nothing in return’ you need help
Nontrepreneurialism: you want to work, but neither as an employee, nor as your own boss
The Economist calls you a post-materialist: you don’t feel driven by materialist ambitions. You just need enough to maintain your existing lifestyle, rather than improve it. But what does ‘not being your own boss’ mean in this context?
A new name for gamification
The current term cunningly implements its own strategy: it conveys trivialisation to the uninitiated, conveniently excluding the ignorant and preserving its power for the enlightened few
Ending the nightmare of blurred vision for half a billion poor
Even the dramatic recent reductions in the cost of spectacles and cataract operations are not doing enough to reduce the catastrophic impact that untreated sight conditions have in the third world, but strangely enough, our appetite for HD on our mobile phones will fix this
Innovation where it’s needed: malnutrition
The name Plumpy’nut may sound quirky, but this ridiculously simple product idea is already keeping countless famine-struck children from starvation and will save millions of lives
What can everyone else teach innovators?
Nobody invents everything they do, innovating all of the time. Most of the time, we are part of the community, resisting newer untried innovations merely by not abandoning older accepted ones. It’s important for innovators to regularly remind themselves about how it feels to be “everyone else”