Nonlinear Thinking

Things I Wanna Know

As we make a mad dash thru 2009, trying to survive, maybe thrive, while wondering if the world we grew up in will return in any semblance of it’s prior self, I gotta lot of things on my mind, such as:

• At what point will McDonald’s and Starbuck’s become competitively undifferentiated and, essentially, interchangeable? 

• Do any of the traditional advertising agencies have a chance for survival in the world of Web 3.0/4.0? 

• Is the great suburban experiment really over? 

• Are the strategic concepts of “white space” and “blue oceans” interchangeable? 

• When will Wagamama come to my town? 

• Do we have the capacity, both socially and economically, to take care of the many disenfranchised individuals that now face a challenge they never expected? 

• Is “capital is scarce” ever a good reason to put innovation on the back burner? (I believe the correct answer is “no”) 

• Who will be the last print daily newspaper standing? 

• Where do I go to cure my addiction to Alltop? (If you haven’t visited it, I’m warning you!) 

• What is the revenue model that will make Twitter more than a passing fancy?  And how can it not include advertising? 

• What will the drought in Napa/Sonoma do to cabernet/pinot noir/chardonnay affordability? 

• Has adding to your LinkedIn network now devolved into a digital age parlor game?  

• No offense, but, why do we need this?
  

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Venture Funding Dries Up in Q1

The venture capital industry took another big hit in the first quarter of the year, according to new data from Dow Jones VentureSource. VCs pumped 50% less money into startups than they did one year ago. At $3.9 billion, it was the lowest total the industry has seen since 1998. That means it was worse than anything seen in the years after the seminal dot-com bust. Information technology fell to its lowest levels since 1997, with just $1.68 billion in deals, and clean tech fell by 73% to just $117 million.

More on the New Marketing and Media Model

The traditional marketer/client – agency – media company structure is evolving into a significantly different ecosystem that is more complex and, no surprise, increasingly digital.  As the overall media environment changes, the current marketing agenda and delivery capabilities must be re-imagined, driving unprecedented rate of change in marketing organizations, agencies and media companies.  That is the finding of Booz Allen’s “Marketing Media Ecosystem 2010 (MME 2010),” a cross-industry study that details how marketers and their agencies must change as the convergence of media and technology, combined with the fragmentation and personalization of media, changes the connection between marketers and end users.

What is clear from the study is that marketing fundamentals have not changed, but the strategies, investments and capabilities required to succeed in marketing have shifted. In the new world of marketing, the agile and flexible are more likely to become and remain successful than those enterprises tied to the old ways of connecting with the marketplace.