Category Archives: Marketing
The placebo effect

The placebo effect I have a little business on the side, one that grew from a conversation about marketing – and specifically, the trade in intangibles or the ‘experience economy’. It’s called Universal Placebos, and it’s built around the extraordinary ….»
Optical illusions

What is this? We often use optical illusions in Edgeware presentations. They break the ice, and they are a good leader into our position that *the way we see the world is the way the world becomes*. There’s ….»
Johnny Bunko’s six lessons

Ever read a business book in manga comic format? That’s what Dan Pink and the illustrator Rob Ten Pas have achieved, and it’s a cracker. Edgeware has used the book as a discussion point for some time now, and feedback ….»
High touch, high concept

Interesting to hear the increasing use of the word ‘touch’ in marketing: how many times, and in what way, does your product message and brand ‘touch’ your customers? Daniel Pink says that products and services of the ‘concept economy’ focus ….»
Happiness comes from experiences, not things

From the blog Neuronarrative Not only are people happier experiencing than possessing, but they are also happier having the experience of thinking about possessing something than actually getting it. Understanding that bit of knowledge about ourselves goes a long ….»
Decisions on intangibles

Intangible values (e.g. brands, data bases, expert knowledge, leadership, productivity) are increasingly important in markets – at least if we use the instrument of stock market valuations rather than the those of accountants. How might we consider them in ….»
Love signals real

In this Age of Metaphor, love will be the signal of real. One of the ways we will know when a thing has passed from “as-if” to “is” is when it earns unalloyed love from humans. Kevin Kelly, As ….»
Networks, niches, hives, tribes

Maybe you’ve seen the formulaic scroller websites that harvest your email address in order to receive something ‘free’ and go on to sell you strategies for making a million on the internet. Pretty lowest common denominator stuff, and it works. ….»
Business Ethics

Business ethics is an important field for Edgeware because it’s in the ‘change the world’ bit of our DNA. You don’t ‘adopt’ ethical practices; you can’t operate without ethics, even if you couldn’t name them and you don’t have a ….»
Generosity

I can think of four things to say about generosity. It’s a quality of behaviour which requires very little in the way of resources but which has enormous power to influence and change things, beginning with yourself. Firstly, generosity is ….»
The Value Proposition

“… The fundamental mission of a business (is) not profit, but value creation. It sees profit as a vital consequence of value creation – a means rather than an end, a result as opposed to a purpose.” Frederick F. Reichheld, ….»
Universal Placebos

A side project, and a source of considerable joy – Universal Placebos. The idea came originally from a class I was teaching at QUT. The discussion was on branding, and moved our thinking to the value of untraded intangibles. Pet ….»
Hard Wired for Stories

We are social animals We are hard wired for stories We use stories to sing the world: Body as Land, Land as Story Discourses arrive after the singing, as both agents and actors We make category errors all the time, ….»