Ideas are Orange

Extreme Makeover: World Edition

According to internet sources, the cost of the Iraq war is somewhere at US$ 450 billion. This is more than the GDP of Spain, more than the revenues of IBM, P&G, HP and Motorola combined, and enough to hand out $91,000 dollars per US citizen.

The war is all about oil, there seems to be general consensus on that. But it is also about stimulating the economy. Defense companies, infrastructure companies, technology companies, etc... As long as that money is being spent to stimulate the economy, at least there is buy-in from economists (maybe not oil companies)

So here is my idea to wage the war on poverty. Give all that money to Ty Pennington, the host and leader of the show Extreme Makeover: House Edition. Have ABC create a show called Extreme Makeover: World Edition in which houses / towns / infrastructure is built in developing nations. Here are some ideas on how it could work.

• The US government sponsors building in developed nations to create infrastructure for personal and business purposes
• It flies construction crews in the same B-52 bombers that are used to carry bombs and ammo. Instead they carry materials and crews.
• US constructors travel all over the world as ambassadors, and become globally aware. No more FEAR, and they get a stamp on their passport. You could also spend some money on protection for them to give certain stakeholders some comfort.
• Crews build houses in 7 days, business centers in 10 days, towns in 30 days, etc... There could be an interesting association between what they build and the time it takes them.
• Business centers could have retail spaces for companies that buy into them; in order to get locals to do business with US companies. They could have mini-retail outlets from companies that want to do business with locals. Think P&G distributors, Amway salesmen, Kinkos copiers, etc...
• These US tax businesses could get tax breaks to go to underprivileged nations and invest.
• The US spends serious procurement cash on buying stuff from wholesalers  -such as Sears - that provide all the goodies.
• The US exports high quality labor, best practices, spends on raw materials, etc...
• The US could deliver training and guidelines as to how to improve standard of living.
• Ty Pennington is the US's Goodwill ambassador. He oversees events and uses his energy to link people together. He could fly around in a jet with the stars and stripes and visit in a week launches in all five continents.
• Several institutions get reformed. Defense companies can use logistical expertise to transport materials. Equipment management know-how to fix infrastructure, defense intel to protect what they build, etc...

I wonder if this really is such a far-fetched idea. There is major change that requires turning the industrial military complex into a system to yield out service across the world; that makes it impossible. It simply seems absurd to keep a war going while there are such pressing issues out there.

Realtime Iraq war cost: http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Cost-of-War/Cost-of-War-3.html

Making American Soccer Work

Recently, there have been some major moves in order to revamp Major League Soccer (US). The most notable include signing David Beckham to the L.A. Galaxy, and a few days ago, it was revelad that Juan Pablo Angel (Colombian striker for Aston Villa) has signed with the New York Red Bulls.

These are bold moves, paying a lot of money for marquee soccer players! It assumes either Americans are warming up to soccer, or the market simply needs to be tapped using superstars.

But... did you know... americans don't like soccer. According to Harvard a Harvard Professor, whom I heard speak a few years back, and whose name I was not able to dig up, Americans don't like soccer because the scores are to low! Yup, americans are used to 100 point basketball games, 40 point football games, or 7 run baseball games. Very few want to stick around for a 1.5 hour match to see a 0-0 score.

So perhaps some changes or ideas to make MLS more [economically] attractive could be.

1. Eliminate or make off-sides more lax. Offsides make it hard for strikers to shine, and are the cause for a lot of anulled goals. What if offsides were ... but perhaps this would distort global soccer stats of goals scored and not scored. Or you could have off-side and non-offside goals.
2. Create new stats. Baseball game scan be just as slow. But in baseball you have runs, hits, and errors, you have batting averages, you have RBIs. Several stats. Soccer has less "activity" stats such as these and therefore people usually focus more on result measures. Think of it as "balancing the scorecard", including some new measures. They could include striking accuracy, or "near-scores", or out-of-area goal kicks. To get sportscasters and fans more interested, more stats are needed.
3. Allow power-plays. Much like in hockey, perhaps you could change the goalie for another striker... or 2 for that matter. I know it's controversial, and it would probably be suicide, but hey, it could be an opportunity to score more goals and keep stadiums full.
4. Crate a distinct food and gadget. MLB has cracker jacks, NHL has everything from octupuses to foam paws, NFL has beer hats, NBA has those soundsticks. Soccer needs its own tools. Perhaps something that resembles de "ole ole ole" chants for the tool, and smoething safer than fireworks. Some pop material gurus needed here.

With hispanic population being the most significant majority in the US, and americans saying in a survey that their favorite [american food] is tacos (official survey); the upside is huge, but the scores, the game experience and the regulations might need to change.

The RFID Anonymizer

As RFID becomes a mainstream technology in consumer packaged goods, the debate of its effects on consumer privacy also continues. There are a lot of interesting uses for RFID products when it comes to the supply chain, as this is what RFID was initially conceived for. Tracking razorblades that are easily stolen, or automating inventory count of crates, cartons and pallets are all fantastic uses.

But once those products hit the consumer's home, they might have a need to be anonymized. The supply chain benefits are beginning to get distorted by davvy marketers that want to know what's in your fridge, your closet, bathroom, etc...

As consumers, we need an RFID Anonymizer

RFID tags need to be anonymized. Perhaps there can be a product that allows to detect and RFID tag, and pull a trigger to disable it. Detection can happen in the same manner as keychains detect wi-fi networks, and disabling or anonymizing by pointing and pressing.

This creates two important things. First, the economies of RFID need to yield their benefits in the supply chain and not in the demand chain so that if tags are anonymized the RFID proposition as a whole doesn't fall appart. That is, it needs to focus on reaping the benefits before products hit consumers.

Second, the fact that RFID will inevitably will be used to learn more about consumer preferences, makes an RFID anonymizer an essential tool for paranoid and non-paranoid consumers. Consumers will not be able to opt out of buying RFID tagged products nor will all stores anonymize tags on exit, creating the need for a home device.

Some ideas on improving Kiva

I hace recently loaned some money through Kiva to some  promising entrepreneurs in developing nations (like my own). Kiva is a fantastic idea, the process of micro-loans cannot work without an enabling technology, and finally somebody put two and two together and launched this service.

I do have some ideas that could improve certain things:

1. The Listing: The People Listing needs to have filters (using dropdown menus) on top. The listing needs to allow people to boil down the large list  by several criteria such as: gender, country, business type, amount.
   In the world of donations (had significant experience building several projects for non-profits), people often donate to a specific target population (women, children), or for a specific purpose (education, nourishment, etc...). Kiva's criteria could be split in genfer, country, bus. type and others. For example, I am more inclined to donate to women in south pacific countries.
   If they really want to increase usability, this listing should be built using ajax, so that no reloading is necessary.
2. The "I have contributed widget": Contribution is the next big word! Warren Buffet gave away his money and so will Bill Gates. Everybody wants to be like No. 1 and No. 2, but suddenly they aren't the richest, but the ones that contribute the most. One should be able to export a Widget - to put on your site, your company's site, your blog, your LinkedIn profile, etc... - to show how much you have contributed.
   If people compete for stuff like having more LinkedIn connections, or more Myspace friends, surely they'll compete for the most amount of money loaned. The current widget asks people to loan to a specific entrepreneur, it needs to be the other way around, it needs to show how much a specific person has contributed. I'm sure some guy wanting to appear first on the list will donate a large amount of money.
3. Kiva + Google Maps: A mashup is needed here, mainly to show in a visual manner the areas that are getting more loans and less loans. A visual representation could show where the money is flowing and what other regions need support. Analytics are visual and I suppose "equality" is important here, but there is no visual way of knowing which areas (not necessarily people) are in need.

This is a great project... I definitely encourage people to loan at www.kiva.org

The Next Net - LinkedIn

Business 2.0 magazine published on its March cover the 25 hot startups to watch. It struck me that LinkedIn was not included in the top 25, as I think they will probably be 2007's most important web 2.0 application.

Here is the thing. Most web applications need only one thing, and one thing only to become great. Much like Google owns search, Flickr owns pictures and Youtube owns Video. Well, LinkedIn owns the people, who are what make it all happen. Or at least business people.

In any information system or application, there is always a bit of information to which all others are attached. In a CRM system for example, the basic input is having client accounts, that is to what you associate contacts and proposals. LinkedIn has the people, which is the piece of information to which everything is attached. The have begnu creating functionalities to "attach" certain things, like other people, answers, recommendations, but it can really be taken further.

LinkedIn is in a unique position to become the next killer app, because it can work as a hub to which all other apps. are attached. But they should be more concerned with linking the LinkedIn profiles with other things such as:

• Showing on your linkedIn profile the number of pictures you have on Flickr.
• Showing on your profile the amount of money you´ve contributed through Kiva.
• Showing on your profile Squidoo lenses that you´ve created
• Showing on your profile the [Lulu] books you have published
• Showing on your profile a map of places you have been (WAYN comes to mind)
• etc...

These could be attached through Widgets (what web 2.0 app. doesn't use widgets?)

The key thing here is that LinkedIn should focus on keeping and expanding the people, not the functionalities. The "people" functionality is more than enough, it simply needs to create a way to tap into other apps and make the profile more visible - by showing other bits of information (pics, kiva contributions, etc...) that people own.

Locking up supply for the dot-corn boom

Fortune magazine recently published an article on the so called "dot-corn boom", a mixture of surging corn prices, crop speculation, agricultural growth and other elements.

Corn, as the raw material to produce ethanol, is generating incredible speculation and its price has more than double in the past year. There is of course a debate on how the increase of plantation usage for fuel purposes will in fact create more hunger or drive common food prices up. In fact, in the US, more than 15,000 food products are introduced every year, and a lot of them are corn based.

But more important, is the fact that corn is the basic input of ethanol, and growing cost-efficiently is necessary for the alternative fuel proposal to work. As corn prices rise, ethanol becomes a less attractive fuel alternative, which is in fact what is happening. The current margin on ethanol is a mere 3 cents per gallon, and global production isn't up to the levels where volume is making up for margin.

This is where locking up supply comes in. There are a few places on earth where Corn can be grown cheaper than in the US, and biofuel companies need to lock up some supply. These places might include the "Cauca Valley" in Colombia, the only place in the world where sugar cane grows year round, and where many growers are switching to corn. You could also look at northeastern Australia, where the sugar cane industry is significant, as they are in a good position to supply the fuel-thirsty southeast Asia. Several countries in Central America, with easy sea access and not to rugged terrain are also candidates, such as Honduras for example. Brazil has of course the largest growable terrain in South America... but you knew that already.

South America could be part of the dot-corn boom. It is in a good position to stabilize the price increase and bring in some FDI that South American countries with largely based agricultural economies could use.

Reuters's retail end

I recently read the article by Carl J. Loomis in Fortune about Bloomberg's Money Machine. It is of course fantastic. It really got me thinking about where Reuters is in the market and some ideas on that.

• We are heading towards an experience economy
• Owning the retail end of the business is where the experience is provided. That's why there's Apple Stores, Sony Style and Nike Town.
• In the next wave, you don't want to be in the back-end or being the provider of the guys facing the customer. Unless you are in India or China and your economy is at that stage.
• The experience requires great design!
• Reuters could use Jeff Han, to create a new kind of terminal that is organic in all features. That is touchscreen and motion enabled. That can be manipulated with fingers instead of keys. This would provide a great experience. I´ve seen and used a Bloomberg... not pretty.
• Reuters can beat Bloomberg in usability! If Bloomberg has the volume side of the market they can go for the margin side of that
• Reuters needs Microsoft for voice recognition purposes. With thousands of commands and options, these systems need some voice activated functions.
• Reuters should also apply some Wikinomics to the equation in order to get global ratings, build a massive investment guide, emerging markets information, etc...
• Reuters should be riding the ipod economy. Why isn't there a Belkin made accesory called the Reuters-Link that wirelessly downloads ll video and audio content to an ipod? Bloomberg can be accessed by a Blackberry... there are a lot more ipods out there. Reuters can learn from the Nike + Apple partnership.

I suppose it boils down to out-innovating your competition, but with a clear [blue ocean] differentiation, reducing features, raising content, creating usability, eliminating complexity.

CPG Mashups

The digital economy created the term mashup. At some point, the combination of content - be that audio or video - became a fad or a way to renew the old.

I wonder if that can extend to the industrial economy, perhaps in the Consumer Packaged Goods Industry. Knowing that over 15,000 food products are introduced into the US every year; I would imagine there is an opportunity to extend certain brands that stand for similar things. Here are some ideas:

Red Bull Skittles: Red Bull has mistique and street cred and Skittles are impossible to stop eating. Wonder if you could create Red Bull flavored Skittles, taht only came in a pink and blue color, much like the can. They could come in a Silver wrapping.

Arizona Green Tea + M&Ms: Perhaps M&Ms can have other ingredients beside chocolate. How about some organic M&Ms that are made of green tea or other natural ingredients?

Snickers with [Danone] Activia: Hungry why wait + health and digestive benefits.

The important bit is that some consumer products can be balanced or extended by others on several aspects:

• The consumption mechanism (e.g Red Bull being consumed in bite size vs. in drink)
• Balancing exclusive brands and mainstream brands (e.g. combining an Activia benefit with a mainstream snickers)
• Balancing health and functionality (e.g. add green tea to an existing product that craves many needs)

Just an idea trying to understand new delivery mechanisms for existing products and the need for some brands to work with others.

Gibbs Aquada and The World

You probably read the post on Middle East Mega Projects a few days ago. In my view, the most amazing of all is The World - the global map of man made islands. For several years now dredging has been performed and the islands are taking form.

So, I imagine the owners of The World islands will have boat transportation... well, what if there was another alternative? This could be an opportunity for the Gibbs Aquada.

"The Aquada is a revolutionary showcase of High Speed Amphibian (HSA) technology.  Simply press a button and drive into the water. The wheels automatically rise and as you press the accelerator nearly a tonne of thrust pushes the Aquada onto the plane. The whole process takes less than 12 seconds. The Aquada can plane at over 30mph. Entry to the water is via beach, boat ramp, slipway or directly from the water's edge." Source: www.gibbstech.com

So I have a few ideas around this:

• Gibbs could pitch the Aquada to island owners, including resort owners that could have a fleet of Aquadas. Much like the Burj Al Arab has a fleet of Rolls Royces.
• People could "take a drive" to Dubai, that is by using the same vehicle for sea and land transportation.
• This is good for business.... just one assett to maintain, instead of car and boat. Downside is no ego flashing to see who has the biggest yacht!
• This is all about the experience! Nothing like saying you rode a sea-land car, very remarkable, exactly the type of thing you would comment on.
• If the range is a bit to far, perhaps Gibbs should consider retrofitting some Aquadas to suit the waters or withstand hot conditions like those in Dubai.
• Gibbs could build the "Aquada Waterway", delimited by buoys, and let someone handle the advertising space on the buoys. Waterway could stretch from the beach to The World islands
• Oh yeah... this also applies to The Palm Jumeirah, those owners could also own aquadas.

Experiences will come from the middle east. A new kind of car requires a new kind of thinking. This could be mainstream in an experience economy vs. being luxury in a traditional economy.

Salesforce + eProject = Deliveryforce - Part II

I saw a lot of visitors to the Deliveryforce post, so I decided to expand a little on that.

This is what a "Service Economy" value chain (the simple version) looks like. Knowledge workers prepare or acquire skills and competencies that will help them escalate from technical, to human to conceptual roles. They use that knowledge to propose solutions to different issues that companies are facing, and most important of all, the need to deliver on the promise by planning, executing, controlling an engagement.

To sell, you need a process and an enabling technology (salesforce.com is my pick)

• You need to prospect and plan identifying opportunities (90% is starting in the right direction)
• You need to qualify leads
• You need to manage relationships
• You need to manage proposals and follow up
• You need to analyze the data around the sales cycle.

All this is enabled by functionalities in a CRM program. The key issue is that this needs to be web enabled and that sales techniques - including the process - change so much that you are better off purchasing web software that will be managed by an expert provider instead of having a system that will freeze your organization in time with practices that will tend to get old.

Why this is important:

• Organizations need to be about change
• The only way to change is to go from point A to point B
• To go from A to B you need a project or a change initiative
• To manage it you will be required to manage some key elements of a project like benefits, stakeholders, objectives, documents, third parties, risks, issues, changes, and others.

So... why do you need a PPM tool (case in point eProject)?

• Basic premise of project management is that it takes two to tango. You and the client. Projects are a team effort. So therefore, the enabling project management technology needs to enable teamwork, to be collaborative, or get ready for communication problems.
• Timeline management is a critical success factor. eProject for example imports MS Project and shows a web gantt chart that is spectacular.
• Schedule management is critical. eProject has a monthly calendar to plan all project meets, appointments, etc... No more one-to-one communication.
• Document management is perhaps one of the critical issues of large scale projects. People send sensible information via e-mail just like they send viral videos. eProject allows for a central repository of documents with version control and notifications.
• E-mail is for notifications... not for management. eProject provides notifications in a user-defined workflow to be notified about appointments, document changes, etc...
• Progress reports should not require sweat. In eProject, everybody updates the % progress of their tasks and you get an automated. No more calling everyone to update the MS Project File or incorporating changes to a .mpp file which always works out wrong.
• MOST IMPORTANT... are custom apps. You will need to build small apps to store other project information. I have used it to build an improvement opportunities matrix, a stakeholder map, a communications plan and others. you can build any dynamic web app to store the information digitally on a web data base and not in a document that will limit you when delivering a large project.

There are many opportunities with owning value chains, of an economy in general or industry specific ones. In this case, won proposals usually turn into projects (in the service economy), and delivering projects also has a key set of elements that some people / organizations take very lightly.

Apple TV - Quicktime - Youtube - Bollywood

Apple is out to change the movie business as it seems. Both through their software (itunes) and hardware (appletv). Part of getting people to use Apple TV and let apple grab the market, will have to do with the same two critical success factors that got people to use the ipod. Those are software and content.

Software

• The more I think about it, itunes (reads tunes you know) shouldn't have flicks.
• The software should be iflicks and be a new tab, new piece, etc... or simply be a souped up version of quicktime. Why is the quicktime offering (which delivers movies) not aligned with the appletv-video content initiative?
• Quicktime could be a movie library, the same way itunes is a music library.
• Let video sites use some Apple web services to promote their content on the software.
• Let it have a powerful search engine... what about "search inside the movie"?

Content

• Go global... not just US. How feasable is it to get Bollywood movies or Chinese/Hong Kong movies on board? There is a lot of content there. Perhaps create a geo-reference of where movies come from.
• Let people upload movies, much like Youtube lets people upload video. Host an "Apple Oscars" ceremony handing out awards.
• Link Youtube in there. Get Youtube to deliver a Tubefeed, which via xml lets quicktime (or iflicks) know the latest and greatest. Its podcasts for video... or videocasts -duh. They could just be videocasts, but they could come from youtube mass users, specialized users, etc...
• Use a "meme" approach to crate a new Pixar hit. Post the script online and let people work out scenes with common characters. Pick the best scenes.

There are endless possibilities, but it seems to me that the more they try to fit the round peg in the square hole (the movies into music software) the more it limits them from expanding the offering.

The Corporate Nintendo DS

I recently bought a Nintendo DS with games Brain Age and Big Brain Academy. I have to sharpen up for some tests and decided to try all available alternatives. I am stunned at how effective and fun this is. These games take the rust off the basic skills that help you think an react fast.

Nintendo should make corporate games! A DS is not a kids toy and corporate games could be a great alternative to engaging in business situations. Games such as>

• Virtual stock exchange (Stock simulator, could connect to the net to get daily close quotes for example... or have them be fake.)
• Supply Chain Manager (imagine a fictitious country where you can chose a fleet and have to stock different sales channels)
• Selling & Marketing (something around building brands and building brand value with consumers with several sorts of experiences and advertising)
• HR Management (something like a tamagotchi, except you recruit, train, develop, compensate, etc...). You could build a workforce... perhaps "export it" to second life.
• International M&A - A game on acquiring and merging companies through several mechanisms like LBOs, reverse mergers, equity swaps, etc... You could dominate the globe and create funds.
• CBM- Certified Busines Manager practice test questions. Why isn't there a GMAT, SAT, GRE, or LSAT preparation game?

I was not a DS fan, but think there is application for this beyond the traditional video games.

This makes interactivity accesible and portable, vs. carrying a laptop computer to "train your brain".

There could also be a market around getting companies to create their standard competency models and Nintendo getting them to be assessed on a DS. People could train with situations, cases, questions and other elements to build up their skills.

Anyways, I found it tremendously fun and will continue training my brain.

Making the Gootube awards the new oscars

The Internet over time has proven the difference between most well designed, well built, etc.. and most widely used applications. This is a notion from way at the beginning when we were told (Michael Porter) that what mattered wasn't the technology, it was the use given to it.

The Youtube awards are the formal milestone that is testament to that affirmation. Video is a global phenomenon, so much that it warrants a complete award ceremony. It is most viewed videos and that is not exactly related to best filmed, directed, profuced, etc...

I had an idea to make the Oscar's more like the World Cup of soccer. Make it a truly global event. I doubt it will happen, no point in trying to change a 70+ year old legacy award show. They won't decide to change until it is to late.

But Google and Youtube can innovate here. Perhaps they can make the Video Awards a global event. Something massive. Something that is held annually across borders, in several countries and with several categories - expanded beyond those that exist now. It would draw millions of virwes, just what the Oscar's needsa. The post on the Oscar's might be insightful, and innovative if put into practice by an innovative company.

Salesforce + eProject = Deliveryforce

The service economy value chain has a common macro-process taxonomy.

It is esentially based on preparing, selling, and delivering work. This means that the first input of the process are prepared knowledge workers with adequate skills and competencies. Then, that knowledge put into working practice is used to sell services, through several techniques. Finally comes the delivery process, in which you have to plan, execute, control the engagements to deliver the work that you proposed.

Salesforce.com is a brilliant tool that enables de "Propose" process of this "service economy" value chain. They are the clear leader, perhaps with crmondemand.com (ex-siebel now Oracle) lagging behind.

But there is no clear leader that is enabling [online] the "Deliver" process. Mostly this has been done in a one-to-one manner through Microsoft Project, and then - in very sofisticated teams - using MS Project Server. But Project and Porfolio Management (PPM), structured in SaaS could be owned as a value chain by Salesforce.com

Salesforce could snap up eProject and own the service economy value chain in its main processes. eProject is a brilliant web-based PPM (Project Portfolio Management) tool for professional project managers. All web-enabled, all web, all the time. No software!. MS Project comes above on features in a web review, but the best timeline is no good if your customers can't se it, and the era of one-to-one collaboration (oxymoron there) is very much over.

I am currently an eProject customer, and it gets the job done. I am also an MS Project user (you can upload MS Project files to a web timeline in eProject).

It would be great to have a fluid transition between selling and delivering. Sales turn into projects and there could be an adequate hand-off between sales and production/operations teams. It would allow to really look at a client from a full view (just sales is not a full view) and establish a solid link between the importance of selling and delivering. After all, successful implementation/use is what earns you the right to the next sale/project.

More info on revies for PPM software: http://project-management-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

Middle East Mega Projects

• Ideas, Innovation, and Brands come from the US
• Products come from China
• Services come from India
• and Experiences will come from the Middle East

Here are some of the Middle Easts's Mega Projects to deliver engaging experiences, staged in spectacular settings:

The Palm involves the creation of the world's largest three man-made islands known as The Palm, Jumeirah; The Palm, Jebel Ali; and The Palm Deira. Located just off the coast of the city of Dubai, the three palm tree shaped islands are expected to contribute to the city's position as a premier global tourist destination. www.thepalm.ae

The World was conceived by His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Defence Minister, the development consists of 300 islands that together form the image of the world map. www.theworld.ae

Burj Dubai will be the centrepiece of Emaar's US$20 billion Burj Dubai District and the new emerging Downtown Dubai taking its place as one of the world's modern landmark buildings, alongside the likes of Empire State Building, Taipei 101, Malaysia's Petronas Towers, Sears Tower and London's Canary Wharf. Upon completion, Burj Dubai will hold the record in all four categories as recognized by the New York-based global authority - Council on Tall Building and Urban Habitat - highest structure, roof, antenna and occupied floor.

A syndicate of three UAE banks, Mashreqbank psc, Emirates Bank International and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, have signed the agreement to provide the required contracting finance for the consortium chosen to construct Emaar's iconic Burj Dubai Tower, valued at AED3.2 billion (US$869m) and soon to become the world's tallest building.

The project, the Dubai Waterfront, is a conglomeration of canals and islands studded with luxury hotels and homes. Larger than the island of Manhattan, the development will reconfigure the map of this tiny desert emirate by adding 500 miles of man-made waterfront. www.dubaiwaterfront.ae

The 'The Mall of Arabia', due to open in 2008, will have four levels, around 1,000 outlets, its own theatre, and enough parking for 10,000 cars. The size of the mall will be 10 million square feet GLA (gross leasable area) when completed, making it the world's biggest mall.

Opening its doors in 2008, Restless Planet will set a new standard for imaginative theme parks, with three rides, including a special 'dark ride', and more than 100 lifelike, actual size 'animatronic' dinosaurs.

Ski Dubai is a formidable engineering feat, an incongruous 25-storey structure rising from the Gulf emirate's sands as some 1,000 labourers work round the clock building the Middle East's only indoor ski resort and the world's third largest. www.skidubai.com

Kiva + LinkedIn = Contribution

"Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back." Source: Kiva

LinkedIn, on the other side, is the premier site to register your professional network, keep track of business relationships, get business recommendations, create people-to-people connections that can bring new business; as well as provide other services as business answers.

Kiva is enabling a global objective, the need to contribute by way of lending to those in need.
LinkedIn is contributing to another global objective, the need to connect.

Kiva is basically creating visibility for a large set of small entrepreneurs that do not have access to capital, which in developed economies translates into small sums. This comes after largely know initiatives such as the Grameen Bank. The interesting bit is these people need the visibility because people are willing to contribute (lend in this case) but there is a need for more contribution platforms or mechanisms.

LinkedIn is interesting because it is mostly based on the concept of connection on a group level, but visibility on an individual level. People want their career and expertise to be visible, they strive to have several relationships, to the point where it exceeds those people you actually know, they strive to give expert answers to business questions posed, and ask for recommendations from others to certify their expertise.

Kiva could use LinkedIn

• By allowing LinkedIn people to lend money to entrepreneurs in regions of interest, areas of interest or others - linking Kiva into the profiles.
• By making loans a visible aspect of a persons LinkedIn profile. That is the amount that a person has lended and its global impact.
• By making contribution evident and showing members that contribute the most. The richest men in the world (Bill Gates + Warren Buffet) are now hip because they contribute, not because they can buy the world. You could have www.toplenders.com as they have www.toplinked.com
• By providing tools to show a global footprint of needs. Think a global map of where loans are required. If Kiva uses the crowd appropriately it could be satisfying capital needs in key areas of the world.
• LinkedIn could get "smaller" profiles in exchange. Is any profile to small in a world where we are all people? Although there is definitely a challenge in getting these entrepreneurs to use the net, and LinkedIn. US$ 100 laptop with the loan anyone? (that's another post... but every entrepreneur needs a laptop)

For Kiva this is a way to tap into a savvy business network willing to contribute and lend. The community is the judge, and the community is willing to judge how much people contribute. If [developed economy LinkedIn] people don´t mind, having not-developed economy people in their profile, its a way to start bridging the digital and economic divide. This is a practical way of putting capable individuals in touch with individuals in need.

The H Racer and Harry Potter marketing

One of the breakthrough 2007 HBR Ideas is Harry Potter marketing. What this means is that some brands can mature over time with their audience instead of focusing on a specific segment for life and acquiring, and losing customers over time. Instead, it aims at keeping those customers and evolving the brand with them.

I saw an innovative product that might have the potential to leverage Harry Potter Marketing. It is the H-Racer manufactured by Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies (HFCT).

• Small children could get their parents to buy the H Racer. HFCT could brand it around a key message of clean performance, cutting edge design, sustainable fuel and others. The main objective is to build a loyal fan base throughout different parts of the world that buys this message and loves this car.
• Then teenagers might have another H powered innovation that is more suited for them. Perhaps an H powered model airplane or helicopter, certainly something more advanced. Again, a small innovation to keep the brand maturing with the group.
• In the future perhaps HFCT might even make an H Racer for grownups, or license the technology to another company (like BMW). They will bring a brand and a loyal fan base (fans not customers) that would consider purchasing the car or other inventions that are H powered.

The H Racer is one of Time Magazine's best 2006 inventions. It would be interesting to see if they can pull off new inventions in the coming years catered to this evolving group of customers until that group reaches a purchasing power age.

the Virgin Atlantic Experience

During my holiday vacation I traveled from NYC to London on Virgin Atlantic. I did it in part because my younger brother wanted to fly the airline real bad. I observed something very interesting though...

Being interested in the "experience economy" it became obvious that Virgin Atlantic (VA) was definitely a player in this arena. And one of the key elements through which they create an entertaining, engaging, remarkable experience is by leveraging the power of communication.

During the VA flight, the flight manager constantly threw out fun lines that create a laughing emotion (what an experience is about). Here are some of the things he said (in a thick British accent):

• Ladies and gentleman, this is a non-smoking flight. If you do however decide to light one, we'll put you out on the wing where you can light it and you can smoke it!
• Ladies and gentleman, now that our flight has landed we do ask that some of our passengers stay behind to help out and clean the toilets. We do reserve this spot is reserved for those who stand up before the fasten seat belt sign is turned off.
• We are aware that you have the Internet and many choices and thank you deeply for flying Virgin Atlantic. The next time you feel like jetting off in a giant pressurized metal tube, please do think of us.
• Some sharp, smart passengers shave brought to my attention that our entertainment software is not up to date. I will make sure to have a serious chat with our engineers once we are on the ground and to point out that our passengers are much smarter than them. We do apologize and hope you enjoy the current movie catalog.

An experience requires:

• Communication that gives people value makes people want to be a part of the experience. There is no such thing as too much praise or saying nice things. Calling passengers smart, brilliant and other adjectives makes them feel great.
  • In contrast to the service economy where everyone is pointing out pains, problems, issues and other things that trigger buying reasons. In the experience economy, positive language is what feeds buying behavior perhaps?
• Nicely worded lines that make people laugh are key. This just takes practice and careful planning of what are the things you usually say (like saying that it's a non/smoking flight) and rewording them in a fun, engaging manner.
• Diversity is necessary - an international flight manager has a certain aura that makes him objective to the crowd. If it had been your local flight attendant telling you that the software is out of date, people would have been enraged.
• There are more practical ways of getting people to do things, like the toilet trick, instead of being coercive and setting limits. The limits become socially imposed.

My Multilingual Project

I am currently working on an interesting project. Interesting because it involves a Chinese company, an Indian Company and a Colombian Company. It couldn't get more diverse.

This is the project logo and project name in order to market the project internally. We decided to do it in three languages (English, Hindi, Chinese) to show the cultural impact and the need to communicate. English is the common project language for all stakeholders.

We are also getting the people to learn to write the project name and company name in all languages.

Several lessons from this:

• We need to be prepared to accept that different cultures and diversity brings new ideas.
• Diversity brings change. The need to change also comes from bringing in new people who challenge the conventional way of thinking.
• A lot of change initiative problems are linked to communication, it is important to address the communication limits in a culturally diverse atmosphere.
• People need to be engaged instead of informed. Getting people to learn to write a few characters is part of creating an experience instead of delivering a project.
• Speaking Chinese as a basic business competency is only a matter of time, and change readiness on the side of the corporate world.

Medici Effect in Sports

One of the things that got me thinking into writing a blog was reading Frans Johansson's book, The Medici Effect. The thing that struck me the most was how Shakira - the hit pop singer - was mentioned, as Shakira is Colombian born, like myself. There was also another Colombian mentioned in the book, an executive of Vitro Corporation.

These people have been exposed to a significant number o elements that allows them to make an innovative connection and come up with a "killer combination". I have recently seen this effect into play in sports. That is, how some "odd" combinations of talent in sports yield amazing results, beyond convention.

• Tiger Woods as a an African-American took over the sport of golf. He was trained by his father who had military training.
• Juan Pablo Montoya - Colombian, came go-cart racing, to CART racing, to F1 Racing and is now making his mark in Nascar. He was also trained and supported by his father who mortgaged his house so he could pay for his son.
• Roger Federer - Swiss - tennis world No. 1 is also a goodwill ambassador to UNICEF. One of his parents is from South Africa.
• Yao Ming from China becoming an all-star basketball player, both of his parents were basketball players, he is also genetically tall - no anomalies.
• The Swiss sailing team of Alinghi taking the Americas Cup. Their yacht was developed in Lausanne, they had a NZ skipper and team members from more than 22 countries.

This is to say the following:

• Diversity does in fact drive high performance, sports is an example.
• High performance takes place in an Arena, a Dome, a Field.... not neccesarily in a cubicle.
• There are few formal mechanisms to identify this type of human capital in different parts of the world and bring it to light.
• A sports star has specific characteristics that are related to diversity. Clearly someone from Switzerland with a dedicated father and a humble demeanor has an upper hand.
• The corporate world needs more diversity, but the corporate world needs visas and does not allow seamless travel as sports stars enjoy. We are hindering ourselves from having top talent there.

Recommend this book, recommend diversity, recommend making connections, recommend making the business world more like the sports world.

Search Inside the Song

A few years ago Amazon.com launched search inside the book. I think what they really launched was the notion that you need to provide "search" as a service to look inside whatever you are selling. Some people only know the bits of something and not the whole. Or you might simply be interested with learning more about something, and search is the way to translate your understanding of that thing into what it really means. You search for "great vacation" and get "bora bora" for example.

Apple is the case that is interesting to me due to their hold on digital music. They should have a service called "search inside the song". Something to input lyrics or "something that you caught" from a song, and get songs that are related. With a 30 second clip you could find out if that is the song you are searching for. Or perhaps the 30 second clip wouldn't have to be of the first thirty seconds, but of the bit you liked.

There are dozens of moments where you memorize the bits of a song but it is a tricky process to find the song. Or you find out what the song is long after, when the impulse to buy it is gone.

This could be integrated into the itunes search box, by allowing to search your library (desktop), the itunes store (available songs), or the

There could also be more examples of allowing "search inside"

• You could "search inside the car" for components or characteristics that you need to find a meaning for.
• You could "search inside the building" to find a specific unit in a real estate project that fits your description (your description is "great view"), not 30 ft terrace.
• You could "search inside the product" to find the nutritional value of a specific food product. Perhaps your doctor recommended Vitamin E and you want to know

Is this a way to integrate search and commerce? Breaking the products in bits and effectively translating the bits into the customer need?

Management Consulting needs Flickr

When it comes to creating and experience or remembering one, nothing "says" it like some pictures. And to get that huge visual library organized, nothing does the job like Flickr with all its capabilities and user friendly interface. Flickr is in my opinion an essential web 2.0 tool for personal use, and a revolutionary tool for business - if only business was more sensitive. Management consulting needs Flickr

www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from andresnaranjovillamizar tagged with pwc. Make your own badge here.

The consulting business is based on delivering engagements. On getting people together to deliver a project to achieve some objectives. The objective can range anywhere between selling a company, to integrating and acquisition, redesigning processes, or getting a huge system installed. In any case, ANY case, it involves people. And people love pictures. Also, in any case, ANY case, it involves some small, medium or large problems associated to project management. These can be simple communication problems, or huge scope management problems.

I have learned in my consulting career that a great relationship or keeping people friendly can help solve project problems in an easier way, or make them less evident. I strongly feel that photographing an engagement experience would do the same for a whole team. If key meetings, important sessions, important achievements, everyday working conditions and other situations were all photographed, a visual log of a project would be a great tool to get people to be more sensitive and remember the experience for its good moments instead of its small problems.

Sometimes what's achieved in a project is underscored by the issues faced in the process. Even though clients expect a result, they judge by the effort. A great result with a Phyrric effort leaves people devastated.

Flickr is the tool to document engagements visually>

• Use sets of pictures to organize projects. One set for each project.
• Use tag clouds to create a visual verbal representation of the types of engagements that are being delivered. Tag projects with the client name and the industry... or only the industry if confidentiality is important.
• Use tags also for the event name and people that take part.
• Use comments on pictures to highlight important stuff from the meeting.
• Allow users to comment with the picture if something was fun or cool, or something they remember.
• Use the Geographical Map Representation tool to place all engagements globally and show what the "global delivery promise" means. Especially for Big 4 Firms.
• Use flickr badges to put on project intranet tools.

In the future, perhaps when you want to learn about a project you don't have to consult a huge business case, but can just go to the engagement's Flickr Set.

Under Armour Burquini

UA is one of my most admired companies. I find their products amazing in every sense. In fact, their products basically saved me from freezing during a rock climbing trip to Greece with some very cold winds. I am a fierce supporter. Also, to me Kevin Plank's story sounds very similar to Phil Knight's (NIKE) story.

I have no doubt they will be a huge brand some day... perhaps surpassing Nike

I recently saw something that I found extremely interesting. It was as an NY Times article by Raymonnd Bonner about a Muslim teenager that has found a balance between her religious beliefs and the local Australian surfing culture. She developed a "Burquini" which is a suit that allows her to perform in the ocean in life saving situations and also maintain her body covered, to a similar (but functional) extent as a Burqua would.

Under Armour is a company that has the technology and innovation guts to create a UA Burquini. They can create something catered to a global taste and trend. They will probably need a Muslim ombudsman to find a perfect name, and some council on if this could trespass against anyone or any group. But they already have one of their product sponsors in Australia with this teenager. You only need one person, and one action (like the teenager in the article) to trigger a huge socially acceptable trend. (Thank you Malcom Gladwell).

I wonder if all sports brands (like UA) have to be function specific (soccer, basketball, etc...) or can be culture specific at some point.

With Muslims growing in number perhaps this is a significant market. The very least, it might be a good strategy to tap the Middle East region and step into it. They could eventually work to become a Shariah compliant company and even float some stock in a Mideast exchange... perhaps one day be part of the Dow 50 Arabian Titans.

Global Relationship Management - Part IV

Lost Reasons vs. Debriefing

In traditional CRM you eventually learn your win rate and loss rate. So you lose some, get over it and try to figure out a reason for it. Proactive salespeople call and ask or know by the time they lose because their "contact" told them. They extract a lost reason from a contact. In GRM you need to debrief with your relationships. You need to go over the exact reasons, according to your proposal structure on why you did not meet the issue with an appropriate solution.

Debriefing actually builds the relationship, gives you face-time, gives you in-depth information, but its hard to do because companies want to sweep a large loss under the rug.

Follow up vs. Face Time

Go back to Make the Calls vs. Walk the Halls. You are unlikely to do a good follow up by phone or email. That is just lazy behavior for avoiding meeting face to face and working out objections. Lesson: If a client doesn't have objections to a proposal, he didn't read it, no one gets it right the first time. Or they do and have a risk and quality problem.

Talk vs. Listen

If you work under CRM then you prospect buyers, find leads and gather contacts. We have already discussed this. Then again, you probably spend a lot of time talking. Try to be quiet for a whole meeting. The more your client talks, the more he will feel that you are understanding. The more he feels diagnosed, the more he is likely to take your solution. This is an ageless piece of advice that so many people have trouble putting into practice.

Most Sold vs. Most Used

You ahve probably heard about how in the record business it's "most sold records" and not "best sung records". The most important thing about your product or service is that it is used or implemented. If you are selling a lot, but the comapny is not using it, then the long term outlook is bleak. You need to be around for implementation or supervision throughout it. You need to make sure that what you do is accepted and used every day. The key is "you need to make sure"... don't leave the things that matter most at the mercy of things that matter least.

Global Relationship Management - Part III

Sell + Sell + Sell vs. Sell + Risk + Quality

In traditional CRM you are trying to maximize the sales equation. Selling more of everything, and asking questions later. The motto is sell it! we'll deal with the rest later. In the service economy, where impact is global, you need to have a risk & quality process in place. In that economy you have to deliver what you promise to time, cost, and specification standards.

I'm sure Airbus focused on selling more A380's with no R&Q process in way and ended up where it is now - cabling problems aside. Its more about who you sell to and what sales get accepted, dealing with everyone can be very time (and profit) consuming

Buyers vs. Procurement Functions

Under old sales rules you used relationships to get to a motivated buyer. You work out his pains, show the gains, and close the deal. Your buyer is your favorite person until the deal is sealed. But more structured procurement functions exist now. First there are requisitions, then quotes, then detailed evaluations, then some tough negotiations.

It's necessary to understand how the client's procurement function works to provide them with ways to make an informed their decision. This is more like, keeping your buyer, but complying with procurement function requirements.

Nail and Bail vs. Land & Expand

This is quite related to dealing with accounts vs. large UHC's. In accounts, you nail it and sometimes there is nowhere to go, so you bail. End of relationship, end of everything. It leaves a sour aftertaste, that you wanted to do more but couldn't. With global relationship management you seek to land & expand. If you have a common UHC with entities, you can land one and focus on expanding that business.

Again, you could probably spend the rest of your life trying to sell to all of GE's entities.

Make the Calls vs. Walk the Halls

You probably know that P&G has an office at WalMart's head office. In CRM you make sales calls, make appointments, visit and leave. In new relationship management calls need to be an extension number away, because you are spending your time at the client's office. Dealing globally with a large UHC requires having an office in the client's premises and spending time walking the halls, greeting people, joining meetings and earning your place at the decision table where it concerns your product or service.

Leads vs. Champions

Leads are the people that can turn into buyers. But the problem is that they need to be prospected and filtered. Its a probability game. Champions are an extension of your sales process. They are people that can feed on your information (your ppt slides) and help you do internal selling. They are gaining internal recognition, you are earning the commission. Champions need to understand your sales process just like you do it to sell the project. They need your help to develop key sales deliverables like a business case, a project brief or any other. Find champions, stop worrying about leads.

Global Relationship Management - Part II

My previous post dealt with the evolution from CRM to Global Relationship Management. The practical approach to explaining this lies in the evolution of some of the terms that need to be used. Here is are the first set of terms that have changed.

Accounts vs. UHCs

Sales people are used to dealing with accounts. That is, a specific client, looked at independently, and that has a specific need. The word is independent, as while interdependencies are taken into account in terms of ongoing global projects, people still push for a sale if it is not in the interest of the UHC.

Large companies are now Ultimate Holding Companies that hold a number of entities under a large corporate umbrella. Any new big initiative goes through the UHC instead of independently through the entity or SBU (Strategic Business Unit). Big projects can be rolled out globally with phased-out implementation. Understanding the UHC structure and its components is key.

Contacts vs. Relationships

Beyond contacts are relationships. Contacts are names that you have with their phone, email and mobile number. But you need to have met, get acquainted, get the person to return your calls and eventually deal on a personal level and do business frequently with a person for true relationship management. Contact Management needs to be what it was set out to be which is Relationship Management.

GRM requires mapping out relationships with the UHC, not an account. It requires selling to the umbrella, and maintaining support from entities, but it mostly requires building top level relationships.

Areas / Departments vs. Entities

Sure, areas have specific needs, but most project these days need a combination of process, technology, organization, people and change. Leaving out one dimension in a change initiative can leave the system as a whole limping. So beyond areas or departments, the larger unit is an entity or company in which the UHC has a stake. These may be in high growth economies such as the BRIC economies and face growth related issues, or they may be in heavily regulated economies and face other issues.

It is better to sell to a company and deal with entity management, than to sell to a department and deal on a one to one basis.

Needs vs. Issues

Sure, needs are still out there. But needs are not a business reason to buy. Issues are the new (old) reason to buy. Companies buy to solve an issue, whether that issue is improving, reducing, managing or another, that depends on the company. Spend more time identifying and amplifying issues with the client and connecting their global input. Solving one global issue for one global company is enough business to keep you busy for some time.

Prospecting vs. Targeted Efforts

In a world of change, companies are always buying. They are either buying companies, buying improvement or buying crisis management, but they're buying. So prospecting, which is the raw action of going through huge lists, building geographical plans and executing can be seen as an old practice.

Targeted efforts instead need to be at the entity level to understand how to get them to buy in, by marketing other entities and the promise of simplification. It is better to have domain over a UHC than to satisfy a million customers.

Global Relationship Management - Intro

CRM has officially been part of business lingo for several years now. Like all management bundled concepts, it stuck because customers, relationships and its management cannot be standalone concepts. In the end however, it should have been called Account Contact Management, as the two centric information pieces of the framework ended up (in practice) being account management and contact management.

As with any new and innovative framework, what starts out as a management strategy evolves into a technology, and after a while turns into just a technology (no management strategy) that embeds into the system most of the concepts, but doesn't deal with people, organization and change - leaving the system limping. The technology itself commoditizes the framework creating a space for a new one to come along. Continuous rennovation.

I have recently realized that the global landscape has made traditional CRM obsolete. CRM has turned or evolved into GRM - Global Relationship Management.

• M&A activity has created large conglomerate groups that have interests in a diversity of industry sectors. They all however share common company-wide issues, but separate industry-wide issues.
• Trust  has become the key differentiator for significant transactions. One face, one approach, one consistency framework and one voice all help maintain trust undented. Therefore, trust also requires dedicated people willing to deal with all the challenges.
• Global Relationship Management caters to issues before needs. So many diverse conglomerate companies have a long way to go in simplification and consistency of their operations before needing something really new.
• This applies if a client is a  global corporation, or if a vendor is willing to sell globally.

The way to explain the shift is exposing how the glossary of terms has evolved. I will detail in a another post but here are some of the terms.

CRM	GRM
Accounts	Ultimate Holding Companies
Contacts	Relationships
Areas / Departments	Entities
Needs	Company wide Issues + Industry wide issues
Prospecting	Targetted Efforts
Sell + Sell + Sell	Sell + Risk + Quality
Buyers	Procurement functions
Nail and Bail	Land and Expand
Make the Calls	Walk the Halls
Leads	Champions
Lost Reasons	Debriefing
Follow up	Face Time
Talk	Listen
Most sold	Most Used

I will continue this post detailing more the terms.

Apple TV could own the living room... but no

Apple TV will be released in a few weeks. No huge buzz has hit the Internet around this, and if it did, I missed it. This is essentially an "airport express" for video, not audio. All movies you download to your itunes can be beamed to Apple TV. This has an HDMI cable from Apple TV to your TV to get the image through, and voilá, you have wireless movies being projected to your TV.

But this is all a closed circuit - no surprise from Apple, and some people were here before Apple, with different formats which puts Apple at a disadvantage.

1. Most people who have had experience with downloading movies have DivX as their preferred movie format. Apple either needs to buy DivX to own the digital movie world (much like they own the digital music world) or it needs to come up with an open way of ripping DVDs into digital files, much like you rip a cd into itunes songs.
2. DivX movies are usually played with DivX player, Windows Media Player or any other option as long as you have the codec. Movies cannot be beamed from these applications to Apple TV. This really is the killing benefit, at least the reason I won't buy. I already have movies that I get from my home pc to my TV using a DVI cable to HDMI cable. Sure I would love to beam, but not at the expense of reincoding.
3. Why isn´t there an iLife suite, and that has itunes (for music), and iflicks (for movies), and pretty soon something like imobile (for mobile phone stuff). Apple needs to match hardware and software one to one, have a clear alignment here instead of mixing apples and carrots in the itunes offering.
4. iflicks needs to be a new piece of software. This could keep a repository of everything you've watched, beamed, etc... just the way itunes does for music. It also needs to be able to handle external drives with movies (hard drives will fall short if you intend to have 150+ movies).P eople would probably want to beam from Youtube, iFilm or other sites, Apple will own the TV when they get this done.
5. Apple could also be piggybacking on MS Windows, much like everyone has piggybacked on the ipod. They could be selling iLife for MS Windows, so that people got Music+Movies+Pictures in one place, which is pretty much what Apple boiled life down to. They haven't ever made a puse for the work side of the equation, buy they have at life.

I will not be buying Apple TV until it can beam DIVx Movies or any other movie file... including Flash files that can be downloaded from the web. That is why you need iflicks, to organize video content and beam to AppleTV.

he internet is between the Internet and the user. The TV involves family and friends. More viewers means more money. Having a piece of software to organize video - not apple movies - and beaming any of that to Apple TV is where its at.

The Colombian Experience

I have mentioned in several posts how much I like business books. Perhaps the book that I think still has to realize its full potential, the big idea still ahead of its time is "The Experience Economy".

When I see new global developments like those in Dubai, I can see how some countries are trying to make that leap from delivering services to staging experiences. And so, I search for the companies that are staging those experiences.

Mantaraya is one of the only companies I know in Colombia that sells an experience. A set of emotions - extreme emotions - that are staged for clients to be experienced in wild and exotic locales. They have a proven track record of providing exciting, environmentaly conscious and safe expeditions to breathtaking sites throughout Colombia. They stage their experiences in crystal clear waters or in deep green jungles. I doesn't get any better than that.

I always find an experience company interesting . I also find interesting the concept of "merit badging" explored by Tom Kelley to be the formal "emotional contract" by which an experience is certified. Perhaps there should be a site called mybadge.com where companies can put up their digital badges and people show what they have done. These guys could give people a digital badge as well as a real "patch" version. Perhaps there could be really deep experiences where you have to get a tattoed badge...

Do visit www.mantarayakayak.com

Turning the Oscars into the World Cup

Why aren't the Oscars more like the World cup? Every year, the hottest filmmakers and artists gather in the same place to receive the same type of award. It is a great tradition, and Hollywood is a diverse, entertaining and representative business.

But the Oscars have maintained a sort of "status quo", where the most change you are likely to see is the shows host and the haute coutoure worn by actors and actresses alike. So I wonder, what prevents the Oscars from being more like the world cup? From being global and turning the hollywood "brand" into something that is

• Oscar hosting cities should have a competition to be the host city - this should be a global event. Why are countries not competing to attract superstars? They compete to attract star athletes...
• Oscar nominated actors should travel to that city - it gives them global exposure, global reach, a worldly sense, and a broader audience. People would flock to see hit actors and actresses.
• Locations could be more exotic. The Kodak theatre is interesting, but Dubai, Shanghai, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Bangkok, Moscow, Sydney, Hong Kong and others hold equally interesting places. How about setting up the whole Red Square in Moscow? or having the venue in the Forbidden City?
• The Oscars should be simultaneously translated into several languages during the transmission. They probably are, but that is if the country broadcasts the event - and that depends on global viewership.
• The Oscars need interaction! They need to consider some sort of watcher input throughout the show, they need to enable global online voting or local SMS message voting for some purpose. How about having a "people's award", where a specific film - other independent films for example are chosen in real time by the people?. They could learn something from reality TV.
• The Oscars need Youtube to have a new category. Best viral internet film... perhaps this could be voted by the people as mentioned before.
• The Oscars need more distribution. They need Apple Computer to set up an Oscar store the day after in order to pre-purchase the movie, purchase the Soundtrack, purchase outtakes or other material.
• The Oscars need Apple Computer to build an "Oscar Long Tail" of digital content that can be bought and downloaded. That would be to purchase historic movies, historic scenes, etc... They are digging up the past during the presentation, and that means Long Tail dollars.
• The Oscars need to contribute! They need to donate part of the proceeds from the show night to a local charity for different initiatives. They could be building great rapport with all of the hosting countries.
• The Oscars need Google Earth to [satellite] photograph the venue each night to keep a historic record of what the sky looked like. They could use Lasers to paint a global space message for example or create something remarkable.
• Some of the ad dollars could go to helping some invites that "can´t make it " by subsidizing flying - perhaps they could make up for it with viewer volume.

Tradition is great. Tradition does not mean that you cannot innovate and adjust to change sought by audiences and global connectivity on a social and technological level. I watched the Oscars last night and saw the same thing as before, so perhaps they are getting the same result as before.

Hollywood is a huge export with a huge fan base. So is soccer. But soccer is global, they understand the power of a global connection and going out to seek world audiences. Perhaps it is time for the Oscars to do the same.