As I mentioned earlier this is blockchain for dummies, there are currently over 10,000 nodes running Bitcoin’s code. Each node will need to have the required resources and capacity to download the full blockchain and all its transaction history.
Nodes use their computers (and other high-end hardware) to participate in Bitcoin’s blockchain network as transaction processors and verifiers. When Bitcoin first started, it was designed only to generate a maximum of 21,000,000 bitcoins. At the time of writing there are over 18 million bitcoins already in circulation, leaving just around 2.6 million bitcoins to be released as mining rewards. On average, every 3500 Bitcoin transactions are packaged in one “block” which gets attached at the end of the “block-chain” ledger and a new block is generated every (10) minutes on the Bitcoin blockchain. The mining nodes that verify and validate transactions and blocks get a mining reward. In 2009, the reward for each block in the chain mined was 50 bitcoins. By design, every almost four years, or 210,000 blocks, the reward given to Bitcoin miners for processing transactions is cut in half. After the first halving it was 25, then 12.5 after the second halving, and on May 11, 2020, it became 6.25 bitcoins per block. The halving event is just like saying that the amount of gold mined from the Earth was cut in half every four years. If gold’s value is based on its scarcity, then “halving” the gold output every four years would theoretically drive its price higher. Bitcoin price indeed went dramatically higher after every halving event. Figure (6) below shows this on a chart. Bitcoin Wallets To have or to transfer bitcoins, you need a wallet. Which, as I explained before, is a piece of software containing your keypair (private and public keys). There are several different wallets that you can use. 1) Web Wallets These are online wallets that are connected to the Internet all the time, and you can access them from any online device. You can have one of these wallets through a cryptocurrency exchange website or independent wallet provider. Some of these web wallet providers are Coinbase , Blockchain , Xapo , Kraken , and Binance . Because this is a hot wallet that is connected to the Internet all the time, it is the least secure type of wallet. Most of the crypto experts would advise against leaving your assets in online wallets. 2) Mobile Wallets This type of wallet is greatly beneficial if you want to use your bitcoins on the go to transfer coins or pay for goods. It runs as an app on your Android or Apple smartphone, storing your private keys and allowing you to pay for things directly from your phone. The app is usually connected to one or more trusted nodes to initiate and complete transactions. Unfortunately, convenience often comes with security concerns. Just like web wallets, mobile wallets are online and can be hacked if someone has access to your mobile device. Some of the most known mobile wallets are Freewallet , Edge , Atomic Wallet , Blockchain Wallet , and Mycelium . 3) Desktop Wallets As the name implies, these are wallets that you can download and install on your personal computer. Basically, you’re storing your private keys on your hard drive. By design, because you have your keys on your PC, these wallets are considered to be more secure than the online web and mobile wallets. While you will need to connect the Internet every now and then to make a transaction, you still can take these wallets offline when you are not using them to secure your bitcoins. Some of the well-established desktop wallets are Electrum , Exodus , Atomic Wallet , Bitcoin Core , and Copay . 4) Paper Wallets Yes, you’ve read it right. You can save bitcoins on a piece of paper! A paper wallet is a document that registers your wallet address and private key, usually as a QR code. You can ask anyone to send you bitcoins to the address printed on this document. To spend your coins, however, you will need to use software or an online service to retrieve your coins and use them. Because your wallet is entirely offline, unless you retrieve it using some software, there is no way that a hacker can gain access to your keys - unless he steals the wallet physically, of course. However, think about the possibility of losing this document or forgetting it in your favourite shirt and sending it to the laundry! You can easily create your paper wallet using some websites such as BitAddress or Bitcoinpaperwallet . 5) Hardware Wallets A hardware wallet saves your keys and coins in a protected hardware device. These wallets are considered by many to be the most secure and convenient way to store bitcoins and other digital currencies. Unlike paper wallets, which must be imported using a program at some point, hardware wallets can be used securely and interactively. Most hardware wallets also offer multiple-factor authentication mechanisms to ensure the safety of your assets. Another difference from paper wallets is that you don’t lose your coins if you lose your wallet. All you need is to create a passphrase when you first activate your wallet. If you lose it, you can just buy a new one and restore all your coins using this passphrase. The two most famous hardware wallet providers are Ledger and Trezor . Both are equally good, and they are both safe options to keep your digital currencies in.
0 Comments
Some bits of content will resonate having an audience on one platform instead of another social media content strategy template. You do not always wish to post the same content throughout all platforms. There are some mixtures that will work (e. g., Instagram and Facebook with videos), but you want to repurpose as well as reformat content that is specified with a particular community, system capabilities, and purpose in your mind. In addition , the content needs not only to reflect on the brand’s words, but also to connect with the market in terms of user expectations coming from a brand using this platform.
Innovativeness. Users want to be part of some sort of platform that continues to improve the bar for what a social websites platform should be. Responding to end user audiences and suggestions can also be a focus these platforms should be aware of. People have noticed that Fb has copied a lot of their new features from other platforms similar to Snapchat. Yet other programs have been willing (or no less than appeared willing) to listen to their very own audience members’ suggestions for news. In December 2016, Twitter CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Jack Dorsey went on social websites and asked Twitter people what they would like to see from the New Year on the microblogging software. While this came at a time any time Twitter was challenged along with key personnel leaving as well as advertisement and metrics shedding, it was better late compared to never. Analytics. Data will certainly of course be your friend with regards to engaging with content as well as audiences on social media, based on the platforms in question. You will be able to find out what time, frequency, replies, and views you will get. These types of data and insights can help you determine when it is appropriate to publish content and share movies, and even how long a response individuals expect from a customer discuss social media. In addition , analytics as well as data will help you determine by the end how well you (or your own team) did in dealing with the question, challenge, or even content created for a strategy. Most of the links, updates, as well as conversations are archived on the web and available for collection either through the actual native measurement platforms within the platform itself or through the third-party service. Actions. Soon after we have an idea of the market we want to engage with based on end user activity level, we can identify some of the actions these individuals go onto participate in our communities on the web. Ultimately, you want to take these important factors into consideration to determine regardless of whether you want to be on particular social websites platforms. One way to do this is by extensively identifying which platforms buying using (inventory), determining precisely how well they are performing (audit), and making a choice on what about each platform. Working in Social websites Working in social media can be very thrilling yet demanding, and the tasks constantly are changing while fast as the platforms are generally. Neill and Moody (2015) explored the changes and responsibilities happening for social media strategists and discussed the various duties, experiences, and expectations dealing with these professionals in their roles. These types of duties ranged from dealing with communication issues to screening emerging technologies, and even talked about the importance of understanding the collection as well as analysis of data emerging through these platforms. Yet among the growing areas of discussion regarding working in social media is whether or not you need to have the same principles as well as practices for your personal utilize as your professional use, that Moreno, Navarro, Tench, in addition to Zerfass (2015) discussed of their research. Professionals working in web 2 . 0 had a high level of entry to these platforms for the only purpose of creating influence of their community, establishing proactive interactions, and becoming relevant influencers of their own right in their imagined leadership circles. The web 2 . 0 field and workplace is definitely seeing a shift connected with focus from return with relationships. Return on Romance (RoR), according to Ted Rubin (2015), is a must-have to get professionals today since “social media drives engagement, diamond drives loyalty and briefing, and both correlate specifically with increased sales. ” Often the workload and skills important to succeed in the field are altering more often than not. Some underlying abilities and abilities are still vital for organizations looking to hire social networking professionals. Writing, research, as well as creative execution are conventional skills seen in marketing, pr, and other communication disciplines. But the rising expectations from the maturing field have also permitted the expectations for younger professionals entering the field to become a bit higher. Of course , this particular depends on the industry, business, as well as company or organization within focus. There is no real arranged “standard” for the expectations, functions, or even qualifications. Yet, specific fundamental skills, experiences, as well as qualifications do need to be taken into account. The information we share upon social media is vastly not the same as the capability of the original tools. When Facebook got started in year 2004, you were only able to show updates via text, nevertheless it has evolved to allow chat spiders, live video, virtual certainty, mixed reality, and 360-degree immersive experiences. Bridging the Science and Practice of Social media marketing Social media encompasses both the exploration and theoretically driven do the job being done to explore networks, interactions, and how individuals respond in addition to react to various messages and also the precise product information online. Understanding the foundation of the reason people behave, share experiences and content, and show information publicly and for your case provides social media professionals along with a sound view of the reason certain things occur not having reinventing the wheel. On the bright side, exploring the creative possibilities to the insights turning into actionable ways and strategies is also critical. Bridging these two perspectives along in a way that is both bundled and comprehensive is one of the most essential accomplishments of a social media skilled. What Can Science Tell Us In relation to Social Media? Researchers who have investigated social media in their work manipulate a variety of different theoretical frameworks to support explain and predict the reason certain attitudes, behaviors, in addition to actions are taken on the net, such as dialogic theory (Kent & Taylor, 2016; Dalam & Kent, 2014), person gratification theory (Gao along with Feng, 2016), psychological personal strength theory (Li, 2016), in addition to theory of planned actions (Freberg, 2012). Even in web 2 . 0 research, there are still some obstacles and opportunities for research workers to determine how to effectively determine certain concepts in the industry, such as engagement (Jiang, Luo, & Kulemeka, 2016; Sisson, 2017; Smith & Gallicano, 2015). Further research understand these concepts as well as how to be strategically applied has to be taken into consideration. Even though social media has changed into a source for engagement and also an opportunity for users and also businesses specifically, little analysis up to this point discusses just how social media fits in the overall approach from a marketing and communications viewpoint (Killian & McManus, 2015), which brings forth the particular growing need for a connection between practice and scientists to address this. The factors influencing the state of Poland’s pharmaceutical industry were investigated using the PESTEL tool, which considers political, economic, social, technological, ecological and legal factors. The findings of the author’s research indicate that the greatest impact on the development of the pharmaceutical sector is currently being made by changes in law and technology (Table 1), and this is likely to remain the case for the near future. The regulatory framework applies to all actors and processes involved in the Polish pharmaceutical sector’s supply chain. Given the health hazards that its products may pose, it comes as a matter of fact that the industry is commonly regulated, with stringent and detailed rules imposed at all stages—from production to delivery to end consumers (patients). Industry-specific rules regulate not only the production and sales of drugs, but of dietary supplements and cosmetics as well. Further, there are by-laws that can also immediately affect the market pertaining to the circulation of such products, involving the POM reimbursement regime or permits issued to specific businesses or types of businesses. Poland’s pharmaceutical sector is essentially governed by the Act of September 6, 2001, Pharmaceutical Law (further in this chapter referred to as “UPF”) (Journal of Laws, 2008, No. 45, item 271, as later amended). The law lays down the following: rules and procedures for the sale of medicinal products, regulations for the conduct of clinical research and the making of medicinal products, requirements to be met by pharmacies, pharmaceutical wholesalers, and non-pharmacy channels (outlets), organization of the system for control and assurance of medical product safety, terms of reference for Pharmaceutical Inspections, standards for the advertising of medicinal products. At the same time, national legislation governing the pharmaceutical sector must be regularly reviewed and amended for compliance with EU regulations. The blend of EU regulatory influence, the goals of government social policy, and the recurrent government budget process make the sector extremely vulnerable to legislative changes that can have an immediate impact on its profitability as a whole or at least of some of its segments. The detailed requirements to be met in running a pharmacy business are set out in the Regulation by the Minister of Health of September 30, 2002. Polish, as well European, legislation also addresses a very broad range of aspects involved in wholesaling, specifying the detailed responsibilities of a pharmaceutical wholesaler (PwC 2013). The sale and advertising of pharmaceuticals is subject to supervision by the Main Pharmaceutical Inspectorate [Główny Inspektorat Farmaceutyczny—GIF]. At the same time, a medicine may not be marketed over-the-counter unless permission is granted by the Office for Registration of Medicinal Products, Medical Devices and Biocidal Products [Urząd Rejestracji Produktów Leczniczych, Wyrobów Medycznych i Produktów Biobójczych—URLP]. Other important actors in Poland’s pharmaceutical market include: the Polish Chamber of Physicians and Dentists [Naczelna Izba Lekarska], the Polish Pharmaceutical Chamber [Naczelna Izba Aptekarska], the Polish Chamber of the Pharmaceutical Industry and Medical Products POLFARMED [Polska Izba Przemysłu Farmaceutycznego i Wyrobów Medycznych POLFARMED], and the Polish Association of the Self-Medication Industry [Polskie Stowarzyszenie Producentów Leków Dostępnych bez Recepty—PASMI]. The so called “Reimbursement Law”—the Act of May 12, 2011 on Reimbursement for the Purchase of Medicines, Special Purpose Foods, and Medical Products (Journal of Laws, 2011, No. 122, item 696)—came into force on January 1, 2012. The law introduced new rules for the reimbursement of pharmaceutical purchases, including regulated prices and margins for publicly funded medicines as well as restrictions on pharmacy advertising. The pharmaceutical law does not allow drug manufacturers to target advertisements for prescription-only medicines directly at patients, while it is possible to target these at physicians. Then law became more strict at the beginning of 2012 when a complete ban on advertising by pharmacies came into effect. The issue of Internet advertising for OTC drugs closely parallels that of alcohol advertising. Since the legislation does not address the new online medium directly, there are no explicit guidelines, such as those governing TV or radio commercials. This leaves much room for interpretation. As a result, regulations intended for other media are applied but prove inadequate or unintelligible in the context. Practices are therefore diverse, with each company endeavoring to do online whatever their law departments or firms deem acceptable (Loedl 2015). An area that appears critical to the growth of online pharmacies is legislation on e-health, for example, on electronic prescribing. At the end of 2015, there were ten European countries that had already had some experience with e-prescriptions for reimbursable medicines, but Poland was not among them, thus there was an absence of legislation and links between the health care system and pharmacies. A concern that has just recently afflicted the pharmaceutical market is that of parallel exports—a term denoting uncontrolled flow of pharmaceutical products to countries where they can be sold at a considerably higher price, resulting in a shortage of medicines in Poland. To mitigate the problem, on May 7, 2015 amendments were enacted to the UPF law. The amendments require companies to report their stock levels and sales figures daily, and impose an obligation to inform the pharmaceutical inspection authority of any intent to export pharmaceuticals (UOKIK 2015). In parallel, EU member states are working on regulations to prevent drug forgery, and Poland is not an exception here. Technology advances constitute another major group of factors influencing the leadership development goals examples of the pharmaceutical industry. Advances in genetics, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and other sciences will remain key drivers of growth in the sector. Simultaneously, the Internet revolution has triggered the emergence of e-commerce as a new drug marketing and distribution channel, including access via mobile devices, such as smartphones. In Poland, between 2004 and 2014, the total e-commerce market increased from PLN 2 bn to PLN 29 bn (interaktywnie.com 2015). According to the Centre for Retail Research, in 2015, online sales represented 3.3% of retail sales nationwide. This is still below the average for other European countries, where e-commerce contributes 8.4% of total sales (and at the higher end: 11.6% in Germany and 15.2% in the UK). However, the e-commerce segment of Poland’s market is now catching up very quickly. Since 2010, its growth has run at an impressive two-digit rate, and is commonly believed to have further growth potential. In 2014, Poland was ranked 24th among the 30 European countries covered by the PI Research (2016) in terms of the expansion of e-commerce, primarily because most Polish customers continued to refrain from buying online. In a survey focused on the e-commerce sector and conducted at the request of the Chamber of Digital Economy [Izba Gospodarki Elektronicznej] only 55% of Polish Internet users admitted to having hands-on experience of online purchases. In terms of private sector digital services, digital competences of staff, and the quality of e-government, Poland stands as low as 28th place in the PI ranking. At the same time, it is one of the fastest countries to catch up across Europe (PI Research 2016). The key economic factors are the following: GDP growth rate, inflation rate, average personal income, policy toward parallel trade, drug prices, and drug reimbursement rate. Prior to 2010, the pharmaceutical sector showed growth dynamics exceeding the annual GDP growth rate (Fig. 1). A decline in the sector’s financial indicators was observed in 2011–2012 and was associated with changes in the drug reimbursement regime. Its condition improved in 2013–2015. A social factors on which the development of the pharmaceutical sector is contingent are demographics, including population breakdown by sex, age, residence, as well as average life expectancy. In the future, Poland is going to increasingly see the overlapping of two trends: the average lifespan becoming longer on the one hand, and the ageing of society on the other. Compared to mid-twentieth century, the average life expectancy in Poland is 17–20 years longer, depending on sex, approximately 74 for men and 82 for women. Furthermore, elderly persons represent a larger proportion of society each year. It is estimated that, in 2035, 23% of Polish people will be above 65 years. In 2050, every third Pole will be above that age. Surveys performed by GUS show that each year is marked with an increase in the number of patients suffering from chronic diseases. The prevalence of hypertension grows at a rate of 2%, and of diabetes—at 2.5% annually. Cardiovascular diseases account for nearly 27% of deaths below the age of 65 and for 24% of work disabilities. These factors obviously incur significant medical, social, and economic costs. More than 76% of Polish people use drugs and dietary supplements, of which 40% take painkillers; nearly 40% of the adult population do not use the services of physicians, half of whom indicate time constraints as the main reason, while the other half—long waiting-times for healthcare services. This means that this social group purchases OTC medicines. Opineo.pl has established that Poles take four pills per day on average. The French are the only nation across Europe to surpass Poles in their dependence on medicines. Among political factors, it is the incumbent government’s decisions that make the greatest impact on the pharmaceutical industry, such as those on the future evolution trajectory of the healthcare system, including the public health insurance fund (NFZ). In addition, the Polish government has to implement regulations defined at the EU level. As with other economic sectors, the pharmaceutical industry must make more effort to conform to natural environment protection regulations and requirements. At the same time, specific weather conditions or changes of seasons tend to have adverse effects on health, causing illnesses and complaints and hence boosting demand for medication. There is also the issue of waste, unused and dumped out-of-date medicines, as well as disposal of pharmaceuticals returned to pharmacies requiring the management of reverse flows. If you run with eagles, you get to fly. If you run with dogs, you get fleas. That is, when you spend your time with people who can’t help you grow, you start to think like or get perceived as being that kind of person or company. So, don’t be associated with those people (or businesses).
Be associated with those people who are good examples of thought leadership and can be an inspiration for growth. We’re so focused on quality at Sea Smoke that we don’t want to talk to people who want to visit our winery. We make exceptions for those who know wine—why talk to people who don’t understand wine quality? Sounds harsh! Ego, Generals’ and Presidents’ Four star General Douglas MacArthur, the supreme allied commander in the Pacific during the WWII, graduated first in his class from West Point. The supreme Allied commander in Europe was Dwight David Eisenhower. He was 61st in his class at West Point twelve years later. Harry S. Truman fired MacArthur. Eisenhower went on to become President. The difference? Eisenhower had no ego, and MacArthur had the largest ego on the planet. MacArthur had to have special cigars, special whiskey. Eisenhower said, “Don’t bring me anything.” When he defeated Hirohito in Tokyo in 1945, MacArthur took over the Imperial Hotel so he could look into the Emperor’s headquarters across the river and dominate him, intimidate him. He couldn’t get his ego out of it. He took from the people. So MacArthur was fired by Truman. Four years later, Eisenhower became President of the United States. All because of the difference between the two of them. Even though Eisenhower was in the middle of his class at West Point and MacArthur was one of the highest scoring leaders in the history of the school. MacArthur had the ego, Eisenhower did not. The problem is the ego. Why are certain presidents such a disaster? Because their egos are bigger than they are. They fail because their ego is disproportionate to their skill set. The rarest commodity on the planet is “leadership without ego.” Equality No one is special; everyone is special. You really need to understand that everybody is the same in a business culture. Everybody, as a human being, has the same value. Where people go awry is when they think that because they’re more educated or more talented that they’re more special. They may have better upbringing or they have assets, something that makes them slightly special. And as soon as they get that inkling that they’re special, they’re not. In order to collaborate and make decisions together as a team, we need to be on an equal footing with each other. That’s the only way everyone will trust one another. Excuses Bill Harrah said, “There’s room at the top of every market.” How do we fight to get at the top of the market? Elevate the quality. I had enough resources that when employees needed something I would never second guess their decision. If I made the decision for them, I gave them the excuse to be used against me for the rest of their life that “I couldn’t do it right because he did this.” They now own the problem—not me— directly. The good news is there’s never any compromise in quality. The bad news is: there are now no excuses. I took away their excuse by giving them all of the tools they need. Evil I see so many people who, when they were given the opportunity to receive power, they took it. They have a secretary who gets their dry cleaning. They decide they’re going to have a special office. They’re going to have a special desk. They want to have a company car. That’s the road to evil. When you apply a different standard to yourself from the people you’re leading, then you are no longer a leader. You just gave up your chance at respect. You need to understand that you are no different from the people you lead. You have the same value in the organization; you just have a different assignment. Exit to Start The place to start your business plan is with the “exit” part of the plan (how to get out if you are successful). I always kept in mind: “The time to sell is when someone wants to buy” Fun Killers: Vice-Presidents VPs and other senior executives can be an obstacle to a great culture. This level of management is rarely really needed (Lee Iacocca at Chrysler lowered his salary to $1/year and fired every senior VP to garner union support to turn the company around) and they think they can “manage” morale. In reality, it is the CEO who has the final decision that controls morale (see Real Job of the CEO) but the VPs can take fun from the culture when they think that they have the power of leadership but really don’t. It adds a layer of management that insulates the person who can improve morale. Generalities Be vigilant against generalities. If somebody says, “I’ll have it done next week,” ask which day in the following week. When they give you the day, ask if that will be morning or afternoon. If they say afternoon, ask what hour. Get the commitment, make them own it. And then, because people always think they are better than they are, give them more time than they ask for. You want to create success, not failure. At IGT, I would hire young engineers and give them a simple first project so they could first taste success; they would see tough jobs soon enough. When doing a performance review for a person who reports to you, avoid generalities. The worst thing you can say is “you are a good employee” (a generality). Be specific: “Your presentation was good, especially the budget page. The breakdown and format are clear.” When they hear you say that they are a good employee, they think that you are not paying attention to them, you are not helping them grow. They know they made mistakes. You did not notice and help them correct them. So you must not be watching. Be specific. As human beings we’re always trying to do a better job communicating, so it’s little surprise that we want our machines to do the same. In many ways machines do a much better job communicating with each other than we humans do. Getting two machines to communicate is fairly easy, as demonstrated billions of times a day across the Internet. You may experience packet loss from time to time, but data typically transfers without a hitch. Human beings on the other hand are always struggling to reach a greater understanding. If you can get someone to totally understand ten percent of what you’re saying, you’re a master communicator. The main challenge is that we can't communicate with machines in the same way they communicate with one another. Thankfully we are not like Neo in the Matrix; we don't have a port in the back of our heads that connects us directly to the network. For machines and humans to communicate, the machine must do a better job of existing in our world.
To enable machines to converse with humans, AI programs use natural language processing (NLP). If you’ve met Siri, Alexa or Cortana or used speech-to-text on your smartphone, you’ve already experienced NLP. As you speak, the computer identifies the words and phrases and appears to understand what you said. Natural language processing in digital media strategy makes the interaction much more human. For example, if you need a waffle recipe, you might google “best waffle recipe,” but with NLP, you could say something like “I'm cooking breakfast. Can you give me a good recipe for those big fluffy waffles like the waffles they serve at the Breakfast Nook?" Creating an expert system that could anticipate this question, figure out what the person wanted and deliver one or more recipes for great Belgian waffles would be impossible. An artificial neural network, however, could handle the job. It might pick out a few key words, such as “breakfast,” “recipe,” and “waffles,” and give you a recipe for waffles. Or it might focus on “Breakfast Nook” and rattle off a list of local restaurants. Or it might key in on “recipe” and “big fluffy waffle” and figure out that you wanted a recipe for Belgian waffles. It might even ask for clarification and respond with a question like “Would you like me to search for a Belgian waffle recipe?” If the neural network delivered the wrong answer, the person could simply say, “No, I need a recipe for Belgian waffles,” and the neural network would learn that the next time the two of you had a similar conversation, it should retrieve a recipe for Belgian waffles, and not a list of local restaurants. Many organizations interested in artificial intelligence also offer free communication services, and they use machine language to analyze conversations. They aren’t interested so much in analyzing what you say, but how you say it. Google has access to anonymized versions of your email and voicemail. Apple offers iMessage. Microsoft has Skype. These services give their AI programs a treasure trove of different types of human communications. They can use machine learning to identify patterns and draw conclusions about how humans use their natural language. Natural language processing isn't just about understanding the words; it's also about understanding the context and meaning. A few years ago one of the top Google searches was, "What is love?" At the time, when you plugged that question into Google you would get a long list of results. Most of them were about pairing rituals and the importance of feeling connected. This was the kind of response you'd expect from a network that's just matching keywords across a database. Natural language processing gives machines the ability to better understand the larger world. Now if you ask Siri or Alexa “What is love?” it understands that you're probably more interested in romantic notions of love, so you’re likely to get a range of more poetic and philosophical answers. And as you converse about love with these artificial neural networks, they’ll begin to learn more about what you really want to know. The Internet of Things (IoT) The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the large and growing collection of everyday objects that connect to the Internet and to one another. These devices include smart thermostats that learn your daily habits and adjust automatically to keep you comfortable, smart watches that can track your daily activity and let you know when you’re meeting your fitness goals and smart refrigerators that can order groceries when supplies are running low. Some devices can even monitor your health and let you know when you need to see your doctor. Certain devices can also communicate with one other. For example, your smart watch can tell your smart locks to unlock the doors when you approach your home or turn on music when you enter your living room. As you can imagine, these smart devices generate massive amounts of data, and this data can be very valuable. As a result, many IoT companies invest heavily in AI programs. With AI, organizations can analyze this data to identify patterns that enable the organizations to react quickly to problems or to take advantage of emerging opportunities. An IoT car coupled with AI could monitor the car’s operation and identify patterns that indicate when the car needs to be taken in for service. You can now purchase an electrocardiogram (EKG) sensor that is nearly as accurate as the ones in your doctor's office. These devices can check your heart's electrical activity. They’re inexpensive enough that many companies are embedding them into smartphone cases and watches. Using AI, these companies can identify patterns in the data using unsupervised machine learning on a neural network. The network can review the EKG data of thousands or even millions of different participants to find patterns that might accurately predict if someone has an impending health issue. With these sensors, AI may not yet be able to discover breakthrough preventive measures or cures for serious illnesses, but they can identify patterns that provide doctors with additional insights to help them come up with preventive measures and cures. These devices can also notify you when your data matches an alarming pattern, so you know to check in with your doctor before your health condition becomes more serious. Remember that neural networks operate in a black box. No one except maybe the network really knows how the machine identifies patterns. We can create intelligent machines, but we still don't completely understand how they “think.” Social network Facebook has grown dramatically since its original incarnation as a special place for students. The site currently has over 900 million active users, and social media is an important part of everyday ordinary people. social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook have attracted great interest of researchers in this rapidly developing area of research focuses on how people engage in self-presentation un'environment. this post SNS contributes to the growing literature on social networking sites in the mode of self-presentation, which exploratory analysis provides self-presentation on Facebook by combining focus groups with users of African-American University years before the analysis of the content of status updates collected from the ""upstream"" and ""walls"" of this test population.
This post has studied the behavior and motivations of Facebook users through a qualitative analysis of its convenience historically black universities extraction champion. Pew Research Center report shows that blacks and other racial minorities in the United States are well represented in the NHS and are more likely than whites to use the micro-blogging service Twitter.4 is important to note, however, that ""in"" the lack of a balanced sample, representative, together with the use of qualitative methods, this study makes it impossible to draw conclusions about the use of the differences in the SNS along the lines of demographic and cultural. But since most research on computer communication (CMC) and the use of SNS are based mainly on white mostly students sample (with some exceptions), this study may help provide more varied points of the participants, who are understanding. self-presentation Goffman also characterized by self-introduction (known as printing management) behavior through the use of analogies drama in which people behave and papers have a ""face"" was able to them in other social contexts. Based on the paradigm Goffman, the researchers further understanding of self-presentation as a two-step process, which includes the construction of printing and printing motivation. The first step, the reasons for the management of other sensations associated identity development, self-improvement, influence others, and credit and avoid being blamed for actions.8 second includes specific strategies for print management, which has been characterized as selfish (proself agency or orientation) or cooperation other (communion or pro-social orientation). Maintain authenticity seems to be the key to successful print management. In the design of self-presentation, people may feel under pressure to present themselves, which is compatible with existing reputation or probable future actions. greater care of their own social image favors emphasis on content and not ""image.11 as positive social benefits are received for the benefit of the public, people are more likely to use presentations of positive interaction with strangers, while self-presentation with friends are more modest and vulnerable. Self-presentation in CMC Research (CMC), the industry focused on how people engage in self-presentation is mediated through channels such as chat, email, and social networks. The study focused on two key issues: ideas available to non-verbal communication of information and control that users have come by yourself editing and other technological affordances.13 from traditional circuits, such as non-verbal communication are absent in the CMC, the recipient will be attended by other signals, however, as the number of friends a person has and how these friends and see behave.14 In addition, studies have shown that self-presentation of relevant information public appeal will be more effective if the message is less prone to manipulation.15 for example, statements made by the person other means of transport photosmay term the most reliable and applications. Research clearly oriented SNS self-presentation, evaluate different aspects of print management. To start, demographics and individual differences play a role. Both female users age and sex changed their profile pictures more often, while younger and those motivated to use one to friends or network SNS (as opposed to romantic relationships) has released more information, 17 personality traits such as narcissism and self-efficacy expected share more information. The distinction between disclosure and privacy control is very important when it comes to self-presentation. SNS users are motivated to control information about themselves to the project is ""socially desirable car."" 19 Christofides et al. It was found that the disclosure controls and privacy are not ""two ends of the same spectrum,"" but they are independent.20 Interestingly, raw grief and shopping found improbable users to use privacy options, despite the desire privacy, more recent research has shown that users of the SNS revealed still wanted the privacy of information, not withholding, prefer to use privacy settings to limit access. control of the information in social media is important when self-presentation includes communication to the public ""context collapse"" in one space, unlike Facebook.22 When public participation, such as friends, family and co-workers, with possibly conflicting expectations and standards in the social environment , users can be directed to a specific audience and hide and misinform when needed.23 However, the boundaries of privacy are often unclear, leading to frustration when the 'private information becomes public or discrete viewers are compressed in one. In addition to hiding and edit information, SNS users also face the challenge of selecting the best information about yourself and put that positive side to the other. However, accumulating evidence that the self-presentation of the Internet requires a lot of authenticity, or at least the balance of self-promotion and accuracy, and the best profiles of Facebook users match the actual personality of their own ideals. If Facebook users must disclose the balance control, positive and authenticity, the effectiveness of these tricks is self-presentation? print management in general, without the mediation of social contexts includes a discrete space, taking into account what Goffman described as the establishment of two stages, which activates the auto-mind plays a role, and stands configure where intimidates alone or in the company, will ""turn off"" the performance .26 largely open NHS, private becomes public and social contexts of cloud users can communicate openly with heterogeneous groups, so it's good print management challenging.27 further, stating that the comments MySpace walls are made mainly of high-speed exchanges used either to establish or maintain contact suggests that the challenge of effective self-presentation may be that active management or prepared impression is the exception to the rule and easy toilettatura area. This is an excerpt from: https://social-media-strategy-template.blogspot.com/ As we get mentioned, discourses about the parts of production of high-class characterize the point of perspective of operational executives. They are really, however , structured by the happening of the brand. This introduced the second and critical dimension in a very productive approach to luxury. The corporation generates issues that the administrator cannot confuse with that on the product itself. For example , distinct qualities are expected from a Herme`s scarf, which is the result of ideas that can be recognized visually as well as tactilely and which are the fundamental and defining attributes of Herme`s scarves. However , something else is definitely expected a more intangible supplementation, an idea, a prestige that'll be called “Herme`s” as a brand or perhaps, more precisely, as a brand information.
There is a sort of beyond the exact product, which is the brand, and the product must promote not having betrayal. But the product-and generates brand management issues all the more complex is only one of the likely brand manifestations. Digital advertising channel, parts of sale, windows, websites, benefactors, etc . are other forms of company manifestations and not less needed for the defense of it is identity. Two dimensions of name identity are usually distinguished: manufacturer ethics, the intelligible component of which is made of its ideals, its vision of the world, their idealized representation, and that of the trademark aesthetics, the sensory element that affects its real and concrete manifestations or maybe all imaginable interfaces amongst the brand and its consumers. These kind of aesthetic treatments participate in the particular sensitive experience of the brand. Typically the emergence of “lifestyle brands” tells us that this experience develops beyond physical products in other areas, such as communication, personalized space, or behavior. As a way to close the loop, the item remains to revert for the semantic history of the concept luxury described earlier, and also insert into our enthymematic scheme the meanings we all identified. The progressive improve of the concept becomes considerably more noticeable. A number of modern as well as postmodern values, referring to way of living brands, that characterize fashionable luxury, like elitism, hedonism, aesthetic creativity, and within the, regroup within specific groups. These meanings are centred mainly around social extravagance perceptions and the positive associations of its manifestations. It is just a symptom of the growing societal importance of luxury, especially by intermediate luxury consumption, but reflects the rise of the trademark as its main vehicle, definitely the major structuring phenomenon with this new market. Luxury Principles Now that luxury is impacting on its positive connotations around the contemporary world, how do buyers perceive it? What are the prices they identify with luxury? The 3 Scales An answer comes from an exceptionally relevant study, led by means of Barnier, Falcy, and Valette-Florence, using a sample of through 500 people in People from france. It allows synthesizing typically the values currently associated with high end by consumers. This scrutiny compares three independent sorts of scales of value, which investigated the perception of luxurious by consumers, done by Kapferer. 1 . Elitism (“distinction, ” “select”) is the dimension most modern simultaneously in the three skin scales. The historical social age of luxury still represents fully its role for indicator of social achievements or of simulacrum in this success. The creation of an sense of belonging to a specific group appears as the necessary experience dimension. 2 . Not surprisingly, product quality and substantial prices are also significant properties. The concept of quality can prolong to all brand manifestations like communication, real and internet places, people, etc . three or more. In third position we discover personal emotional elements, for instance hedonism, but with a sluggish correlation. This is the generation of delight and emotions, key different parts of postmodern consumption, which implements here to luxury brand names. 4. Finally, the power of the corporation (resulting from past options and actions) appears with of reputation and appearance. Through this exercise, the individual himself gives us his or her own definition of luxury. And however the fundamental intuition of sociologists (distinction) is confirmed, many of us discover that the consumer is no significantly less attentive to the means of development of the luxury object along with brand than to its particular and social impacts. All over again, luxury cannot be reduced on the sole effects of display. Different considerations can be drawn from that study. First, most shoppers think and live high-class only in terms of brands. May luxury be experienced away from brand world? We could seek advice from the imaginary world of a couple French novels, A Rebours, from Huysmans(1884) and Ces Choses, from Perec (1965): two portraits of people, consumers obsessed by extravagance. In both cases, the manufacturers are absent from their market; it is the quality of the goods that holds their awareness. Today, on the contrary, brands turn up as the natural vehicles where luxury plays its most important role in postmodern usage. Second, each brand produces its own specific strategies, that do not necessarily cover the some sectors of our analytical design. Finally, the authors with the study demonstrate the existence of a new continuum of luxury having increasing intensity, from large luxury to unaffordable high end, via intermediary luxury. Often the Semiotic Square of Use Values We anticipate it has the use because it can support many reasoning about luxury, mainly with regard to the logics associated with consumer behavior, and thus polish our approach to a general involving luxury. It is a way to provide a group of contrary and unclear concepts focusing on the manner whereby they are opposed. These oppositions are dynamic, as the antagonism between the antagonists produces regarding meaning, the same way as in a job movie where the fight concerning good and evil, between your hero and his opponent, is frequently the engine of the piece. This is also true of discourse about the motivation of luxury individuals. The diagram of intake values was originally created Jean-Marie Floch to help inside design of a supermarket configuration. It covers the circulation of the definitions we have discussed and allows exploration of often the motives of luxury ingestion. To classify the values regarding luxury in this distribution, most of us realize that the logic regarding desire and pleasure for the right side of the sq will be the predominant engines. Hedonism is in the logic of pleasure stimulated by diversionary/aesthetic values, in addition to elitism is located on the topright vertex, with the mythical/utopian principles. As noted, luxury models, even more than others, must carry out customers dream of possible oceans, and provide experiences intense with emotions and pleasure. It is usually possible to speak of good-deal luxury, sacrificing, partially, into the logic of interest. In recent years, internet websites specializing in “private sales” include flourished, offering luxury merchandise with heavy discounts. Actually , the economic logics aren't going to be identical for true luxurious brands and those of second time beginners luxury. As its name implies, intermediate, or accessible, high-class exists precisely for its low cost. In addition to private sales, extravagance brands are often interested in creating more affordable collections or solutions, capitalizing on their notoriety. It can be obviously a perilous training because of the risk of the loss of an extra reputation. However , some companies have been very successful on it. For the past ten years, Ferrari has been developing license agreements for any kind of derivative products in parts that are carefully kept clear of its core business: wristwatches, clothes, perfumes, computer devices, entertainment parks in the Local Gulf, and so on. Ferrari copes with the unusual feat involving flooding the market with capitals or key-chains bearing thier name and color without adjusting its true luxury impression. More significant, perhaps, is a current trend that considers middle-market brands, born normally on the left side of the semiotic block of consumption values, getting to the right side, while using the codes of behavior connected with traditional luxury brands, with regard to communication, creation, and accordance in the management of brand personality (re)oriented toward luxury. It can be a typical movement of middle leather goods brands including Furla, Longchamp, Coach, Lancel, and so on. Lew Frankfurt, PRESIDENT of the American brand Mentor, defines his brand seeing that “a democratized luxury model. ” Certainly, today, to competitive, all brands ought to excel on all four vertices of the square of use values. The intermediate high end is distinguished from accurate luxury by its reputation on the economic vertex, that is definitely, how it positions themselves within the logic of interest. The place that the real luxury is not worried of its relative expensiveness, intermediary luxury seeks lowest cost and affordable prices. Do you have a background in classical music?
Well, I didn't study formally. I've been a fan of music in general all my life. I grew up with rock and pop, but I always loved jazz, and I really enjoy classical music, and listen to every kind of music now. I enjoy listening to a lot of hip-hop and pop music because there are a lot of interesting sounds; the way certain reverbs and effects are used. I steal some of that, if you will, for hybrid scores, to help create a sonic environment. But with classical music, you hear composers reference a lot of other classical composers in their scores. One of the obvious ones is Aaron Copland in Western-type scores, or that sort of sweeping visual genre. There are many others as well, certainly Mozart, Beethoven and Bach and so on. You can hear elements of those composers in many, many film scores, not just contemporary ones, but older ones. It's not in any way uncommon for those great classical composers, their concepts and visions, to be integrated into film scores. Has the development of 3D audio Dolby Atmos and DTS:X and before that, 7.1 and 5.1, changed your approach to mixing? Absolutely, it's changed it a great deal. Let's talk about the history and evolution, at least from my perspective. I've been doing this for a long time, so when I started out movies were mono. That was it. And also you had to deal with that awful Academy filter, or curve, which was brute force noise reduction. They just basically filtered out all the high frequencies and low frequencies, and you had this sort of midrange thing. It was okay for dialogue and sound effects, but it absolutely killed music. Then when Ray Dolby came along and introduced matrixed four-channel surround, and in conjunction with that he had this noise reduction system, it just revolutionised mixing. Again, it was most favourable for music. You suddenly had full dynamic range and frequency response. And then it went to digital. There were inherent problems with the matrix system it was wonderful for frequency response, but it was hard to control channel placement. Let's say you'd have a stereo synthesized pad. What happened is, depending on the frequency content, it would just sort of move around. Maybe you'd want to place it left and right in the front monitors, and what would happen is that a lot of it would end up in the surrounds. When 5.1 discrete digital was introduced it was a miraculous step for us, because then with all of our assignments we could absolutely control everything. Nothing moved around, they were all discrete channels. Plus, we had this LFE channel, as an added plus. That was a great thing, and that changed mixing completely. And then 7.1 came along, and instead of just a stereo surround channel, we had four channels of surround. Each format has changed mixing for everybody. And each step, sonically for films, and how they translate to home theatres, has gotten better and better. With object-based audio, are you sending music up to the ceiling? I do occasionally. There are some aspects where it's really great. I look at the ceiling channels as I look at the subwoofer. If you use it occasionally, it's very effective, and it's a really interesting additional added aspect, but if it's constant, it sort of disappears. I've experimented with it a lot. If I have, let's say, overall microphones which I record with an orchestra, and place them up on the ceiling, so the entire time the orchestra's playing I also have these ceiling channels playing, it tends to actually mono out the orchestra. It sounds smaller. But I found that if I use them occasionally, it's very effective. So, what I like to do is, if I have a choir, I like to move it up towards the ceiling. It separates just a little bit, but it gives it a wonderful ambience. Again, if it's used occasionally, to me anyway, it's a wonderful effect. It becomes more interesting. It's the same thing with a subwoofer. If you hear it every once in a while, it has a great deal of impact and it's fun and interesting, and feels very cinematic. The same thing with sound eff ects or anything if it becomes constant, then it's just like wallpaper. The definition is amazing in these object-based, 3D formats. Atmos, which I have most experience with, is quite stunning, actually. But let me say one thing: not every director loves Atmos. I work with a couple who feel that everything should be up on the screen. They're not enthralled with so much sonic information going into the surrounds. Other directors absolutely love it and want as much of it as possible. It's a sensibility, it's whatever that taste or sense is for each director. Like anything, it's not for everybody. You could say the same thing about 3D imagery. Personally, I love it for certain kinds of projects. It was fantastic for Gravity and Avatar, movies where it's really meaningful. But not for every single movie. Maybe you could say the same about Atmos. This post is arranged by: https://upscaleexistence.blogspot.com/ Once you’ve built your product, you’ve got to get it out into the market. Here’s how to harness feedback from early users and attention from the media to land your first big customers.
How to Run a Successful User Interview If you’re going to impress your users, you have to know what they’re thinking. It turns out the best way to find that out is just to ask. Emmett Shear admits that, in their first business venture together, he and co-founder Justin Kan created a product without a solid use case. But later they wised up in terms of penetration pricing and founded Justin.tv, which later became Twitch — “the world’s leading video platform and community for gamers.” If you’re unfamiliar with this new form of live feed gaming entertainment, it’s basically where, instead of playing a video game or watching your friends play on your couch, you watch someone else from your computer or broadcast your own game play. The platform didn’t start out as this, however. Justin.tv (Twitch’s first form) was a site where you could broadcast your life. Shear explained, “If you wanted to run a live 24/7 reality television show about your life, we had the website for you.” But they needed to get bigger and reach a broader audience and to do that, they needed use cases to find where these people were. In the end, in order to grow, they had to pivot. “There were two directions that seemed promising,” said Shear. “One was mobile and one was gaming.” Talk to the Right Users Shear was in charge of getting the scoop on the gaming side of things, which of course was the direction the company wound up going. That was the first time they started to talk to users. Shear said that this was especially crucial for them to do early on because, “While I loved watching gaming videos, I was very aware that neither I nor anyone else in the company knew anything about broadcasting video games.” To figure out how to acquire content and start broadcasting, they had to reach out to the people who’d actually be using the site. As their idea became more tangible, “We determined that the broadcasters were the most important people because, when we went and looked into the market, we looked into what determined why people watched a certain stream or went to a certain website. They would just follow the content,” Shear said. So they had to investigate the people who were putting the content out there. Figuring out which group in their audience was most influential to their business was important. But to get the entire scope of things, they had to identify and interview other groups, as well. “It comes down to thinking really hard and using your judgment to figure out who you are really building this for,” said Shear. He added that picking a user comes above all else. “Before you think about who you should ask, or what the features should be, just think about who is going to use this app? … Who am I going to talk to? … And where am I going to find them?” Interviews will give you these insights, where stats and data just can’t. Interviewing – Round 1 When interviewing people about your product, it should be all about them — not your app. Don’t ask them anything regarding features you’re thinking about or even other competing products in the space. Shear said that those kinds of questions will distract you from solving the problem because you’re getting answers based on the assumption that people know what they want, but that’s not the case. People know the problem they have, and sure they’ll tell you how they think it should be fixed for themselves, but it’s your job to create a product that solves the problems of your entire audience. “You [can] get the horseless carriage effect where you’re asked for a faster horse instead of being asked to design the actual solution to the problem.” Shear added, “So you want to stay as far away from features [in the first interview] as possible because the things they tell you feel overwhelmingly real. When you have a real user asking you for a feature, it’s very hard to say no to them because here’s a real person who really has this problem.” After you’ve talked to a wide spectrum of 6-8 potential users, Shear said it’s best to move on to the next phase, as anything after that is likely to be a lot of repeat information. Narrow In on Your Ideas You’re no longer completely shooting in the dark at this point. Now you can literally put faces to your potential users and start figuring out the exact problems that your product is going to solve. You can also start brainstorming how that’s going to happen. Shear said that a great place to start, if possible, is to build on top of existing platforms. So, if you want to build a new email experience, maybe start with a Gmail extension to test your idea before trying to build an entirely new platform. When narrowing your idea, you’re not just trying to create something that people will like, and certainly not just something that people will tell you they like. Instead, you want it to be something that they would buy (download, view, etc) and even better, something so good that they stop using another product in that space and replace it with yours. To test your theory, you can build a quick mockup of your product for people to test. But even if you don’t have the capacity to do a mockup or prototype, Shear said you should go into your second round of interviews with your more focused goal in mind. Interviewing – Round 2 In lieu of showing your interviewees an actual version of your product, which Shear advises against, he said in round two you can opt to draw out diagrams of what it might look like so that people can understand the workflow. “You want to learn what’s already in their heads. You want to avoid putting things there.” You could think of it as leading questions in journalism. When you’re interviewing people, you need their honest opinions — not what you want to hear. Because even if you lead them to say, “Yeah this is the best app ever. I’d totally use it,” that doesn’t mean they actually will when the time comes. When interviewing, you’re always searching for problems from your interviewee, not validation and definitely not a solution. Putting them in the position of just commenting on whether they like the app is giving them an easy out and not providing you with any useful information. If your product is something that you intend to charge people for, that’s a bigger challenge with a bigger payoff because you can try and get them to pay you just from seeing the mockups or the test site. Shear said, at this stage especially, “Get people to give you their credit card and I guarantee you they are actually interested in the feature.” Dissecting the Feedback After your interviews, you’re going to have gathered a ton of information. Rather than tackle it comment by comment or just focus on one feature someone mentioned, you’ve got to get the big picture. This should include your users, but also your competitors’ users, and even non-users who aren’t in your space at all. Your Users With Twitch, Shear said they looked at all of their user feedback and found trends and commonalities. For their business, they were able to narrow down the essence of the major concerns into five statements that were easier to diagnose. Most of the issues from their own users were a matter of interface or function. “When you talk to detailed users of your product, they come back to you with very detailed things about features because they get mired in the features,” said Shear. “You have to sort of read between the lines.” Competitors’ Users Shear said the information they learned from their own users was of course interesting, but not as helpful as it could have been. “If you thought that [we set out to] address these problems, you would be wrong. People who are using your service already are willing to put up with all these issues, which kind of means that these are probably not the biggest problems.” No matter how big any of these users’ issues were, they weren’t big enough to deter them from the site. So in the grand picture of Twitch, they were rather small issues. In order to broaden your scope, you have to look at people who are using competing services or those who have left yours. These are the people who will point out the really raw pain points that your current audience doesn’t care about or overlooks. When they talked to competitor’s users, they got totally different feedback than what they got from their own and it was about more general issues, rather than interface and functional problems. Non-Users This is the powerhouse for ultimate expansion. These are people who are not thinking about your brand at all, so they take the most convincing and require the most questioning. Shear said, “In the case of gaming broadcasting, almost everyone is a non-user. The majority of people you are competing with are non-users,” so they were particularly important for Twitch’s growth. “If all you do is look at your competitors and talk to people who use your competitors’ products, you can never expand. You’re not learning things that help you expand the size of the market. You want to talk to people who aren’t even trying to use these things yet.” Again, when you’re talking to these people, you’re not trying to discover the features they’d add or even how they would use your product. You’re trying to learn about their lives to find issues that they’re having and the goals they’re trying to accomplish. Then you find out where your product can fit into that. Interview Tips Do It in Person Shear said, “Email interviews are basically useless.” When you’re interacting with someone in person or via Skype, people may ramble into places that are really insightful, which you can then explore further. Record Them When you record your interview, you don’t have to take notes, which can be disruptive. Also, you can play that recording for your team later, so you can pitch your new ideas with the support of the user feedback in video (or at least audio). Talking to users should be one of the first steps in creating your startup and will continue to guide you in each decision you make for your company. Unless the product you’re creating is just for yourself, the people who you’re creating for should have the first say. And if you’ve solved their problems in the right way, you can have the last. Edward Bernays, who we heard from at the beginning, is generally regarded as the inventor of PR, the first form of mass-market advertising. After helping Woodrow Wilson lead the American public into the First World War – under the banner not of restoring the old empires, but of bringing democracy to Europe – Bernays realized that ‘if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace’. But thanks to the German war effort, propaganda had acquired a bad name, so Bernays coined the term ‘public relations’ and set up the first advertising agency just off Broadway.
As a consequence of the war, the United States had become a heavily industrialized society with millions of people living in cities, and Bernays wanted to influence the way these masses thought and felt. After reading a book written by his uncle – A General Introduction to outside in marketing by Freud – Bernays realized that he could make money for his clients by manipulating the public’s unconscious. Bernays’s insight was that behaviour is not driven by information; instead, it’s all about repressed desires and animal instincts. He realized that if he could link products to desires and emotions, he could influence what people bought. He was thus the first person to create an emotional connection between consumer and product – something that is still in use today. Up until then, products were sold purely on the basis of the market’s needs, but the corporations – which controlled the manufacturing of goods, and which were represented by Bernays – knew that they had to alter this state of affairs in order to sell as fast as they could produce. Bernays’s theories helped change the basis of the public’s buying habits from needs to desires: ‘Man’s desires must overshadow his needs’, as Paul Mazur of Lehman Brothers wrote in 1927. The corporations also needed the public to be conditioned into wanting new products before the old ones had been fully consumed. This, then, was the birth of planned obsolescence. Fast forward ninety years and this is one of Apple’s core philosophies. Through such innovations as product placement in Hollywood movies and the selling of cars as symbols of male sexuality, Bernays succeeded in convincing the American public to buy products not because they needed them but in order to express their inner selves. By the late 1920s Americans had shifted from being citizens to being consumers: what really mattered now was buying stuff. As governments realized to their delight, it was consumerism that drove life, that kept the public happy. Provided the people were busy living, working and buying, those in charge could be left alone to pursue other interests. It was the philosopher, sociologist and political theorist Herbert Marcuse who spotted that consumerism had become a form of social control. ‘The people recognize themselves in their commodities’, he wrote in 1964. ‘They find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment. The very mechanism which ties the individual to his society has changed, and social control is anchored in the new needs which it has produced.’ The students that Marcuse taught – at Columbia, Harvard, Brandeis University and the University of California, San Diego – picked up on this way of thinking, and soon the protest movement was born, railing against the control of corporate America. Its members quickly understood that the most effective form of protest was to regain control of their own minds and free themselves from state and corporate hegemony. The way forward was for the public to talk about the things that the state wanted repressed. This movement led to the creation of the cult of the self. The Unbrandable reference point here is that these new thinkers were still consumers, but what they wanted were products and brands that expressed their individuality – that would make them stand out as different in a conformist society and marketplace. The corporations were caught napping, and it took them a decade or so to catch up, to tap into this new demographic. Enter the focus group, which, by the 1980s, was how the corporations discovered not only how their brands were perceived but also what they should be producing. The generation that once rebelled against consumerism was now fully embedded in it. The history of mass-marketing appears to be cyclical in nature, a pendulum swinging back and forth. There will always be someone stood opposite, reacting against the current position, but eventually that person’s counter-position will become the norm – the way stuff is then sold. Once this is understood, we can look at where the market is right now and then swing across to the opposite, the antithesis. This is the starting point for the Unbrandable solution. |