Entries Written By Alistair Vince
The100: Brand growth, digital decluttering and inflatable pools
We’re fortunate enough to be growing the team here at Watch Me Think and are looking for another Qual Expert to join our lovely UK team. Here’s a bit more info in case you know of anyone who’d be interested. Much obliged. The Professor will see you now How Brands Grow, the book that upturned …
The100: Creativity conditions, the culture myth and Norwegians
Best of both(ism) If you’ve ever been accused of sitting on the fence, here’s your splinter edged comeback: you’re applying bothism. Duh. Bothisms: The rare capacity to not only see the value of both sides of the story, but actively consider and then co-opt them into any subsequent marketing endeavour in an appropriate mix. The …
The100: Inclusive design, insight pitfalls and dancing bats
“The future looks faster, nearer, meaner” Grant McCracken has mapped 250 things that he thinks could transform us. We have to see things early, when they don’t really look like things at all. And then we have to be prepared to repudiate them in the event they were really just “noise” after all. Or to …
The100: PowerPoint laws, negotiation tips and wine windows
No pies, no 3D Every year I include an article or two about PowerPoint and every year it’ll be the most clicked. Who am I to ignore such strong appetency? So, here are The 48 laws of PowerPoint, à la Monsieur Davies. (To the mischievous amongst you who are considering not clicking the link just …
The100: Brand cannibalization, choosing a project and James Bond
Time = Memory How is it that the days drag, yet the weeks pass faster than you can say “20 Fridays until Christmas”? Well, because it’s Quarantime, the explanation of which is surprisingly logical: The passage of time as it happens (days) will be slower because of the monotony of your environment. But the memory of …
The100: Right answers, messy middles and 3rd order island
Research: using it properly His [Dave] Trott-ness tells the tale of the Indian Mongoose brought in to control the rats in Hawaii. He says it was the right answer to the wrong question: Properly used, research is about finding out things we never expected, things we didn’t know. Which is why Jon Steel says the …
The100: Brand purpose, prediction addiction and back in the USSR
The benefits of foresight? Do predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies? Does this make predictions dangerous? Should we stop making predictions? Will I ever stop asking so many questions? (I hope not.) Stuart Ritchie has been unpacking Margaret Heffernan’s book on our addiction to prediction. Our fervent desire to know and chart the future – and our …
Tom Chatfield: Becoming A Digital Gourmet
email Alistair if you need the password. Tom Chatfield was an inbox emptier. He would work through and empty it by either deleting, ignoring or replying to emails. That, ultimately, was what he did every day. And in the process of emptying his own inbox, he would fill up everyone else’s. It was a self-perpetuating …
Tom Goodwin – Improving Innovation
email Alistair if you need the password. Have you got a pen to hand? And a piece of paper too? Ok. Try and draw an apple. Yep, an apple. Now draw an apple again, but differently this time. Keep going. How many times can you do so? Exercises like this show just how hard innovation …
The100: Behavioural economics, aspiration windows and The Codfather
The aspiration gap Yup. They’ve done it again. Reach Solutions, whose previous white papers Gut Instinct and The Empathy Delusion made many a marketeer mop their brow, are back making us feel uncomfortable with The Aspiration Window: Given what we now know about the analytical thinking styles of people working in advertising and marketing and our empathy …