Internet is dead?

While we all think that Interest is a place that full of opportunities and drives the direction of the future, there's a guy says Internet is dead and boring. This is not a new article, it had been posted almost a year ago! He is Mark Cuban, who is an American billionaire entrepreneur. He is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, an NBA franchise and Chairman of HDNet, an HDTV cable network. In his point of view, Internet has become an utility, such as those inventions in the past like wheels, cars, TV...However, he got a lot of negative comments on his blog! Ha~ you can go leave one if you disagree with him!

Your pizza tracker!

Here’s my experience about how Internet offered corporation some innovative ideas that can change people’s purchasing experience.

Two weeks ago, it was Chinese New Year, a bunch of my friends and I were gathering together celebrating it with "pizza and fried chickens"...ha~ very not Chinese! Everybody was too lazy to cook. We ordered for delivery for two big pizzas, and guess how much time we were waiting for it? TWO hours! Their only guarantee was the waiting wouldn't be less than 2 hours. Well, that was not even Super bowl night, and 2 hours waiting was ridiculous, no matter how good that pizza was.

Last Thursday, I felt like having some pizza again, and it was around 11 pm. I was wondering where I could get them. I saw the ads of Domino's and thought why not give it a try! Since I didn’t have their phone number, so I went to their website to look for it. When I opened the page, I saw only two lines: You got 30 minutes. Order Online Now! First, 30 minutes was impressive for me after that 2 hours waiting experience; and second, I'd never tried to older any food online before, so I thought it would be fun to play with it. The process was easy and what impressed me the most was its pizza tracker that showed up after I placed the order. Like you track your parcel with FedEx, you could track your pizza from order placing until it’s delivered. It even tells you the deliver guy’s name! I thought it must be some set up program to fool me; however, about 10 minutes after the tracker turned to delivery process, Leobino, my deliver guy rang my bell. It’s real and it’s awesome! I enjoyed the process and having fun with this online pizza tracker system. I did receive my pizza within 30 minutes and didn’t even feel like I waited for that long cuz I was having fun watching the tracker!

The same business, the same service; however, totally different shopping experience for customers with the innovative technology that Internet is able to offer. Well, the process impressed me a lot, but Domino is still Domino, the pizza sucks!

Evil all over the web!

Just want to share the news I just read today! Google finds evil all over the Web

Here are some interesting findings from this piece of news:
1. There are 3 million malicious web pages out there. (1/1000)
2. Adults-oriented web pages are more dangerous! (stay away from them...guys!)
3. Malicious web pages are from: China 67%, USA 15%, Russia 4%...
4. The 67% from China fall into 2 broad categories: Steal your banking password or your World of Warcraft character! Ha~interesting!

Well, people... be careful while enjoying your surfing out there!

Are General Electric and Wal-Mart really not Game Changers?

When I listened to HBS podcast, I found this interesting discussion, which is the conversation of HBS podcast host and Bill Taylor, who is an adjunct professor at Babson College and a former associate editor of Harvard Business Review. He has a article on the HBS blog: Memo to Andy Grove: General Electric and Wal-Mart Aren't Game Changers, which is inspired by Andy Grove's Think Disruptive. Andy Grove served as C.E.O. of Intel from 1987 to 1998 and helped usher in the modern computing industry.

Bill actually argued with Andy's idea of big companies. such as GE and Wal-Mart should try some disruptive innovations and go for some undiscovered new field, like what Apple did with its iPod and iTunes, which Andy called "Cross-boundary disruptive, XBD". Andy thought why can't these big corporations be disruptive innovative and take a great advantage of that, instead of waiting for small start-ups to innovate some products or services to shake the industry and transform the market? Bill supposed that first, big corporations only go for disruptive innovation when they have no way to go and facing a situation of either change or out, which Bill called "near-death experience. Second, big corporations are urging for sustaining their prosperities by concentrating on their core competency rather than totally risking themselves by jumping into a unfamiliar market. Besides that, he also suggested that disruptive innovation is not quite suitable for big corporations because of their characteristics; however, big corporations could still seek innovations by a step by step method. He talks more in the audio clip.

It's a very interesting topic for me. One of the courses that I'm taking now is "The Innovation Process, Developing New Products and Services". And the very first topic that we were taking about is disruptive innovation. When reading these two articles and listening to the audio, some questions came to my mind...Is disruptive innovation only from start-ups? Can big companies be a game changer? I'm looking forward to your thoughts and feedback!

Let your customer design your product for you!

I just saw this Cisco TV ad while watching the election results. If you have read my previous post, there's a short article talking about how big corporation doing blog to communicate with their customers, and Cisco is one of them. Although the communication platform in this ad is not blogging, the concept is the same and blogging could achieve the same results just by different means. Cisco is not only working on their own blogging to get understanding their own customers, but also bring this concept of blogging into their products to help Cisco's customers do their communication. Here's the Cisco ad. There are four short video clips of them, and each of them is related to different aspect in the communication. Enjoy it!

Reputation management – Blog, Web 2.0, threats or opportunity

Marketing people must miss those “good old days” so much when it was only an easy one way communication and simple. All they had to do is find out the targeted group, build up their strategy of how to approach the audience and throw out the ads, such as the Super Bowl ads. (Please go to my previous blog, you will find some interesting Super Bowl XLII ads there!) So as PR people, their works were more straight forward and easier to control the buzz. However, from blogging to Web 2.0, internet has changed how a successful corporation should position themselves in order to keep up with their customers.

For instance, Microsoft used to think that internet would never become mainstream media, thus they never paid attention on Google when it just launched; however, nowadays, Google is in charge of more than 70% of the resource on internet, and Microsoft (3rd) is trying to acquire Yahoo (2nd) to beat Google (1st) because they had realized the importance of internet. Blog’s rising is just as internet; moreover, blogging or even Web 2.0 represents not only a new technology, but also a new style of life.

Here are some extend reading that I found would be interesting for us to read. Let me offer you some previews:

The strategy of blogging; SMALL BUSINESS REVIEW

Blogging provides those start-ups a great and inexpensive channel to polish their brand and communicate with customers. New business could build up their reputation through good blogging strategy. It also provides some How-To for beginners.

How Web 2.0 makes business easier

Web 2.0, such as blogger, YouTube, Facebook and MySpace, provides corporations a faster and easier way to approach their audience. Here’s a quote from the article: "Web 2.0 is about the new ways of using web-based technology to interact with people and customers, as well as finding new communication channels. It goes way beyond just the technology". Yes, Web 2.0 provides lots of new channel to communicate with customers; however, it really makes things easier?

A whole new world

In this article, you will find how those top corporations such as Cisco and SAP take advantage of blogging; furthermore, enhance their reputation and marketing strategy throughout of it.

Advantages and risks for corporate bloggers

Last but not least, the risks for corporation blogging. Corporations should not only do their own blogging, but also encourage their employees go blogging. Nonetheless, there are several blogging issues that corporation should be aware of. Thus, blogging policy should be established!

Please see attachment to find these short articles. (These attachment files is only accessible for BU students. You have to login to school system before opening these files. If you are having trouble access them, please mail me.)

Attachments: The strategy of blogging; SMALL BUSINESS REVIEW.pdf; How Web 2.0 makes business easier.pdf; A whole new world.pdf; Advantages and risks for corporate bloggers.pdf

Super Bowl XLII

No, I'm not a giant fan! I'm a heart broken Patriot! So, I'm not going to talk about "football" here! Instead, I would like to share some thoughts of mine about the Super Bowl Ads!

I've always known how popular Super Bowl is before I came to the States; however, here are some facts that I found out that totally amazed me!

• Attracts a worldwide audience of at least 90 million, 40% of them is female
• 30 seconds of commercial time for Super Bowl 2008 costs almost $ 2.7 million over$86,000/sec)
• Super Bowl XLII is expected to drive the purchase of about 2.4 million high-definition televisions
• People spend on food for game day is approximately $55 million
• What do they eat? 15,000 tons of chips, 4,000 tons of popcorn...and a lot more!
• Car accident rate increases 41% in the 4 hours after the super bowl

Wow~these numbers are huge, aren't they? Thus, if you have a deep pocket, why not take advantage of this great opportunity? There are not only some die hard football fans watching your ads, but also some people watch the game because they are waiting for those ads, which tend to be longer and funnier than usual. The targeted audience is obviously well defined and the ads are being paid extra attention on. There are even some TV shows dedicate to find out the best super bowl ads on the day after! Can't find any better opportunity, and that's why they costs $86,000/sec! Alright, let's have some fun with these ads!

Super Bowl XLII Ad Preview
There are some review of the ads in the past Super Bowl and some preview for this year here!


Top Ten Super Bowl XLII Ads
Here are some interesting ones, but there are others I think are better than these. Don't worry, you will see them after this one!


Alright, here are two of my favorite ads! The stone age people are so hilarious, and Yes, chubby people are funny! Omg, look at his serious face!!




Hope you enjoy them! Btw, I'm still sad from the lose...

Without Basketball, I'm nothing!

When I was a kid, I was crazy about baseball. However, there was once when I was still in elementary school, like usual, I played baseball with a bunch of friends of mine at a sports park. There was a guy, who just walked pass by, got hit directly on his nose by the home run that was hit by me.(At that time, I really didn't know I should be glad or scared!) His nose was bleeding like a hell, and got knocked down like a dead man immediately! Since then, I was forbidden to play baseball anymore. It was ridiculous, I know. (When I talked about this past with my mom after grown up, she was also confused why she would make that call) That's a sports park! I'd done nothing wrong, but anyway I couldn't play baseball anymore. Thanks for this stupid story, I had chance to get to know basketball!

I played school team in high school. My school didn't care about promoting sports that much, thus we didn't get much attention and supports as a result. However, we were still so passionate about basketball, and participated in all kinds of tournaments although throughout my high school life, we didn't win any single title. After getting into college, I joined the department basketball team. The main tournament for us was NBAC, National Business Administration Cup, which was a tournament, held once a year for the Business Administration department from every university in Taiwan. My bachelor degree was in Business Administration, which I could say is the most popular department in undergraduate level in Taiwan; therefore the competition was extremely intense since almost every school has B.A. department and every B.A. department has a team. Fortunately and unexpectedly, in my second year in this team, we got the national championship of NBAC, and I was so proud to be one of the starting five as a sophomore. Afterward, we also got a couple of different titles from several tournaments. Actually, I was never a really professional basketball player; however, playing basketball gave me a lot more than I could imagine of. It gave me confidence, friends, and much more in mental and physical. Although I am not playing that much like before now, basketball still plays a very important role inside my soul!

NBA...before I came to U.S., I never knew that there's one day I could watch the game in the stadium. Watching a NBA game in the stadium was always my dream as a life-long basketball fan! However, after I got here last year, Boston Celtics' performance just couldn't be any worse. I was so disappointed with being in a city having a team like that at that time. Who knows...this season, Celtics turned out to be the most possible team to achieve the title due to the recruit of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. After Red Sox's Champion in 2007 and Patriot's for sure 19-0 two days later, I hope Celtics could be the third professional team in Boston acquiring the Championship!! What an achievement it could be! Now, I'm so proud and feeling so lucky to be a part of this city!!

My Second Families from Starbucks!

Since Starbucks first landed Taiwan when I was still in high school, I had been dreaming about working there! At that time, there was no any cooler job than working part-time at Starbucks as a student. Once I went to my university and reached the legal age to work, I tried my best to apply for every store of Starbucks that I knew. At that time, there were not so many Starbucks stores in Taipei, where I lived, but a lot of young people like me would like to work for them. Finally, I had to start from another bigger chain coffee shop...no, not at Starbucks! A year later, through my friend's introduction, finally I got a chance to talk to a store manager to show my passion of working for Starbucks. Fortunately, I got accepted. That was a store located at the heart of business district and surrounded by a bunch of department stores. (It's one block away from Taipei101, which is still the highest building in the whole world, for now, but won't last long!) Later, I realized that the store that I got accepted was the busiest store in Taiwan, which had the highest number of transaction, sales, and profitability. That was not only a Starbucks store; other than that, it was the role model of Starbucks in Taiwan! Because of the endless rush hours and huge amount of work load, there was a formation of being together, fighting together, and love each other because they are what you only have on the field. We were like a band of brothers. This emotion was well developed and every partner was like a member of this big family! What we were proud of ourselves was not how skillful we were or how fast we could finish one Latte, it was the aligning established among each member of this store. Besides daily operation, we also actively participated in every event that held by our headquarter to reinforce our relationship throughout the process. Every single time was another sweet memory of ours, and holding each other even closer. All the way through the expansion of Taiwan Starbucks, our partners got transferred out to a lot of different locations. However, people were still coming back to the original place, our store, to be together with us. That's why I devoted all my time working there since sophomore year until three days before I joined the military. In those three years at Starbucks, I'd learned not only how to be a good leader, but also how to love people. They are my second family, always!

My sweet heart Meimei

She is my darling. Like every pet owner would say, my Meimei is the cutest and sweetest dog in the world. She was a homeless dog when she was less than a month old. My best friend, Ken, and his girl friend adopted her at Taipei city homeless dog center. Why was Meimei not adopted by me? Because Meimei was not mine at all at the beginning. It was an interesting story... my best friend, Ken is an extremely talented rock band drummer. But, you know, genius is not normal, they are different from normal people like us. When he was a freshman at college, he used to practice more than 5~6 hours per day in a small, hot, crowded, hand-made, sound-proof cubicle, which had absolutely no air circulated. I tried to stay inside for once, and felt like suffocated only in 10 minutes. I could only see him came out when he needs to eat or Meimei had to be taken care of. Of course, he was not interested in what he was studying (mass media) at school at all because that was not what he wanted. All he loves is music! The summer after our freshman year, he went to U.S. for a Jazz drummer summer camp; thus, I had to be responsible for Meimei's life. After Ken left, I brought Meimei to my place. After since, Meimei never left my place. Ken was not interested in what he was studying at Taiwan at that time, so instead of coming back to Taiwan, he went to the university in China to study Traditional Chinese Medicine, which he told me that he was very interested in. Now, he is studying for doctoral degree...yes, in Traditional Chinese Medicine!
At the beginning, my parents were so opposed to keep her. While time went by, they began to see the sweetness of Meimei. My mom first expressed that she thought Meimei should stay with us all her life, and even my dad started talking to her like his daughter! I knew no word should be spoken from me; Meimei could just earn everybody's love by her sweetness along!

There's one more thing, I think besides Meimei, Kathy could be the second cutest sweetheart in the world. ^^ She is belonged to my beloved teacher, Sharon!