Comments on: commodities galore. commodities forever.

By: Maigh

Maigh — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 23:39:17 +0000

Struggling with all of this myself, you couldn’t have written this at a better time for me. Bigger thinking, different angles and deeper caverns to consider.
Love your stuff and the insight it offers intellectually and while appealing to my need for laughter.

By: Dig Tank

Dig Tank — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 05:48:41 +0000

Web Diggings

Some great post from other blogs that are worth your reading time.. 10 Steps to a Hugely Successful Web 2.0…

By: Vy Blog

Vy Blog — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 01:50:38 +0000

Commoditize

Here’s a word: commodity Or, commoditized. As in, Cell phones have become fully commoditized. If you look it up, a commodity is an instrument of trade — usually a hard good, often agricultural, that’s sold or traded through futures contracts.

By: Below Belief

Below Belief — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 21:44:09 +0000

Small is the new Big

Read these: Small is the new big — Seth Godin Commodities galore. Commodities forever — Hugh Macleodb I work for a small dot com. We have 18 employees. The business brings in £1.8 m. It’s growing strongly. We pride ourselves…

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 06:03:09 +0000

“Isn’t there an assumption there is no invention in this constrained model?“
Oh, there’s always room for invention, Dennis
But go to Walmart or ASDA and count how many brands on sale are responding to the ever-increasingly crowded shelfspace by making their brands more remarkable, versus the number of brands that are responding by just making short-term deals (i.e. making their stuff cheaper) or adding unremarkable line extensions i.e just adding more clutter.
Invention is great, but not all corporate cultures are geared up for it.

By: Shirazi

Shirazi — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 01:34:41 +0000

Today, I read your post how to be creative. I know that you are CREATIVE. I am learning here. Thanks.

By: Dennis Howlett

Dennis Howlett — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 23:35:57 +0000

Classic silo-based (in this case marketing) thinking. Not heard of product lifecycle management, product development? Isn’t there an assumption there is no invention in this constrined model? Isn’t that part of Cluetrain/Hughtrain thinking? There’s nothing new here that hasn’t existed for 00’s of years. I wonder what the coffee and tea swillers of Old London Town thought in the 17th century…

By: Nia

Nia — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 23:27:00 +0000

»»»»the biggest issue my peers are facing at the moment is, how the hell do we free ourselves from the commodification of everything around us? How do we find our own version of “Bespoke”?<
You are the marketing expert, but my guess is that the next step is time. Hobbies, for example. People who spend five days a week making money selling crap use that money to buy bespoke, right?
Some of those people think that they give five days of their week to stuff they don’t care much about and the other two to things they do care about. preferably, hobbies that require a lot of time and patience and have a very small competitive component, so that they can measure their expertise and get satisfaction from it without feeling too threatened.
The example that I know first hand is bellydance, which tends to attract two types of women: the ones that want to lose weight and professional ones from the sort of soulless competitive environment you describe. The ones that spend ten hours a day chained to a desk tend to be brilliant dancers because they treasure their daily hour of practice.

By: Claire

Claire — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 22:26:56 +0000

It used to be that quality of life (or better quality of life) was measured by how much stuff you had. Now everyone has all the stuff they could possibly need (and a huge debt driven by the belief that they are ENTITLED to everything) the only way to differentiate is to go bespoke. This in itself was a move forward from “knowing one’s place” and accepting that not everyone was going to achieve the same things and therefore they wouldn’t receive the same rewards, but I digress.
Therefore I have all the same stuff you do, but my stuff is unique and it fits me and my life better; therefore I am top of the heap (or my life is more worth living than yours, etc.). It’s sad that we have this desire for stuff and the associated sense of entitlement (which is quintessentially pointless and useless, doesn’t make us feel better and drives us to horribly baggaged existences), but we’ve gotten to such a point that society drives us all that way, so we may as well have BETTER.
The same applies to Bespoke suits, organic veg and farmer’s market meat — all normal things 150 years ago, but in the days of everything a luxury because everybody doesn’t have them. It’s a new sense of what is important and one that also ties into the sense of backlash that is building in some quarters.
It strikes me that the bespoke business will be less affected by anti-consumerist activities than a bigger conglomorate (the china/walmart) might be…