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There's been lots of work done in the area of human herd behavior, but recently some research was conducted at Oxford University to examine the behavior around the download of Facebook applications.

What the research discovered was fascinating; for herd behavior to "kick in", applications need to reach a certain threshold, once they do, their adoption accelerates.

Unless the application reached the magical number of 55 downloads, it failed to get the attention of the crowd and couldn't grow in popularity.

This research shows how critical it is for ideas to not just reach the small pool of influencers, because on their own, they simply haven't got enough critical mass to drive an idea to a broad audience.

This research suggests that just throwing an idea out there and hoping it sticks, isn't going to work and nor is just an approach to influencers. Somehow, this group right in-between the influencers and mass, is the most important group to consider.

The future of the adoption and spread of communication ideas and beyond depends on the creators and communicators understanding who these people are and how they can be reached and influenced.



Posted by Ed Cotton Pepsi must have dozens of agencies working on its behalf to bring it new ideas on a regular basis, but it appears the brand isn't content relying on these guys for its tech ideas, so it's created its own forum for technologists to bring their ideas directly to the brand.

The PepsiCo 10 is a two-day event, today is day two, where an invited set of tech companies get a shot at presenting their ideas to the company.

Here's how they describe it.

"PepsiCo will to bring together PepsiCo brand marketers, venture capital and media partners, category specialists and thought leaders for a two-day idea exchange on media, communications and technology.

The group will assess presentations from 20 finalist entrepreneurs and choose the PepsiCo10 from among them. Up to 10 entrepreneurs will be named the PepsiCo10 following the Summit's end and offered the opportunity to pursue a pilot project with a PepsiCo brand team.

In addition to entrepreneur presentations and judging, the PepsiCo10 Summit will include keynote addresses from top media, communications and technology visionaries."

As you can see from this video- the initiative is being driven by Pepsi's media, social media and digital technology guys.

It's interesting to see a brand make such direct moves and it's not doing it alone- helping them are; Mashable (for the coverage carrot) and Highland Capital Partners (for that all important cash).

Clearly there's a lesson here for agencies to find forums and opportunities to bring the best external thinking in the rapidly developing tech space to their clients attention

Posted by Ed Cotton Here's a brilliant talk from author Matt Ridley at TED Oxford about the power of collaboration and exchange to create ideas.

Matt suggests that recent human progress is down to the combination of multiple ideas or ideas having sex using the biological metaphor.

Matt highlights the significant shift from making things for ourselves like simple tools, to today's computer mouse, where millions of people are all making things for us.

This happened when human beings started to exchange between groups which happened around 100,000 years ago- people were trading before they were farming.

He quotes from the economist Leonard Reed, that no one knows how to make complete things anymore, we've gone beyond the capacity of individuals and it's now all about the collective brain.

Technological progress is coming from the exchange, meeting and mating of ideas which is such a powerful force that it will conquer many of the major challenges that lie ahead.






Posted by Ed Cotton The Wired UK article on the battle between Four Square and Gowalla makes for a fascinating read.

What's especially interesting is the career path that Four Square founder, Dennis Crowley took after graduation. After graduating in communication from Syracuse University in 1999, he wanted to work in advertising, but never ended up there and went to a consulting firm instead. The fact there was nothing for him at the time in advertising isn't surprising, but it's indicative of the lack of opportunity in the business for true innovators and visionaries- if you don't fit the system, there's nothing.

The other interesting element of the story is Crowley's drive to keep pushing at his original idea by learning more through education and evolving it through various incarnations; he was behind Dodgeball.

Although a profitable future for Four Square isn't guaranteed, through perseverance and a clear understanding of the opportunity, Crowley has a created a brand that's highly valued and desired by the investment community.

Here's an excerpt..

"Dennis Crowley graduated from Syracuse University in 1999 with a degree in communications and an eye on getting a job in a New York City ad agency. Instead, he took one at Jupiter Research, a tech-analysis firm, joining a staff of young city dwellers with plenty of disposable income. But Crowley felt that something was missing from his social life. It was too hard to find out where people were; there needed to be a better way to know about the next party.

Citysearch -- a city-specific web guide to restaurants and entertainment -- just “wasn’t keeping up”, he says. At work, Crowley began tinkering with an application that would provide real-time restaurant reviews. He proposed it to his bosses. They said it wouldn’t fly. So Crowley quit, and landed at a company started by a couple of guys from Dean Shaw, a big turn-of-the-century web-investment firm.

They envisioned a future where a handheld computer could help people navigate around cities and experience them more fully. Out of that vision, they’d designed Vindigo, a city guide application for the Palm Pilot, released in 1999. Crowley, whose job title was “product manager”, spent much of his time thinking about how the clunky app could work better. The company later sold Vindigo to a Japanese firm called For-Side, which combined it with a cutesy ringtone app called Zingy.

Long before that, though, Crowley got laid off. Then 9/11 happened, and he was evicted from his West Village apartment. New York was no longer fun. He moved to New Hampshire to work as a snowboarding instructor and plot his next move. In 2004, he entered the interactive-telecommunications master’s degree programme at New York University.

It was a fertile environment for laid-off tech geniuses. For his thesis project, Crowley started designing something that he called “Friendster for cellphones”. A fellow student, Alex Rainert, had similar interests.

After graduating and failing to find work, they formed a partnership. The result was a free application called Dodgeball, a predecessor to Foursquare that sent text messages to your friends when you checked in at specific places. Dodgeball became the favoured online hangout of an elite few, its membership never topping 75,000."

Posted by Ed Cotton There's a great slide in a presentation by Nick Emmel, Planning Director of Dare, that nicely sums up the scale of change we are talking about in the world of communication.



While this might not be the whole story, it's a big part of it.


Posted by Ed Cotton Back in March, Starbucks asked their customers for ideas, it created a website and the ideas have been been flooding in, exceeding the expectations of the company.

It makes me thing that every brand should be doing this, why not?

Here are the top 20 ideas that are being considered.

It's a great list that includes new products and experiences, ways to reduce waste and more healthy items.

Option to not print Receipts



Posted by Ed Cotton