Dr. Neil Hair

A new PhoneBlog has been left by Dr Neil Hair! Click here to listen to it!

A very intelligent friend recently proffered - so whats the point of the video's? Which made me think a little. Thankfully recent news comes to my rescue and manages to put it into perspective in a way that is much more eloquent then my own (hard to believe I hear you cry). The Times in the UK has recently written a great article on the use of video blogs as a means of enhancing ones own brand image. Granted, there needs to be a point to them (proof one owns more colours in ones wardrobe then plain old black for instance). But with free services such as youtube.com its simple and easy to get yourself out there. Students might want to think about electronic self made interviews. It's a well known fact that companies are increasingly looking at alternative sources of information to get a picture of what a potential employee looks like (watch out potential facebook entries!) why not take the fight to them? Take every opportunity to brand yourself. Get a third party view on what you've done and benchmark best practice.

Welcome to the new look and feel of neilhair.com. The site has been re-designed using WordPress and Macromedia products. My special thanks to Josh Katinger at Accession Media for helping me with the technical aspects and bringing me back into the 21st Century. I'd appreciate your comments on what you think, how I might improve functionality for you and what you'd like to see more of.

Neil.

For reasons to love the UK, and miss her, look no further then her adverts. I got wind of this from my Brother who asked me if I'd seen it. Of course, the joy of the internet is such that before the end of the Skype call the answer was yes. Enjoy - a marketing masterpeice… more to come.

The ultimate category buster? I suppose it shouldnt come as too much a shock to learn that Google is planning on entering the travel industry. With money to burn acquisitions are likely in many areas to help it maintain it's edge. Several issues trouble me, the first involves the failure of previous efforts to diversify - lets point to Froogle and its inability to really make a dent in existing competition. A classic case perhaps of failing to 'stick to the knitting?' Similarly it's IM plans. She does however have a successful record in other areas - Gmail for one of course. Yahoo in the late 90's was queen of diversity when it comes to product and service offering and we all know how that ended. We can also point to similar organizations that have used its central brand to diversify into new areas and examine their history - Richard Branson's Virgin is a classic case. Virgin Vodka (not good), Virgin Trains (actually rather competent), Virgin Airlines, Virgin Records, Virgin Cola (dont go there), Virgin Mobile (cell), Virgin radio and so on… whats interesting here is that many of these firms were sold the moment they became unweildly. It will be interesting to see what Google does with its ailing businesses - and even more so to see if consumers take to its attempts at brand extension.

Read with interest a recent study that claims podcast listeners were young technology savvy males. It's interesting because the reports seem to signal the deathknell of podcasts in much the same way as they did back in 1996 for the arrival of the internet. And we know how that story went. What I like about Podcasts are their versatility - pointcast to the level of the individuals needs or tastes for one. Portability (and I've talked a lot about the joys of advertising to people in captive situations as they watch cellphone tv on the bus or train), scalability as well, guerilla marketers love this stuff - my favorite at the moment is of course WOOT's podcasts which feature the deal of the day. I dont know why I like them so much, I guess it appeals to my sense of humor. Check them out, you'll be a convert. Of course ultimately there are push versus pull issues here which are the ultimate reason why we should be interested in them, marketers have tried and fail at pushing messages to consumers (look at our wonderful system of TV ads), give them the reason to look actively for them (as they do with mainstream web browsing and searching for information) and you have a much more effective campaign. Not convinced? would you be interested in listening to a podcast from Steve Jobs on the virtues of installing Vista on all Macs from 2008? Thought so…

I'm absolutely delighted to be able to tell you that I was announced the winner of the Provost's award for teaching excellence. The announcement was made on Friday and I celebrated accordingly! I love my job, and it's great to be recognized for this passion. My thanks to the committee members who were subjected to hours of class observations and of course my students, past, present and future. A tremendous honor.

See what I mean? watch Apple's stock double…

Another victory for Oxford… 73 v's 78 in the series, for those of you that dont know, I used to row bow many many years ago in a coxed four. Quite possibly the most energetic of sports I know of (not that I row at the moment you understand - far too busy with the research).