Writings from Force 5 Basecamp

05/05/11

UPDATE: Since the posting of this article there has been dramatic improvements by the community and now this is no longer the best way to implement this feature. We now use the “Views Slideshow,” found at: http://drupal.org/project/views_slideshow. We have used this method to create the various slideshows for the City of South Bend at www.SouthBendOn.com. One of the more common

05/04/11

Have you made restaurant reservations online? Come on, using a landline phone to make restaurant reservations is so 20th Century! These days, more and more consumers expect to engage with restaurants online and through mobile devices. Are you one of them? Restaurant operators who don’t build up their online presence and brand loyalty are missing an opportunity to generate higher

05/03/11

Information – Fast and Furious I recently read an article from the Center for Media Research that had some very interesting statistics on digital consumption. 76.7% read email and respond evenings and weekends 43.2% answer texts or emails on date/social occasion 57.4 % never turn off phone 33.0% check email middle of the night 35.2% answer work emails while with

04/28/11

In their 2007 classic, Made to Stick, authors Chip and Dan Heath cite an experiment conducted in 1990 by Dr. Elizabeth Newton, PhD. The experiment was the study of a simple game. Subjects were given one of two roles: “tappers” and “listeners.” The tappers received a list of 25 common song names such as “Happy Birthday” and “Star Spangled Banner” and asked to tap

04/27/11

Facebook on Monday launched a new way to share content online – the Send button. While the functionality is nothing new, how you share content with friends may change with this new process of sharing. Facebook’s goal is to be that “pipe” in which you share more and more information, ultimately learning much more about you so it can deliver

04/26/11

A peek at location data sorted on an Iphone For the last week, the tech news has been reporting that Apple has secret files on the iPhone that track user location and store it on the device, without the permission of the device owner. It’s unclear what the data is used for and why Apple has been collecting it in

04/25/11

I recently read an article in MediaPost which had some incredible stats on the mobile users consumption of health information through apps and browsers. 38% of cell phone owners access the Internet using mobile phone — up 52% year over year 55% of cell phone Internet users go online daily from their mobile phones 30% of mobile subscribers use search,

04/22/11

Happy Easter from the Force 5 Pup-Peeps

04/21/11

A friend sent me this article from Rafe Needleman entitled, Facebook: Liked to Death.  It appears that advertisers in an effort to gain coveted Facebook Page ‘Likes’ are offering consumers premiums (or access to content) if they will visit their page and give them their valuable  “Thumb Up.”   Sounds like a good marketing strategy … or does it?  I invite you back to Economics 101 where you may have been introduced

04/20/11

In the business world, preparation is key to many forms of success. Enter DECA (formerly known as Distributive Education Clubs of America). DECA aims to give high school students the skills needed to enter the workforce prepared and ready for that success. What is DECA? DECA is a global high school business organization whose main goal is to prepare emerging

04/19/11

I recently read an article in Marketing Daily, about the growth in private-label products. No surprise there, right? The figures were pretty compelling with consumers saving 33% off their grocery bills by purchasing all private-label products. I have followed the trend, trying more private-label products than I have in the past. While I haven’t gone all private-label, I have more

04/19/11

Going Mobile? Listen to this projection…. A recent study by Morgan Stanley projects mobile internet users to exceed desktop internet users within the next few years. (2015) Yikes! – – Powerful stat. Believe it or not, the question isn’t “Should you go mobile?” but rather “Can you afford not to…?” Here are some more mobile stats for our Force 5