General
More Education, Less Ad Clicking
Feb 16th
More education means being less click happy.
A few days ago, Chitika Research put out some interesting data comparing the relation between online advertising CTR (click through rates) in comparison to college education. According to their findings, the higher the percentage of college graduates, the lower the CTR for the population. Their conclusion from that finding was that advertisers who target more educated demographics should do a better job of making their ads “worthwhile.” They also recommended that “…this is an opportunity to push the industry towards the idea of content first, sales pitch second, even among advertisements.” Read the rest of this entry »
Tool/Gadget Convergence In My Life
Jan 7th
Why I don't have full pockets. Photo by Terry Johnston via Flickr
Over the years I’ve listened to so many tech pundits talking about how people don’t want converged devices. Then more and more devices converged. Once again tech pundits said that only tech enthusiasts would be interested in converged devices. These days mainstream consumers are embracing converged devices and it only looks like that trend is going to continue.
So, today I decided to list the progression of tools that I have used for different tasks during my work career. I’m going to leave out computers and be purposely vague about mobile phones though because honestly I can’t remember all the different models of each I have used over the years. My lists run from 1998 through today. Read the rest of this entry »
Obligatory 2010 Trend Predictions
Jan 1st
Happy 2010!
It is that time again. The time for lists. It always happens at the end of one year and the beginning of the next. People list the best of this and the worst of that for the previous year and make their predictions for the next. I’m bucking that trend slightly, but not by much. I’m not too interested in what has passed, except in what it says about where we are headed, so I’m taking a pass on doing a year end list and moving right towards the future. Instead of predicting events though, I’m going to talk about some important trends I see continuing in 2010.
Economy: The economy will be on a slow burn as the year progresses with a very slow uptick in jobs towards the second half of the year. Banking as an industry will continue to be on shaky ground throughout the year as the ramifications of 10%+ unemployment for a prolonged period of time takes its toll with additional foreclosures and bankruptcies, in addition to customers locking in less profitable (for banks), lower fixed rate loans.
Social Media: Social media will occupy more and more of the mindshare of businesses as the year progresses. Fortunately, unlike Second Life, enough people participate in social media to keep the interest of businesses. Unfortunately, most businesses will use social media improperly or employ “experts” who act more like email spammers than the client liaison style public relations people that social media requires to be effective. That mistake will result in a low ROI (Return on Investment) and many businesses dropping their social media initiatives prematurely, allowing competitors that know what they are doing in the social media space to gain a competitive advantage. Read the rest of this entry »
Inaugural Post
Dec 30th
Hello, everyone! I'm David van Sunder. Nice to meet you all.
I was going to jump right in and start posting articles, but I decided that it would be better to put together a post welcoming anyone that decides to stop in and read the blog. This post is not just to thank anyone that stops in for spending some time with me. It is also an opportunity for me to define what this blog will be about. That way I can crystallize the blog’s purpose, which helps to focus future articles and lets you know what to expect. All too often, bloggers fail to do that and their blogs wander aimlessly because of it. Sometimes, that journey is enjoyable. Other times it is annoying or, worse yet, wastes the reader’s time. That is one thing I don’t want to do. Everyone’s time is valuable. If you aren’t reading this blog, you can be doing any of a number of things. So, I want to make sure that whenever you stop by, that you leave feeling like it was time well spent.
So, what’s the purpose of this blog already?
The purpose of this blog is to share knowledge that I have acquired, either through research or experience. I will often cover topics that you have seen covered elsewhere, but my goal is to cover those topics a little differently than you have seen in the past. That way you should take something away that you had not known before. That might be a fact, a different point of view, or an insight into how I or someone else thinks that sheds some light on a situation in your own life. Now that’s the point of the blog, but what is its focus?
What topics will I cover?
I will focus on my passions, which are technology, business and people. I can’t say which of those areas I’m most passionate about, but I do feel that technology and people often intersect in business, which is why I listed those topics in that order. I find it interesting to talk about all of those areas separately, but I don’t feel that doing that does justice to any of them. Those topics are enriched by exploring how they interact with each other and that is something I am deeply interested in: How people, businesses and technology interact. I pride myself on investigating how things fit. That’s probably the result of the combination of my curiosity, my education at Santa Clara University and my time as a Big 5 consultant when I worked at Accenture. Read the rest of this entry »
