Users and potential users often ask me what the real difference is between kiosks and digital signage. This question is a good one, since we are increasingly seeing the lines blur between the two. You often see tools referred to as, “digital signage kiosks,” or kiosks with “attract screens.” Many end users wonder whether they should […]

New York’s empty storefronts are a dark omen for the future of cities These days, walking through parts of Manhattan feels like occupying two worlds at the same time. In a theoretical universe, you are standing in the nation’s capital of business, commerce, and culture. In the physical universe, the stores are closed, the lights are […]

The Day the World Stood Still On 2nd April 1993, as consumerism became increasingly integrated with people’s lives, the unthinkable happened: one of the world’s first and foremost leaders in advertising and design bent down to price pressures and cut back on advertising. The company was Philip Morris, which had announced a 20% reduction in the […]

The marketing world is changing every day. New tools and technologies emerge, fresh thinkers put new spins on old tactics, and the bar for quality continues to rise as audiences everywhere are exposed to more content in a day than they could possibly process. For all the changes that have taken place over the years, […]

Weight Watchers is repeating a classic psychological blunder. Weight Watchers recently announced that it plans to change the name of the companyto “WW.” The reasoning was that it wants to offer more diverse services, such as wellness support, instead of simply weight loss. The name change was launched with widespread PR and a multifaceted marketing campaign. It is […]

Why we seem to despise hypocrites more than outright liars For many of us, a huge part of daily conversation revolves around gossip. We love to talk about the blunders and missteps of friends, family, and celebrities. On top of that, news organizations and social networks are like outrage amplifiers because that’s what gets the […]

Among their recommendations for Tesla’s CEO? Delegate, get more sleep and learn to embrace short sellers. Elon Musk has had a hell of a year. The list of people the Tesla CEO has sparred with — investors on a company earnings call, investigators looking into a deadly Tesla crash, billionaire Warren Buffett, short sellers, a […]

Is your behavior naughty or nice? Forget Santa: Government and corporations will soon be taking notice. It sounds like something out of science fiction: the daily behavior of billions of citizens, tracked digitally and rewarded or punished by an unknowable, all-powerful algorithm. But, such digital control is no longer simply the stuff of pulp novels. […]

Cognitive postmortem of a product decision. Product management is an elusive thing to capture in clear-cut definitions, but it is one thing for sure: making decisions — and a lot of them, all the time. From small tactical choices you make on the fly with your team to laying the groundwork for strategic ones, you find yourself […]

By Sebastian N As science blurs the real and unreal, we are learning to distinguish them in new ways The announcement of synthetic diamonds in 1955 was met with the same kind of alarm and skepticism that greeted claims to have made alchemical gold in the Middle Ages. Could these “fake” gems, created by a team […]