do
country rules
i was in the Peak District at the weekend. wonderful walks in vast green open spaces, cleared my foggy mind. I find it brilliant that people sell things randomly outside their homes in more rural areas and there's an unspoken trust and etiquette, take what you want, leave the money in the pot. it's not about making cash, but covering costs, sharing produce, thinking local. this would be cool in the city, it would be interesting to see what different households in a street might sell, if it might lead to more connections within local communities. i'm sure i could shift some cake. unfortunately it would no doubt be abused. Could you leave a box of coins on your doorstep? Would people take something and leave money?
I bought some beans back, i'm hoping they'll grow into magic beanstalks.
segment yourself
segmentation. been thinking a lot at the moment about how people, young people in particular are segmenting themselves through the groups and communities they form around their passions, or beliefs and attitudes and how this seems to jar with large consumer segmentation models. These ultimately end up throwing lots of people into a handful of groups based on some often questionable and generic behaviours. I understand the need for companies to have a map of their consumers that they can navigate and plan from (sort of how i see segmentation), so it needs to be manageable, and the need for segments to be of a profitable size to a brand. But for example how valuable is a more active yet small group of people with potential to influence over a bigger but more passive group? The power of the group is the interesting bit i think. Web groups are clearly self-segmenting, the biggest group i can find on flickr is about 22,000, on myspace there are millions of groups, in entertainment alone there are over 4 million, one of which has nearly 150,000 members grouping around art. so i wonder how segmentation models are adapting as we shift towards more niche consumption and service creation. how can a brand or organisation respond to more and more varieties and assorted groups of people who are much more fluid in the way they behave, change and develop? any thoughts here?
seems consumer generated segmentation also has its critics...
discovered on the reverse of the fence in my local park. i'm sure i've heard similar responses once or twice to large scale brand segmentations.