Giraffe Forum

Cloud computing and virtualization reflect a general movement driven by the Web: a shift towards a more service-driven economy.
There are two major trends that are now coming together to reshape our economies and societies. One is the continuing replacement of humans by computers in the workplace. Computers are essential in manufacturing and in the office. […]

Customers are much more likely to get impatient with your website than they are to be bored with it.
When was the last time you were bored with a website? Do you get bored with Google? Do you get bored with Amazon? Perhaps the last book you bought from Amazon was boring, but was the Amazon […]

Managers in large organizations are too concerned with downsizing and cost cutting and not concerned enough with efficiency, productivity and customer satisfaction.
“Much of the conventional wisdom about downsizing—like the fact that it automatically drives a company’s stock price higher, or increases profitability—turns out to be wrong, Jeffrey Pfeffer writes for Newsweek in February 2010. […]

Good complexity leads to greater convenience, choice and options. Bad complexity leads to frustration, wasted time and wasted money.
Dimitris is a small business owner in Greece. According to a TIME article, he estimates he has paid “about a fifth of his revenue in bribes — to tax collectors, health inspectors, police and other officials”. Small […]

It is time for marketers and communicators to stop treating customers like little children and start treating them like intelligent adults.
“In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology,” the good Google person told me. “This includes […]

Modern organizations have armies of people trained in producing and publishing information, but there is a huge and growing lack of people who are skilled at organizing, analyzing and prioritizing it.
The Christmas 2009 airline-bombing attempt in the USA showed what can happen when there is too much information and too little skilled analysis. “It’s […]

You build a brand on the Web one click at a time. You destroy your brand by wasting your customers’ time.
I am a customer of a number of banks. I judge these banks, at least partly, by the experience I have with them online. I used to really like the National Irish Bank experience. Then […]

Traditional marketers and communicators are obsessed with achieving their objectives. Web marketers and communicators are obsessed with helping customers achieve their objectives.
“Brand advertising, the kind you’re used to seeing on TV and in print, isn’t nearly as big on the Internet as the search ads dominated by Google,” writes Peter Kafka for the Wall Street […]

A great many people have a poor view of what happened during the 2000s, with the exception of the growth of the Web.
According to a survey published in December 2009, Americans have a pretty dismal view of the 2000s. It has been voted the worst decade in living memory. “By roughly two-to-one, more say they […]

Ryanair has recently been voted Britain’s worst family brand. Yet more people fly with them than any other airline in the world.
Ryanair represents the rise of the rational consumer. The rational consumer is much less open to manipulation by branding than previous generations of consumers.
What do people really want from an airline? […]