Minter Dial's Blog: Minter Dialogue, page 70

How Can Data And Social Drive Your Business with Cathy Huyghe (MDE247)

Minter Dialogue with Cathy Huyghe

Cathy Huyghe is a writer and media professional, with a special interest in wine and the spirit of hospitality. Cathy is author of Hungry for Wine and speaks and writes on subjects ranging from wine and gastronomy to digital media and entrepreneurship. She’s a frequent contributor to Forbes and since more recently to INC. In this conversation with Cathy, who is co-founder of Enolytics, providing big data services to the wine industry, we discuss the the challenges in the wine industry, how data can be used to provide a differentiating value proposition and which are the best wine apps.

Below, you’ll find the show notes and, of course, you are invited to comment. If you liked the podcast, please take a moment to go over to iTunes to rate the podcast.

To connect with Cathy Huyghe:

You can find Cathy on Twitter: @cathyhuyghe
Cathy Huyghe’s eponymous site
Cathy on Linkedin

Sites and apps mentioned by Cathy:

Drizly
Vivino
750
Wine Searcher

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Further resources for the Minter Dialogue Radio Show:

Meanwhile, you can find my other interviews on the Minter Dialogue Radio Show on Buzzsprout or via iTunes. Please don’t be shy about rating this podcast on iTunes here!

Music credit: The jingle at the beginning of the show is courtesy of my friend, Pierre Journel, author of the Guitar Channel. And, the new sign off music is “Finger Paint,” written and performed by Josh Saxe, produced by Chase Geiser. Here’s a link on iTunes. I invite you to take a spin on Pierre’s podcast or listen to more of Josh’s music!

The post How Can Data And Social Drive Your Business with Cathy Huyghe (MDE247) appeared first on Myndset.

How are you choosing to say goodbye to old tech?

One of the (literally) elephants in the closet is the need to sunset and say good-bye to old tech. Last week, I finally threw out a beloved possession, my very first palm pilot (pictured below). It had two lives (read: two owners) and served us well. It was an innovation in its time. It was small, discrete and deeply useful. Its battery lasted a long time. In short, it was well loved. But alas, its time had come… Not to leave it alone in its last walk, I decided to jettison another bastion of the “old days”: a Beatz music add-on to the ipod that allowed you tap along creatively with the music in your headphones.

Holding on to the past

The truth is that my cupboard is stuffed with a lot of old tech: worn cables, weird and unrecognizable plugs, dusty electronics and outdated devices. I suspect the same is true in many if not most households around the world. We hold on to them because of what…?

fear that we may yet need them or be able to pass them along for another usage?
belief that we’re being environmentally unfriendly or too consumerist if we are always throwing out electronics?
that we’ll never find that same cable connection again?
waiting for all that free time to sort them out and figure out which ones you need to chonk?
waiting for spare time to put them up on eBay or Craigslist?
thinking that one day their value will return (as in become museum pieces)?
no idea where to take them for the most eco-friendly disposal?
waiting for Godot…?

To sunset your digital activities and old tech

The same can be said for many of our digital efforts online, too. It’s a skill/mindset we should be upgrading: how to sunset our digital activities (for example an old website or an influencer marketing programme), tools and devices!

If we want to get truly digital and to stay ahead of the pack, I believe that digital hygiene also means cleansing oneself of our old anachronistic stuff… It clogs the mind as well as space.

What do you think? How to decided between the items to keep or throw away?

The post How are you choosing to say goodbye to old tech? appeared first on Myndset.

Eurostar Travels Through Virtual Reality – The Eurostar Odyssey

The debate rages on as to whether the future lies with Augmented Reality (AR) or Virtual Reality (VR)? Or will it be more about Mixed Reality (including 360˚)? In any event, as far as VR is concerned, we continue to see experiments with more or less success. Hitches in the development of VR typically include meek visual storytelling, technological hiccoughs/bugs and, still, weak consumer awareness. Eurostar recently launched its VR experience, Eurostar Odyssey, to entertain its passengers during the 2+ hour journey between France and England. Being a Eurostar fanboy and geek, I had to try it out.

The cardboard “Virtual Reality” headset

Eurostar Odyssey – The Experience

The cardboard headset I received was from the Eurostar back office, before they were made available to the general public. As such, my headset had a bit of wear and tear, but was otherwise fully functional. Once I was onboard, I immediately signed up for the onboard wifi as, to check it out, you actually need to be on board and in the Eurostar app (or website) to use it. N.B, In the train station, the onboard wifi is distinctly more effective. I loaded up the app on my smartphone and then dutifully slotted the phone into the headset. Here were a few of my thoughts and reactions:

The set up requires you to input in which seat you’re sitting (ie in which direction you are facing). Having done so, I found it peculiar as the fish were all in the aisle… I then input a different seat direction and had the fish outside the window where I expected to find them!
Since the wifi onboard remains spotty and/or slow (and being onboard with wifi connection is a condition sine qua non), there are inevitable blips in connection. And, for international travellers who rely on the wifi to avoid roaming charges, this is a major hurdle still to overcome.
The method of selecting an object (fish, shipwreck…) to find out more about involves keeping your red dot (in the middle of the screen) primed on a target. Then that target will migrate in front of you and you can learn more about it. Not too bad a system. You can even scoop multiple targets.
If you don’t have the headset (that option exists), you just use your smartphone. This makes the app seem more like Augmented Reality rather than Virtual Reality.
There is no audio which would certainly make the experience far more immersive.
The stories and content is fine (for an adult).

Eurostar Odyssey by Eurostar Odyssey

I note that Eurostar released a video on Youtube end of July (see their site)

And for the kids?

Not satisfied with my own ‘adult’ feedback, I sought out some kids to see what they thought. A few rows up, I found a vulnerable set of parents with two youngsters. In that I had only one kit, there was a risk that VR-envy would settle in for the one who was “left out.” Notwithstanding that inevitable fact, I gained a few elements of feedback from the American father (more on him later*) and his two daughters (roughly 7 and 9 years old).

With his American smartphone and with the train hurtling at 300 kmh, the wifi failed dismally. I ended up having to loan them my own local smartphone.
Once properly loaded up, the kids alternated and spent about 15 minutes each exploring the underwater Odyssey experience.
One shy daughter said about it: “yeah, it was good.” Not overwhelming enthusiasm though.
The father gave a probably higher thumbs up as it did occupy the kids for a while; albeit when one was using the headset, the other was requiring compensatory attention!

Bottom Line?

Replete with an error (in French) in the corporate video…. Can you spot the mistake?

When an organisation invests in one or other “new tech” initiative, the key to evaluating its success lies truly in understanding the strategic intent behind it. Without knowledge of that intent, the outside observer that I am says that the Eurostar Odyssey VR experience represents a reasonably logical idea: educational entertainment (“edutainment”) for its kid passengers that will potentially relieve the parents and surrounding passengers. If the objective is to show off Eurostar’s innovative bent, I would say that getting a fully functioning wifi should be higher up the priority list… and I’m still quite unsatisfied by the design of the new Eurostar trains, as I have written before.

The Future of Virtual Reality…

In my upcoming book, Futureproof, my co-author Caleb Storkey and I debated over many coffees whether or not Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality merited their own chapter. While there will be some extraordinary opportunities with VR for its emotional and immersive experience (in health, education, entertainment…), we chose NOT to include a focus on these technologies. The main reasons are that (a) VR has still many technical and UX issues to overcome and (b) the headset is far too cumbersome. Moreover, the storytelling capabilities are far from honed. I think we will see much more VR emerging in the 2020s — but in different formats. In the meantime, it seems more likely that AR will find greater uptake.

Your thoughts are welcome as ever!

*It turns out that the individual I approached so seemingly randomly is someone who knew my name for having worked with Traackr in the past! Too funny. Proof that serendipity will lead to unexpected and great discoveries!

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What the news can teach us in marketing and the fine line between transparency and mystery with Nina Radetich (MDE246)

Minter Dialogue with Nina Radetich

Nina Radetich spent twenty years of her career in news media, being evening news anchor for KVBC and KTNV in Las Vegas. Since 2012, Nina, who is a member of the Duct Tape Marketing consultant network, has been running her own marketing and media agency. In this conversation, we look from the inside at the way news has changed, what are the key learnings for businesses and executives running them, what should companies be doing to create better content and cut through the noise, and how to cut the fine line between transparency and mystery.

Below, you’ll find the show notes and, of course, you are invited to comment. If you liked the podcast, please take a moment to go over to iTunes to rate the podcast.

To connect with Nina Radetich:

Radetich Marketing & Media: Nina Radetich
You can find Nina on Twitter: @NinaRVegas
Nina Radetich on Linkedin

Site(s) mentioned in the podcast:

Ann Handley Marketing Profs — Great podcast with Ann on Duct Tape Marketing
Global Editors Network – News Editors community
Jason Miller (LinkedIn) podcast

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Further resources for the Minter Dialogue Radio Show:

Meanwhile, you can find my other interviews on the Minter Dialogue Radio Show on Buzzsprout or via iTunes. Please don’t be shy about rating this podcast on iTunes here!

Music credit: The jingle at the beginning of the show is courtesy of my friend, Pierre Journel, author of the Guitar Channel. And, the new sign off music is “Finger Paint,” written and performed by Josh Saxe, produced by Chase Geiser. Here’s a link on iTunes. I invite you to take a spin on Pierre’s podcast or listen to more of Josh’s music!

The post What the news can teach us in marketing and the fine line between transparency and mystery with Nina Radetich (MDE246) appeared first on Myndset.