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Nada

The idea, to decrease dependence on cars and get people on bikes.  What’s unique about it?  Nada Bike is a venture from Project M that sells bike frames for $100, with no manufacturers markings or brands. Buy it.  Build it.  Enjoy it. 

It’s a great idea, however what became more interesting for me was the posted photos of customers who had bought the frame, and listed their ranking of when purchased. Better yet, if you click on their profiles you’re taken to the buyers link of choice, most of which are blogs and freelance pages. It’s basically one collective job board of similar minded people feeding off each others kudos. And I would imagine it works for them too.  

I remember applying for a marketing job at Aesop. Part of the application process was to read an article about Aesop’s business philosophy, focusing on the concept of obliquity.  The idea behind it is that if you want to go in one direction, the best route may involve going in the other. Yes it does sound a little paradoxical, but according to obliquity, goals are more likely to be achieved when pursued indirectly.

Buying an item for a good cause, posting your photo and link, promoting yourself in the circle.  I’m sure none of these guys bought the bikes with the intention to promote their crafts, but it happened anyway, and in a more meaningful way that any ad words campaign could ever do.

It’s great that I found Nada Bike.   But what I love more is the people I got to discover through it.

World Domination

I love Foursquare.  It’s great in Melbourne where not so many people have caught onto it just yet, which means a serious advantage getting those mayor-ships in place before the masses.  But that’s changing.  Not because of its growing popularity with us Aussies but because of the beginning of adoption by large corps hoping to get in on the action.  

Today Starbucks is the first major coffee chain to tap into the wonder that is Foursquare.  With no research to back up the next few statements, I believe that almost 90% of Foursquare users check in to cafes at some point in the day, because of the nature of waiting for coffee and the love everyone has in their own discovered shop.  In fact, I think 90% of Foursquare users can probably be classified ‘coffee enthusiasts’. When you have such a refined audience all using the same social app, with incentives to change and promote their coffee preferences, it becomes a small risk with high reward.  While Starbucks is struggling to maintain itself here, we will start to see more and more consumables flood the location game area.  Which means more benefits for those playing :)

Starbucks: Where horrible coffee and great ideas come together.