Simon's Mess » marketing

Dell now understands the Apple €/$ exchange rate

admin — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 14:19:47 +0000

Dell is now using the same methods than Apple is to sell its products on the European market.

Apple is famously known here in Europe for applying an exchange rate of 1$ = 1€, whatever the real one is ! Despites the result in a (relatively) much higher price on the European market, Apple has won big shares, and some of us are big fans
I just discovered that Dell is applying the exact same principle. Look at their new desktop called Studio Hybrid, and how much they are sold for in the US and in France :

Yes, you are reading right, the exact same machines are sold for the exact same numbers … The only difference is the currency tag
I still cannot understand the theory behind that. If you look at exchange rates between the Euro and the Dollar today, those machine could be sold in Europe for something as low as 320€, and they totally work in the path of the EEPC, or other ultra-portable machines that some of us could use to plug as a media center in the living room. I guess that the design of this machine makes the price, but anyhow, it still pretty strange !
Any ideas out there why not applying a more understandable exchange rate ?

Left brain vs right brain

admin — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:38:00 +0000

I found this picture by Alix de La Tour du Pin on a french blog about entrepreneurship (here).
This is indeed a really good mashup of what we are all made of : rigor and creativity. As an engineer I tend to have my left brain side take over my full body, but it clearly is really important to let both sides of it show up every once in a while.
Of course anyone will tell you that women have a more developed right brain side, hence their enhance creativity, and our relative incomprehension of their way of working (easy shot granted ).
Anyhow, reading about entrepreneurship and speaking with colleagues I find it really important to manage the both sides of your brain efficiently. The left side will hep you manage your work and keep things on track over time. However the right side will help you find the one path to success as well as the necessary envy to get through the day happily and make sure that you keep your work experience a fun and interesting one. Therefore it should be every manager’s duty to encourage his team to let the fun come at the table once in a while in order to make sure that the work can be done nicely and efficiently. And of course this should be the prime role of every entrepreneur out there, not only to make sure that his company always figures out the best ideas before the other ones, but also to make sure that his team (however big or small it is) remains happy and efficient at work.

And you, what’s your take on rigor vs creativity ?

Is e-Commerce that much of a paradise ?

admin — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 21:02:00 +0000

I’m the first one to go online and buy stuff there. I’m lazy, don’t really like to go out shopping, so having the comfort of sitting in my chair to choose my next clothes or gadgets are really valuable to me.
However you have to make some compromises, like spend a lot of time looking for the tee-shirt you always wanted, or this particular brand of shirt that looks so good on you, or tis particular device with that specific color and memory … But most of all you have to make up with the websites selling all these stuffs which for most of them are really lame at it, and really consist in a list of items without too much of a description for the article on sale !

I recently found a really good list of parodies in this article, and I linked them underneath.

There you really realize how much compromises you are really to make in the comfort of your deskchair… That is a lot !

The funny thing however is that when you get back to real life (and by that I mean real shops with real people) , you expect efficiency from shop staff. As a bad example, last Friday it took a lady 5 minutes (no kidding ) to cash on the three items I bought on sale in 3 minutes top after entering the shop (okye, I told you I don’t like shopping, so I’m quick in deciding ). I was ready to leave after two minutes when I realized I was on holidays and spending some good time with my son so I needed to relax … She got lucky in some sort of sense
Video #1 – If Only Search Engines Could Understand What We Want

Video #2 – Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought…

Video #3 – Premature Redirection

Video #4 – Zero Results Found

Guy’s the iPhone master !

admin — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 20:00:00 +0000

So how cool is the new iPhone ? Today is lauch day in the US, and everyone on the planet is writing about this cool new phone. However only one person could do it in such a way that you need to read it twice before understanding the whole purpose of the post … Guy !
The post is here, and the title is clear : “My iPhone review“. However when reading it, it’s more about AT&T and some stupid DSL problem he had with a truemors account. At the end of the reading you will be like “I though the post was about the iPhone, what a F&$££$$* ?”
Anyhow, read it again, and you’ll find the one flaw that may be problematic for the iPhone because it seems granted it will a really great phone !

Office LipDub contest

admin — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 22:33:00 +0000

The buzz has been around for quite a while now, but this crazy video of this crazy company was really something ! Don’t tell me you’ve never seen these teenagers from ConnectedVentures (Whoops, we wondered for quite a while where they were from !) who sang Flagpole Sitter from Harvey Danger. If you missed it, here it is :

The company was in fact looking for some new people to join the company … I’m sure they must have had quite a number of resume following this video.
Anyhow, the reason for my post is that, following this buzz, other lip syncing fanatics have walked in their footsteps. So here is one re-enactment (Watch out for hte last 30s ) :

Granted it’s not as good as the first one … But still funny !
A contest has even been thrown, which you can follow at OfficeLipDub. Only two contestants for now … Ready to shoot a video ?

Brilliant

admin — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:04:00 +0000

Axe, a deodorant (not sure this is the correct translation) maker, has been making some real good advertising campaigns for quite some times now. But this new one I found via Blog de Nuit is simply brilliant ! The tag line really puts it on the limit of acceptable, but just on the limit ! And the more you look it, the more you are going to like it ! My congrats to the maker of this one.

Here are a few of previous nice ones I got by mail :

Guy and Trumeors

admin — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 21:00:00 +0000

I’m not sure I already mentioned that but since I watched the video The Art of the Start from Guy Kawasaki, I’ve become a huge fan ! From reading his blog, to looking at the company CogHead (he his on the advisory board), to following his advices, I’ve done it all ! You can see that in the presentations I made in tradeshows for my current company … You should surely see the change of method
Anyhow, in a first post on his blog, Guy mentioned the Trumeors web site. And a couple of days later, the verdict got thrown out … It was Guy’s new company, with all the explanation in this post. The list of actions that lead to the current success of this website is plain dead simple, and simply shows how much Guy is understanding how current trends are going. This means how to go from a plain simple (but sure real and new) idea to a successful implementation. Nothing is really complicated as long as you know (the one about the legal fees is clearly interesting) about it. But clearly the starter point here is key : The one great idea that will transform an adventure into success.
I have made it clear to close friends that it was one of my goals to find this great idea and finally start on the entrepreneurial road. However I do think this is the key starter point that is the only way to success. So while looking for it, and finally finding it, I’ll continue learning which I think is another key important point that must not be forgotten about !