Sunday Brunch Reads with Social Media ReInvention: Week of 09/15/14

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Sunday Brunch Menu LARGE

Share-worthy links Social Media ReInvention Community Members can enjoy during Sunday brunch:

1) Bloomberg Businessweek: Tim Cook Interview: The iPhone 6, the Apple Watch, and Remaking a Company's Culture. Brad Stone shows how Tim Cook transformed a post-Steve Jobs Apple:

  • Collaboration inside Apple among hardware, software, and services. Departments worked in their own silos and defended turfs in the Steve Jobs era. Apple Watch marks the first product launch where multiple departments and large teams worked together. The renegade teams who broke off from the rest of the company and operated in secrecy are history.
  • The turning point – firing Scott Forstall. Forstall led software development for the iPad and iPhone under Steve Jobs. Cook broadened responsibilities among his top leaders. Jony Ive (Apple's Head of Design) assumed leadership of the look/feel of Apple iOS while Craig Federighi (Senior VP for Software Engineering) took mobile operating systems. Stone notes: "It was a plan designed to break down walls and extinguish infighting, executed with precision."
  • Financial discipline. Stone writes: "In meetings once devoted to the hallowed act of reviewing products, he (Tim Cook) asks managers pointed questions about spending and hiring projections, says a person involved. Staff from finance and operations now sit alongside engineers and designers in product road map sessions with key component partners."
  • Collaboration with external partners to penetrate untapped markets (aka the enterprise / large corporations). Anecdotes from IBM CEO, Ginni Rometty, and Cook's rationale for their partnership are gold.

 

2) Fortune: Peter Thiel Disagrees With You. Roger Parloff (Senior Editor of Legal Affairs,  Fortune Magazine) interviews Silicon Valley's Peter Thiel.  Parloff's article describes the philosophies and relationships influencing Thiel's business decisions: 

 

 

3) Fast Company: The $3.2 Billion Man: Can Google's Newest Star Outsmart Apple? Austin Carr's profile of Tony Fadell (Founder and CEO of Nest) details Fadell's decision to join Google, his relationship with Steve Jobs (his former mentor), and Fadell's pursuit of perfection with Nest products. The article concludes with Fadell's comments on Larry Page as his "next mentor."

  

 
4) eMarketer: Millennials Respond to Brand Transparency—for Health and Other Products. Erin Byrne (Chief Engagement Officer, Grey Healthcare Group) shares her thoughts on how pharmaceutical manufacturers and healthcare companies can earn the trust of millennials:

  • Give them information to make their own decisions. They trust their own research via an information journey. "You can't scare them into behavior."
  • Recongnize millennials are a "multi-screen generation." They consume information via their smartphones, tablets, laptops, and print magazines. Make sure your content "syncs up."
  • Be honest and transparent. Millennials trust social sources. Channel-optimize your message and explain the brand/service benefits. 


5) The Paley Center for Media: Jerry Seinfeld and David Letterman (Full Program). Mitch Joel published a blog post about the link between Seinfeld's ideas for Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and creating differentiating content:

  • Season One is ten (10) individual garage experiments. Seinfeld wanted to test his theories on attracting online audiences for a new show (e.g., movement of the guests, movement of the cars, etc.). He guessed on what might work (or might not). He wanted to learn from the experience.
  • The original episodes weren't written or optimized for smartphone viewing. Seinfeld produced the show for desktop viewing. Analytics proved people watched the show at work on their laptops/desktops via time of day viewing.
  • He pitched the show to Facebook, YouTube, and other Silicon Valley royalty. They passed. 
  • Four (4) people create, produce, and edit the show (Seinfeld included). Production costs are $100,000 per episode. The Internet allows Seinfeld creative freedom a cable network won't provide. That's why he enjoys doing the work.

 

 

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Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention.  Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+. 

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Categories: Books, Competitive Advantage, Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Publishing, Reinvention