Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday February 5 2012
This month on Online Insights we explore mind control tricks from the underbelly of marketing, tease out some of Adelaide’s interesting bloggers, get a grip on British English and poke some fun at the lack lustre food photos shared in Social Media.
5 Creepy Forms of Mind Control You’re Exposed to Daily
Cars have facial expressions
As many of you know, I am a marketer. And there are many different understandings of marketing.
Some people think of marketing as those hyped-up people in car parks trying to hustle sales of ‘car wash in a can’ or similar. Others think marketing is having a job in a large firm where all you do is design posters and arrange launch events.
But I work in that part of marketing called strategy development. This is where I believe the hard yards of marketing are exercised. Thought goes into the product or service being marketed, the ‘market’ or ‘markets’ being marketed, and all that will be involved in bringing the two together. Sometimes this results in tweaking, redesigning or cancelling a product or service. At other times it results in shifting the focus of the story and message surrounding the product or service so that it can resonate with a different audience.
However, I digress. Tonight’s link is to a comedic article about some of the ‘tricks’ researched by marketing boffins for extracting an extra degree of influence from customers.
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday January 1 2012
Welcome to 2012 and the first edition of Online Insights for another year. This month we take a different approach to resolutions involving food, give ourselves some tricks for spelling better, correct some of the common myths we all believe and finish with a way to play book publisher.
What’s more, most of tonight’s links may prove helpful on this sweltering, 41 degree day.
Food list challenge
Frogs' legs anybody?
Could this be your New Year’s Resolution for 2012?
The food list challenge is a list of 100 foods and the authors believe your score determines how much of a ‘foodie’ you are. Turns out I am Mr Average with 47 out of the 100.
The list includes:
- Aligator
- Biscuits and gravy
- Frogs’ Legs
- Goulash
- Pistachio Ice Cream
- Rabbit Stew
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday December 4 2011
With xmas about 20 sleeps away a couple of sites this month will focus on that event on how to navigate work parties and how single people can treat themselves to festive feasts, we’ll discover some quick house cleaning tips (always useful this time of year) and we finish with some thrilling rides.
Andersons Law Blog Christmas wisdom
Between now and Christmas Day, many people will be letting their hair down at various work functions – those held at their place of work, their partner’s, their clients, customers or suppliers.
And as much as it is a time for fun and letting hair down, there is always a risk of letting too much down, so to speak.
The first website tonight is actually from the blog run by Andersons Solicitors here in Adelaide and it is called - The work Christmas party, fun or frightening?
This is one of the simplest and most helpful pieces I have seen on the risks of office or workplace parties.
This quote sums it all up: More than ever, it is important to remember that work functions are just that, work functions and as work functions the employer is responsible for what happens to employees (and other attendees) at work.
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday November 6 2011
This month we get real about food, about money, about music and about publishing a book.
What does a healthy person eat?
Leandra Walker's Roast Beetroot Salad
There are many theories and diets around the best food for us. There are also many examples of healthcare professionals who abuse their bodies worse than their patients do.
But a young, Darwin-based chiropractor who does live a holistically healthy life has just started a public project to help her clients (and the rest of us) see how easy it is to eat a diet consisting mainly of whole foods.
Dr Leandra Walker is co-founder of The Chiropractic Place and every day during November 2011 she is photographing and logging everything she eats.
She says it is because her clients always say they want to eat better but have no idea how to incorporate OR sustain the changes.
Her mission is to at least wean as many of us as possible OFF white bread sandwiches for lunch! Continue reading
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday October 2 2011
This month we explore what is meant by Australian Women’s Weekly when it claims that Frugality is the new Black, experience the fun side of HTML5 (who would have guessed), and a small video of magic and high tech blended into one. Enjoy.
Frugality is the New Black
Deception - tonight's theme from magic to our consumer society
My wife told me the Australian Women’s Weekly has claimed that Frugality is the New Black and a quick Google search reveals that various media outlets have been claiming this since about 2008 when a book with that title was released to ‘cash in’ on the Global Financial Crisis.
Of course, there is nothing like a tight patch to teach us how to be less wasteful and more resourceful but it is probably best to practice some of these skills and approaches to life BEFORE a crisis FORCES you to adopt them.
To that end, I discovered a series of posts on this topic by Kim Sbarcea, a Kiwi who writes under the topic of ThinkingShift. What I like about her posts is that she does not come across PREACHY and in fact often acknowledges her failings and struggles along the journey to a more sustainable lifestyle. In her post about feeding the plastic pig (a piggy bank), she confessed that she goes through cycles of being very good for months on end and then indulges in a splurge although not with big designer brand names – she has kicked that habit.
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday September 4 2011
This month we look at the importance of sleep for weight loss, of how to get our minds straight, take a global glimpse at Fathers Day and finish off with a handy way to use Lego.
Sleep adds weight AND makes you fatter
Lack of sleep bad for weight loss (Picture: iNform Health)
After reading this article, I have worked harder and harder at getting more sleep each night.
You can read the article for the technical terminology but in short, research from Stanford University has found that when we sleep less than five hours each night our hormones go crazy and end up making us not only feel hungry but feel less full.
As the writer summarises well, ‘so poor sleep essentially sets us up to feel hungry, crave food and have less satisfaction after eating. It’s not a wonder that people who sleep less have a higher BMI.’
However, the real shock came when researchers got healthy men and women to sleep just four hours in one night. They became dramatically insulin resistant the next day.
What does this mean? When you are insulin resistant it means your body cannot regulate blood sugar levels and that four hour night of sleep dropped insulin resistance to a level that was the equivalent of carrying 10kg of extra body fat. It just makes is harder all round.
The research also found that six nights of extreme lack of sleep can fast track you to Type Two Diabetes.
So, what can you do if you have trouble sleeping? Continue reading
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday August 14 2011
This month on Online Insights we look at incredible printing technology, furniture planning software that allows you to order your design, troubleshooting bitter coffee and a fun poke at MySpace.
3D Printing
Dungeons and Dragon Dice (Image: 3dfuture.com.au)
During a workshop in Murray Bridge recently for Regional Development Australia, I met Andy Ide, a man obsessed by the technology known as 3D printing.
When he mentioned it to me on the night I nodded cautiously, thinking I knew what he was talking about but it was when I walked through his website and watched a video of the process that my jaw dropped and I realised I was listening with a 20th Century mindset to 21st Century science!
In essence, 3D printing is when three dimensional plans are applied to a printer that can spew resins and different substances from its printing head, rather than just ink.
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday July 03 2011
This month we prepare for an indoors winter with tips for making better home movies, things to do with your store of pumpkins, ways to find public toilets when the cold conditions prompt an unplanned call of nature, and one of the most obvious cases of political messaging captured on film. Meanwhile, on the Web 2.0 front, it has been a busy time with Google rolling out their newest attack on the Social Networking market with Google+ and Facebook poised to strike back this coming week with an announcement of integrated video chat within Facebook using the Skype service. But for now, on with the sites.
How to make a movie at home
Unlock your inner Kubrick (Blue Seduction Movie Set by Redvette via Flickr)
With winter upon us it is likely that you will be needing to entertain families at home and inside. With a video camera, a computer and some creativity, you could work as a team and create a celluloid masterpiece.
Here are some wise tips that will lead you through the process.
- Think about the genre or style of movie you wish to make first
- Go and rent some movies in that genre/style
- Decide on a narrative movie (story-telling), documentary style, or a compilation (editing together bits of footage you already have) Continue reading
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday June 05 2011
This month on Online Insights we help out a neighbour or hire them, we try to help save a parent support service, cook a delicious breakfast treat and investigate smoking that is not smoking.
Parent Helpline
Top picture, great slogan at the Save Parent Helpline rally, bottom picture, my little girl doing her bit
When governments carve up the pie for spending OUR money, they face innumerable demands from many sectors. For example, having cut leave loading for public servants in this year’s budget, the government has now backtracked due to pressure (they will find it hard to reform this area because public servants are so used to dwelling in an alternate universe of cushy conditions and clock watching that any reforms will be met with intense bursts of pain).
But one decision that at best makes no sense and at worst suggest hyper hypocrasy, is the axing of funding for the Parent Helpline’s overnight operation.
If you have never raised children, you will not understand this issue because until you are alone, in the small hours of the night, solely responsible for the welfare of a child who is screaming or feverish or acutely distressed in some other way, you will not feel how existentially disturbing the experience can be. It is in these moments, when all other services other than emergency services are closed and friends and family sound asleep, that the Parent Helpline has been a godsend.
Anxious parents can ask “silly” questions and get guidance and reassurance from a calm voice on the other end of the line.
Our governments (state and federal) have wanted more people to become parents and yet just throwing a few bucks in baby bonuses around is disingenuous. I know there are other invaluable services offered to parents so I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. However, I believe that cutting the small blip in the budget that was the Parent Helpline 24 hour service was a heartless move. If we really want to support the nurturing of new generations then we must provide support at those critical, harrowing moments when fallible humans can snap in despair and take action with long lasting consequences.
Many generations before us existed without such help but in different times there were differing social structures in place to provide similar support. Today is a different reality. Continue reading
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday May 01 2011
This month in Online Insights we see what locals think about the alcohol issues in Alice Springs that are making headlines around the country, rethink how humans are living right now, spare a thought for mum, and finish off with a dash of light relief.
Tell ‘Em That’s Enough
The Children - Tell 'Em That's Enough campaign
I spend a lot of each year up in the Northern Territory running marketing workshops for small business, particularly focussed on how to exploit the various social networking and social media tools available today, and as such it is easy to see the Territory as a place full of go-getters.
However, to be fair, it is also easy to see evidence of alcohol-related problems too, especially involving aborigines because the drinking and resultant anti-social behaviour often takes place in public view (not like alcohol-related issues involving higher socio-economic Australians, which takes place behind closed doors). Continue reading
Listen to Steve
- stevedavis: “@Twillyon: @stevedavis @Prakky Your secret would be safer if you only told your Foursquare friends #checkinathome” safer still with Google+ February 6, 2012
- stevedavis: @nicthenolan @kevcorduroy You two gents are both dear to me: play nicely please ;-) February 6, 2012
- stevedavis: “@malchia: @Prakky @stevedavis @twillyon Subdermal implant opens the door for you?” I just time my homecomings after others have arrived :-) February 6, 2012
- stevedavis: “@Prakky: @stevedavis @Twillyon You mean you leave the doors unlocked?” Yes, but I only tell friends and the Twitterverse #secretissafe February 6, 2012
- stevedavis: Some red lights mean 'go' http://t.co/47B2QgCm February 6, 2012