Tidbits

According to this post on The Big Picture, record album sales are up a modest 1.4% over the same holiday sales period in 2004.  Compare this with the fact that P2P music is also up and you begin to wonder if the record companies are just crying wolf over their business not growing quite as quickly as they would like it to.

From this post on the Social Customer Manifesto comes a link to this post on the blog of Paul Allen, Managing Partner of Infospace Ventures.  In Allen's post, he lists 10 things that he requires of you before he will have a in-person or phone meeting with you.  Lots of the requirements are based on your membership in LinkedIn and your corporate executives' membership in LinkedIn.  Also, not surprisingly, Allen requires that you have read Guy Kawasaki's Art of the Start.  Pompous as the post may seem, it really as a blueprint for how to get in front of a pretty important person; what I wonder is whether those who want to get in front of Paul Allen will take the time to find it (at least I've given you another chance to find a link to it here).

This post on Church of the Customer tells the story of a blogger that started blogging and landed a book deal in 8 days.  Apparently, according to this post, it was as simple as:  "The publishers went to the blog, checked it out and offered me the job as part of their writing team! That's going to open all sorts of doors."  Just for the record: I am more than happy to entertain any and all requests to author a book, just send me an e-mail.

43 ideas to get you beyond thinking differently to actually doing differently.  Sound interesting?  You can download the Incomplete Manifesto for Change written by Bruce Mau (I found it through this post on Brand Autopsy).  A few teasers: Love your experiments, Study, Drift, Process is more important than outcome, Harvest ideas.

What is your customer really buying?  That's the question posed by Roy Williams on this post at the Wizard of Ads Australia blog.  The answer?  Well, Roy actually calls this a revelation:  “What my customers think they are buying is altogether different than what I think I am selling.”  The simple thing to do: stop telling the customer what they want, figure out what they need, and give it to them.  What are your customers really buying?  Or more importantly: What is it that you think you are selling?