Blake Snow

writer-for-hire, content guy, bestselling author

As seen on CNN, NBC, ABC, Fox, Wired, Yahoo!, BusinessWeek, Wall Street Journal
It looks like you're new. Click here to learn more.

Tagged bureaucracy

If a coporation were charged with designing a stop sign

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU9YeOQm3Y0[/youtube]

From this video we learn two things:

  1. (Most) People are terrible designers
  2. (Most) Designers have no balls. Rather, they collectively pander to client requests instead of imposing their professional will on customers much like a doctor or mechanic would. This is a disservice to both the client and the designer — everybody loses.

[via Nick Roussos]

Microsoft brand in sharp decline

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHCRimwRGLs[/youtube]

IDG News (whom I freelance for) reports: “Microsoft’s brand power has been in sharp decline over the past four years, an indication the company is losing credibility and mindshare with U.S. business users, according to a recent study by market research firm CoreBrand.”

I enjoy seeing fat business cows get a proper market cleansing.

Continue reading…

AOL cannibalizing Engadget with new tech blog

AOL launched a new tech blog on March 20 called Switched. In case you didn’t know, AOL also owns Engadget, the world’s largest tech blog that just so happens to be the world’s “most popular blog” according to Technorati in terms of linkage. Sources close to Smooth Harold report that Switched is even being funded better than Engadget in terms of salaried individuals despite having zero traffic (read: no ad sales). Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Venture with me — if you will — into the mind of one of the slowest internet dinosaurs in existence. “CEO: Okay, Switched spearhead. You think we should start a new tech blog even though we already own the number one tech blog that’s also the most visited weblog in the world? Okay. But won’t that cannibalize our traffic, at least with the non-tech savvy crowd (because you and I both know Engadget will continue to be the best tech blog unless we suffocate it)? And where Switched isn’t cannibalizing our efforts, won’t we just be wasting money rather than reinvesting into Engadget to further secure its dominance? No? Okay, I’m sold. I don’t know why we didn’t think about this before. Matter of fact, didn’t CNN.com just launch a new world news website to compete with itself? No? Well, they should have.”

Way to support your $25 million purchase of Weblogs Inc, AOL. Your CEO should be fired for letting this thing even see the light of day. I’m amazed by the stupidity and behind the scene agendas that are going on here. Peter Rojas and Ryan Block must be reeling from this mediocre move.

Michael Dell on bureaucracy

Dell lost its position as the number one PC manufacturer last year to HP. Though I used to swear by Dells, their prices have increased while their quality has rapidly decreased, hence, the last PC I bought was an HP. So what’s behind Dell’s recent funk? Bureaucracy says the newly appointed CEO, Michael Dell. “We have great people … but we also have a new enemy: bureaucracy, which costs us money and slows us down,” Dell wrote. “We created it, we subjected our people to it and we have to fix it!” Note: No one can fix bureaucracy, but transparency sure can help mitigate it. But come to think of it, I can’t think of any very large company that manages it well. You?