Innovation Forum - held at Danks Depot in downtown Waterloo on Tuesday 24th of November.

Innovation can be fleeting. One person’s idea of innovation can be another persons idea of failure. Innovation comes and goes, often leaving behind either infused fans or scathing critics. What is innovation and how is it defined? mmm how long is a piece of sting?
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Since March I have been enviously seeing cryptic tweets from my friends in the UK saying they had become mayor of places on Foursquare.

To my excitement on Monday it launched in Australia with Melbourne and Sydney data – mayorship of my favourite places here I come. See how it is already working? You have to be physically close to a place (GPS on your phone works this out) to be able to check in or leave comments. (more…)

With a food theme throughout and a cravat-wearing CEO channeling Matt Preston from MasterChef Australia, digital agency igloo held its Digital Strategy Masterclass on Tuesday as part of the 2009 Digital Marketing and Media Summit. The 3 hour interactive workshop, entitled ‘Digital Masterclass – Bringing your digital strategy to life’ was designed to provide a simple framework for developing a comprehensive digital strategy. The workshop was presented by igloo’s Andrew Englisch (CEO), Tony Prysten (Creative Director), Adam Leys (Strategy Director) and Teall Barnes (New Business Manager).

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Well, this was meant to be a week-one post, but here I am six weeks later.
Needless to say, the pace has been cracking, break-neck if you will. Fast is good though, and I’m happy to be working on such a broad range of projects which all ask for something a little different from me.

MC Hammer was rumoured to hit the office earlier this week, I watched halls, but alas it was not meant to be. Shame, ’cause I was ready to get it started… too legit to quit.

Mazda is my mainstay, and the good folks there have got some big ideas, not least of which was the impressively flamboyant gala dinner to support the benevolent Mazda Foundation. That’s me swapping concepts with Big Tone, ideas flow freely after a few glasses. Tony shows restraint here, prior to the Team Igloo’s day in the saddle for Around the Bay in a Day.

Although MC Hammer is in town, this isn’t an article about Hammertime.

I read something interesting on 37 Signals this week..

Want something to blow up?
Tell the world about it on a Tuesday morning. Avoids the Monday avalanche people face and gives you the rest of the week to get play.

Want something to fade away?
Tell the world about it on a Friday afternoon. It’ll fade into the weekend.

(Note: Once you realize this, it’s also fun to start noticing what news gets released on Friday afternoons — politicians are especially good at using this technique.)

It got me thinking about when and how to target your email audience..

Unlike traditional offline advertising which is generally in the public’s face for a period of time, online marketing, particularly email campaigns, can have a very short life span. We spend hours toiling over choosing the right subject line and making sure our content is easy to read, why don’t we seem to spend more time planning right time to attack?

During 2008, MailerMailer.com’s report tells us the best day for opening and click through is Monday. So on Monday, let’s stop, Hammertime.. Ok, I had to go there.

While we’re on the topic, I found a few other interesting stastics…

74.5% of opens occur within the first 24 hours and 84.3% occur within the first 48 hours and emails with subject lines shorter than 35 characters were opened more than emails with subject lines longer than 35 characters.

Who knew emails could be so exciting?

I’ll leave you with one interesting thought. If you want to get people to open your emails, get God on your team!