COMMENT

DESIGN

BRAIN POWER

ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART GRADUATE MIN-KYU Choi has rethought the humble plug, creating an elegant design that could make life easier for anyone whose work takes them on the road. Just 10mm wide when folded, the plug’s live pins swivel through 90° and the plastic sides fold out to create a standard plug face. The London-based South Korean is currently working on the testing necessary to take his design into production, but warns that the finished article won’t be ready for at least a year. Inspired by the ultra-thin MacBook Air, the plug’s Mac-friendly aesthetics will surely guarantee sales when it does hit the shelves. www.minkyu.co.uk

DIGITAL PUBLISHING

CLICK TO FLICK

Extend your marketing reach, learn more about your customers and make the most of your printed material.

DIGITAL PUBLISHING IS GROWING FAST, AS BUSINESSES COME TO SEE THE BENEFITS OF publishing their brochures, catalogues, magazines and other printed material online as well as in the real world (see Velocity’s own emag at www.ink-live.com). With new technologies, such as e-readers and touchscreen tablets evolving all the time, the market looks set to become even larger. But where is it heading? We spoke to Astrid Sandoval, vice president sales and business development for digital publisher Issuu, and asked what’s so special about digital publishing?

“Unlike the PDFs of the past, today’s digital publications are beautiful interactive documents that capture the essence of print in a whole new format. Issuu is proud to have been the first to introduce flip-technology to the masses in 2007, allowing readers to flick through pages in one seamless action without having to download a file or install any software. Today, the digital edition has become a staple for any content creating company, which is pretty much every company that creates marketing material.

“These digital publications have the power not only to track readers but also to monitor their behaviour. Advanced statistics, such as knowing who is reading a document and how deep they are doing so, can help publishers improve their content, optimise their search presence, and target their marketing campaigns. For the first time, publishers have a direct link to their readers – a digital handshake.

“This is revolutionary for many reasons, which I’ll highlight with an example. The Bantam Dell division of Random House, the world’s largest English-language general trade book publisher, chose to publish three advance excerpts of its new book Faefever as an Issuu digital publication. The novel, written by New York Times bestseller Karen Marie Moning, was released digitally one chapter at a time each week. Chapter one alone generated over 100,000 views, including many reader comments. This simple promotion provided the publisher with a whole new set of reader statistics and data that could then be used to make more precise decisions on print runs, distribution channels, and pricing. Not to mention that the readers were thrilled.

“But digital publications aren’t just transforming publishing. Würth UK, the world’s number one supplier to the automotive trade, uses Issuu digital editions for its brochures, creating more than 150,000 views in just a couple of months of posting. Customers can share and embed the brochures on their own websites, extending Würth’s presence among its strongest and most loyal client base. And since links inside the brochures are live, customers are directed back to purchase every step of the way. With today’s marketing budgets drying up and everyone’s focus on ROI, digital publications are a simple and inexpensive solution to reach new customers and reduce the cost of acquisition.

“So, where are we headed? We’re seeing an array of cool new possibilities, such as rich-media documents with video, sound, and user-generated content. Customization features are allowing companies to further brand their manuals, brochures, and reports on the web and across mobile networks. And with improved search capabilities, these documents are available immediately. At Issuu we believe digital publications can improve online reader experience and lead to greater social interaction among published content. And best of all, you don’t have to be tech savvy to use them.” www.issuu.com

FINANCE

THE ECONOMY OF EMOTIONS

Investments should be made for clear, rational reasons, but even professional investors can end up allowing their emotions to take over.

IN THEORY, INVESTORS HAVE AN EASY JOB. MAKING MONEY IS SIMPLE IF YOU STICK TO THE OLDEST and most valuable trick in the book: make sure you always buy low and sell high. For centuries, bankers and investors have been trying to do exactly that, consulting economists, equity analysts and financial experts in an attempt to track down that elusive profit.

But unfortunately even the best advice can lead investors astray. There’s always an unforeseen event waiting to throw a spanner in the works, as seen with the short squeeze last year that sent shares in Volkswagen rocketing to stratospheric levels. Hedge fund managers who thought it appropriate to short shares of the German car manufacturer at €200 (£170) saw their reputation seriously damaged, as they were forced to cover their shorts with a share price rocketing towards €1,000 (£850).

Financial markets tend to swing continuously between greed and fear as most investors are captured by their contradictory wishes to book the highest possible returns without actually running the risk of losing money. That’s why we witness the euphoria of economic bubbles, followed by periods of doom and gloom in which share prices go lower each day, despite being undervalued, simply because there seem to be 10 sellers for every brave investor who wants to buy.

No wonder, then, that over the past couple of decades the fields of behavioural economics and behavioural finance have emerged, driven by the desire to understand how our emotions influence our behaviour as investors and consumers. At the simplest level, these studies attempt to understand why people continue to buy things when they are far too expensive, and why they refuse to buy when markets are – at least from a rational perspective – amazingly cheap. Through experiments and observations over several years, behavioural finance and economics has explained what most people have known for a long time – we simply don’t always make decisions on a rational basis.

So it follows that a successful investor not only needs to do his homework by collecting and analysing as much information as possible, he also needs to make an accurate prediction of people’s behaviour, whether it is investors’ sentiment or consumers’ confidence. He would ideally combine his understanding of the economy and financial markets with the knowledge and experience of a good psychologist, but since such combinations are extremely rare, I expect most investors will continue, every so often, to be caught out by the financial markets.

SOCIAL NETWORKING

JOIN THE HUB

THEY HAVE MILLIONS OF USERS AND A HUGE media profile, but precious few social networks have figured out how to convert those assets into cold, hard cash. It’s a problem that has caused many to pour scorn on the rapid rise of these 21st century upstarts, but one company thinks it has found a way to make the network pay.

Hub Culture has been around since 2002, beginning as a site that helped people to arrange events and morphing over the years into what we’d recognise today as a social network. It still places a strong emphasis on arranging real world events, and it’s that bridging of the online and the real that allows Hub Culture to make money.

“We’re the first network to move from the online world into the physical,” says founder and creative director Stan Stalnaker, referring to his network’s ‘pavilions’. These are club spaces that have appeared in cities all over the world, normally to coincide with a major event, such as the Cannes Film Festival. Users pay £29 (€33) per month for access to all the pavilions, and to the social network built around them. The first permanent pavilion opened recently off London’s Carnaby Street and more permanent locations are planned. But the physical locations are only part of the story.

Once inside the network, users can set up groups to organise events, collaborate on projects and otherwise work together. They can buy and sell products and services using the network’s own ‘ven’ currency (100 ven is currently £6 or €7) or they can ask other users for help, advice and recommendations on practically any subject.

It’s a network, a marketplace and a physical meeting place, and it’s all funded by the members, with no reliance on the notoriously fickle world of advertising. Hub Culture currently has 20,000 members worldwide, but with more joining every day, watch out for this innovative social network hitting the real world near you soon. www.hubculture.com

Email This Post
Print This Post

Editor's Blog