Posted by truecreek on March 1, 2010 under More Dam News | 
Interesting Pew Study.
by Kristen Purcell, Lee Rainie, Amy Mitchell, Tom Rosenstiel, Kenny Olmstead.
The overwhelming majority of Americans (92%) use multiple platforms to get their daily news, according to a new survey conducted jointly by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Project for Excellence in Journalism.
The Internet is now the third most-popular news platform, behind local and national television news and ahead of national print newspapers, local print newspapers and radio. Getting news online fits into a broad pattern of news consumption by Americans; six in ten (59%) get news from a combination of online and offline sources on a typical day.
The internet and mobile technologies are at the center of the story of how people’s relationship to news is changing. In today’s new multi-platform media environment, news is becoming portable, personalized, and participatory:
* Portable: 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.
* Personalized: 28% of Internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.
* Participatory: 37% of Internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.
In addition, people use their social networks and social networking technology to filter, assess, and react to news. And they use traditional email and other tools to swap stories and comment on them. Among those who get news online, 75% get news forwarded through email or posts on social networking sites and 52% share links to news with others via those means.
Despite all of this online activity, the typical online news consumer routinely uses just a handful of news sites and does not have a particular favorite. And overall, Americans have mixed feelings about this “new” news environment. Over half (55%) say it is easier to keep up with news and information today than it was five years ago, but 70% feel the amount of news and information available from different sources is overwhelming.
Take a look at the study and download it here.
Posted by truecreek on February 24, 2010 under More Dam News |
By Patrick Lencioni.
New ads for Domino’s Pizza display unusual corporate vulnerability—and the surprising effectiveness of talking straight.
I recently saw a television commercial that made quite an impression on me, and I have a hunch that it might go down as one of the most effective advertisements of all time, assuming the company behind it is sincere. I’m talking about Domino’s Pizza (DPZ) and the recent ad in which the company concedes the shortcomings of its product and explains what has been done to improve it.
The spot opens with customers describing Domino’s pizza using words like ketchup and cardboard. Then, Domino’s President J. Patrick Doyle matter-of-factly explains the importance of acknowledging how customers see his pizza. Finally he outlines the company’s response: 40% more herbs in its sauce, better cheese, a special glaze on the crust. I have a hard time remembering the names of the U.S. Supreme Court justices and even what I had for breakfast. But I can remember all those details from the Domino’s ad, and that says a lot about its impact.
I’m willing to bet that Domino’s will sell a lot more pizzas in the months ahead. And the reason I believe that has less to do with the new ingredients than with Domino’s willingness to cross a line that most companies—and for that matter, most leaders—won’t even approach. Domino’s chose to make itself vulnerable.
Vulnerability isn’t a word that shows up on lists of ingredients for business success. Here’s why it should: Without the willingness and ability to be vulnerable, we simply can’t build deep and lasting relationships in business and, come to think of it, life.
Vulnerability is often seen as a weakness; it’s actually a sign of strength. People who are genuinely open and transparent prove that they have the confidence and self-esteem to allow others to see them as they really are, warts and all. There’s something undeniably magnetic about people who can do that.
When it comes to the workplace, vulnerability is critical in the building of teams. When teammates feel free to admit their mistakes, ask for help, and acknowledge their own weaknesses, they reduce divisive politics and build a bond of trust more valuable than almost any strategic advantage. Another great venue for vulnerability is the one I work in, the world of service. When consultants and advisers are willing to ask dumb questions, tell the unvarnished truth, or broach the painful, elephant-in-the-room topic, they engender loyalty and trust with clients.
More about The Power of Saying ‘We Blew It’ here.
Posted by truecreek on January 26, 2010 under More Dam News |
These statistics are holding steady.
By Lee Rainie:
In a national survey between November 30 and December 27, 2009, we find:
74% of American adults (ages 18 and older) use the Internet, a slight drop from our survey in April 2009, which did not include Spanish interviews. At that time we found that 79% of English speaking adults use the Internet.
60% of American adults use broadband connections at home, a drop that is within the margin of error from 63% in April 2009.
55% of American adults connect to the Internet wirelessly, either through a WiFi or WiMax connection via their laptops or through their handheld device like a smart phone. This figure did not change in a statistically significant way during 2009.
These data come from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. The most recent survey was conducted from November 30 to December 27, 2009, using landline and cell phones and including interviews in Spanish. Some 2,258 adults were interviewed and the overall sample has a margin of error of ± 2 percentage points.
Download the entire Internet, broadband and cell phone statistics survey here.
Posted by truecreek on under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
Very interesting research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. It’s a hot topic of discussion here at True Creek, for sure. The premise was also the theme for a recent episode of ‘Modern Family’ on ABC.
By Margaret Shapiro
We’ve heard about the gender divide in knowledge and use of technology. It seems the gap may start with the simplest of technologies — cellphones — and at a fairly young age — middle school.
For a study published in December in the journal New Media and Society, University of Alabama at Birmingham sociologist Shelia Cotten asked nearly 1,000 middle school students to rate the different ways they used their cellphones.
The results showed boys much more than girls used their phones to play games, share photos and videos, listen to music and send e-mails. Girls tended to use their phones primarily for talking and or text messaging.
To the researchers’ surprise, the boys used the phones for talking and texting just as much as the girls — in other words, they didn’t use the “complicated features” instead of socializing, but in addition to it. “We would’ve expected that girls would use cellphones for talking and texting because females are socialized to communicate more with others than males,” said Cotten in an online video presentation of her research, “but there were no differences.”
“By these study results, we aren’t saying that parents should buy phones with fewer features for girls,” she said. “But it does point out how much more needs to be done to teach girls” about technology. “Females traditionally have perceived themselves as less skilled in terms of technology, especially with regard to computers.”
Cotten said that 60 to 70 percent of middle school kids report owning a cellphone.
More about Boys vs. Girls on Cellphones here.
