Artificial intelligence won’t replace you if you are creative: here’s why
“Artificial intelligence will replace us”; “millions of jobs are threatened by artificial intelligence”. I’m sure you all have read those catastrophist headlines. And it’s probably true that the job market will be disrupted on the long run. But I don’t think it’s likely to happen overnight. Most importantly I think some parts of the job market will be entirely safe; those jobs for which creativity is essential are likely to be safe and, most importantly, will...
How to write a blog like a pro : my blog routine
People ask me regularly how I manage to publish 3 articles per week in 3 languages. A large part of this is due to my writing routine. Here’s how I manage to get it done quickly Limit your topics and make them categories of your blog I don’t write about anything. My blog is on marketing and within this discipline I handle topics like market research, customer satisfaction, market research techniques, complaint handling and branding issues....
How has our blog audience evolved in the first half 2017
More than ever this blog is a therapy and a discipline. It forces me to read a lot, from various sources and to reflect on how I can integrate this knowledge in my daily marketing practices (for more information on the genesis and the motivation behind this blog, read this article). I put a lot of efforts in the last 6 months in promoting my articles in English and in French (much less in promoting our...
Road trip in west and south Iceland: an incredible experience
This long post is a short report of our recent trip to Iceland. Making this trip was part of the good resolutions I took in 2016 and I’m so happy I did it. I’ve already explained briefly what I learned from this trip in another post. Before you scroll down, please note none of the pictures below were photoshoped in any way. I hate photoshoped images and the effects I create are limited to those I...
Big Data can save lives
At the conference organized together by Microsoft Europe and Louvain University, Adeline Decuyper proposed a fresh look at Big Data. She rightly made the point that Big Data can also serve non commercial purposes and contribute to Greater Good. She gave some amazing examples of how cell phone data can be used in a variety of settings to improve the lives of millions of people and even save lives. Big Data applied to mobility issues She...
Is Humanity lost ?
In an article published two weeks ago I was explaining my pessimism with regards to the directions taken by Society. For those who know me this is not really surprising; my high optimism phases alternate with some more pessimistic ones, that force me to gain perspective on my role in the Society and my work as a market researcher. This is a rather healthy alternance. So after my pessimism phase of last week I consoled myself with a good...
Good resolution #2: enjoy my old passions
To follow up on my latest blog post on good resolutions for the year 2016, here’s part 2: my second set of good resolutions. I’ve a few passions in life that need to be awaken. I put them aside many years while doing my PhD. Time to enjoy them again in 2016. Mineralogy Few of my friends and acquaintances that I actually started my “career” in a totally different field. Before shifting to marketing and social...
Good resolution #1: be more selective
In April 2015 I started a new Big Data assignment in Brussels. I was (and still am) spending most of my time in the eastern part of Brussels. I then realized I was working not far away from a former colleague of mine whom I used to work with when I was still at Volkswagen. It was more than 10 years I hadn’t seen him and I told to myself it would be great to meet...
Heineken beer pump LeSub spotted in … Madrid
Last year we reported about the superb popup store Heineken opened in Paris : the Substore. Although we were told the beer pump “Le Sub” were available physically only in the Substore from Nov 20 until Dec 20, 2015, we surprisingly spotted a few exemplars … in Madrid. It was completely unexpected for us to find this novelty there; even more surprising was the fact that those machines were displayed among clothes and other objects in trendy store, whose...
Seniors at work : why does our Society care so little ?
Recently a acquaintance of mine got fired at the age of 61. He had been fighting this decision for months and finally accepted his fate. With much sadness he slowly got convinced that he had become useless and left the company he had been working for for 14 years. Beyond the mere pain of getting fired, I was touched by his feeling of being useless. I watched him change from being revolted and highly motivated, to...
Internet: no privacy, freedom lost
To start the week I wanted to follow up on my latest post dedicated to the Google Glasses and their use in a business environments. I finished this post by saying that all the information on us was being aggregated, used and that eventually our freedom became restricted. I promised to explain my thoughts … so here they are. Google knows who you are It shouldn’t be surprise for anybody that we are tracked in everything...
Is there still a future for rural areas, villages and smaller towns ?
“Do you have jobs in your country ?”. This is the question asked by a 40-year old man I met in a bar in Italy. The question itself didn’t surprise me. What surprised me is that it was the first thing he asked after saying “Buongiorno”. “Do you have jobs in your country ?”. This question has resonated since then in my head like an emergency call sent my someone who lost any hope. The situation...
The blog enters the summer schedule
Dear Readers, First of all we’d like to thank you for reading this blog. We have been very pleased to observe an increase in the audience of the blog. Visitors spend more time on the blog and read more articles, which is obviously very rewarding for us. We kept our promise to deliver three original articles per week (on Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and have published 86 articles since January, 1st. Since we started this blog...
You’ll never guess where this picture was taken
The post of today is not a real post. It’s only a teaser for an upcoming article. Will you guess where this picture was taken ? Leave a comment below and keep tuned … next week we’ll reveal the secret behind this picture...
This brand turns its customers into living advertising
Freitag is a Swiss fashion brand that got known for recycling ruck tarpaulins, cycle inner tubes and car seatbelts into bags (and now some little accessories like wallets too). The brands not only innovates with its products but also with its marketing itself. As we could see in the Berlin store, Freitag offers tourists (and residents too we guess) the possibility to borrow a bike at no charge to tour the city. The only thing you...
Off topic : a unique story-telling experience with kids
Recently something happened to me that I found just amazing. It was one of those Aha moments that my friend Kevin Cottam wrote about in his book. This was a “story-telling” experience, the power of which is well described in this excellent article published in the Harvard Business Review. It was holiday time and the little one went to what is called a “stage” in Belgium (basically instructors are taking care of the kids and keep...
These business cards are amazing
Over the years I’ve met with hundreds (if not thousands) of people and have collected an impressive collection of business cards. While most of them are very classical and do not trigger any particular emotion, some of them have remained in my collection as my all-time favorites. Let’s have a look at them …. For privacy reasons I blurred the contact details. However to respect copyrights you’ll find the hyperlinks to the companies. OneBite Consulting OneBite...
24/05/2008 – 10/01/2014 : almost 6 years of blogging already
As most of you noticed we launched a new version of the blog just before Christmas. It’s now the third version in 6 years. The story of this blog on marketing started on May 24th 2008 as a blogspot presence and, in parallel, as a blog on the French magazine Capital.fr With the development of IntoTheMinds’ activities in market research, customer satisfaction consulting and entrepreneurs coaching, I felt the need to give the blog a more...
Looking back at one year of blogging
Back in 2012 (on Dec 31st to be precise) I drew the conclusions of the past year and took some decisions related to the future of this blog. My commitments revolved around 3 axis : More structure in our blog posts Better integrated pictures Alternation of short and longer articles Did I keep my promises? As far as the structure of the blog posts is concerned I hope that my efforts have been visible. I followed...
The holiday period has arrived …
We published our last post on Friday and kept on our promise made in January 2013 to publish 3 times a week in both English and French. The time has now arrived to take a step back, reflect on the past 6 months, find a renewed inspiration to publish again with enthusiasm on 2 September. We’ll not leave you alone without reading for the next 2 months. We’ll just reduce the pace a little bit and...
What’s new in 2013: more advices for entrepreneurs with a focus on market research and innovation
Looking back over our shoulders Looking back at 2012 we’ve written a lot (like in 2011) but took a pretty long break after the summer. With a sudden increase in workload we had to concentrate on clients’ assignments. This is no excuse though as part of our company’s mission is to collect, analyze and diffuse knowledge. Fortunately enough there were a few events scheduled in the second half of the year that kind of forced us...
Happy New Year
It’s time to resume posting. But first of all, allow me, on behalf of IntoTheMinds, to wish you a happy new year. I hope 2012 will be for you an inspired and inspirational year. We’ll start the year with a brief post about merchandising and brand alliances. While in Rome in December and January I was surprised to see that the top-tier streets around Piazza di Spagna, home of luxury brands, were decorated and kind of...
Why am I writing this blog?
I was in a meeting with a client a few weeks ago and one of his employees asked me where I was getting my inspiration from to write 3 posts per week. Well, it has certainly to do with curiosity but not only. The underlying purpose of this blog is to diffuse knowledge. This blog as no other purpose than to share my thoughts and help others with my ideas. I firmly believe that I can...
Off topic. This is what I call leadership
If I had to choose one concrete and tangible example of leadership it would be this one. It so much energizes me. It’s Al Pacino in City Hall. Have a look at this extraordinary example of leadership. I just have goosebumps every single time I look at it. Judge yourself. What is interesting is the words used in the speech, the semantic of which belongs to the vocabulary of war. Pay attention to...
Entrepreneurs and black money
Since IntoTheMinds has started giving trainings on market research at The Brussels Enterprises Agency, one remark is coming over and over again. We explain to future entrepreneurs that it’s useful to have a look at competitors’ balance sheets and analyze the figures. If you pick the right competitors (in terms of size for instance) you’ll get a good comparison basis which will allow you to judge whether the industry you want to do business in is...
Let’s fight against Mobistar …
Mobistar is not known to have the best service in Belgium (remember Basta?) and I’ll prove it again. I’m a very good customer of customer; my company spends about 6000€ a year on wireless communications. So when the charger of my iPhone (purchased from Mobistar of course) breaks after 10 months, I expect to have it replaced quickly. So when I started the case some 4 weeks ago I couldn’t expect what would happen. Here’s the...
Effectuation and causation
I already used several times in this blog the words “effectuation” and “causation”. Those processes are becoming increasingly important in entrepreneurship research and in particular in the attempt to understand how companies in general, and SME’s in particular, innovate. To sum-up the idea behind causation, let’s say that the goal is set first and the means to achieve this goal defined afterwards. At the opposite, effectuation assumes that a limited set of means is available and...
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