Posts Tagged business
Branding
Posted by Andrew Flanagan in Geekiness, Somewhat Random on February 20, 2015
A part of Carl Jung’s contribution to the world of psychology, is his concept of “archetypes”. From Wikipedia:
In Jungian psychology, archetypes are highly developed elements of the collective unconscious. Being unconscious, the existence of archetypes can only be deduced indirectly by examining behavior, images, art, myths, religions, or dreams. Carl Jung understood archetypes as universal, archaic patterns and images that derive from the collective unconscious and are the psychic counterpart of instinct. They are inherited potentials which are actualized when they enter consciousness as images or manifest in behavior on interaction with the outside world. They are autonomous and hidden forms which are transformed once they enter consciousness and are given particular expression by individuals and their cultures.
Strictly speaking, Jungian archetypes refer to unclear underlying forms or the archetypes-as-such from which emerge images and motifs such as the mother, the child, the trickster, and the flood among others. It is history, culture and personal context that shape these manifest representations thereby giving them their specific content. These images and motifs are more precisely called archetypal images.
I read an interesting article a while back that talked about “personal brands” from this Jungian archetypal perspective.
It’s a very fascinating concept. These sorts of constructs are of course nothing more than categorizing or organizing observations into containers from which we generalize. However, I think it’s interesting to observe how truly some of the archetypes in the linked article are similar.
Fun stuff.
Non-Conventional Advertising
Posted by Andrew Flanagan in Actual Events, Somewhat Random on March 26, 2009
To get in and out of town I must traverse about 2 miles of very built-up, very trafficky, retail- and service-dotted roadway. I was surprised to see over the last few years how often stores are using real, live humans as “flaggers” holding signs for their businesses or for special offers. Sure it’s less creepy than dead people holding up signs, but my gut-instinct was that it would cost too much to pay someone and that the impact on sales would be minimal. Apparently my gut is wrong. According to this article I learned three things I’m surprised by:
- This is a competitive position
- People are fine with $7.50/hr for this work
- It can have a dramatic effect on sales
Don’t get me wrong, money is money and I know that people will do all sorts of things. I just think it would be miserable work. Time would pass slowly as you stand in the cold with maybe a slight drizzle coming down. Cars beeping, bikes almost hitting you. Bleh… I’d much prefer the McDonald’s job. On the bright side it takes no skill, you can probably listen to music and daydream.
On the other hand, I’m surprised that this really helps business. I can see how it may make some people aware of businesses that are squirreled away in strip malls. I guess I’m not part of the demographic who even uses strip-mall businesses for much of anything so perhaps I’m no more inclined to visit them whether they’re having a special or not.
I don’t know what my blog readers think, but I’m surprised. Any opinions? Any experience being influenced by or being a flagger?
Thanks to the Business Opportunities Weblog for the link…
Updates
Posted by Andrew Flanagan in Actual Events, Somewhat Random on March 4, 2009
So I’ve been sloppy again and not updating the site.
Without further ado:
1) Safari Online was a little bit of a disappointment. I like the selection, the price is reasonable, the searchable formats are wonderful, the ability to cut and paste example code is stellar. So why disappointing? I don’t use it. My reading is usually in the evening. I want to be able to sit back in the easy chair and read. My laptop is fairly comfortable but staring at a bright back-lit screen is most certainly not. It’s just so much more comfortable to pick up a good old tree-based book and read that. Some of the advantages are still there. If I find something in my book, I can easily cut and paste it from Safari Online but now I’m basically just using Safari as a quick digital copy for all the books that I already have. Bleh… Not worth it. What would make it worth it? If the Kindle-gods worked with O’Reilly to make the entire Safari Online site browseable using your Kindle. I would buy it. I would pay extra. I would make a weekly pilgrimage to the Amazon headquarters. It would be great. But they don’t. Furthermore, from what I’ve heard, on the software side, Kindle doesn’t do tables, mono-space fonts, and some other things that really are almost required in order to read a technical programming/development related book.
2) Work has been busy. C/C++ has been pretty minimal… I’m getting much more comfortable with memory management issues and have been pleasantly surprised to see that most C++ code that I dig up out there basically looks like mine. I’m still definitely not an expert at decrypting some of the C++ deep magic code that I’ve seen, but then again, I bet the authors of most of that stuff don’t even understand it anymore. C# has been a mixed bag. I’ve really enjoyed getting into the “new” features of 3.0 and 3.5 which I had been neglecting until recently. A lot of time spent on Stack Overflow has helped get m e up to speed with Linq and some of the other fun new language features. Generators, extension methods, anonymous functions… it’s all sorts of fun.
3) I’ve been able to watch as the value of various investments that I can’t easily cash out of has continued to dwindle. Thankfully, much of what I did have invested in long-term investments I was able to move to much less volatile funds but it’s still been rough. On the bright side, the end of the world may be near as the Mayan calendar has it set to 2012. Obama would have the rare privilege of being the final President and (also on the bright side) wouldn’t have to worry about his legacy as no one would care how big the national budget is at that point. Also, this would save me a lot of frustration with the whole Social Security thing. One can only hope…
4) Wife has been busy with her business. She’s continued to embroider like crazy. I’ve been trying to push her to do more since she’s only pregnant with 3 boys under 5 at home. 🙂 She tells me that some day she may expand her business but not now. I think she’s in a good situation. On NPR (motto: Unbiased news since 1970 or whenever it was we started getting funded by liberals!)Â there was an interview with a business owner in the same general “baby products” market. Her remark was that the “economic crisis” we’re experiencing will likely drive a baby boom as people’s lives and schedules slow down and more time is spent at home. But hopefully the economy picks up soon so they can afford overpriced baby products for their new brood. I got her a new iPhone so that she can become more of a geek. She really isn’t nearly geeky enough and it bothers me. I was interested to see that even the Taliban are getting in on the iPhone action (see picture).
Time precludes further updates.
…Will write more later…
StackOverflow
