"Albert Heijn eist extra korting van leveranciers" Wat vindt u?

"A Penny for your Thoughts" or The Power of a great Commercial

When a commercial keeps you silent

While watching the commercials in a habitual, bit of a boared manner, my attention suddenly changed when a little music draw my attention and gave me goosepimples within seconds! It was a ING (a Dutch major bank) commercial. Where a boy and a girl communicate thrue their smartphones. The lyrics are in sync with the textlines and make them smile and I could't help smiling with them. The funny thing was I recognized the voice of Adriana Romijn out of thousands (as I sang with her for some 7 years in a Gospel and Soul group). Was it really her and was it just me that was attracted to this voice and commercial or did it 'hit' other people as well? I started asking and searching for some answers. I found the commercial on a Dutch website "Muziek in de reclame" and read that it indeed was Adriana who sang the song. ING and the PR company did a great job here in drawing attention to the brand! What does it look like?  

The Commercial itself

And what are the Stats on this commercial?

 

Stats on Youtube

It's amazing to see the power of youtube in this:  
Views on the ING Youtube channel (no detailed stats available)The number of views on this ING channel at the 13th of September are: 1,003,119
 Another ING youtube channel has 810,592 views at the 13th of September.
 The number of views from the BigODiamont channel is 33,503 at the same date.
Together this sums up to 1.847.214 views.

And here some basic stats from the BigODiamond Channel (screenshot, september 1st). The amount of views on this channel have risen - as mentioned above- on September 13th to a 33,505  

Lets look at some Google Insights Mark that I've searched for the Dutch word reclame instead of commercial It being a commercial on Dutch television. As from September 1st I see an ascending trend in the numbers, I must admit that I might have played a humble role in that by sharing the commercial on both Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. Moreover this blog might even give a minor boost but then again that would still prove it's a great add won't it?

More stats?

Unfortunately ING was not willing to share more data on the success of this commercial - was it a success? As far as I can tel by the amount of views it was but did it lead more traffic to their website, more downloads of the app or more new customers? When we Google it  learns us that at the 12th of April the app was downloaded 1 miljon times at an average rate of 6.200 downloads a day (source: ING nieuws, Dutch) . Mind you this was after their update in Spring and after the app integrated the business accounts during last summer! Taking a look in the App store reveals a little bit more info on the number reviews on Iphone downloads. Screenshot ING in itunes appstore[/caption]     So far this is the best of insight I can deliver on the success of this commercial. Maybe ING missed out on maybe one thing: sharing your successes on Social Media is not a bad thing, especially not if others tell and share your story :-)

A Tweet for the credits

Via a tweet from Jean Pierre Kin (the creative, @jpk69) I got some more information so here are the credits (in Dutch): Bureau: UbachsWisbrun/JWT Creatie: Jean Pierre Kin, Thuc Banh Creative Director: Massimo van der Plas Regie: Florian Vermeulen DOP: Coen Stroeve Muziek/arrangement: Geert van Gaalen - Studio de Keuken Productiemaatschappij: Brenninkmeijer & Isaacs Producer: Bo Polak RTV Producer bureau: Marcel Ossendrijver Head of Digital: Douwe Dirks Account: Carine van de Heijden

The Business of Science disrupted by Social Media?

Sharing Data an utopia?

More then twenty years ago (1994) I often worked -besides my study - as a temp nurse at a top cancer clinic in Amsterdam. As I talked to some of the physsisians I asked what made that some people ended up there and others went to either the AMC or the VU - both university hospitals with extended research and treatment programs on cancer patients. The answer was pretty staggering: there was no ratio behind this. I was pretty shocked and asked: "But there must be some way you guys work together and share your results, your data your expertise and the way you focus on different subjects". Again the answer was "no"! And "We are not sharing, we are competing!" was added as to give a good explanation on how things worked in science. Ofcourse I was not totally ignorant on the field of competing with scientific publications, but the shear denial of the need for cooperation rather then competition in a small region as Amsterdam, let alone The Netherlands was rather shocking. This meant lots of money, effort and results were lost in 'the battle'. I realize that competition also is an incentive, a drive for people to go farther then they've been before but this was pretty bitter not at least for the patients hoping for better  treatments.

TEDxMaastricht 2012

At TEDxMaastricht this year three presentations dealt with the subject of sharing data in medicin.   Paul Grundy – Smarter healthcare by smarter use of data

• M.D., Director of Healthcare Transformation, IBM
• Article in HuffPost

Stephen Friend – Break down the information walls

• Founder of Sage Bionetworks

Marcel Joachimsthal – Healthy user data

• VP & General Manager at GlaxoSmithKline

Two of the people advocating sharing data are from commercial companies i.e IBM and Glaxo. That's interesting! They all focus on effectiveness, curation and sharing of data and focusing and involving on patients rather then processes.

Now what will this bring patients?

TEDx is about sharing ideas, and thrives on the feeling of togetherness where we all are one family (the human species) with some main goals we apparently share -or believe we share: quality of life, well being, peace etc. Will the outcome of this TEDx be that we are closing in on any of these goals? Maybe! I hope so. There's one factor that's essential to all change nowadays. The abilaty to find and share data in a way we have never seen before: Via the World Wide Web and Social Media in particular. Social Media is becoming our commonly shared conscience!  The will and ability to share makes us vulnerable and last but not least accountable for our actions and presentations at TEDx-es!

And for Science?

There must be another incentive for scientists to share their data: The Nobel Price!  In my humble opinion the Nobel Price committee should give the next price for "Medicine" - and maybe other disciplines as well- to the team of scientists that achieved a great result by sharing their data the most effective way.   Please take your time to watch these presentations.     In this Blog I focus on the data sharing subject. I was also very impressed by most of the other presentations with all their different angles and point of views! check here to enjoy or get emotionally flabbergasted by them! And many thanks to Lucien Engelen for taking a different perspective and standpoint years ago and seeing to it that "Medicin & Health" and the way we perceive it, deal with it has changed dramatically!  

Pete Cashmore's holiday picture 'gets social'

"Look what I found!"

When I scroled through my subscriptions on Facebook I came across this picture posted by Pete Cashmore:



Now what we see is a picture probably taken from the hotel where Pete stayed. It's a view everybody is acquinted with.

I nice view but in fact not really special.

Now take a look at the number of likes and comments!

That's right,  2186 people liked this! And even 318 took the trouble of adding a comment to it. At the time of writing this blog post the numbers are still rising.

 

 

 

 

The Comments

Now what will people add to this magnificent picture? Lets look:

Ok, the guy posts a picture, hey I do that too. But what's happening with al those people who want to add something? It's not about Pete and not about the people either. But what makes us 'like' a picture picture like this and even place a comment like "Wow!", "Where in FL?" etc.

Let's get Social

Is this being social in a sense that people 'like' that Peter Cashmore is having a great time in Florida? Is it to get close to a social media guru and hope it rubs off? Is it for their SEO purposes? Am I being cynical?

If I post a photo like that I will receive 1 maybe 2 likes, should I be worried? Would it worrie Pete if he would get only 1 or 2 likes? I don't know...

You tell me! 

 

Reports of stocks of crude oil in the U.S.

What I noticed in the past year in reports on the economic news was the following. In my experience updates of inventories of crude oil in the United States had been the one time stronger than expected and a decline in oil production the next time, I noticed for the faster than expected increases in oil stocks.
Over time this experience repeated itself and in my curiosity - or was it suspicion - decided to straighten things out(without pretending to be exhaustive):


Date Announcement Declined Increased Terms used in coverage
06-10-10 3.100.000 last week has increased faster than expected
29-09-10 -500.000 declined more than expected
10-09-10 -2.500.000 decreased as expected
2-08-10 -1.800.000 crude oil stocks fell suddenly
28-07-10 7.300.000 crude oil stocks rose
22-05-10 2.500.000 last week has increased faster than expected
5-05-10 2.800.000 last week rose more than expected
4-03-10 -758.000 unexpectedly fell last week


The numbers are barrels of crude oil


What was it that triggered me so?
1. On the one hand there are significant differences between -1.800 and 7.300.000 barrels but it's not like stocks decline and increase every week and another week;
2. I think in particular the terms "harder than expected", "suddenly fell" and "unexpected" made me more alert.
Nice to look back to see if your experience matches reality.

The xls file with more information, visit:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ar2CjvVL2hq_dG5lb3pDNWlGeUhXdmlMMUhSakpwR3c&hl=en

Ofcourse this raises a few questions:
1 How does one produce these estimates and is the margin of error that is accepted?
2 What are the implications of these messages for different idices?

Feel free to make a contribution in solving this mystery to me!

Berichten over voorraden ruwe olie in de VS

Wat mij het afgelopen jaar opviel in de berichtgeving over het economische nieuws was het volgende. In mijn beleving over de berichtgeving van voorraden ruwe olie in de Verenigde Staten had men het de ene keer over sterker dan verwachtte daling van de olieproductie en de keer erna viel mij oog op de harder dan verwachtte gestegen olie voorraden.
In de loop van de tijd herhaalde deze beleving zich tot ik in mijn nieuwsgierigheid - of was het achterdocht - besloot het een en ander dan maar eens op een rijtje te zetten (zonder daarbij de pretentie te hebben volledig te zijn):

Datum berichtgeving	Dalen	Stijgen	Termen in berichtgeving
29-09-10	-500.000		sterker dan verwacht gedaald
10-09-10	-2.500.000		conform verwachting gedaald
2-08-10	-1.800.000		de voorraad ruwe olie plots gedaald is
28-07-10		7.300.000	voorraden ruwe olie stegen
22-05-10		2.500.000	vorige week harder toegenomen dan verwacht
5-05-10		2.800.000	vorige week sterker dan verwacht gestegen
4-03-10	-758.000		de afgelopen week onverwacht afgenomen

De getallen zijn vaten ruwe olie

Wat was het nu dat mij zo triggerde?

1. Aan de ene kant zijn er significante verschillen tussen -1.800 vaten en +7.300.000 maar het is niet zo dat de voorraden consequent de ene week meevallen en de andere week tegenvallen;
2. Ik denk dat met name de termen "harder dan verwacht",  "plots gedaald" en "onverwacht " mij steeds alert maakten.

Leuk om zo eens terug te kijken om te kijken of je beleving klopt met de realiteit.

Het xls bestand met wat meer gegevens is te vinden op:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ar2CjvVL2hq_dG5lb3pDNWlGeUhXdmlMMUhSakpwR3c&hl=en




Een en ander roept natuurlijk nog wel wat vragen op:
1 Hoe maakt men deze inschattingen, wat is de foutenmarge die men accepteert?
2 Wat zijn de gevolgen van deze berichten voor de verschillende idices?