Company A has receptionist Nora answering the phone, the conversation goes like this:

“Company A”
“Hello, this is Ties Morskate calling from Company Z.”
“…(silence)”
“Ahem, yes, I was calling to ask about subject.”
“I’m sorry we do not give out names, e-mail addresses or function titles on the phone.”
“Okay, so how do we get in touch?”
“You can send us an e-mail on info@companya.com, the appropriate person will decide whether to respond”

As you can imagine, this pretty much ends the conversation, I know for sure there’ll be no reply, the person I had meant to reach never even had the chance to weigh my proposal. No deal which is bad for me, but what’s bad for Company A is that they lose out on information this way. Would I call if I had nothing of value to offer?

Company B has Amy answering the phone:

“Good morning, Company B, this is Amy, how can I help you? (Smile in voice)”
“(start smiling) Morning Amy, this is TM from Company Z, I was calling to ask about subject.”
“Ah yes, let me check. ”
“Take your time.”
“You would need Person C, he’s in right now but very buzy with an upcoming event. Is it urgent?”
“Not really, when would be a good time to call Person C?”
“You can try again some other time, but perhaps I could give Person C a message or you could write an e-mail?”
“Thank you, I’ll write an e-mail and call back next week?”
“Sure, I’d recommend 2 weeks though, the event ends Thursday the 11th.”
“Allright, thanks for the help.”
“No problem, thanks for calling, have a good day.”
“Same to you, bye!”

This conversation caused me to smile, and write a happy e-mail. By helping me and managing my expectations she made sure her colleague was undisturbed and could answer at his or her own convenience, which is fine with me of course, at least it gets read. So I’m happy, she was already happy and person c is happy. Everybody wins.

Company B is the biggest winner here, Person C has maximum efficiency and easy access to information but I, I have a good feeling with the company. Three years from now, I might suddenly be a buyer, or 2 weeks from now a friend will ask me about both companies, guess which one I will recommend.

Art, it’s an uncommon product, and normally, they’re one of a kind so they are quite expensive. But an artist has to make a living like any other so why not behave like this french artist and make the following setup:

You create art, with your own significant style, and you advertise yourself on your website. On this website you also showcase what you have made. What you also do is sell directly from the website for a good price.

I can imagine that the step from finding an artist to buying a piece of art is the biggest, this makes that step much smaller. Who would make a trip to Bordeaux where her gallery is based on a website alone? But I can spend some money on something I seem to like. And this allows anyone that finds you to get a good indication of price, even when they don’t want to buy right away. I would say that it would be most interesting if the artist also created a premium product line that would only be sold in select gallery’s. This way you can still get the more common work directly, but for the really exquisite pieces you would have to visit the gallery and pay a (much) higher price. This would also allow you to involve people even more with your painting, add them to the tribe to use Seth’s words.

I think this goes for more than just paintings, any type of product of which the value is determined mostly by taste would benefit from this approach. Think designer furniture, jewelery, photographs (which are like paintings) or even something intangible like a service.

Main problem is the fact that Microsoft fails to incorporate the apps into the proposal, while they are working on their Windows Mobile app store, they seem to be unable to use that same app store for the Zune, saying it has a different focus.

Apple was just saying the success of the Touch is based on games, what’s the truth? Well I believe that the Touch selling 20 million times and Apple having one app platform for all the devices is a better guess than Microsoft is going for with the Zune. Because only a select few developers are allowed to develop apps for the Zune and they believe games are not very important to bring to the Zune.

Unbelievable!

With a total amount sold of 227,400 during August, down 39 per cent year-on-year Nintendo has to make a move to be able to profit from the coming holiday season. Microsoft is looking to present the Natal project while Sony is presenting their new controller in 2010, nobody knows what Nintendo will do to keep up.

But since Sony and Microsoft have been playing catchup since the launch of the Wii, it’s to be expected for Nintendo to have some trick up its sleeve. But I’m still trying to imagine how do can out-do Natal.

Games growth over 20 per cent at HMV

Based on sales numbers from 2008, HMV concludes that its current activities, selling new and also used games at their stores is paying off. It is outgrowing both CD, DVD and other media sales by far and while these deserve big discounts in sales prices and proposed media attentoin, gaming is one of the strongest markets in the industry.

Further adding to the significancy of these numbers is the extremely strong 2007 Q4 that the numbers are being compared to. Even hardware  sales are up to par, with particularly Nintendo’s Wii and DS performing great.

Earlier I commented on the stability of the gaming market in terms of spending, and these latest figures comfirm that even for the UK market.

It remains to be seen if the more traditional market; Europe, will perform like the US, UK and China are doing and keep up strong growth figures, in a time where the economic situation cautions customers on their expenses. 

It remains to be concluded that the gaming market is the one market that keeps steady spending, allowing for in-house activities that are relatively cheap. The price of a game is roughly compareable to a night in a bar!

Anyone can offer some insight on the old world’s market performance?

After a terrific summer, enjoying the days while having enough money to keep spending, the fun had to end, or at least had to change. And that change has now arrived!

While I will remain at the Blauwe Theehuis, I cannot be expected to live off the money I make there parttime. So I concluded I had to find something new! This new thing is an assignment for WZZRD BV, a company specialized in gaming cafe’s and equipment. I have been added to the sales-team per november so once again I’m involved in the gaming scene!

Concerning the Revol7 project, me and Berend still feel strongly about our chances, and we’re currently discussing a partnership with another group. I will try to upload a teaser so you can see what I am talking about!