As Amazon undergoes a hiring correction now that they realised COVID won’t go on forever, they are also taking the opportunity to divest themselves of the expensive development of the Alexa product. Alexa, a Jeff Bezos favorite child for a decade, is now gutted. And yet this product lives, and listens, in millions of homes around the world. In an article published today, a couple of colleagues and mine and I posit what your future will be like with your roommate, Alexa.
Category: Articles and other Published Works of Note
We are all heroes without capes – if we back off
As a recently certified Emily Post Business Etiquette trainer, I have been delivering sessions at Edith Cowan University about the usual stuff: how to write an email, how to work a room, how to post on LinkedIn without looking awkward or cringey. I was recently asked to write an article for one of my favourite publications, The Conversation, interviewed on ABC radio and on a breakfast show on the social norm of greetings and the demise of the handshake or hug. The article posits this: while most greeting rituals denote status, dominance, relationship and cultural norms, not touching each other does one more thing. It contributes to communal well being.
Star Wars, Myth and Marketing
West Australian press (newspaper and radio) enjoyed the point of view of Star Wars from a consumer culture perspective. Thanks to the ECU Public Relations team for their support in getting me in touch with reporters who gave air time to serious research about a subject that quite a few people take very seriously…
Keeping it real at ANZMAC 2011
I was fortunate to attend the Australia New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference 2011 in late November in Perth; bonus that it was sponsored by my very own Edith Cowan University. The papers I contributed about Authenticity and Quintessence were received well.
Authenticity is an emerging area of interest to academic marketing researchers. How to measure this subjective experience, and then how to use it in a way which is ethical and effective are all big questions. I am hoping to use some of the contacts at the conference to further this research agenda. Stay tuned!
Who is Spreading Word of Mouth in your Social Media Community?
This presentation was delivered on Thursday 22 September at ECU during the Universities’ Marketing, Communication and Development Conference in Perth. The presentation is about Fans versus Followers in social media communities. It explores the concept of Quintessence in a way which relates to the spread of word of mouth.
Authenticity in Equity Group Recruitment
This presentation was delivered on Thursday 22 September at ECU during the Universities’ Marketing, Communication and development Conference in Perth. The presentation was about a perspective on recruiting equity groups. Equity groups are defined by the Commonwealth Government as people from groups underrepresented at universities in Australia, including: Indigenous, Rural, Remote, Low Socio-Economic, Low Incomes and people with a disability.
Playing the infinite game: Marketing in the post-industrial economy
The December issue of the Journal of Customer Behaviour carries our article
about the infinite game metaphor and marketing in the post industrial economy. Enjoy!
Tourism in the Muslim World
Professor Jamie Murphy and I co-authored chapter 20 of this book. The chapter is entitled “The Hajj: An Illustration of 360 degree authenticity” and looks at experiential authenticity from many perspectives, using the largest pilgrimage in the world as an illustration of an authentic experience. The book is available for purchase on Amazon.com.
A media release about Professor Jamie Murphy and his collaborators in the book is found on the UWA web site.
ANZMAC was awesome
I recently attended ANZMAC, the academic marketing conference for Australia and New Zealand. It was great to be in rooms full of marketers talking about deep and meaningful marketing stuff while imbibing lots of champagne. I gave two papers there. One was on Service Dominant Logic and the Infinite Game and the other was on my main area of research, Customer Evangelists.
Some great people and scholars I met there: Elizabeth Dunlop (CSU), Professor Mark Uncles (UNSW), Professor Mark Laswon (U of Otago), Dr Chris Dubelaar (Bond), Associate Professor Francis Farrelly (Monash), Sabrina Mohd Rashid, John Turnbull, Kelly Choong and Trent Hennessey amongst others.
Poster Presentation at eCulture Conference
I recently presented a paper Smells like University Spirit and two posters at a Teaching and learning Conference at Edith Cowan University. The poster pictured was about how a student in one of my postgraduate Marketing Classes wrote a paper that we then partnered on to publish at a conference that year. The paper was titled Luxury purchases by working class males in regional Western Australia (Download Paper) and focused on males who purchase choppers just like the one he is sitting on in the photo.
Brad was one of my best students, but the technique of partnering with students and how to do it came from Prof Jamie Murphy who was my lecturer and is now my supervisor.
The Infinite Game 