Will memory cards replace musical CDs?

 This is the question the Mercury News was asking this week.

CEO of Memory card maker Sandisk believe that "not all media will be downloaded", and therefore memory cards will probably replace music.

The main fact is that the music industry has problem big time to deal with the Internet. You already know the trouble they have with peer to peer softwares like Napster, Kazaa, emule, and now Bittorrent. Their economical model has to be rethought, and as their margin will probably experience a big cut, they are reluctant to change.

SanDisk Chief Executive Eli Harari thinks that the musical industry is more comfortable with the classical retail based distribution, which is selling CDs in a store. Therefore, they'd probably happy to find a new support that could replace CDs and that could allow the musical industry to keep it the old way.

The fact is also that nowadays, all the different mobile devices, cell phones, MP3 players and others, are equipped with memory card readers. The memory card format is therefore in great position to shift to this new format.

Now what do I think about that?

 I understand memory card producers are seeking for new market opportunities, and that their solution will be great for the musical companies. However, does the customer want it? I don't think that the customers are eager to change once more of format. They are already confused by the Blue ray - HD DVD fight. There is no real technical improvement by the fact of storage music on memory card. First it won't enhance the sound quality. Secondly, I don't think we'll see a 4 gigabyte CDs of 1000 songs by Maroon 5. Even the most prolific singer can't create that much. And if so, the album would be out of price ($1000 for 1000 songs?)

"Not all media will be downloaded?"
 This is a great topic. I can't tell. Maybe that is true, but I deeply believe 90% of it will be downloaded, through a computer, a cell phone, a mp3 players or others. Now I still believe that retailers like Fnac, Virgin Megastore will still have some room in their stores dedicated to music, maybe as a promotional space, where you'll be able to discover new artists for example.

But will a memory card will replace the CD for musical content? I don't think so. We could see that some other supports have failed, like the UMD or the Mini Disc, which both of them had advantages.

 Concerning physical music sales, I think that what people should focus on is offering some more than music. At the time of vinyl discs, the cover and the discs themselves were some piece of art for some of them. I don't believe that the memory card support will able to bring that back versus the disc. As I have said I believe music retailers still have a future. They just need to find how to be innovative.

What do you think about it? Do you see memory cards to sell music? What do you think about the statement "not all media will be downloaded?

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Don't be fooled by the 1080p standard

I have been for a while in my early years a salesperson at the Fnac, French leading retailers for cultural and technical products. I used to sell mp3 players, hi fi equipment, home theaters and TVs. The television market has evolved a lot these past few years. First, the arrival of new technologies, LCD and plasma, have changed a lot. But also, the high definition added some confusion to customers that have already problem to understand the difference between TV sets.

Today, I read a very interesting article in the Mercury News about the 1080p standard.

A couple was shopping for a new TV and they were hesitating between two TV screen, 50" both. One was $500 more expensive than the other one, because he had a resolution of 1080p, or full HD, and the other one 720 p. The salesman explained them that they would have a better quality of image with a higher resolution. However, even himslef was not able to see the difference of quality between both products.

The 1080p definition is great if you have a large screen, of 56 inches or bigger. It is not possible to identify any difference of definition on a 50 inches set. The fact is that the bigger the screen, the better definition you'll need.

There are also a lot of confusion around the different HD standards, full HD or HD ready, but this is another story.

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7 tips in 7 minutes: How to please a head hunter

I watch with a real pleasure this series of video edited by Henri Kaufman and Pierre Philippe Cormeraie, teaching you 7 tips to succeed in different fields: how to write a resume, how to start your company, and so on.

Today, they interviewed Jacques Froissant, president of Altaide, a recruting agency. He is offering us inside information on what the recruiters and head hunters are paying attention to during a hiring interview. Isn't that great that a recruiter can let you know what really matters? This is great information for whoever is preparing an interview.

 The video is in French, and below is the translation in English.

1. The waiting room. The recruiting process starts right after you have entered the building. When you are in the waiting room, your behavior is checked: Are you complaining, how you behave with the employees.
2. Show that you have prepared the interview: You have a consistent speech, you know about the company. Some people don't even know sometimes how to get to the company's building for example. You should know as much as possible about the company.
3. Summarize your career: Stop repeating your resume. This is long, and the recruiters have already all the information. Recruiters expect a fast summary, in 7 minutes (7 minutes, 7 bullets), only the best. Watch out! Don't talk about not relevant information, like where you went to high school. Don't make it last 45 minutes
   
4. Be prepared to basic questions: This is the main questions that recruiters usually ask. What are your strengths and your weaknesses is a good example. You have about 30 questions that you should be prepared to answer.
5. Jump on the occasions the recruiter will offer you: Sometimes recruiters will ask you specific questions to start a conversation. Like, I have seen that you like basket-ball. You should be able to jump on the occasion, because the recruiters would like you to speak more about the topic.
6. Be active/ask questions: You need to be active in the conversation. Ask questions. This is about your life, the next step in your career, you should picture yourself working there. Therefore, ask questions about how it  works, to show you are very interested by this position. Be curious: Who would be my manager, how is the atmosphere, how is doing business.
7. Conclude: There is a simple and unique question to ask in order to conclude: What do you think about my candidature?  There is two possibilities:
• The guy says yes, he likes you. As 95% of candidates don't ask this question, you would be one of the only guys that he will say yes, and the recruiter will keep this in mind (this is by the way a manipulation technique). He'll remember the person he said yes to.
  
• He has doubts. Thus, this is a good occasion to work on it, and to reassure the recruiter of your qualities. If you did not ask the questions, you would have never had the opportunity to defend yourself.
  

To conclude, it is always important to learn from your experience. If it did not work it is find, but it is important to know why it did not work in order to correct your mistakes.

I am sure that after having watched this video, nothing will stop you to get your dream job!

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Think different - Apple

I really like this idea. First, let's think about the situation. In 1995 Apple has seen its supremacy challenged by the arrival of Microsoft. In no time Microsoft acquired about 90% of market shares. Whereas Microsoft's main advantage was to own most of the market, and allow its users to share data easily (data that were not accessible on a Mac at this time).

So Apple came with this baseline: "Think different". As we became marginal, we accept our new status, and we will show why being different is great, even though every body wants to be the same.
The idea is very strong, and explains in two words the whole approach of Apple.

Also, on a personal view, I think that a baseline has to be different. Marketing is about creating uniqueness, even though there is none. And by affirming and showing that Apple was different, it allowed Apple to create a great brand equity. And therefore, I really like this slogan.

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New Twitter idea: my favorite marketing slogans

I might not be a great Twitter users, compared to people like Loic Lemeur or Robert Scoble. However, I believe in the development of its use for non-geek users at some point, and also that we did not see yet all the different uses you could have of Twitter.
Indeed, I believe that Twitter could offer great opportunities to promote a business, but also I think that it could be great for educational purpose. I think that it could help people learning for example a language, or following some courses, whereas people already uses Twitter to transcript seminars and conferences.

Therefore I had the idea that I could use Twitter to share with my community some of the best marketing slogans, that I found original and inspirational.  As you know, I consider one of the main strength of a marketer to keep things simple, and creating a great motto which defines a product or a brand is something cool.

The first that comes to my mind right now is "think different"- Apple.

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Different types of networking groups

Ivan Misner, president of the BNI, a networking group company, is explaining the 7 main types o business networking organizations to consider joining:

• Casual contact networks. These allow many people from overlapping professions and meet monthly.
• Strong contact networks. Their primary purpose is exchanging referrals. They meet weekly.
• Community service clubs. They provide an opportunity to give back to the community you do business in while making contacts and getting PR.
• Professional associations. They tend to focus on one specific industry. The primary purpose is to exchange information and ideas)
• Social/business organizations. They combine social activities with business or networking.
• Online networks. Includes groups such as Ecademy, LinkedIn and Ryze, which are social networks for businesses.
• Women’s business organizations. They are non-threatening groups for women to increase business. Many also allow men.

What is important as a professional is to have multiple networking organizations. Because of these multiple opportunities, you will be able to build your own original network, that will fit your needs.

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New Ipod 3G

Today as expected Apple decided to launch its new version of the Iphone, the 3G iphone. Indeed, it did not really make sense that Apple launched a EDGE cell phone whereas they were suppose to deliver the best of the Internet on a cell phone. This new version will correct this problem.

• Download speed is 3.6 times faster than the regular Ipod (Edge), almost as fast as Wifi, 18 seconds vs 5 seconds.

• The battery life has improved and propose 300 hours in standby, and 5 to 6 hours of web browsing.
  
  
• Real GPS vs Google map-based GPS.
  
  
• New price, with $199 for 8 gb, $299 16gb (also available in white) way cheaper than the first version.
  

This version is really looking much better, correcting some of the weaknesses of the former version. I am sure this cellphone will be a great success, even though the competition will become tougher and tougher with the arrival of Android and the Blackberry gaining more and more marketshares.

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LinkedIn proposes private companies group

I received today an email from LinkedIn letting me know that they have launched a new service for companies.

"We just launched a new beta feature that gives you and your coworkers at Residential Pacific Mortgage a private place on LinkedIn to communicate and collaborate. This new Company Group allows you to:

• Discover and discuss with your co-workers news articles that are relevant to your company, competitors, and industry
• Ask questions to members of your company group and answer co-workers questions
• Find employees in different parts of the company and stay updated on what they're working on"

This is a good idea. One of the things I did not like about LinkedIn is that they were not allowing people to create groups within the service. Viadeo, on the other hand, have hubs where you can share information and discuss inside a private group. But the problem of Viadeo is that you have to pay for the service, which limits the potential of this network.
Thus I consider this new feature will be great. The only regret I have is that it is limited to companies. I wish it would work with alumni group. But I think this is moving foward, and I expect this service to be available for alumni associations soon.

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Social Networking Ad Spending Lower than expected

emarketer.com published May 13, 2008 some new social networking ad spending, which are expected to be lower than the previous estimations, from $1.6 billion to $1.4 billion. Does that mean that the appeal of the market is down? The fact is that these figures have been impacted by the recession in the US, and that it has affected marketing budgets.bb

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Shopping behavior and retail marketing

Just a quick link to a powerpoint presentation edited by Pierre Volle, French specialist of customer relationship management. Very interesting.

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Hellomoto commercial

This is a great commercial going on in the US. I like it because it tries, with a humorisit approach, to show the different uses you could have of a smartphone. Indeed, the character is browsing the Internet, using a GPS system, watching videos.



This one is even better, because it shows you how your mobile phone could save you.

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Twitter lacking of customer relationship strategy: blaming its best usersfor technical problems

Scoble wrote an article on How Twitter is blaming its best users for its frequent (way too frequent) technical problems.
Twitter is the leading micro blogging service, allowing million of users to share what they are doing at the instant. But the fact is that after having known a tremendous growth, the service is constantly experiencing technical problems. You can't post, you can't see previous twits from friends, and so on.

Twitter is explaining its problems because its best users are using too much the service, and they can't deal with the amount of twits received.

'The events that hit our system the hardest are generally when “popular” users - that is, users with large numbers of followers and people they’re following - perform a number of actions in rapid succession. This usually results in a number of big queries that pile up in our database(s). Not running scripts to follow thousands of users at a time would be a help, but that’s behavior we have to limit on our side.'

 This is totally wrong. You can't blame your best users, the people that are promoting your service, because they are enjoying your service. The problem is that they have not been able to set up a structure that would be able to manage the fast growth of the service. But this is not the fault of your users if you are not able to satisfy them.

 If you propose something you must deliver. Also if they can't deal with the increasing number of twits, they should close the registration explaining that the platform can't accept anybody else at this time. Because it is better to make people wait than to accuse your users to drive technical issues. As a company, you must offer the best service as possible, because these people represents one of your core assets, especially for a web 2.0 company which value is based on the number of users.


So Twitter, please, stop accepting people that you won't be able to please, and focus on your best users, because they are the one that could save you during these bad days. Maybe this example shows that it is still important to have public relations skills, in order to give better response to the public.

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Advice to marketers: Keep it simple

I was reading Seth Godin's blog, and an article called "Start with a classified". He explains that you should keep your ad as short as possible, as if you were writing a classified where every words will cost you. The idea is to simplify your idea as much as possible to make it easy to deliver, and to understand.

I wanted to speak about that because I believe that one of the main quality a marketer should have is to keep it simple. Trust me, this is very challenging. When you have the occasion to speak with an audience, you want to make the best out of your time, and spread the most information you can. This is human. Also, when you have a limited marketing budget, you think that it is important to jump on every opportunities to say what you want to your customers.

But the fact is that by doing so, you confuse your listener, by providing too many information that he can retain, or that he wants to have. Your ad loose all interactivity, which is important as you want people to read your ad.

A good market should be able to focus on the main information, the information that will trigger the sale, and expose it in the simplest way, thanks to a picture, a slogan, an idea.

So my main advice is Keep it simple.

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." (Albert Einstein)

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How to start your company and get rich

The title might seem cocky, but it is the one used by Henri Kaufman and PPC to explain us the key factors of success to start a company. Henri Kaufman has hence funded multiple companies, and is an expert. You can watch the video in French, go here to see the points in French, and the transduction is below.

1. three concepts:
   
1. Understand when is the best timing to start your business, when you are ready for it
2. Work very hard at the beginning, to give to the project the best chances to succeed
3. Make other people work for you. This is important to be able to delegate.
2. Dare! You should not let anything stop your ideas. Leave all the different problems aside. These problems and things that stop you to pursue your goal, you invented them. You should drop them.
3. Push the accelerator. And the gas is both your ideas and the adrenaline. You gonna have a lot of adrenaline, because starting a business is a lot of risk, and risk creates adrenaline. This is a great thing and it will help you move forward.
4. Accept the risk. Every business is risky, so accept it. However, make sure you have the adhesion of your relatives and close friends. They'll be here to support you during good & bad times.
5. Try to start with a client. It is easier. But what is important it is the second client. When you can get a second client, that means you have succeeded.
6. Set a deadline of success, and a maximum limit to your investment. Win or fail fast. Don't get stubborned, if you fail, image a new project. There is no use to keep on with a company that don't start up.
7. Hide your stress: You will have a lot of stress because of the risk, expecting some sales that are not coming for example. But you need to hide him because you will meet with a lot of potential clients, investors, suppliers, and it is important to hide your stress from them. You need to show your confident, because people don't buy to losers. You need to have a winner face.

Conclusion: Burn your vessels. You need to look forward, accept the risk, and take action.  Also, starting your company is not a part time job. It is full-time.
Also, have faith, be confident.

Henri Kaufman says at the end of the video that it happens to fail, it happened to him. But he also said that when he failed, it was because he did not respect these key bullets.


I love this series of video explaining you 7 keys in 7 minutes, I think all the advices are great. Hope it will help people who are willing to start a business.

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Why blogging is the best way to communicate for a small business?

A lot of people know how powerful the blogosphere is. You can in couple of hours spread a great buzz about a new product, or discredit a customer services in couple of lines. It is also one of the greatest asset for a small business to boost its communication. Indeed, the blogging activities have some attributes that can't be match with any other kind of media. Here are couple of advantages for a small business.

Low cost solution
A blog could be theoretically free. Most of the platforms, wordpress or blogger are free, you just need to join and then you post. Isn't it great, especially when you know you can have access to more than 50% of the US population? At least, the blog will cost you a dozen of dollars if you decide to pick a more sophisticated plateform like Typepad, and buy a domain name, which I recommend for search engine optimization purposes

Search engine optimization

A blog is way more powerful than a standard website on a SEO point of view. Indeed, whenever you post an article, it creates its own web page, and then multiple the number of pages that will be referenced on google. Also, if you add always proper tags to your article, it will be more efficient, and Google will take it into account while browsing your blog. Let's not forget also that on the contrary of Flash-built websites, blogs are mainly text, which is also a great help for Google. Also, because of its form, it is easy to add some pages. Blogs are for sure the best way to get a nice search engine ranking, fast, and with low effort.


A way to expose your knowledge and that you are up-to-date with your market
A blog is something very reactive, that will allow you to communicate on an information within very few moments. If you need to place a new information on your website, it will probably mean that you need to edit your website, which is most of the time complex and long. With a blog, you could do it from a cellphone. This reactivity is a great plus, especially while people are looking for fresh news.

Trigger people to come back often
Because a blog is always evolving with fresh information, that incite people to come back often to check the news. How many times will you come back on a corporate website? The form and what it has been designed for is far away from allowing you to communicated on a daily basis. If you post new comments often, people will come back at you. Also, how many times I had people sending me emails to let me know they were expecting for new articles while I was on vacation.

Help to build relationships
A blog is about discussing. People can leave comments, contact you to get more information. I have been able over the last past year to build a great professional network mainly thanks to my blogging activities. You'll be able to meet peer colleagues, but also some potential buyers. People react better after having read an article than after exploring a corporate websites.

Learn more about your business

On a personal point of view as a small business, by blogging, you will be forced to document yourself, seek for information, and explore the different resources the web will offer you. This activity is great. It is like monitoring the market, knowing the competition and potential opportunities. By blogging, you also become aware of what is happening, and more reactive.

Is there other ones that I forgot? Probably. Blogging is a great activity. But I also have to warn you. Blogging is not for anyone. I believe, from my point of view and my experience that blogging requires you to dedicate time and a real will to write. If you don't feel any pleasure  at writing, there are a lot of chances you will fail. You have questions? You want to share something?Feel free to leave me a comment.

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Rent your brand purse with bagborroworsteal.com

I was watching this week end the new sex and the city (which is actually a great movie I recommend you), and they were talking about a service where you could rent some couture bags for a month or so. I found the concept great, and thought it would be such a pitty if did not actually exist. That is why I decided to go online to chase some websites proposing this kind of service. And I found it!

It is called bagborrowsteal.com, and proposes to rent some bags for as low as 5 dollars a month.

I believe this service has a great future ahead of it, for different reasons:

• The democratization of luxury: Luxury has become with the days more affordable. Anyone can decide to spend money to buy a Louis Vuitton bag. We can also see that the brands themselves changed their approach, by changing their communication code. They are not afraid anymore to use rock stars (Keith Richards from the Rolling Store) and rappers to promote their products.
• We are in a society of changes: We are always moving, geographically for our career, we have more and more spare time and more possibilities to spend this time. That is the reason why we don’t like contracts. We’d rather rent to keep our freedom to change houses, we dislike when we have to subscribe a two years plan because we would like to be able to find new opportunities after a little while. A long term-rental car company in France has for slogan: “renting is keeping your freedom”. This is not false at all. So if I could rent a house, acar, a dvd for the night or a suit for a wedding when I need one why wouldn’t I be able to rent an expensive purse, and change it every months?

 
This story also tells us that business ideas can emerge from anywhere, watching TV, going to the movie theater. The most important is to be aware, and to catch up the occasion.

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Quelques conseils pour consommer mons d'essence

Lefigaro.fr nous propose des conseils pour limiter votre consommation d'essence et donc rouler moins cher. les voicis:

Conduire plus efficacement

Le style de conduite peut faire varier de 20 à 25 % la consommation d'une voiture sur un même trajet et pour une même vitesse moyenne. Tout est question de doigté : démarrage en douceur, vitesse constante sans à-coups et conduite au compte-tours. Il existe des stages de conduites écologique ou économique accessibles aux particuliers : Groupe 24 dans les Alpes-Maritimes, OK Drive dans l'Eure, Automobile Club Prévention-Sifa (www.acprevention.fr) qui dispose de 7 implantations régionales.

Trouver les pompes au meilleur prix

Internet et ses comparateurs de prix facilitent la recherche des stations-service bon marché. Le site public www.prix-carburants.gouv.fr est le plus exhaustif puisque les pompes ont l'obligation de lui fournir leurs prix. D'autres sites, privés, comme carbeo.com ou zagaz.com, plus riches en informations (services disponibles, accès à la station, etc.) sont partiels, puisqu'alimentés par des internautes. On peut aussi consulter les prix sur son GPS, avec le logiciel de Navx, moyennant un abonnement de 6 € par mois ou 30 € par an.

Se mettre au covoiturage

La formule existe depuis belle lurette mais elle n'a jamais vraiment décollé en France. Et pourtant les sites de mise en relation, quasiment tous gratuits, fleurissent sur Internet. Trajets quotidiens, longues distances et déplacements exceptionnels, sites régionaux, dédiés aux entreprises… il y en a pour tous les goûts. Mais la multiplicité de ces sites (123envoiture.com, easycovoiturage.com, covoiturage.fr, tribu-covoiturage.com...) dilue leur visibilité et le nombre d'offre. Cela reste malgré tout le moyen le plus radical de diviser sa facture de transport par 2, 3 ou 4.

Soigner ses pneus

Un seul pneu sous-gonflé de 10 % peut accroître la consommation de 2 %. Pour consommer moins, il est conseillé de rouler en permanence avec la pression préconisée pour les trajets autoroutiers ou à pleine charge (200 à 300 g de plus que la normale). Un léger surgonflage diminue la résistance au roulement du pneu. Il est aussi possible d'opter pour des pneus « verts », à faible résistance au roulement. Michelin vient de lancer l'Energy Saver qui permettrait d'économiser 0,2 l de carburant aux 100 km.

Mettre de l'huile dans son moteur

Sans aucune modification, les moteurs diesel tolèrent jusqu'à 30 % voire 50 % d'huile végétale. Pour passer à 100 %, il suffit d'effectuer quelques modifications mineures sur la voiture et d'accepter les odeurs de friture. La technique est fiable : un couple franco-mexicain effectue actuellement un tour d'Amérique latine en carburant à l'huile de friteuse. Mais, en France (contrairement à certains voisins européens) le Code des douanes assimile l'huile végétale pure à un carburant standard et la taxe. Seule exception : les machines agricoles. Des associations militent pour la modification de cette fiscalité (voir www.oliomobile.org).

Limiter la clim

À elle seule, la climatisation peut représenter 3 à 5 % de la consommation d'un véhicule. S'en passer ? Oui, mais sans rouler vitres ouvertes à grande vitesse, la surconsommation serait quasiment la même. Solution moins radicale : la climatisation électrique.

Tenter le gpl

Un plein à 30 €, voilà l'atout du Gaz de pétrole liquéfié (GPL). Depuis le 1er janvier, les véhicules GPL neufs émettant moins de 140 g de CO2/km bénéficient d'une prime écologique de 2 000 €, étendue aux véhicules d'occasion qui s'équiperaient et émettent jusqu'à 160 g. Vous pouvez faire équiper votre voiture chez l'un des 213 installateurs agréés*. Il en coûte entre 2 500 et 3 500 €, rapidement amortis par la prime et les économies. La France compte 140 000 utilisateurs et dispose d'un réseau de 1 850 stations service. Seul hic : une difficulté à la revente en occasion. * www.cfpb.fr ou www.gpl.fr

Faire décoller le gnv

Citroën présente à partir de demain et jusqu'au 5 juin à l'occasion du Salon de la nouvelle ville, au Parc floral de Paris, deux modèles fonctionnant au gaz naturel véhicules (GNV) mais acceptant également le super. Ce GNV assure une réduction des émissions de CO2 de l'ordre de 20 % tout en étant proposé à 0,70 € l'équivalent litre en gazole. Le moteur ne consommant guère plus qu'avec un carburant traditionnel, on roule à moitié prix. À cela s'ajoute une prime de 2 000 € pour les véhicules au gaz naturel émettant moins de 140 g de CO2 par km. Hélas, la France ne compte qu'une trentaine de stations GNV (contre 800 en Allemagne). Constructeurs et Gaz de France doivent faire un effort pour lancer la filière.

Passer aux énergies alternatives

Si les biocarburants de première génération n'ont plus le vent en poupe, la recherche planche toujours sur des carburants synthétiques. Dans dix ans, les déchets agricoles ou les algues pourraient servir de matière première. À plus court terme, le marché de la voiture électrique pourrait aussi commencer à décoller dès 2009. La palme de l'originalité va déjà à l'Eclectic, fabriquée par Venturi. Ce véhicule urbain pourra transporter trois personnes à 50 km/h en jouant sur une large palette d'énergies propres (solaire, éolien et électricité).

Se garer plus rapidement

Chercher à se garer en ville est vite énergivore. Or, bon nombre de places de parking privées sont inoccupées. Partant de ce constat, des sociétés anglaise (peasy.com) et américaines (spotscout.com) proposent de mettre en relation par Internet ou téléphone des automobilistes en quête d'une place et des particuliers en ayant à proposer au mois, à la semaine ou à la journée. En France, monsieurparking.com s'est lancé sur ce créneau il y a quelques mois. Autre initiative, segarerfacile.com, met en relation par SMS des personnes recherchant et libérant des places de stationnement résidentiel.

LIRE AUSSI

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Videos from the Google Android

I picked these videos from Fred Cavazza's blog. Google Android seems to be almost ready, and we should expect to see it in the market probably on September, or at least for Christmas holiday. Google chose to use the tactile technology as Apple did with the Iphone. We can see though some functionalities and an interface that differ from its competitor.

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Why Peugeot, Reunault and Citroen should come in the U.S. Market (2)

I want to go on with the article I posted couple of weeks ago about Why Peugeot, Reunault and Citroen should come in the U.S. Market. I had a great comment of Andrei, who is working in the automobile industry in Russia, that drove me the will to explain further details on how it could work.

- About the dealer network: I must agree that establishing a dealers network is not that easy. This is probably the main problem. It is actually the main reason of the failure back in the 80s. But things have changed. Renault has already established some Nissan dealers on the US territory. Also, in the US, on the contrary of France, most of the dealers are selling not only one brands. For instance, you have some dealers specialized in high class European cars (BMW, Audi, Mercedes), and it would probably easy to place some models there.

- Concerning the lack of branding of French manufacturers, as you have said, they made a great effort on this point. I believe that French cars have been able to innovate in the market, and have enough brand power to get into the US market. I think that the fact US car brands are so weak nowadays force US consumers to seek new companies. And I also believe that Peugeot and Renault made great job by developping Latin America and Asian markets.

- About the product range, I think that French car has a pretty wide range of vehicle. Yes they do great small cars, and I believe this know how and expertise are the main key factor of success in case they decide to get into the US market. But they also have very elegant bigger cars, like the 607. The US market is attracted by small fuel efficient car to face both the gas price spikes and the traffic in town.

I am agree with you Andrei, this is not for now. Entering the US market implies a 3 to 5 years plan. Roma has not been built in a day. But this is the best time to think about it. Especially right now that the big historical US makers are in trouble and struggling to find their place in the market.

I highly appreciated your contribution as an expert of the car industry, and your comment show well that there are still a lot of questions to be asked, and problems to be solved. But this question is in the air of time.

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When hard discounters face prices spiking

You are worried? You might be with all the bad news you have to listen to, whether you are in France or in the US. Gas price spiking, healthcare system issues (in France, no cashback for eyeglasses, in the US, problem for the whole system), and food price is also at historical highs.

The fact is that most of the time, while the conjuncture is not good, it is great for hard discounters. While household budgets are struggling, families usually goes to hard discount stores, such as Wall Mart, Ross among others, in order to limit the higher cost of life. Hence, you can see with the chart below that Wall Markt stocks are doing great. So if you are an investor, maybe you should think about it. 

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New dot-com bubble, or great optimism? European VS US venture capitalism

I was reading an excellent blog post on kelblog.com, where the author was discussing mainly about the different topics that made the headlines of the Internet media last week. And then, he was speaking about the venture capitalism market in France. Indeed, funding is slow there, and it is hard for French start-up to make money nowadays, with the slow economy and that the hype around web 2.0 is not as big as it was last year.

Venture capitalism in the US
The fact is that I find this picture of venture capitalism so different from what I have seen here in the Silicon Valley. Here I see so many start up launching, money is really not a big deal since finding funds is really easy. Also, a lot of these companies are raising funds without really knowing how to make money out of their ideas. As said Loic Lemeur, the business model is not that important as long as the idea is great and your able to deliver a good product. He always speaks about LinkedIn that have been launched with no focus on how to get money out of it. The results is that investment in start ups is the highest since years in the

I believe it is true, that if you have a great product, you'll be able to find a way to monetize it, but I still have some concern (probably my European personality...) about all these companies coming up with no business model.

Venture Capitalism in Europe

In Europe, or at least in France, we have fewer capital, and VCs are more "traditional": they need a lot of data and figures to back up the potential of the start-up. This implies that European start-up have less funds most of the time than American's. This is probably a safer approach, because it is always very risky to give money to a company that don't even know how they'll be able to make money, but it gives less chances to the company to expand.

The fact is that you have two ways to interpret what's going on:

• The US "style": the Internet is expanding so quickly, that there are great room for new actors with great ideas. As long as you are able to have an original product, you'll be able to make money out of it. On an investor point of you, you need to invest the most you can to give the most chances to the projects
• The European "point of view": The economy is low, there was a lot of noise around the 2.0 phenomenon, but there is no real return on investment right now. Is it a good time to invest? What is important, is to be sure that these start ups will be profitable on a midterm timeframe.

What do you think? Do you believe in a new Internet crash? Or do you think that the Internet is expanding so much that it deserves all these funds?

In my opinion, from what I have seen of the mortgage market, the US investors love to invest in bulk, until something happen. This is exactly what happened with the mortgages, where they bought highly risky mortgages but with great potential margins, whereas they should have keep their portfolio of subprime products low. I wish that it won't happen in the Internet market.

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Windows mobile versus Blackberry

• 

Lately I have conducted some research about the different option in the market concerning smart phones. I am sure that some of you probably owns a smartphone or are considering buying one in a near future, so I decided to share with you my research and my opinion. Hopefully It will help.

The prices
First, I think that you should consider getting one of these toys with a phone plan. This will be way less expensive (around $50 versus 400 by themselves). Anyway, how will you use them if you don't have a plan? I did not study the plans, at least in the US, because I am coming back to France, but I believe they are sort of the same. Also, I think that $50 for such powerful tools is not really expensive. I think constructors have made a lot of effort to make their phones more affordable, and thus attack the customer market. Back in the days, I talked to a representative of Blackberry France that told me their main goal is to focus in the business to customer market, also because the professional market is close to saturation and don't allow a lot of room to expand.


My needs
I have specific needs for my cell phones that convinced me I want a smart phone:

• An organizational tool: I struggled for the longest time of my lack of organizational skills. I am mainly a creative person, and I had to work a lot on my organizational skills. That is why a year ago I bought my first windows mobile device, an Acer. I think that this help a lot, because at any time you have a tool that will order your contact information, and you'll be able to see and update your schedule very easily. I advice any busy person that has problem to keep things organize to own one of these smart phones, It will help you a lot.
• A tool to go on the Internet: I'd like to have a tool that will help me to read my rss feeds efficiently while I am in the public transportation for example. This is important because if you want to make the best out of your available time, and you spend so much time in the metro, you need to keep busy. Reading rss feeds is for sure a great tool.
• Being able to post from the device: As a blogger, how many times I have forgot to post a great idea I had because I did not have access to the Internet or to my blog platform. I'd like to have a phone that will have a comfortable keyboard, which allows you to write fast a blog article. That is also the reason why I did not want to get an Iphone and I won't talk about it here, because I don't believe that their keyboard is really great for writing long articles. Hence I am agree with David Spark's opinion about the Iphone you can read here.
• Eventually to use it as a multimedia player: This is not one of my main criteria, but it will be great if it could have a good memory in order for me to also listen to podcast and some of my favorite song. But as I already have a nano Ipod, this is not mandatory.

My thought at this moment

• Concerning the keyboard, I have tried both the Samsung and the Blackberry keyboards to write a post. I think that the Samsung keyboard's keys are a little bit larger and more convenient. Even though I feel comfortable with the blackberry's one, I think the windows mobile empowered mobile is better
• Concerning the rss feed reader, I think there is a great advantage for the blackberry. I had a windows mobile device and the Internet browser sucks. This is not possible to see a webpage easilly. Thanks to its build-in rss feed reader, this is very convenient to read a blog with a Blackberry device.
• Concerning the organizational tool, I have one problem with the blackberry model. Thus, I use Outlook for my calendars, contacts and tasks. By using blackberry, this is not that convenient to synchronize your Outlook. I have already made the experience, and trust me, this is not easy at all to get something that synchronize both. So advantage for Outlook and Windows Mobile on this side.

My research are not done yet, and I'd like to speak with some users, to have their opinion about it. What do you think about smart phones? What is your opinion? I'd be glad to have your opinion on it. I'll give you update on my research and my choice while I'll know more about the topic.

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Why I am not writting a lot of articles these past few days

As I have said in a previous post, I am very sorry for the fact I did not write much these past few days. I have been very busy for different reasons and it has been hard to keep with the rythm I had this year concerning my blog.

As some of you might know, I finished my internship couple of weeks ago, and I decided to come back to France to look for a job. I had some opportunities to work here, but I think that at this moment, it is the best to come back to France. I'll probably talk about that more in a next post.

The fact is that since I'm done with my internship and I am moving back to France, my schedule has been turned up side down. Indeed, I had a specific schedule dedicated to Internet research and blog writing, among other daily tasks. But now, I have some problem to get back on track, especially because I have different things to get done that are important and time consuming (sending stuffs to France, cancelling bank accounts and so on... Not really cool stuffs to do, but I have to).

Anyway, I have a lot of new posts ideas coming through my mind, and I wish I'll be able to share it with you soon.

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Commerce électronique : De la stratégie à la mise en oeuvre opérationnelle

Je tiens tout d'abord à m'excuser auprès de mes lecteurs réguliers de ne pas avoir été très prolifique ces derniers temps. Je vous expliquerai dans un prochain article pourquoi. Aujourd'hui je souhaitais faire une peu de publicité pour un ouvrage que je n'ai pas encore eu l'occasion de lire, mais dont je ne doute aucunement de la qualité.

Il y a une dizaine de jour j'ai reçu un email de mon ancien professeur de système d'informations à l'université Paris Dauphine, Henri Isaac, m'alertant de la sortie d'un livre s'intitulant "Commerce électronique : De la stratégie à la mise en oeuvre opérationnelle". Je vous invite à vous procurez et à lire cet ouvrage, pour les raisons suivantes:

• Henri Isaac est un spécialiste en la matière: Henri Isaac est sans nul doute l'un des professeurs préférés du master distribution et relation client pour deux principales raisons. La première est qu'il est une mine d'information sur les nouvelles technologies et les systèmes d'information. Il possède une expertise et une connaissance de ces sujets très pointues. De plus, il est passionné par ce sujet, et ses cours sont toujours vivants et animés.
• Un outil opérationnel et complet : La gestion du commerce électronique est un sujet vaste, et lorsqu'on entreprend un projet de ce type, la multitude de problématiques liées à cet exercice peut être délicate à appréhender. Ce livre présente clairement les étapes et les problématiques, et devient ainsi un guide opérationnel.
  
• Les éditions Pearson sont d'une très bonne qualité: J'ai déjà l'édition concernant la gestion de la relation client, et ce livre est d'une très grande qualité.
  

Pour plus d'information, livre-ecommerce.fr, ou vous pourrez trouver la table des matières et une présentation des auteurs, mais aussi une très bonne idée ("2.0"), une section dédiée à l'actualisation des études de cas.

Je vais très certainement me procurer cet ouvrage, et vous ferez par de mon avis sur celui-ci.

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Réussir son entretien d'embauche selon Henri Kaufman

Vous le savez certainement, j'apprécie particulièrement Henri Kaufman. En effet, je lis quotidiennement son blog sur le marketing. Il a pris l'habitude ces derniers temps, avec son compagnon de vidéo PPC, de faire des vidéos-conseils, 7 points en 7 minutes. Aujourd'hui, un sujet passionant, puisqu'il me concerne directement: réussir son entretien d'embauche. J'espère que le sujet vous intéressera. Je trouve en tout cas les points d'une exceptionnelle pertinence. Encore merci Henri pour ces précieux conseils.

1. Se renseigner à fond sur l'entreprise (ses produits, son site,
   les blogs de ses collaborateurs, ses plaquettes, son implantation...).
   Consommer ses produits si possible.
2. Se renseigner autant que possible sur le profil de votre interlocuteur (parcours, fonction, personnalité...),
3. Répéter l'entretien - ce que vous allez dire- devant quelqu'un ou à défaut, devant une glace,
4. Préparer son muscle zygomatique quelques minutes avant l'entretien ; pourquoi pas dans l'ascenseur ?
5. Préparer son look, son maquillage (ni trop, ni trop peu), en
   fonction du poste brigué. Pas de costume du Dimanche serré aux
   entournures !
6. Soigner les 30 premières secondes de l'entretien. Préparer les réponses aux questions
   inattendues (les hobbies, les missions). La fin de l'entretien : ce que
   vous allez apporter à cette entreprise (dynamisme, expertise, compétences, relations, etc...,
7. Ne pas partir sans la
   phrase magique : "et maintenant, que va-t-il se passer ?". Quel est le
   next step ? et n'oubliez pas de parler aussi des entretiens que vous
   avez eus ou allez avoir avec d'autres sociétés... La concurrence est valable dans les deux sens !

Conclusion : au retour
chez vous, faites un débrief écrit de l'entretien (classé dans un
cahier) ; déterminez la date de votre rappel et... au suivant ! Chaque
entretien est la marche d'un escalier qui mène vers le palier de
l'embauche définitive. Chaque entretien cisèle votre candidature et le
recruteur met en lumière des points faibles que vous corrigerez aux
entretiens suivants.

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Gas Prices impact the Airlines industry: American Airlines charging $15 to check one bag

Gas prices is for sure the issue number 1 in the United States right now. High gas prices is driving customers anger and lower their spendings since it impacts deeply their household budget. Airlines are also affected by this problem. In order to keep their margin, they start to "unbundled" their prices, charging customers for all the different service they used to include in their prices. It has  already been a year now passengers need to purchase food and/or drinks during domestic flights.

Now we have reached a new step: companies start charging if you travel with luggages. American Airlines announced they will charge $15 for one bag starting June 15 (source, San Jose Mercury News, May22 2008).

Why don't they simply raise their prices?
Well the problem is that this market is dominated by price competition, with a very few possible ways of differentiation. The arrival of price comparison search engine, such as Expedia, Orbitz or Opodo, helped customers to focus on prices. Raising the prices is not a viable solution as it will probably plummet market shares of the airlines.

I am still deceived about this strategy. Indeed, these items and services offered during a flight became the norm, and if you fly, you expect these kind of services to be included. This move is simply complicating an offer that might have been simple in the past. Also, let's not forget that these services were some of the key advantages of airplanes versus taking the train. Now that the train might come back in the US (I heard that people were thinking about a high speed train connection between San Francisco and Los Angeles), because it is more energy efficient, and use electricity instead of fuel for planes.

What is clear is that US airlines are in deep trouble:

• This year the US airlines industry has lost $2 billion in the first quarter
• 8 airlines filed for bankruptcy protection
• Companies are diminishing their number of lights from 10 to 11%

What do you think about it? What I know, is that I'll probably come back shortly on this issue to explain why I believe the train transportation will probably come back in the US as a viable alternative to the more and more expensive plane transit.

(source: San Jose Mercury News)

CRM 2.0: Nokia launches a campaign to connect with customers.

This news is a little bit old as I read it about a month ago on the USA today. Nokia hired moviemaker Spike Lee to do a short film which will be created from material done by consumers at nokiaproductions.com. Nokia users have until August 21 to upload their contribution to the movie, whether it is video, audio or text. Afterward, the producer of Malcom X will make the cut for a 9 to 12 minutes ilm which will be broadcasted this fall at the soon to open Club Nokia auditorium in LA.

This try reminds me of what French entrepreneur Loic Lemeur is undertaking with start up Seesmic: create professional content done by Internet users. Spike Lee is therefore here to give a professional result to amateurs' videos. I'll probably post the video of the final result on this blog when it will be available.

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New Nike Soccer Commercial: in the body of an Arsenal player

This is a cool new commercial of Nike I found on Scott Purdie's blog. I think the concept is very good.

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Plaxo acquired by Comcast

As a user of Plaxo, I received today an email letting me know the company has been bought by Comcast, the US cable company. The email is not really explicative, trying mainly to insure users that this acquisition won't affect the quality of the service.

In fact, I am also concerned about this move. Will Comcast have access to the massive data base of Plaxo? I hope it won't, and I don't think it will happen. But after having read this email, I still wonder why Comcast had bought Plaxo.
The official reason is to allow Plaxo to be used on a TV set, and therefore to give it a bigger impact. I am not sure that it is true.

One of the reason might be that Comcast is not really present on the Internet. Comcast provides Internet access, but don't have any online service so far. Maybe Comcast is willing to be more present on this medium, in the future to propose some editorial content (whether it is video or writing). I also believe that on a long term period the Comcast's business model will ave to change, because the TV as we know it right now won't exist anymore. Most of the show will probably be broadcasted on the Internet. Comcast is maybe trying to move toward that direction.

On Plaxo's side, maybe this was the time to be bought, as a part of the start up trend is looking forward to being bought by a bigger entity.

What is your opinion about it? What is the idea & strategy of Comcast while making this move?

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How to make great powerpoint presentations

| View | Upload your own

Here is a great power point slide show which explains you some key concepts to edit great power point presentation. The main facts:

• Keep it simple
• Some figures
• Only present things that you master
  

Neuromarketing: is there a future for this new trend?

I heard for the first time about Neuromarketing in Marketing Magazine, in July 2007. This new trend does not surprise me at all, since marketing tends to know better and better the customers, by using new technologies. I wanted today to give a focus about neuromarketing, as this topic is pretty controversial.

Definition
According to Wikipedia, Neuromarketing is a new field of marketing that studies consumers sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli. Therefore, in order to understand better customer behavior and factors that impacts its buying decision, marketers try to identify how the human brains in order to enhance their marketing proposition.

Knowing what the customer wants has always been the dream of any marketer. Marketing is a difficult science, as it aims to offer the best message at the right time in order to convince the customer to buy a product. The problem is that customers' minds are very complex & unpredictable.

The role of science in marketing
Science has helped a lot marketing in this sense. Thanks to mathematics, especially, people are able to forecast probabilities, and to predict the results of a specific marketing campaigns. A great return of investment forecast is based on maths, on statistics predictions.

Also, marketing has based a lot of its triggers thanks to philosophy, and sociology. Based on studies, over the years, marketing has become more and more efficient, whereas the competition has become bigger.

Why using neuromarketing
One of the problem with the different measuring tools we had in the past is that it is based on the verbal expression of what the customer wants. The results could hence be biased upon how the question has been asked. Indeed, this information is mainly rational, occulting the whole emotional aspect of the decision making process. Therefore, by entering the human brain, scientists are willing to understand better the emotional side of the customer.

How does that work?
Neuromarketing uses the IRM technology, which gives a picture of the activity zones of the brain while exposed to a marketing stimuli.

Case Study: Coca VS Pepsi
In a study published in Neuron in 2004, 67 people brain scanned during a blind taste test of Coca Cola & Pepsi. The study show that the majority prefered Pepsi during the blind taste, but picked the Coke while seeing the brands. This study is supposed to show that while speaking about Coca Cola, the brain thinks about all the memories it is related to.

My opinion
The fact is that a customer has multiple factors affecting his buying behavior. Depending on his background, on his mood, on his knowledge about the product, the result will be different. I don't think we can get any conclusion of the neuromarketing so far as it can't be applied on a large scale. Can it help to set a marketing campaign? I don't think so. It might be able to shape a little bit better a marketing operation, but will never replace other kind of marketing research.

 Neuromarketing could be though a great thing to experiment and to understand maybe better the decision making process, but can't be used to better a marketing campaign in my opinion. Also, the cost of such a research is high (730 euros/person).

In my opinion, neuromarketing is not the future of marketing. It will never allow a marketer to know exactly what to propose to customers.


What do you think about it? Do you think neuromarketing has a great future? Would you use it for your marketing decision? Do you have case studies on how neuromarketing has been used?

By the way, while conducting research about this topic, I found the neuromarketing blog, http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog, which is very interesting and that I had to my netvibes. It gives good information on marketing scientific research.

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The Semantic Search Engines: the "Google Killers"

The issue of Keyword Search Engine
There is a sort of rebellion on the web these past few months. Google dominates the search engine market, but a lot of people criticize their algorithm, based on keyword search. Because of this concept, some web pages, stuffed with keywords have a better ranking than some more qualitative pages that focused on content quality instead of search engine optimization.

The main issue that keyword-based search causes is that human language is more complex than a simple juxtaposition of words. Some words have double meanings, and if you don't take into consideration the syntax and the context.
Therefore, some companies started prospecting some new ways to search the web, with new concept of searches. Some of them are based on human collaboration (human search engine). The most famous of these one is mahalo.com. I have already tried mahalo for a little while, but I have not really been convinced by it so far. To be honest, I think this style of search engine requires a lot of time to be efficient, and will never been able to be as reactive as a search engine that will go through the Internet on a regular basis.

Google Killers
However, today I have seen another kind of search engine that could be define as a "Google Killer". This is called Semantic Search Engine. As I have said, it is very important not only to check keywords, but also the context why they have been used in a specific webpage. And these new search engine are eager to focus on this semantic aspect that Google do not take into consideration (maybe so far, as Google will probably adjust its search engine within the next few years).

One of them is start-up Powerset.

"Keyword engines treat pages as word bags, indexing their content without grasping its meaning, he said. Meanwhile, Powerset's engine, applying technology developed in-house as well as licensed from Xerox's PARC subsidiary, creates a semantic representation by parsing each sentence and extracting its meaning. "Meaning is what we index," he said." (source: computerworld.com). So far, Powerset focuses on Wikipedia's pages (it is a beta version you can try out). But the fact is that they might be the future of search engine.

Problem that might have Semantic Search Engine
The main problem is that languages are difficult to analyze. Languages are complex, especially because syntax changes from a language to another. Also, because of double meanings, play on words, and all sort of different problem, it won't be easy to set up a reliable semantic search engine solution. However, with the research advances and the will to see Google's supremacy coming to an end, I believe Powerset and like can see a great future before them.

What do you think? Do you think some of these new actors in the market have a chance to challenge Google's search engine model? Do you believe semantic search have a future?

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Why Peugeot, Reunault and Citroen should come in the U.S. Market

Peugeot-Citroen & Renault are the 3 main French car manufacturers. They are present all over the world, from Europe to Asia, from Africa to South America. Hence, Renault is present in 118countries  (figures from their website), and Peugeot is well settled in countries like China or Russia.

These three companies tried to get into the US market in the 70s but did not encounter success. Because of this failure, no other attempt have been tried so far.

But I really believe that French cars should be in this market, and here are the reasons why.

The market has changed since the 70s-80s failure.

At this time, the US market was dominated by US car manufacturers such as General Motors, which were proposing the same kind of car ranges than French producers did. The only foreign companies that succeeded at this time were Asian manufacturers proposing cheap cars, which US  companies did not really know how to do at this time.
Also there was a high cost of distribution in this market. The supply chain was costly as French companies' plants were mainly in Europe, and also did not have a proper retail system to deal with tis cost.

Nowadays, we see that the supremacy of US manufacturers in the domestic market has collapsed. GM is facing major problems and losing market shares. It is not taboo anymore to by an Asian car, and top of the line European brands such as BMW, Mercedes or Saab are now on the market. So why not French cars?

The need for more fuel efficient car
With the gas prices rocketing these days MPG (miles per gallon) has become the n1 issue in the US. Most of car commercials on TV are focusing on gas efficiency, as they understood it was a priority for American consumers. Over the past years, we have seen a great shift, from big pick-up truck to smaller vehicle, consuming less gas. Gas prices will still go up. This is also one of the reason why US manufacturers have problems to face Asian companies: they have never developed a real know-how on how to deliver fuel efficient cars.
Even though Toyota's hybrid engine is a way more advance technology than French car manufacturer propose so far, French cars are known not to consume a lot of gas (as gas prices are way more higher than here in the US).

The need of small urban cars
Major cities downtown are getting more and more busy, and it is hard to find parking places now. This explains why the Smart cars are knowing success in the US. French cars have a great know-how on how to build small convenient cars, with the 207 for Peugeot, Clio for Renault, and C3 for Citroen. If the Smart and Mini Coopers are succeeding, there is a market for French small cars.

The need of exoticisms
Design-wise, US car models are not real innovative nor attractive. US consumers are seeking for nice design, that are actually most of the time proposed by European manufacturers: The New Beetle, Mini Cooper or BMW's models. French cars have original designs that have their chances to seduce the American clientele.

So what do you think about it? Are you ready to buy French cars? Do you think it is the best time to get into this market?

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The French job market: when demand's will is different from the supply's needs

This is a very interesting article I checked on cadreemploi.fr.

Herein is a graph illustrating the gap between new alumni's interest and companies needs. In orange, the number of resumes sent, in blue, the number of job offers, by categories. We can see that the demand is larger than the supply especially for the marketing and communication fields, and the research and studies one. On the other hand, there is a large offer for sales positions and the information system area.

This is very interesting I am currently conducting research to identify what kind of job I would like. I am pretty lucky though, as I am interested by both a sales position or in the Internet sector. I'd like to have an experience of couple of years in the sales field, even though I would like afterward to have a strong marketing position. I actually believe that first job positions as sales manager are more fun than marketing's ones. It allows you to understand better customers too.

In terms of negotiation, this is also an advantage for the employee, as he has a bigger negotiation power on the company.

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Starbucks uses the web 2.0 technologies to improve its service

I went onto the website of Starbucks today, and I found on the right hand side of the site a little icon: "got an idea?". You then land onto a new page where starbucks ask you to help shape the future of the company with your ideas. Who knows better the problems of Starbucks than its customers?

Post your Starbucks Idea—from ways we could improve to things we’ve never even thought of.	Check out other people’s ideas and vote on the ones you like best. The community votes. The community decides.	Talk about ideas with other customers and our Starbucks Idea Partners and help make them even better.	This is the proof. See which of your ideas were the most popular and watch as we take action.

It is actually a sort of blog where you can vote for the best ideas (articles), and discuss them by leaving comments.

Indeed, Starbucks is willing to leverage as much as it can its customers' knowledge of the brand in order to adjust their service. This is typically a web 2.0 oriented strategy. It uses the Internet technologies (most of them inspired by blogging) to converse with the customers, and get the best of the ideas to implement them.

You can:

• Submit an idea
• Vote for the ideas
• Discuss about the idea
  

Also, what I like is that in order to avoid becoming a reclamation platform, this site focuses on ideas to improve the system. The only thing I would like to know is what kind of structure they set in order to use all the feedback to turn these ideas in actual services.

What do you think about it?  Do you think your company should have the same tool? Do you think this will become the standard in the next few years?

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Where should an entrepreneur start his business? Asia, Europe or America

Here is a very interesting video posted on Loic Lemeur's blog. Three entrepreneurs discuss about their experience as entrepreneur, trying to identify the pros and the cons of each continent to start a business.

In my opinion, entrepreneurship is more a state of mind than anything, and therefore the place you start your business does not really matter. I hear a lot of people in France complaining that it is difficult in our country to launch a start up, especially because of the tax pressure. I must disagree. France is a great country to launch a business with a high consumption, and with well-qualified people. Of course each country has its downside, & in France we have a lot, but it should not stop someone to start its business. If you have faith, a good idea (and not the best idea ever), you should be fine.

I must agree also that Loic is right that to start a global company, the US is the best place because the size of the North American market. But I think the video is great as it shows well different aspects and advantages of each solutions.

What do you think about it?

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Some solutions for the gas crisis

I have been watching C-span lately and I saw some very interesting discussions about the gas crisis which is affecting the US economy. Indeed, the United States are experiencing a deep crisis because of the rise of gas prices and the weakness of the dollar. The transportation system in this country has been based on the car, and this crisis impacts a lot US citizens. I came in the US a year ago, and the gallon was around $2.60 and it is now $3.90 (what I paid yesterday).

The question is what kind of actions the government can undertake to both limit gas prices raise, and to be less dependent of gas.

· Lower the speed limit. “At 65 mph you’re burning 10% more fuel than at 55, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. At 70 you lose 17% of your fuel economy, and at 75 it’s 25%. The numbers get worse from there.” This is a fast & easy action the government could take. Of course, that would not be enough to dramatically lower the demand, and therefore have a great impact on gas prices. It would though lower US consumers budget dedicated to gas.

· Develop a reliable public transportation system. Here in the Silicon Valley we can’t really say we have a good public transportation system. It is pretty expensive ($8 a round trip to the San Francisco Airport), not complete (one train line), and not enough trains (1 train/hour after 6pm). Public transportation will give a greater option for people to go to work.

o Lower public transportation prices (by giving subventions to public transportation companies)

o Raise the number of lines and trains.

· Try to limit the needs in oil by using new sources of energy, and if possible produced inside the US. I heard a lot US politicians making an example of French energy program. Indeed, oil is also used to heat houses, produce electricity, and French electricity is produced for 90% thanks to nuclear factories. The US needs to develop an energy program that will focus on new sources of energy, to durably diminish their needs in gas.

What do you think? Do you have other ideas to limit the rise of gas prices, and/or

Back to blogging

I haven’t been able to write these past couple of days onto my blog. I have been on vacation for 10 days visiting the south west of the United States (Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, LA…), and when I came back I had to finish my internship, and had a lot of work to do.

Actually this is a great thing not to write, and not to be in contact with the web for a little while. It allows you to have a clearer vision of what you do, and therefore to make adjustment where you are suppose to do some. That also gives you another vision on your work.

I m finally done with my internship, and I will be able to dedicate time to looking for a job, and relaxing for a little while. I will also spend some times on organizing my days, to set great basements for my next professional adventure.

If by any chance you would like to know more about me and are seeking for a marketing or sales manager, feel free to contact me, I will take into consideration your offer, and send you my resume and cover letter. Also, if you are willing to know my opinion about your marketing, sales, or business strategy, I'll be glad to discuss about it too.

Even though I did not write for a while, I thought a lot, and I will have a lot to tell you within the next few days.