Three For Thursday

I scan and read a lot of stuff in search of new ideas. Much of it finds its way to my Twitter stream but still a lot of it just sits in my "to read" file and then never gets shared. So today, I'm going to try something new. With a hat tip to Steve Woodruff's now defunct Five in the Morning series, every Thursday I'm going to post the three coolest things I found that week. I'll also try and give a brief thought as to why I think the info is cool and more importantly, relevant for marketers today. This way, it will make it easy for you to scan and click if you're so inclined. So here goes:

Pop-Up Store Chain
Pop-up stores aren't all that new. Heck, they've been in malls (think those little carts you see around the holidays) since I was a kid. But of late, the idea has been taken to new heights with companies actually renting unused street level retail space and creating these pop ups. But that is kind of expensive from a build out standpoint. Enter BrandNew Stores. They build the frame of the store and then brands just need to move in and out when they want to literally pop up in the consumer's life. I think there is power here in terms of giving brands a way to present their brand when and where they need to without having all the heavy lifting associated with the traditional pop-up store model.

Connecting Volunteers with Need
Traditionally when a non-profit group needed volunteers they made calls, sent newsletters or maybe an email campaign, etc. They focused most of their time around "funding" a specific effort. Yet, every day, non-profits struggle with getting things done on a shoe string budget and skeleton staff. Enter Catalista. Catlista is a downloadable app that sits on your phone. With the app you can find local volunteer opps in your area and sign-up. Once you're done you can rate the event/activity/group and even invite friends to donate their time via social media networks. What's cool is that if you have a few hours to kill one day, you could use Catalista to find a group you care about and that has a need you can fill on those couple of hours. Kind of a cool way of approaching the recruiting and management of volunteer forces.

Giving Away Excess Inventory
Yokmok is giving travel bloggers free trips in return for guaranteed posts on the travel bloggers' blogs. Now that is nothing really new and you can talk amongst yourselves about the rightness or wrongness of paid play on blogs...but what I think is smart here is how Yokmok is doing it. They are stealing a page from the airlines and yield managing the offer. If a spot opens up on a Yokmok trip for which they cannot find a paying customer, they offer that spot to travel blogger who has registered with them and has passed their requirements. This is smart because the incremental cost to bring one more person on a managed trip like Yokmok provides is negligible and a very cheap marketing opp. Anyone here  run a hotel, airline or even a restaurant? This approach is a great way (IMHO) to gain targeted coverage with minimal cost. Something to keep your eyes on I think.

Now these three items all came to me from a great trend newsletter distributed by Springwise. If you're not on that eNewsletter, you should be... great stuff. So in parting this morning, two questions for you. First, do you like this idea? Should I do this again next Thursday? And second, what did you think of the ideas/services I shared? Did you think they were as cool as I did? Do you have specific categories, audiences, or products that you'd like me focus my attention towards? Let me know that too so i can curate good stuff for y'all.