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15 Jan 2019

ESO4: Europass + Cover letter

Have a look at the webpage and complete your online CV and a cover letter (first option).



https://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/documents/curriculum-vitae

Image result for europass cv images

8 Jan 2019

2BAC: 10 Steps For Successfully Launching A New Product Or Service

Read: https://www.fastcompany.com/3004920/10-steps-successfully-launching-new-product-or-service

In couples, you have to create a new product for a company and design the marketing strategies you will use. Think of the product features + the marketing campaign. Here you have some ideas (source: the article above):



10 Steps For Successfully Launching A New Product Or Service

Launching something new isn’t what is used to be; innovative tactics are required to cut through the noise. Here are 10 steps for getting the attention you deserve.



10 Steps For Successfully Launching A New Product Or Service



Launching a new product or service isn’t what is used to be. In the “good old days,” you could hire a PR agency to craft a press release and set up a press tour. Before the big launch date, you would hit the road and meet with reporters from all the important press outlets. Then on launch day, you could sit back and watch the articles roll in. In those days, reporters might even spend a few days fact-checking and talking to customers before filing their stories.
For good or bad, those days are gone. Today, the pace of news is limited only by the speed of light. The new media landscape incorporates far fewer major outlets; rather, it is made up of a smaller number of slimmed-down publications and an inordinate number of specialist bloggers. Getting “ink” might be easier, but paradoxically, getting attention has become extremely difficult. And the attention you do get is forgotten within minutes as the unceasing flow of even “newer news” pushes your announcement out of the collective mind share.
New tactics are required to get the notice you deserve. So here are some steps for a successful launch in these fickle times:

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  1. Start early. Don’t expect reporters to write about you when you want. Get a head start and begin preparing long before you plan to launch. A rolling launch is a great way to keep the conversation going. Start your outreach activities 6-8 weeks before the official launch date and then keep the news going up to, and beyond the official launch date. The steps below describe how to do this.
  2. Make the product or service available to important influencers as a first step. Influencers can be friendly customers, prospects, or even bloggers who have an sizable online presence. Encourage these people to use your product or service and then write review articles or posts. These folks are also great resources to talk to analysts about your offering pre-launch.
  3. Brief industry analysts during this early phase as well. Scheduling calls with these folks takes time so do this early. Invest the time to write compelling briefing requests. These guys are busy, so you will want to make sure your meeting request clearly states why it is worth their time to hear about your offering.
  4. Seed the social space with “leaks.” Target people who are naturally eager to learn about your offering. For example, ‘coming soon’ tweets and ‘leaked’ photos of your product create an aura of intrigue that builds interest. Apple is a master of this technique.
  5. Don’t expect a “big bang” release unless your product or service is truly revolutionary or if you are Microsoft or Apple. Unless you have a massive launch event planned, the official launch date should only signify the day your product is actually available.
  6. Keep the release rolling. You don’t know when reporters will have time to write, so give them some opportunity to write about the offering after the official launch date. Continue to produce fresh news like announcements concerning novel uses of the product, customer stories, details about how the offering provides return on investment (ROI) to customers, etc.
  7. Do something unusual during the release cycle. Some examples include creating a funny video, doing a stunt centered around an industry event, publishing a survey that supports the value of your product, or creating an interesting infographic that describes the need for your product. As an example, for a recent product launch, I created a mock public service announcement (PSA) website that warned of the ‘dangers’ of using our new mobile product while walking. The irony created an enormous buzz around the launch and even led to a huge spike in free product downloads. You can check it out here.
  8. Get partners involved. Channel and marketing partners who have a financial stake in the success of the launch are natural allies. The more people that are talking about the release, the better chances it will get pickup.
  9. Make it easy for people to learn more about your product with free trials, downloads, product videos, and demos.
  10. Ignore the elements of the launch that do not drive business. Unless your offering appeals to a mass consumer audience, don’t focus on the number of Facebook likes and Twitter followers you collect. Rather, use these social channels for more meaningful engagement. See who is talking about your offering online and then make contact with them. See how these folks can help you further promote your offering within their social circles.
One company that has been doing a great job of creating a rolling launch is RIM with its new Blackberry 10 announcement. A video with their CMO describing the strategy can be viewed here.
I would love to hear other innovative ideas for creating attention around product launches. Comment below or tweet me at @dlavenda.
–Author David Lavenda is a product strategy and marketing executive at a high-tech company. He also does academic research on information overload in organizations and he is an international scholar for the Society for the History of Technology. He tweets from @dlavenda.
[Image: Flickr user Brian Auer]

About the author

A technology strategist for an enterprise software company in the collaboration and social business space. I am particularly interested in studying how people, organizations, and technology interact, with a focus on why particular technologies are successfully adopted while others fail in their mission. In my 'spare' time, I am pursuing an advanced degree in STS (Science, Technology, and Society), focusing on how social collaboration tools impact our perceptions of being overloaded by information. I am an international scholar for the Society for the History of Technology.



2BAC: Article about measure against single-use plastic straws

Read the article: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jul/23/starbucks-straws-ban-2020-environment#img-1


Starbucks is banning straws – but is it really a big win for the environment?


The coffee giant has announced that it is phasing out straws. But are the new lids it’s introducing actually any better?





This month, Starbucks joined a growing movement to ban single-use plastic straws, announcing it would eliminate the items from its stores by 2020. In their place, the company will be introducing strawless lids, which have a sippable protrusion. It will also make alternative-material straws available.
Starbucks already has strawless lids available in more than 8,000 of its North American stores. These were developed for its “Nitro” coffee beverages which have a creamy top and are best drunk without a straw. Now, however, the coffee chain will be making the Nitro lids standard for all cold beverages, most of which now come with straws. Cold beverages make up more than 50% of Starbucks’s beverage mix, an increase from 37% just five years ago.




The Seattle-based coffee chain estimates that this move will eliminate more than 1bn plastic straws a year across its more than 28,000 stores around the world. It’s a big win for anti-straw advocates. But is it really a big win for the environment?
Reason, a magazine and blog published by the rightwing Reason Foundation, has claimed that the Nitro lids Starbucks will be making standard use more plastic than a combination of the company’s current lids and plastic straws. Some social media users have also noticed that the Nitro lids are noticeably thicker than the current lids and have speculated about whether they will really be better for the environment. The Guardian weighed the Nitro lids and found that they are indeed heavier than the current lid/straw combination, if only by a tiny amount. Nevertheless, even a tiny bit more plastic adds up quickly, considering Starbucks’s enormous scale.
Starbucks does not dispute that the new lids use more plastic. However, they stress that “the strawless lid is made from polypropylene, a commonly-accepted recyclable plastic that can be captured in recycling infrastructure, unlike straws which are too small and lightweight to be captured in modern recycling equipment.”



The new Starbucks lid is intended to cut down on plastic waste.
Pinterest
The new Starbucks lid is intended to cut down on plastic waste. Photograph: Eva Hambach/AFP/Getty Images

While it is true that plastic straws cannot be recycled, it should not be automatically assumed that the new plastic lids will definitely be recycled. Only 9% of the world’s plastic is recycled. A large number of things that are theoretically recyclable do not get recycled for reasons such as contamination.
Compounding this problem is the fact that the US exports about one-third of its recycling, the majority of which goes to China. At the beginning of 2018, however, China implemented a ban on importing plastic waste. Over the last few months states such as Oregon, which have relied heavily on exporting trash to China, have sent much of their recyclables to landfill while they look for another solution.
It is hard to gauge exactly how much Starbucks’s decision to increase its use of plastic, but eliminate plastic straws, will help the environment. To some extent the move to Nitro lids feels like a way to channel some easy PR from the growing anti-straw movement, rather than a meaningful sustainability initiative.
Where Starbucks can make a significant impact, however, is by tackling its disposable cup problem. The coffee chain is described as a “Cup Monster” by some environmental groups, and up to 6bn of its disposable cups end up in landfills every year.
Starbucks recently announced it plans to fix this; the company is working with McDonald’s to develop a global recyclable and/or compostable cup solution, and says it will “continue to push ourselves and work with the industry on solutions to reduce waste”. This isn’t the first time Starbucks has said it is working towards a better cup. A decade ago Starbucks said it would make 100% of its cups reusable or recyclable by 2015. That hasn’t happened yet.