July 2005

The Startups True Secret Sauce?

Startups have unique advantages for creating innovative products. Now, many established companies have created internal startups - sometimes called "Intrapreneuring" or "Spin-ins" to come up with innovative products. (Audio)

Filed under Trend$ | Send this

Palm: What PDA problem?

Executive Paul Blinkhorn talks about a $30 million name change and how to deal with a smart-phone onslaught.

Filed under Branding | Send this

WonderBytes

From DVRs to casino gambling, women are buying and using more products and services than you might think.

Filed under Trend$ | Send this

Researcher looks to clear the air about cow emissions

California is home to more than three million cows, with the vast majority grazing in the heavily polluted Central Valley. What's their effect on air quality?

Filed under Peculiar Picks | Send this

Net addresses come to Earth

Net addresses are starting to reveal how they are linked to the real world.

Filed under Technology | Send this

A Day in the Life - entrepreneur.com

Tag along with these three franchisees for a day, and see what it's really like to own a franchise.

Filed under Entrepreneurs | Send this

The 50 plus workforce

The mirror image to 50 plus marketing is 50 plus human relations. The effects of the aging population on the workplace are just as, if not more, dramatic than to the marketplace.

Filed under Trend$ | Send this

TV Meets the Web

Web video finally goes mainstream. Will marketing ever be the same? (Subscription required!)

Filed under Marketing | Send this

Got a baby? It's time to call the 'bank'

If you have the inclination, and the money, you can ‘bank’ your baby’s umbilical cord blood.

Filed under Healthcare | Send this

Design's New School of Thought

1 Aug 2005 from businessweek.com | Read the full story»

IDEO's David Kelley is building a "D-school" that aims to put students in direct contact with the people they're designing for ...

Filed under Education | Send this

Leading Ideas: Culture Drives Success

"I came to see in my time at IBM that 'culture' isn't just one aspect of the game - it is the game." -- Lou Gerstner Culture is your organization's DNA - the blueprint for everything you do. To be better at innovating - your culture must expect and foster innovation. To improve customer satisfaction - your culture must expect and foster great service. Great leaders realize this. They know that "culture" isn't a single item on a task list. And it can't be delegated to a committee. It's all encompassing. It's the real work - and legacy - of leaders.

Filed under Leadership | Send this

Join the Circus

July 2005 from fastcompany.com | Read the full story»

In 21 years, Cirque du Soleil has grown from a funky band of street performers into a half-billion-dollar global company. It's a high-wire act of smart risk-taking, innovating around the clock, and staying uncomfortable. [See also this blog.fastcompany.com entry.]

Filed under Innovation | Send this

Globalization Spreads to Punctuation

11 July 2005 from news.yahoo.com | Read the full story»

WASHINGTON - When it comes to phone numbers, dashes are SO 20th century.

Filed under Peculiar Picks | Send this

'Free' Danish beer makes a splash

Students in Copenhagen have created what they are calling the world's first open source beer recipe.

Filed under Peculiar Picks | Send this

DaimlerChrysler CEO Schrempp to Step Down

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- DaimlerChrysler CEO Juergen Schrempp, architect of the controversial merger between Daimler-Benz and Chrysler Corp., will step down and turn the top job over to Chrysler head Dieter Zetsche, the company said Thursday ...

Filed under News | Send this

Feed Me, Academia

Need more ideas and insights for your work? The University of Saskatchewan Library offers an online directory of academic journals that offer RSS feeds. [via Infectious Greed] ...

Filed under Technology | Send this

Downloading 'myths' challenged

People who illegally download music spend much more on legal downloads than average fans, a study shows.

Filed under Marketing | Send this

Designing Meaning, Creating Value

John Maeda of MIT's Media Lab wrote a delightful post about meaning and design, and how deep meaning can be embedded into a designed offering. And as he tells the story, meaning can even be designed into something as mundane (yet vitally important) as a restroom door ...

Filed under Design | Send this

House Approves Cafta After Tough Debate

The House narrowly approved a U.S. trade pact with Central America after a drawn-out debate that proved much tougher and more passionate than the White House expected.

Filed under News | Send this

Awards to applaud women in tech

Top women in technology are to be recognised in the first Blackberry Women and Technology awards.

Filed under Trend$ | Send this

Main Street in the Cross Hairs

The nation's 5 million retail stores are proving to be an easy target for data thieves.

Filed under Technology | Send this

Starring in your own movie

Market researchers want to know what you buy and what you return to the shelf. What if they could watch over your shoulder all day? Or ride along on your lapel? They can. Jocelyn Gonzales reports. (Audio)

Filed under Marketing | Send this

When Good Enough Isn't

A few months ago I met Firefox co-creator and Stanford University undergrad Blake Ross at a Churchill Club event. In asking him for an interview, I told him that I write for AlwaysOn, a website and "blogozine" created by the person who founded the Churchill Club and Red Herring. ...

Filed under Technology | Send this

Microsoft wipes Apple off the map

As software rivals, Microsoft wants to wipe Apple Computer off the map. With Microsoft's new Web service for satellite photographs, ...

Filed under Peculiar Picks | Send this

Privacy Guru Locks Down VOIP

Phil Zimmermann, the man behind the Pretty Good Privacy encryption program for e-mail, is launching a new program that aims to provide the same security for internet phone calls. By Kim Zetter.

Filed under Technology | Send this

GM to End Employee-Discount Program

General Motors Corp. said it plans to end its successful "employee discounts for everyone" promotion next week. The company also signaled that it will embark on a new pricing strategy for 2006 models that will attempt to focus on permanently lower sticker prices instead of big rebates.

Filed under Marketing | Send this

The Netflix Paradigm

In a recent focus group at the Digital Media Summit, we asked a group of college students and young adults whether they regularly download unlicensed music or copy it from their friends' hard drives. Affirmative, all eight told us. And do they also download or copy full-length movies? Rarely, the anonymous youths said. It takes too long. And why bother, when for around $20 a month they...

Filed under Marketing | Send this

Periodic table's design gets an elemental challenge

The new design has the elements spiral out from the center of neutronium in increasing atomic number. The elements form spokes ...

Filed under Technology | Send this

The Revolutions Continue

The Seven Futures project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, DC, offers its Seven Revolutions report. The study looks at how factors such as population, technology, and governance will affect life and work ...

Filed under Strategies | Send this

Week in pictures: Le tour de tech

Roundup: Lance Armstrong takes a high-tech trek and the military unveils a "less lethal" weapon. Also: Robots kick it up.

Filed under News | Send this

Digital music is going mobile

While the iTunes phone plays a waiting game, cell phone networks are building their own download stores.

Filed under Technology | Send this

Fool vs. Jerk: Whom Would You Hire?

You are the hiring manager with a nasty decision to make. Would you hire the lovable fool or the competent jerk? This Harvard Business Review excerpt suggests that the decision is complicated. By HBS professor Tiziana Casciaro and Duke University's Miguel Sousa Lobo.

Via Harvard Business School Working Knowledge

Filed under Talent | Send this

Salesforce.com's new gamble

The company, seen as a leader in the movement toward so-called software as a service applications, is making a bet on a new development system--called Multiforce--that lets partners and customers custom-tailor the software and build their own services.

Filed under Innovation | Send this

The Personal MBA 40

19 Jul 2005 from joshkaufman.net | Read the full story»

My goal was to reduce the PMBA [books to read to gain the equivalent of an MBA] list to no more than 40 titles. Here are my editing criteria:

Valuable Content
Acceptable Time Commitment
Reference Value

Filed under Books | Send this

Nanotech Moves Closer to Cure

Dr. James Baker and his lab at the University of Michigan are turning tiny, tendril-covered particles into weapons against disease and illness. By Howard Lovy.

Filed under Healthcare | Send this

We are sailing...

A West Midlands councillor briefly proposed that Land of Hope and Glory should be replaced by Rod Stewart's Sailing at Remembrance Day celebrations. Everyone knows Sailing, so what does it mean?

Filed under Peculiar Picks | Send this

Teamsters, SEIU Bolt AFL-CIO Federation

CHICAGO (AP) -- The Teamsters and a major service employees union on Monday bolted from the AFL-CIO, a stunning exodus for an embattled movement already struggling to build its ranks and cope with a rapidly changing work environment ...

Filed under News | Send this

Very Old Labor

The AFL-CIO, the giant union consortium formed in 1955 by George Meany and Walter Reuther, is breaking apart this week in a dispute over how to revive labor's lagging fortunes. The tragedy is that neither faction is offering an agenda that will make workers more prosperous in our increasingly competitive global economy.

Filed under News | Send this

Longhorn Or Long Wait?

Interview between Walter Mossberg and Bill Gates. Mr. Mossberg is a technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Bill Gates is ...

Filed under Technology | Send this

Cheaper Health Insurance

Republicans haven't been getting much credit on the health policy front, despite their misguided 2003 drug entitlement masquerading as Medicare "reform." That could change soon. Last week the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a bill that could dramatically reduce the ranks of the uninsured and spur general economic growth -- all without costing a dime to the Treasury.

Filed under Healthcare | Send this

A new plan for the World Bank

The World Bank, now under Paul Wolfowitz, has a new mission: fighting global warming. But commentator and policy analyst Daphne Wysham thinks that's not the best idea. (Audio)

Filed under Trend$ | Send this

Video games lacking a woman's touch

Tara Teich enjoys nothing more than slipping into the role of a female video game character. But the 26-year-old software programmer gets annoyed by the appearance of such digital alter egos as the busty tomb raider Lara Croft or the belly-baring Wu the Lotus Blossom of Jade Empire.

Filed under Trend$ | Send this

Bard accent

Ever been baffled by the bard? Vexed by his verse? Or perplexed by his puns? London's Globe theatre thinks it has the answer: perform Shakespeare's plays in Shakespeare's dialect.

Filed under Peculiar Picks | Send this

Scrubbing Bubbles Hit the Streets

A joint Swedish-Finnish venture is working to develop catalytic concrete products that will dissolve pollutants. The technology for self-cleaning surfaces already exists, but can it be applied on a large enough scale to combat pollution?

Filed under Trend$ | Send this

Nissan Shows The Power of Marketing By Design

Did anyone notice that in June, the month that General Motors wiped out the industry with its "employee pricing" promotion (which garnered GM a 40%+ sales gain over the previous year and added almost 7 points of market share) that...

Filed under Design | Send this

Classical Theory vs. the Real World

After extensive jaw-boning by the U.S., China has let its currency strengthen by about 2% against the dollar -- its first official appreciation in a decade. The Bank of China said that the move would help "bring exports and imports into balance." Most observers said that the 2% revaluation was an important symbolic step -- the currency would have to appreciate by as much as another 30%. Should the Bush administration continue to press China for a more substantial revaluation? Would the elimination of China's trade surplus with the U.S. do the U.S. any good?

Filed under News | Send this

What Consumers -- and Retailers -- Should Know about Dynamic Pricing

According to a recent study, 64% of consumers who shop on the Internet do not know that "it is legal for an online store to charge different people different prices at the same time of day." Yet dynamic pricing is not new. Retailers have been using it for years in ways that benefit not just themselves but also their customers.

Filed under Service | Send this

A Radio Program Turns to a Blog to Cull Ideas

A new public radio program — Open Source from PRI — draws on the collective intelligence permeating the Web to make smart radio.

Filed under Blogging | Send this

Best Global Brands by Value for 2005

In the new special report, BusinessWeek and Interbrand rank the companies that best built their images--and made them stick in 2005.

Filed under Branding | Send this

Drug Industry Proposes Limits on Advertising

The pharmaceutical industry released draft guidelines that endorse a period of informing doctors about new drugs before running ads for them. (Subscription required!)

Filed under Healthcare | Send this

Waking Up to Warjacking

It's a scammy world, and consumer Wi-Fi connections could be the next security pain point.

Filed under Technology | Send this

Credit Line Goes Here

Design is essentially a collaborative enterprise. That makes assigning credit for the products of our work a complicated issue.

Filed under Design | Send this

10 Steps To An Irresistible Brand

The methodology of crafting brand strategies, defines ten steps on the “yellow brick road” to an irresistible brand, each complete with its own tools, and all composing a comprehensive and well structured work process.

Filed under Branding | Send this

The Podcast as a New Podium

The best of the downloadable audio shows fall into three categories: the appallingly personal, the technically useful, and podcasts from abroad. (Subscription required!)

Filed under Technology | Send this

Tour de Lance

Lance Armstrong may be finished with bike racing. But this hot marketing property will ride on.

Filed under Marketing | Send this

Driving Success: How You Innovate Determines What You Innovate

18 JUL 2005 from Wharton School Publishing | Read the full story»

[Excerpts from the book: Making Innovation Work by Tony Davila, et. al.]
As innovation leaders like Apple, Toyota, Dell, Nucor Steel, Sony, and others have shown, making important changes to key parts of the dominant business model or the essential technology can redirect the competitive vectors of an entire industry. Innovation provides the opportunity for a company to put its mark on the evolution of business. By setting the rules of the game in their industries, these companies have taken a leadership position and play the game that favors them the most.

Filed under Innovation | Send this

Tattooed Fruit Is on Way

19 JUL 2005 from NYT > Dining & Wine | Read the full story»

A new technology being used by produce distributors employs lasers to tattoo fruits and vegetables with their names, identifying numbers, countries of origin and other information that helps speed distribution. The marks are burned onto the outer layer of the skin and are visible to discerning consumers and befuddled cashiers alike. (Subscription required!)

Filed under Design | Send this

Studies Fault Hospitals on Basics

21 JUL 2005 from The Washington Post | Read the full story»

U.S. hospitals are improving the quality of the care they provide, but even the best fail too often to offer the right treatments, such as immediately giving aspirin to victims of heart attacks and properly administering antibiotics to pneumonia patients, according to the two most comprehensive analyses of the issue. The studies of more than 3,000 hospitals nationwide found that despite overall improvement, care varies dramatically around the country, with those in the North and Midwest generally outperforming those in the South and West.

Filed under Healthcare | Send this

can consumer creativity become mass?

19 JUL 2005 from Influx Insights Weblog | Read the full story»

The idea of consumer participation has been in the headlines in the last couple of weeks; first with the rise of the citizen journalist and yesterday with the announcement that key Google investors would also be investing is Zazzle.com (a site that allows users to put their art on stuff). Also, Business Week has a whole piece on consumer-created advertising... If one was to join all the dots and one could easily be led to believe that the gates have been opened and a torrent of consumer creators have been unleashed.

Filed under Innovation | Send this

Interview With Régine Debatty Of WMMNA

20 JUL 2005 from IF | Read the full story»

We Make Money Not Art must be one of the most popular blogs on the web. Written by Régine Debatty, its anarchic mix of products, gizmos, new-age-cool-stuff and seems to be read and loved by everyone from Birmingham culture-jammers to New York ad execs. We thought we'd ask Regine a few questions about the success of her site.

Filed under Blogging | Send this

From Web-Savvy Patient to 'Cyberchondriac'

19 JUL 2005 from The Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

Recently a patient contacted our practice after convincing herself, based on some Internet research, that her child had Attention Deficit Disorder. She wanted us to start the child on a medication typically used for seizure disorders, instead of a more commonly used medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration for ADD. In addition, could we call a prescription in to the pharmacy for her today without examining her child? No. Not on this planet. Not today or any other day. (Subscription required!)

Filed under Healthcare | Send this

Helping Hands for Women's Startups

18 JUL 2005 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

Launched in 1988, Women's Business Centers have a fantastic track record of efficiently getting female entrepreneurs up and running.

Filed under Entrepreneurs | Send this

Former Bush official to get RFID tag

18 JUL 2005 from CNet News.com | Read the full story»

Tommy Thompson, the Health and Human Services Secretary in President Bush's first term and a former Governor of Wisconsin, is going to get tagged. Thompson has joined the board of Applied Digital, which owns VeriChip, the company that specializes in subcutaneous RFID tags for humans and pets. To help promote the concepts behind the technology, Thompson himself will get an RFID tag implanted under his skin.

Filed under Technology | Send this

What's the Next Big Thing on the Web? It May Be a Small, Simple Thing -- Microformats

Ever since the world wide web exploded in the mid-1990s, attempts have been made to extend its basic presentation format to create a richer, more meaningful network of information. Most efforts, however, have gained little traction. These initiatives have been bogged down by complexity and over-ambitious goals. Now, a grassroots movement has emerged that seeks to attach intelligent data to Web pages by using simple extensions of the standard HTML tags currently used for web formatting. These so-called "microformats" may change the way the web works, according to participants at the recent Supernova conference in San Francisco.

Filed under Technology | Send this

Inside Chinese business

Recent acquisitive moved by Chinese companies are stirring emotions here in the U.S. But what do Chinese companies really want? Beijing Bureau Chief Jocyelyn Ford takes a look. (Audio)

Filed under Strategies | Send this

Buzzwords slow to grab surfers

Buzzwords to describe the latest trends on the net are largely unknown to US web users, according to a survey.

Filed under Technology | Send this

U.S. Will Offer Doctors Free Electronic Records System

In an unprecedented move, Medicare plans to give doctors free software to computerize their medical practices. (Subscription required!)

Filed under Healthcare | Send this

Most Vote "No" On Mobile Video

In-Stat reports that only about one-eighth of mobile phone subscribers are interested in purchasing some kind of mobile video content from their provider. Some two-thirds said they weren't interested.

Filed under Technology | Send this

Going private

What do Cablevision, Neiman Marcus, Double Click and Polaroid have in common? They've all gone from public to private. Marketplace's Amy Scott reports on the recent surge in going-private buyouts. Amy Scott reports. (Audio)

Filed under Strategies | Send this

How To Inspire Women's Market Investment

So...when people can search the Net and find the lowest price in minutes, what DOES keep women connected to, and shopping with, their local retailers?

Filed under Trend$ | Send this

billboards - more interesting than ever

20 JUL 2005 from Influx Insights Weblog | Read the full story»

In the digital age, with new technology sprouting ever more elaborate media vehicles to challenge the traditional media mix, one of the oldest media, out-of-home, (American billboard advertising started in the 1830s) seems to be holding its own.

Filed under Marketing | Send this

Recruiting for the Global Talent War

Never mind the touchy-feely stuff -- international diversity is essential for companies that hope to thrive in today's economy. (Subscription required!)

Filed under Talent | Send this

Blogs Taking Off in Cambodia

A Cambodian nonprofit worker traverses the country, teaching students to publish blogs. The project promotes democracy and spurs internet use in a land where few people have access to the web. Matt Reed reports from Phnom Penh.

Filed under Blogging | Send this

New Potter was online in 24h

JK Rowling reportedly refused to release the new Harry Potter as an ebook, citing "piracy" fears. Less than 24h after the book hit the shelves, it had been scanned in, run through optical character recognition software, proofread and posted.

Filed under Technology | Send this

The Startup Factory

How a little-known Israeli telecom became the world's most successful incubator. (Subscription required!)

Filed under Entrepreneurs | Send this

Canada Senate backs gay marriage

The Canadian Senate approves same-sex marriages, making it the fourth country in the world to do so.

Filed under News | Send this

Broadband's bargain hunt

As the market matures, consumers are reaping the benefits of a growing discount war among the phone and cable companies.

Filed under Technology | Send this

Time A-Wastin'.

A new survey finds that the average American worker wastes over two hours a day — much of it online — costing industry billions a year.

Filed under Talent | Send this

Wal-Mart Applies for Banking License

Wal-Mart Stores, the retail giant, has applied to establish a Utah industrial bank that would process credit card, debit card and electronic check transactions from its retail locations, the bank's chief executive said Tuesday. (Subscription required!)

Filed under News | Send this

Woman to Lead Baltimore Symphony

Marin Alsop will be the next conductor of the Baltimore Symphony, making history as the first woman to be named the musical director of such a major orchestra. But in the final days before the decision, there have been dissenting voices from the musicians on the search committee. Joel Rose of member station WHYY reports. (Audio)

Filed under Trend$ | Send this

This Is Your Brain on Advertising

By taking neuromarketing out of the lab and into the mall, a small British firm is helping world-class advertisers make their pitches more effective. (Subscription required!)

Filed under Marketing | Send this

You Are Where You Eat

Need a place to eat while on a business trip but don't want to do a lot of research? Turn to Dinnerbuzz, a social guide to dinner and drinks.

Filed under Brand You | Send this

How Effective Is This Ad, in Real Numbers? Beats Me

The results of a survey confirm that everyone complains about the inability to determine the return on investment from advertising spending. (Subscription required!)

Filed under Marketing | Send this

Making the EPA look good

The Environmental Protection Agency is looking to hone what it calls its "corporate image." Does it make sense for a government agency to spend millions on PR? Marketplace's Scott Tong reports. (Audio)

Filed under Branding | Send this

IBM Shares Up After Reporting Bigger Profit

BOSTON (AP) -- Shares of International Business Machines Corp. jumped Tuesday after the technology bellwether's second-quarter earnings beat Wall Street's expectations, providing evidence that Big Blue has rebounded from difficulties early in the year....

Filed under News | Send this

Hewlett-Packard to Cut 14,500 Jobs

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. on Tuesday said it will cut 14,500 jobs, about 10 percent of its full-time staff, as part of a restructuring plan designed to save $1.9 billion annually and boost business performance....

Filed under News | Send this

Design – the New Competitive Difference

The CEO of Procter & Gamble, A.G. Lafley, after running P&G's Asia operation from Japan for four years in the mid-1990s, came to a very un-Procteresque conclusion:design, not simply price or technology, should be P&G's key differentiator.

Filed under Design | Send this

The Crybabies on Wall Street

Thanks to Jim Sinegal, the bigwigs down on Wall Street have their undies in a bunch. Jim is the CEO of Costco Wholesale, now the fifth largest retailer in the country. He loves his job, his employees and his customers. While creating a retail giant he's also, as they say in New York, "created such a scandal you never saw."

Filed under Strategies | Send this

UN at odds over internet's future

A UN group set up to debate how to run the net has failed to reach a decision.

Filed under Technology | Send this

Identify Emerging Market Opportunities

Yes, you understand your company needs to compete in emerging markets. But which country is the best fit for you? A Harvard Business Review excerpt by Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu, and Jayant Sinha.

Via Harvard Business School Working Knowledge

Filed under Strategies | Send this

Slate starts podcasting

Online mag Slate now offers podcasts of editors reading pieces aloud. Even more unusual and adventurous fare is coming soon, and from what I hear through the pod-vine... should be pretty amazing stuff. -Xeni Jardin

Filed under Technology | Send this

Examples from Abroad by Todd S.

For a book filled with examples and anecdotes from outside the United States, try Made in China: What Western Managers Can Learn from Trailblazing Chinese Entrepreneurs by Donald Sull with Yong Wang. The authors have built the book around some interesting ideas about how Chinese start-ups get their start.

Filed under Books | Send this

TOP EDITOR LEAVES 'FAST COMPANY'

19 JUL 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Just weeks after John A. Byrne, editor at Fast Company, helped save his magazine from the dustbin by recruiting Joe Mansueto to buy it, Mr. Byrne is leaving to become executive editor at BusinessWeek, a newly created post. (Free subscription required!)

Filed under News | Send this

Mix, Match, And Mutate

25 JUL 2005 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

Suddenly, hordes of volunteer programmers are taking it upon themselves to combine and remix the data and services of unrelated, even competing sites. The result: entirely new offerings they call "mash-ups." They're the Web versions of Reese's ("Hey, you got peanut butter on my chocolate!") Peanut Butter Cups.

Filed under Technology | Send this

Sharing the Data Bridge in Cincinnati

19 JUL 2005 from HealthLeaders.com | Read the full story»

Delivering on the promise of collaborative technology, HealthBridge is redefining how competitive hospitals can share data with their physicians. Formed in 1997, the group enables four local Cincinnati IDNs—encompassing 17 hospitals that comprise the bulk of the region's care delivery—to push out lab results, radiology reports and other clinical documents across a community-sponsored platform. Launched with the goal of facilitating physician access to hospital IT systems, HealthBridge also serves as a common physician portal. By cooperating on HealthBridge, the hospitals have streamlined physician access to their data and reduced distribution costs.

Filed under Healthcare | Send this

WHY PRODUCT PLACEMENT DOES NOT EQUAL BRAND BUILDING

18 JUL 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Here’s a chaos scenario for you: What if the advertising industry spends billions of dollars to build an elaborate infrastructure of new-media technology to chase down the elusive consumer, and suddenly the consumer isn’t so elusive anymore? (Free subscription required!)

Filed under Branding | Send this

Interview With David Gensler Of The KDU

17 JUL 2005 from IF | Read the full story»

David Gensler is considered one of the leading marketers for the youth and young adult market. He coined the now widely used term MASH CULTURE and has applied his thinking to brands across fashion, music, cars and beyond. Last week, IF managed to tempt David into Manhattan from his native Brooklyn to discuss with us the impact of Mash Culture on branding, marketing and society as we know it.

Filed under Marketing | Send this

Is BLOG going to be an industry term?

15 JUL 2005 from BuzzMetrics Mouthpiece | Read the full story»

One of my favorite pieces of data from the WOMMA Metrics Conference... Charlie Buchwalter, Head of Research for Nielsen//Netratings, delivered the results from a brand new study they did on blog readership.

Filed under Blogging | Send this

Managing for Creativity

JUL-AUG 2005 from Harvard Business Review Online | Read the full story»

A company’s most important asset isn’t raw materials, transportation systems, or political influence. It’s creative capital—simply put, an arsenal of creative thinkers whose ideas can be turned into valuable products and services. Creative employees pioneer new technologies, birth new industries, and power economic growth. Professionals whose primary responsibilities include innovating, designing, and problem solving—the creative class—make up a third of the U.S. workforce and take home nearly half of all wages and salaries. If you want your company to succeed, these are the people you entrust it to. That much is certain. What’s less certain is how to manage for maximum creativity. How do you increase efficiency, improve quality, and raise productivity, all while accommodating for the complex and chaotic nature of the creative process?

Filed under Leadership | Send this

10 Tips for Packaging That Sells Products to Boomers

15 JUL 2005 from NewsReleaseWire | Read the full story»

Boomers are a prime and growing target audience. Does your product speak to them? Does your product's packaging compel them to buy it? If not, you are missing a very important market segment. According to Rick Adler, founder of The Senior Network: "Simply based on population growth trends, if a product is marketed to the 50-plus audience and maintains its market share, it should increase in sales by 35 to 50 percent in the next 20 years. Conversely, a brand targeted at the zero to 50 age groups will be flat in sales." These 10 tips are adapted from DESIGN YOUR PACKAGING FOR THE ULTIMATE TARGET AUDIENCE - BOOMERS

Filed under Trend$ | Send this

The rise of the corporate blogger GUIDE TO BLOGGING

15 JUL 2005 from FT.com | Read the full story»

Welcome to the blogosphere - home to those informal, frequently updated online journals that people create to share their thoughts and opinions. Web logs, or blogs, have for the most part remained the domain of millions of independent bloggers who want to talk politics, trade tech ideas, share their daily lives - or criticise corporations. Now those same corporations are trying to figure out how they can take advantage of this new medium to attract attention, cultivate customer relationships, respond to criticism - and perhaps sell a few more computers, cars or aircraft along the way.

Filed under Blogging | Send this

Pitchman for the Gray Revolution

28 JUN 2005 from Fortune | Read the full story»

Ken Dychtwald has a message for aging boomers and the corporations that sell to them: Retirement as we know it is over. Thank goodness for that. (Subscription required!)

Filed under Trend$ | Send this

The Passion of the Marketers

Mainstream Hollywood, after decades of ignoring the pious, is adjusting to what it perceives as a rising religiosity in American culture. (Subscription required!)

Filed under Marketing | Send this

Samuelson: The World Is Still Round

Yes, some engineering jobs and data centers have moved to India and China. More will go. But the process isn't endless and can be exaggerated.

Filed under Strategies | Send this

From public relations to public relationships

Tim Bray has a terrific post on the Old and New public relations. Here's how I [David Weinberger] think about what's going on with PR. (Note: Sweeping generalizations ahead.)

Filed under Marketing | Send this

Painting the glass ceiling with a little green

Women executives do a better job of narrowing the gap between salaries of men and women. Hillary Wicai reports on the findings of a new study. (Audio)

Filed under Talent | Send this

Study Finds Wired Hospitals Are Safer

Hospitals that have invested significantly in health information technology have lower mortality rates than other hospitals.

Filed under Healthcare | Send this

A Cellphone, a Movie Lobby and a Message

This summer, moviegoers walking through theater lobbies in three cities might have felt a sudden vibration in their cellphones, the work of a nearby Bluetooth promotional kiosk. (Subscription required!)

Filed under Marketing | Send this

Branding in China (free download)

Last month, Christopher Liechty, president the AIGA Center for Cross-Cultural Design, moderated a panel on branding in China. The transcript from the session has been published and is available for free download. It's a long transcript but worth a read.

Filed under Branding | Send this

Brain Drain in The Tech World?

The number of tech workers has dropped in recent years. What's behind the plunge?

Filed under Talent | Send this

Accounting firms complain to watchdog

The big four accounting firms are trying to water down plans by the US regulator to hold their staff responsible for violations of securities laws.

Filed under News | Send this

Marrying Maps to Data for a New Web Service

Yahoo, Google and Microsoft are creating map services that offer contextual advertisements tied to specific locations. (Subscription required!)

Filed under Technology | Send this

Could Googling become illegal?

12 JUL 2005 from The Globe and Mail | Read the full story»

Could it be possible that Canada will make Google or any other Internet search and archiving engines illegal? Bill C-60, which amends the Copyright Act and received its first reading in the House of Commons on June 20, suggests it could be illegal for anyone to provide copyrighted information through "information-location tools," which includes search engines.

Filed under Technology | Send this

Retailing: What's working online

15 JUL 2005 from The McKinsey Quarterly | Read the full story»

Today's successful online retailers, depending on their underlying economics and whether or not they have physical stores, choose one of four strategies. (Free subscription required!)

Filed under Strategies | Send this

Interview With Niku Banaie, Director Of Innovation At Naked (Part I)

13 JUL 2005 from IF | Read the full story»

Over the course of a 2 part interview IF discusses with Niku Banaie, the director of innovations, about advertising, Naked and their approach to creativity. In Part I we focus on the changes in the marketing landscape and what issues marketing and brand managers should now consider.

Filed under Marketing | Send this

Food Industry Defends Marketing to Children

As the marketing of unhealthy food to children comes under increasing fire, food companies have often expressed their view that they would be better off regulating themselves. The government, apparently, could not agree more. (Subscription required!)

Filed under