Excellence

Everything matters: great marketing from Virgin America

I received this email last month the night before taking a Virgin America flight:

Dear Diego Rodriguez

Due to delays in the modification of our new planes, the inflight entertainment and select other in-seat services will not be available on your upcoming Virgin America flight... Why are we sending you this message? We want you to be prepared to have your laptop or iPod fully charged, and ensure you have the latest magazines or newspapers to read while onboard your flight. We’ll do our best to provide some reading material onboard in case you forget...

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Achieving Business Excellence

08 MAY 2008 from ChangeThis | Read the full story»

"There is no single strategy that will carry your company forever—just ask my buddy Tom Peters, who wrote the fantastic book In Search of Excellence back in 1982, only to watch more than half of the companies he highlighted go out of business! Markets shift, consumer preferences change, new competitors appear, technology advances—and so must you. Even though I can recommend which of today’s popular strategies I believe deserve your attention, there is no guarantee that these same strategies will still be as relevant in 20 years. I think they will, but no one can see that far ahead. With all of that said, [these] are the six strategies on which all the great companies I studied were relentlessly focused."

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The Pope is coming

Whether you run a hotel or a retail store or a parts supply store, things change when you find out the Pope is coming for a visit.

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Pratically Speaking: Using the Human Touch to Solve Workplace Problems

Employers are finding sensitive and novel solutions to unusual employee woes. (Subscription required)

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Fast 50 2008: IDEO

The standard by which all other design firms are measured, Palo Alto-based IDEO had a great year, even against its own high bar. Unlike past years, where design firm innovation was often about a creating a new laptop or other electronic gadget, in 2007, IDEO's initiatives spanned areas far beyond the realm of traditional product design. The CDC asked the company to help it tackle the problem of childhood obesity; the Acumen Fund enlisted the firm to collaborate on a slate of products, services, and business models for delivering clean water in the developing world; the Red Cross hired IDEO to come up with ways to encourage blood donations; and HBO asked them to envision how people will view content five years from now.

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Muhammad Yunus: The Unlikely Disciple

31 JAN 2008 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

The Nobel Peace Prize winner's drive to help the poor through microfinance is a shining example of Drucker's principles in action.

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corporation 2.0-etsy

The founder of Etsy (a craft maker community) goes on the brand's blog and tells his people he's raised $27 million of VC funding, but this is no standard press release, it's a story.

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Curious

A video of Seth discussing curiosity by Nic Askew.(Video )

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New Orleans As Creative Capital Or 4th Sector Hub?

Organizations driven by both social purpose and financial promise. Combination of the public, private and volunteer sectors. Before, students mainly had two choices - working for a non-profit to do good or selling out to Corporate America. Now young professionals can do both within the Fourth Sector.

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Maslow-Minded Merchandising

What if a retailer were to take a more transformational approach to their customers during this busy time of year? Or, what if you or I were to purchase experiences rather than possessions as a way of gifting our relatives and friends?

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Change Management: Creating Peak Experiences For Strangers

I want to share a story with you that may shift your thinking from being a marketing mercenary to being a marketing missionary. A marketing mercenary focuses on the return on investment (ROI) associated with marketing to their target market... 95% of what my company, Joie de Vivre Hotels, does fits this category. But, every once in a while, it helps to throw a "Hail Mary pass” - a marketing promotion that is more about your company's mission than it is about your product.

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Virgin’s Inaugural Flight - LAX to SFO

How do I explain the insides of our plane named "California Dreaming?" It was like being eaten by an iPhone and sitting in its belly for an hour.

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A modern parable

This modern parable about corporate America from the Cenek Report blog deserves an Oscar.

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Small before big

In our rush to scale, sometimes we forget something essential: if it doesn't work when you've got one, it's extremely unlikely to work when you have dozens.

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Maternity ward lesson

The staff and doctors at the LifeSpring hospital told me that they have to do exactly three things...

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Climate-Change Scorecard Aims to Influence Consumers

Climate Counts, a new nonprofit group, will rank 56 consumer companies, grouped by industry, on how they measure greenhouse gas emissions, among other things. (Subscription required)

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Infrared burners are ready to barbecue

For a quarter century, chefs at pricey steakhouses have been searing meat on burners that cook with infrared energy. Now the high-temperature technology may be coming to a backyard barbecue near you.

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[Sunspots] The chessboxing edition

“The first thing a company needs is a leader who believes in creating a culture in which anyone can challenge anything and where ideas are valued and encouraged. If you don’t have that leadership, it’s difficult to be innovative lower down. People soon stop coming up with ideas if nothing happens at the top.”

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State of the Art: Paying More for a Printer, but Less for Ink

It’s war in the world of inkjet printers and cartridges as Kodak gets into the business. (Subscription required)

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Creative Mexico

Creativity likes chaos. So it loves Mexico City.

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Five Steps to a Germ-Free Office

5 APR 2007 from NFIB | Read the full story»

Take a look at the desk you're sitting at. Maybe there's a coffee stain here or there, but other than that, it looks clean enough to eat off, right? Not hardly. Hat tip: My Business Magazine

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Fast Talk: Marathon Man

"It's rare that you find a way to combine your profession with your avocation."

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What's Wrong With Billionaires?

Wealth enables everyone's success.

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Report From the Future: 50 Profit-Driven Solutions for What Ails the Planet

Eventually, someone was going to step up and actually start doing something about the state of the world. You might have thought it would be a president--a senator, maybe--who would stand, point out at the future, and raise the alarm. Instead, it is business, and more specifically a certain strain of imaginative, entrepreneurial business, that has found the upside in addressing global malfunction.

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The Ideal Airplane

The New York Times Magazine Travel Special recently asked, "If the perfect plane could be spliced together using the best innovations of the world's carriers, what would it look like?"

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Happy New Year

We wish you a new year filled with prosperity and growth, both personal and professional.

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Students Praise Above-and-Beyond Teachers

Three students at Curie High School in Chicago share stories of the teachers who mentor them after school. Kirsten Sanders profiles her bowling teacher, Madeline Ramirez. Charles Garcia interviews his TV teacher Noel Occomy, and Phillip Baggett introduces his gospel choir director, Rev. Daniel Garrett. These pieces were produced as part of Curie Youth Radio. (Audio)

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Happy Holidays!

We're observing the Christmas holiday today and will return to posting tomorrow, Boxing day. We wish you a day filled with joy and peace.

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Purpose: How to Define It and Make It Work for You and Your Company by Nikos Mourkogiannis

Just read the first page of this manifesto, and you’ll understand exactly what it is to have purpose. Read the subsequent pages and you’ll find just how to develop your own sense of purpose through discovery, excellence, altruism and heroism.

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Free City Super Shop

But just maybe it creates "a new shopping experience equal in its fun and sense of surprise to that of Whole Foods or Apple." Nina built the store’s interior in just eight days, using "redwood shelves and blowups of album covers." Her mantra is, "make things with the simplest elements with the highest of possibilities."

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Happy Thanksgiving

We hope that you all have a day rich with community and contentment. The wire service will resume tomorrow.

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Advertisements Revisited

"Ready. Fire! Aim." is one of Tom’s favorite mantras. In that spirit, we've been experimenting with advertising here at the TP Wire Service. We've also considered and researched it for our parent site, tompeters.com. The results have underwhelmed us. We're removing the ads from the TP Wire Service RSS feeds today and will be removing the ads from the TP Wire Service home page in the near future. Tompeters.com will remain ad-free. We welcome your thoughts on the subject. Here's to "Relentless Experimentation!"

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Q & A Muhammad Yunus

16 OCT 2006 from Time | Read the full story»

In 1974, Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus began making tiny loans to the rural poor. The success of his charity led him to found Grameen Bank, pioneering microcredit. Yunus spoke to TIME's Ishaan Tharoor last week, moments before learning he and Grameen had won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.

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The Fifth Annual Brilliant 10

SEP 2006 from Popular Science | Read the full story»

[W]e asked hundreds of respected scientists, university department heads and journal editors to name not the most established or well-known scientists in their fields. We asked for the mavericks. The young guns. The individuals who are changing not just what we know but the limits of what we think it’s possible to know.

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Three 'Genius' Award Winners, and Their Plans

A new crop of 25 recipients of the 2006 MacArthur Fellowships -- the so-called genius grants --has been named. The list includes author and illustrator David Macaulay, oceanographer and biologist Edith Widder and jazz violinist Regina Carter. Robert Siegel talks to three recipients about how they'll use the money in their work. (Audio)

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Labor Day

"Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country." [U.S. Dept. of Labor]

There will be no postings today at TP Wire Service in observance of the holiday. Have a wonderful day.

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Experience Immersion

David McQuillen's "experience immersion" is forcing Credit Suisse to think differently about its clients. For starters, there'll be no more wet grocery bags.

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Awkward

My new favorite word is "awkward." It's awkward to talk to your boss (who has way more experience than you do) about teaching her agile programming. It's awkward to call a religious or political leader on their intolerant comments.

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Are your users stuck in "P" mode?

How many things do you own where you can't use more than 10% of what they can actually can do? The home stereo you play CDs on but gave up on Surround Sound. The cell phone that can fry eggs, but you still can't get it to vibrate. The software app where half the menus might as well be Latin. So what are we doing to make sure this doesn't happen to our users?

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Happy 4th of July!

We're taking the day off in celebration of Independence Day here in the U.S. We hope everyone has an opportunity to relish freedom today. Enjoy!

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Marriott's Email - Simple Brilliance

I get an email reminder a few days before my trip about my upcoming reservation. Whoever created this system has done a great job of speaking to the needs of individual women.

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Corporate Conscience Survey Says Workers Should Come First

Far more American consumers consider the way companies treat their employees a good indicator of their social conscience than their philanthropy, according to a survey by the National Consumers League and Fleishman-Hillard, the public relations company. (Subscription required!)

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How Intuit fails toward success

Software company lntuit rewards failure. Literally.

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Second in Command

MAY 2006 from The Harvard Business Review | Read the full story»

The misunderstood role of the Chief Operating Officer.

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Does one size really fit all?

The Rebel Guide to Diversity (and Creating a Cool Company): Once a month create a "Rebel for a Day" program. Have someone go against the rules for one whole day. See what happens...

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Creative Solutions to Life's Challenges

Poet Frank X Walker believes artists aren't the only creative people. He says barbers, cooks, janitors and kids enrich the world with their creativity as much as the painters, sculptors and writers.

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Tom Chappell sells out

Colgate buying control of Tom's of Maine for $100 million - Boston.com. First, congratulations to Tom and his family. Work hard for 36 years, tell an authentic story about a great product and you too could hit a winner.

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Let your audience connect

In the run-up to the 2006 World Cup, Nike and Google have partnered up to create Joga, the first invitation-only social networking website for soccer fans. Joga is short for Nike's slogan 'Joga Bonito', which is Portuguese for 'play beautifully.'

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Zen approach to cleaning industry

Which established industry wouldn't benefit from going the extra mile, adding five-star hotel touches and making consumers feel good about themselves for choosing a green service?

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The Marketplace of Perceptions

MAR-APR 2006 from Harvard Magazine | Read the full story»

Behavioral economics explains why we procrastinate, buy, borrow, and grab chocolate on the spur of the moment.

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What is an unconference? - The idea for an unconference came ... (Dave Winer/Dave's Wordpress Blog)

What is an unconference? — The idea for an unconference came while sitting in the audience of a panel discussion at a conference, waiting for someone to say something intelligent, or not self-serving, or not mind-numbingly boring. The idea came while listening to someone drone endlessly...

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Kings of convenience

Andrea Gardner reports on Famima, a Japanese company that's out to give the mini-mart a makeover. (Audio)

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U.S. Wins First Ice Dance Medal Since 1976

TURIN, Italy (AP) -- The past three decades were a stumble to nowhere for U.S. ice dancers. The near future could be a waltz to the medals stand....

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Good To Great - Not That Great? - Todd S.

Rob over at Businesspundit has decided to take on Jim Collins and Good to Great. Among his complaints, he thinks the ideas are too general and can be applied to anything....

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Addendum

We conclude that the not-so-obscure secret is breaking one's back to hire ... folks with naturally sunny dispositions. Any other criteria come in a (very) distant second!

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The Mini Cooper of Office Furniture

03 JAN 2006 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

Leveraging parent Steelcase's technology and distribution channels, tiny Turnstone offers style for less, with big-business speed.

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Happy New Year

Wishing you a prosperous and fulfilling New Year, the TP Wire Service will resume its postings tomorrow.

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Happy Holidays

Wishing you a joyous holiday season, the TP Wire Service will resume its postings tomorrow.

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Tap the Women's Market with Memories

Here's how Lyman Orton describes his approach: "I grew up learning the art of storekeeping that was based on my Grandfather's principles of finding useful, functional products that the farm families of northern Vermont could not easily find elsewhere, or make themselves. It was from these principles that our motto, 'We sell products that don't come back, to people who do,' was born.

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Beautiful Storytelling With Trovata

Trovata must be one of our favorite brands. Not only do they make beautiful contemporary clothing but they weave little stories through their clothing. Each garment comes with a little pouch which carries a letter and sometimes a little gift - all are part of the story. But the story doesn't end...

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Broken Windows. Broken Business.

If you have read Malcolm Gladwell’s TIPPING POINT, then you are probably familiar with the Broken Windows theory and its impact on helping to reduce crime in New York City during the 1990s... Michael Levine, author and media/PR expert, has just published a book, BROKEN WINDOWS BROKEN BUSINESS, applying the broken windows theory to business. Levine’s premise is that a broken window in business happens when someone isn’t paying attention to details.

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marketers, time to wake up to consumer power

Never one to miss an opportunity, Gawker Media is launching, The Consumerist a destination site for all those customers with complaints.

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Point, Click, Design

How an inspiration during a bout of food poisoning eventually became the popular photo-sharing Web application.

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Happy Thanksgiving

Have a wonderful holiday. The wire service will resume tomorrow.

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The World's Most Respected Companies

And the winner is Bill Gates! For the eighth year, the Financial Times (FT) has published its "World's Most Respected Companies" list. And for the first time, Microsoft garnered the number one position.

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Itineraries: Less Style, More Substance

Many business travelers do not want their hotels to convey a "hip urban attitude." (Subscription required!)

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2005 Women to Watch

31 OCT 2005 from CareerJournal.com | Read the full story»

The Journal ranked the women based on their potential to make a significant impact on business in the years ahead. The Journal considered a variety of factors, such as their influence in business and their recent accomplishments. Moreover, the Journal considered the challenges the women face in business, and what their response to those challenges may mean for their companies and industries. After much discussion and several rounds of voting among Journal editors and reporters, the list was narrowed down to the 50 finalists in this Journal Report.

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retail for sneakerheads

NYC's Alife was one of the first retailers to go all out and provide retail environments designed to meet the needs of this consumer base [sneakerheads]. The most extreme example is its Rivington Club, a faux gentleman's club that serves as a vertiable temple for the worship of sneakers.

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is patagonia the model corporation?

The announcement that Patagonia had won a National Design Award seemed to make sense, it certainly fits the current zeitgeist concerning corporate responsibility, but this recognition was probably long over-due.

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J. Crew's personal touch

How does a $800 million company connect personally with customers? Handwritten notes is a nice start.

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Failure as a Success Strategy

Look beneath the surface of many great business successes, and you're likely to find a trail of failures that preceded them. Describing the painstaking trial-and-error process that led eventually to the creation of the incandescent light bulb--and General Electric--prolific inventor...

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Brand Value and the User Experience

04 OCT 2005 from MarketingProfs.com | Read the full story»

What do companies like Nordstrom, Jet Blue, Amazon and Dell have in common? They have built their brand value on providing a positive experience for their customers, online and offline. Successful companies match business objectives with customer needs. They combine ongoing testing, feedback and improvement cycles into their daily practices and invest in listening, learning and modifying the user experience to create positive returns in revenue and loyalty. This means user experience is not just a practice or a process—it is a philosophy.

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A New Measure of Well-Being From a Happy Little Kingdom

04 OCT 2005 from The New York Times | Read the full story»

What is happiness? In the United States and in many other industrialized countries, it is often equated with money. Economists measure consumer confidence on the assumption that the resulting figure says something about progress and public welfare. The gross domestic product, or G.D.P., is routinely used as shorthand for the well-being of a nation. But the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has been trying out a different idea. In 1972, concerned about the problems afflicting other developing countries that focused only on economic growth, Bhutan's newly crowned leader, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, decided to make his nation's priority not its G.D.P. but its G.N.H., or gross national happiness.

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The Idea Economy: Battle over right to sell knowledge

02 OCT 2005 from The International Herald Tribune | Read the full story»

In another era, a nation's most valuable assets were its natural resources — coal, say, or amber waves of grain. But in the information economy of the 21st century, the most priceless resource is often an idea, along with the right to profit from it.

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Advertisements

Tom has generously provided the funding for this site since its inception. Now that we have launched successfully and have a steady readership, it's time to pull our own weight, fiscally speaking, and begin to use advertisements to support the site. By going this route, we're joining such news aggregators as Always On Network, The Huffington Post, and Information Week. We're not sure which method will work best both for us and for you. So you'll see a few changes both to the site and to the RSS feeds in the coming weeks. Feel free to let us know what you think by emailing us.

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Are You Experienced?

Instead of talking about mere customer relationships, our perspective has become more multi-dimensional. Now, we are talking about the customer experience. Tom Johnson, a managing director with business-consulting firm BearingPoint, actually sees Customer Relationship Management (CRM) maturing into Customer Experience...

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Liked the Movie, Loved the Megaplex

17 AUG 2005 from The New York Times | Read the full story»

At a time when movie attendance is flagging, when home entertainment is offering increasing competition and when the largest theater chains - Regal Entertainment, AMC Entertainment (which has recently announced a merger with Loews Cineplex) and Cinemark - are focused on shifting from film to digital projection, a handful of smaller companies with names like Muvico Theaters, Rave Motion Pictures and National Amusements are busy rethinking what it means to go to the movie theater. (Subscription required!)

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Physics of Passion: The Koolaid Point

10 AUG 2005 from Creating Passionate Users | Read the full story»

You don't really have passionate users until someone starts accusing them of "drinking the koolaid." You might have happy users, even loyal users, but it's the truly passionate that piss off others enough to motivate them to say something. Where there is passion, there is always anti-passion... or rather passion in the hate dimension.

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Satisfy customers, make money

A new study draws a direct correlation between keeping customers happy and making big money.

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TPWS had a tune-up

Over the weekend, the Tom Peters Wire Service switched servers. As a result, readers may notice some kinks due to the information transfer. Our team has yet to encounter any, so please let us know if you experience a problem and we'd be happy to help solve it.

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Building world-class capital markets

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

Countries around the world increasingly understand that thriving capital markets and strong economic growth are related. The vital components of capital markets include a sound infrastructure, robust regulation, a good reputation, and high performance standards, but vision and political commitment make the difference between success and failure.

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The rarity of passion-driven teams

21 JUL 2005 from management-issues.com | Read the full story»

The concept of teams is not new. Although a "teaming" revival has been zinging around the globe for several decades now, the concept has been around since before men worked in teams to hunt mammoth. Yet most teams today are nowhere near as effective as they could be. The reasons are many; lack of structure, lack of well-defined roles and responsibilities, and lack of communication, to name a few. But one reason overrides all the rest - a lack of passion.

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There's a Hidden Price for Being a Cheat

Some corporate misconduct stems from greed and raw ambition, but many cheaters are just trying to avoid falling behind their rivals. (Subscription required!)

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Lost in the crowd? Standing out starts here!

20 JUL 2005 from IOL | Read the full story»

A little while ago I came across a quote which I have started to use to describe the importance of standing out from the crowd. It goes like this, Distinct or Extinct. It appeared in a Tom Peters book and I remember reading it and realising that often in my own life there were times when it was easier to go with the majority opinion than to stick to my own thoughts which may have been opposite to the group's view.

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The Rush to Let Others Relax

The weekend turnover, where rented houses are made ready for their tenant, is a marvel of efficiency. (Subscription required!)

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Site Visit: REI Store, Seattle

When the IF team visited Seattle last week, we knew we had to pay a visit to the REI flagship store located a little outside downtown. OK, so it's been open for over 6 years now - but it still contains so much energy, you just have to check it out if you visit the area. And when you do visit it, you'll feel guilty. Guilty and ready. Guilty of all that slouching about and inactivity. Ready to start a new life of outdoor adventure.

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We live in a Tom Peters World

5 JUN 2005 from bizcommunity.com | Read the full story»

The world of business is in phenomenal transition, as the power centre moves across the Pacific "at the speed of light", says, arguably the world's top management guru, Tom Peters, appearing in person last week at the Sandton Convention Centre, Gauteng, and the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

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Scientists Search for that Winning Look

Forget political polls. Scientists usually can tell whether political candidates will win or lose by testing voters' reactions to the contestants' faces. A study in the journal Science shows that voters chose the face that looks more "competent." (Audio)

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10 Big Thinkers for Big Business

They work in vastly different fields, but the leaders profiled in the following pages are much alike—they have new takes on old business models, a knack for seeing around corners and an appetite for big risk. A case study of New Thinkers.

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Losers and the American Dream

A new history of "losers" in American business, researched in part at Harvard Business School's Baker Library, explores the tension between the American Dream and those who fail to achieve it.

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Who's Your Gatekeeper? (John Winsor)

Yesterday, I had a brand experience that rocked my world.

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The New Instant Companies

Cheap design tools. Offshore factories. Free buzz marketing. How today's startups are going from idea to $30 million hit -- overnight. (Subscription required!)

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Pushing Perfection Past the Limit

Tuesday's train accident in Japan which killed 78 and injured about 440, reminded me of April's Next lead essay, "The Performance Paradox." It seems that the accident may have been caused by the train's driver speeding to make up time...

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Why Google Is Like Wal-Mart

One is an internet search powerhouse, the other a massive retailer. They have more in common than you might think. Commentary by Adam L. Penenberg.

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Mobile Search, it's not all Google ya know...

Gary Price posts an excellent roundup of mobile search tools, pointing out that it's not all about Google in this sector...

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Firefox site visitors up by 237 percent

The latest factoid circulating around the Web today concerning Firefox is that the Web site's unique visitors have increased by 237 percent between June of last year and March 2005, according to Neilsen//NetRatings.

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