Not normally my thing, but check out this PowerPoint Dan at Lost Garden put together. A wonderful Friday diversion for those of us not rooted in game design (but still into rescuing princesses).

Jeff at Forrester clearly outlines the methodology for deciding upon the winners of the Groundswell Awards (just announced). A good bit of transparency even if you’ve no familiarity with the awards whatsoever.

John at FurtherAndFaster posts on a low-key campaign in the UK that proclaims ‘There’s Probably No God’. A funny read, made even more noteworthy by the fact that the campaign seems to be gaining traction.

Connie Bensen continues the ongoing effort to make a business case for Twitter. I want to feel it; try to feel it; and can’t escape the notion that we’re all still reaching a bit on this. That said, the successes in the space (a recent example of museum use comes immediately to mind) are worthy of laud.

Maybe’s it’s because Wii’s are getting harder to come by, but isn’t the abstinence pledge due to run its’ course? Tyler at Marginal Revolution posts.

I agree with James at Threeminds that the assumption of risk (and willingness to incorporate risk all the way down the employee ladder) is missing from far too many enterprises today. I’m less overly-enamored with IDEO, but the video here makes the case.

The main crux of the post, it seems, is that the power of these applications lies not solely in the ability to locate online and local (via GPS) retailers with the best prices on scanned items, but rather the ability to aggregate scanned items into comprehensive wishlists (effectively what already happens in major retailers for registries, albeit with a more savvy pricing gun).

I think it would be really intriguing to aggregate scanned data in reverse, as well - meaning that stores could subscribe to local (or global) databases of scanned items, see how they rank on those items, and adjust their prices accordingly a la Google Adwords’ real-world cousin. That’s where things get really interesting.

Be sure that Google thought of this implication long before I did.

via PSFK: You’ve probably read plenty about the new Pepsi cans, but nowhere is the evolution laid out so elegantly as at (surprise!) PSFK.

via Cool Marketing Stuff: The notion that Apple has, dollar for dollar, outgunned their competition in the PC market is gaining traction. CMS has one explanation as to how.

via Threeminds: Bonnie Chu of Organic makes an argument for eschewing PowerPoint in favor of analog materials for your next presentation.

via Compete: Seth at Compete looks at data that suggests users might be moving away from P2P in favor of industry-sanctioned downloads. Believe the hype.

via Wishful Thinking: Mark makes that case that you can’t motivate anyone (sounds right), as part of a larger post on tactics for motivating creative professionals. Again, I’m inclined to agree with at least a substantial portion of his premise. If one cannot be motivated by the fact that he/she is blessed with the opportunity to be creative every day, I’m not sure that individual can be coached.

Finally, Daniel Hamermesh - the proverbial smartest guy in the room - gets to the heart of the debate over taxes. We do all expect to become rich, do we not?

Public health officials say it will strip cigarettes of their glamorous image and reduce the numbers of young people taking up the habit.

Not sure that I buy this, but I digress.

We Made This then picked up on the Observer article, posting on September 24:

What’s the betting the tobacco companies are already looking at ways to make their cigarettes look totally unique in some new way - coloured cigarette papers perhaps, or coloured foils inside the packs… desperately trying to something, anything, to retain some semblance of individuality. Maybe they’d launch entirely new brands, where it was all about the name - perhaps using a really short name, or a really really long one…

Hmmm…

Flickr: Uploaded on September 24, 2008 by alistairh

Today, Darryl from Brand Flakes for Breakfast chimes in with an altogether different take:

Maybe we could put them all together in Bad Stores and there would be Bad Super Centers. Maybe there would even be a Bad Mall. Perhaps Target could open up a Bad division.

Not to make light of what is clearly a serious topic to many, but are we ultimately confusing a stripped down identity system with a lack of branding? Are we to seriously consider the idea that impressionable teens will shun cigarettes once the packaging has been reduced to black Helvetica Medium on white ( while they rush to brands like American Apparel whose blank brand identity is entirely mashable )? Certainly, packaging (as the Observer article notes) can influence purchase patterns, but confusing the appeal of smoking with the appeal of cigarette packaging is naiive.

It is also well-worth pointing out the fact that I lack the hubris to think that Wal-Mart, efficient money-making machine that it is, either needs this idea (or has not already explored it).

The ubiquity, though of retailers like Wal-Mart - or for that matter, Starbucks, McDonalds, or a handful of other omnipresent chains - demands a supply chain of almost inconceivable breadth and efficiency - a supply chain that several retailers have been eager to resell to smaller companies eager to outsource. Inherent to a company like Wal-Mart is a steady stream of products rolling into and out of their retail stores and through a large network of distribution hubs on a near-constant basis.

This channel has allowed Wal-Mart, with a number of other retailers following suit, to build an ingenious program offering free shipping to any Wal-Mart store for any item purchased from Wal-Mart.com via a program they call Site-to-Store. In addition to driving more traffic to their website and reducing the need for unnecessary inventory in individual stores, this has the added benefit of bringing consumers into their local stores to pick up their shipment (and while they’re at it, buying toothpaste, a swimsuit and a beach towel) - almost certainly the driving incentive here for the company.

So why not extend this idea?

Why not allow consumers to ship anything to anyone from one Wal-Mart to another, for free?

This brings two sets of consumers into a Wal-Mart, for a single transaction. It increases the likelihood that consumers will make their gift purchases at a Wal-Mart, as they can buy, wrap and ship in a single location. It piggybacks on an existing supply and distribution chain, keeping costs low while incenting customers to make additional in-store purchases. Finally, it supports (and does so strongly) the notion of ‘Save Money, Live Better’ that is at the heart of the new brand positioning.

Consider this:

There are 19 manned UPS dropoff locations within 20 miles of downtown Birmingham, Alabama (this includes UPS Stores and public UPS Shipping Offices). There are also 19 Wal-Marts in the same radius.

In Wichita, Kansas, there are 7 manned UPS locations, and 8 Wal-Marts within 20 miles of downtown.

With this sort of ubiquity, and little loss in convenience - admittedly, these examples are geographically biased to make a point - does the offer of free shipping not benefit both the company and the consumer?

Just a thought.

Two days in a row also for posts from Leland Maschmeyer: this highlighting an article from the Harvard Business Review on the failure of traditional recession tactics. A great, great read.

via Seth Godin: sure to be linked to from everywhere, a poignant take on being a statesman. This is the sort of post that’s right in his wheelhouse, highlighting the obvious (and too-often ignored). Brilliant.

via StickyFigure: how not to write a press release. Hysterical and terrifying.

On the heels of yesterday’s research from Compete on the criteria used by consumers in choosing a bank, this from across the pond, via Brand Karate.

via Maschmeyer: a Firefox plugin that goes beyond blocking banner ads, and actually replaces the offending images with pieces of contemporary art. The imagination runs wild with variations on a theme.

via Compete: the top criteria that drive consumers’ choice of bank. Fascinating, and revealing data, well presented.

This gem:

Each sushi dictator has his own pet peeves, but there is common ground. Most do not allow sushi bar patrons to order off the menu. Instead, diners must accept whatever the chef gives them, a tradition known as “omakase” — a Japanese expression that can be loosely translated as “trust the chef.”

Well worth your three minutes.

1. I’m no expert on branding. Certainly, I’ve nowhere near the credentials of Mr. Ries.
2. I’m no futurist.

In the aforementioned post, entitled Don’t Tinker with your Brand, Mr. Ries argues against toying with pricing (another area in which I can claim no leadership position) and other elements of your brand during this economic downturn, and suggests that ‘riding it out’ is the wisest course of action:

Economic markets rise and fall like the ocean. Strong brands will survive no matter what the tide. The key to long-term success is riding the waves up and down using your brand as a steady rudder. You should not attempt to sail against the current. And you should not over steer the ship.

and more:

Brands that stay strong and survive no matter what the weather are those that stay consistent. Your brand has meaning and strength only if it owns something in the mind. And the more you adjust and tinker with that meaning, the weaker your brand becomes.

Before diving deeper, let me reiterate that these scarcely comprise the bulk of Mr. Ries argument, and should not be taken out of context. His article, worth your time, makes a larger (and I think correct) point. The element of his argument for raw consistency, though, that gnaws at me is that it is constructed on the following assumptions:

1. Brands, themselves, continue to hold the upper hand in their relationships with consumers.
2. The brands of which he speaks are already strong and thriving (and therefore poised to do so when the economy regains strength)
3. That the economy, when it returns to strength (an eventual inevitability) will closely resemble the economy that existed prior to the collapse.

Of the three assumptions, it is the third that gives me the greatest pause. This notion is rooted in the idea that consumer credit markets will re-open to the dangerous levels of excess of recent years; that home prices (the fuel for home equity loans) will rebound in a manner that correlates directly with trade and inflation (improbable, we’re told, for the time being); and that the competitive landscape will remain largely unchanged through the process (again, unlikely, unless the corporate fatalities are far fewer than many economists project). Still, given my aforementioned inability to tea-read, I’ll stick to my own areas of interest.

The recession (it seems we’re now comfortable with the phrase) presents enormous opportunities for companies to reshape the way in which they are doing business with both consumers and one another, with the potential for significant positive impact on their brands, does it not?

Will there ever be a more opportune time for companies to move customer service online in a manner that gives the consumer better access to the information they need, and at a lower cost?

Will there ever be a better time to train both corporate and retail employees on the products and services sold by the brand, and the core mission that the brand espouses? With greater access than ever, one assumes, to a skilled and motivated workforce, the opportunity to imbue workers with this knowledge seems more in reach than anytime in memory.

Will there ever be a time better-suited to examining (and re-examining) the mediums through which the brand flows? With the inevitable eventual drop in media costs, and a need to optimize spends (the old adage of making every dollar count as two is more prescient than ever, no?), brands are presented with a great opportunity to rethink existing assumptions about ‘what sticks’.

The opportunities for refinement are numerous, with significant short and long-term implications for brands that desire to be well-poised for the upswing. That these refinements are rooted in a need to improve efficiency in the short-term should, I think, be seen not as tinkering, but rather as the sort of incremental change that fuels survival.

via Chroma, an exhaustively well-thought-out piece (from a series of such) at Newsless on the ever-evolving new shape of journalism. Mind-numbing, indeed.

via Everything is Miscellaneous, a link to a post on Blogher that discusses the manner in which museums are adopting Twitter as a means for all manner of communications. Unexpected, though I’m not sure why.

You don’t need me to tell you that Seth’s wildly innovative. Now who’s going to follow his lead on this (and I’m not talking about publishers)?

Let us suppose, though, that I was compelled to begin preparing fish at home (which I am not). Hierarchically, my need for knowledge might look something like this:

1. What fish is easy for me to prepare, in a simple kitchen, with relatively little specialty cookware?
2. What are the techniques I would use to cook the fish?
3. What fish is ‘in season’, and will deliver the best result against my existing skillset and means?
and possibly: 4. What fish is a good price at the moment, so as to maximize my spending?

These four, ostensibly straightforward, but actually quite complex questions require not only a generalized knowledge of fish, but also an ability to operate outside of oneself, if a meaningful answer is to be given. Hierarchically, again, the sources I might look to in order to glean the answers to these questions:

1. A close friend known to be an experienced cook
2. A specialty seafood vendor / fishmonger
3. Online resources for chefs and cooks
4. The seafood department at a high end grocery chain (i.e. Whole Foods)
5. A seafood cookbook, regional in nature
6. The seafood department at my local grocery store

Certainly, as the desire for knowledge grows more specialized and uniquely personalized in nature, the sources we seek to satisfy the needs become correspondingly more localized and personal. Consider the varying sources from which you might procure musical products and/or knowledge:

1. A trusted friend: you know what I like, what I don’t, and I’m in need of something new to listen to…
2. Local speciality music store: I have developed a specific interest in XXX. Do you have something else of a similar nature?
3. Music magazine or website: What is new, noteworthy, and roughly fits into a genre I already know that I enjoy?
3. Local / regional independent chain: What is the breadth of new releases and backcatalogue available to me across a range of genres?
4. Big box retailer: I know what I am after, trust that you will have it in stock, and will get the best price

In this model, the expectations for personalized service and insight decrease in a manner that directly correlates to the expected specific knowledge ascribed to the provider of that insight (unless, of course, I am asking a friend with little or no knowledge of music for recommendations, in which case I am bound to fail).

All of which brings us back to the notion of a knowledge worker, famously used by Peter Drucker (among many others) to describe professionals (primarily of a white collar nature) whose work demanded of them thought and insight, in contrast to laborers. In a retail environment, though, increasingly dependent on the ability to match consumers with a long tail of products and services, retail employees are arguably knowledge workers to a greater extent today than at any point in the last 50 years, despite any misgivings we might have about applying this title free from the traditional constraints of education or earning power.

Consider the much-discussed Genius Bar in your local Apple Store - you do have a local Apple Store, right? Much has been made of the elevated bar of Apple-specific knowledge inherent to Apple’s retail ‘geniuses’. The real magic, though, of the Genius is the ability to step outside of the product and help you, the consumer, solve a problem, understand your computer better, or find the Apple product that meets your needs. This is personalized service, shopping and counsel, and breaks apart the notion that the ‘kid’ talking to you about iLife today will be moving down the mall to Lady Foot Locker next month (he will not). Most significantly, the ability to engender confidence that you are being matched with someone who can help you find the right product (not necessarily the one with the best margin), moves the Apple Store up the hierarchy towards something approaching the recommendation of a friend - particularly if you don’t have a Mac-savvy friend - and much earlier in your consideration set.

So why isn’t this catching on like wildfire in the retail world, outside of the occasional personal shoppers and consultants at higher-end apparel retailers? Certainly, employees are trained in cursory product features and benefits (most of the time, although I’d be willing to bet you’ve shared the experience of having an employee read the features of a product to you directly from the box), but it’s difficult to escape the idea that most retail workers you meet have little invested in knowledge specific to the manner in which the products they sell are used, and largely lack the ability to extrapolate the knowledge they do have into the consumer’s kitchen / closet / stereo.

The list of roadblocks to the development of a knowledge-based retail workforce might include:

1. An inventory too large in scope to allow broad-based item-specific knowledge
2. Discomfort on the part of management in empowering workers with this knowledge
3. Lack of incentive on the part of the employee to acquire item-specific knowledge
4. The staggering cost of training (and duly compensating) a new breed of knowledge workers

A number of high-profile stabs have been made in this direction, with decidedly mixed results. Home Depot touts the knowledge of their retail staff, as related to both training and experience, although as a novice handyman myself, I am not infrequently disappointed by their collective ability to answer my questions in a knowledgeable manner. Tweeter, the mid-level consumer electronics chain, espouses a highly-trained staff of knowledge workers, although my experiences in their stores have been heavy-handed grabs at commissions, frankly. Best Buy’s recent campaigns touting the segment-specific knowledge of their employees are laughably contradicted by the truculent teenagers who seem to comprise the great balance of their workforce.

Brands willing to invest in a new breed of knowledge workers will be well-poised to move up that knowledge heirarchy, shifting earlier in the consumer lifecycle, better able to sell premium products to consumers seeking knowledge of their own. These hard economic times, with sales slumping as products continue the long slow march of evolution, set against a backdrop of increased unemployment, seems a perfect opportunity to create the next round of geniuses.

and while you consider the chance that such a phenomena would take place in a world without YouTube, enjoy this revisiting of a 15 year-old interview with George Gilder, via The Long Tail.

and via Viral Garden: Mack contemplates those who employ best practices for Social Networking, with lessons for those brands and individuals whose neglect of their properties represents an enormous opportunity cost. Mack’s posts are always good reads, full of passion and adulation.

and finally, a week or so late, a great artice by Richard Siklos (whose writing I’ve come to greatly admire) on Fortune about the (and this should come as no surprise to followers of the culture, although it most certainly will to outsiders) a comic market resurgent.

Disappointed, I took a break from my vocational pursuits to read his fantastic piece in Campaign, on invisible technology. For the real meat, download the PDF.

British planners with great hair who quote Heidegger raise the bar for the rest of us sorry saps. Faris is one of the good guys (who gets it).

The deal isn’t that clear. What do I get out of Coffee Republic selling space on their tables? Is their coffee noticeably cheaper or better? Are the staff better paid and more cheerful? What do I get out of the way you’ve brokered my attention?

Witness this post on Springwise.

RFID, like most technologies worth their salt, needs no gimmick attached to it, but rather incorporates seamlessly into our existing devices, worlds and routines. I’m not at all certain how Tikitag fits that criteria.

While it’s obvious that a computer is necessary to distribute content, I wonder whether distributing one million of these microphones to children would serve a greater good than would one million laptops. The collective output of the content they might create would be staggering to behold.

This is becoming a real theme this month, and I continue to wonder how much of this meme (the right word, if one that bores easily) is driven by ongoing economic discomfort.

And there was no one to tell.

Certainly, I took advantage of the opportunity to tell Scott/Jeff/Doug (it’s hard to recall) that I appreciated his help, but doing so is ultimately far less-satisfying than telling the world. This, though, is exceedingly difficult to do over the phone.

Doubtless, there are plenty of places I can go to complain about a bad experience with MT. While I can certainly chime in on boards of this nature with contrarian sunshine, I probably will not, for fear of angry missives.

To the long list of reasons why phone support creates (opportunity) costs, add this: Those consumers who have had good experiences have no place to share them, immediately and in context. To those who provide online support (as, to their credit, Media Temple does), it’s well-worth considering making available opportunities for customers who have received service (good or bad) to share their experiences. You might just find that we have good things to say.

In the post, entitled Strategies from the Edge, Richard bemoans the trepidation of creatives for ideas that exist in the fringes of the accepted, and argues that these outlying areas of thought are the richest source for breakthrough ideas ( I paraphrase, perhaps with too much license ).

The Edge is where you find the behaviour or attitudes of a small number of people that might be made into the behaviour or attitudes of a large number of people. The Edge is where you find deeper insight because it is place you will uncover the real reason why people do some things and not others. The Edge is the place where the strategy everyone fears lives, the strategy that might just nail your problem.

It’s difficult to disagree.

In light, though, of Grant’s poignant piece I think it’s worth asking at this particular juncture: Does our emotional need to dwell / nest / return home pull us away from the edge at the very time we most need it? Much has been made of the nesting instincts of Americans (and others) in the aftermath of 9/11, and I’ll make no attempt to rehash it here. Certainly, though, we witnessed a return to safe, comfortable notions of home, family, and work - but also art, ideation and the creative process.

I realize, lest it be suggested otherwise, that safe is not anathema to the edge - but the correlation exists, to be certain.

More pragmatically: it could be readily suggested that the economic crisis(?) of recent weeks will drive those of us in the creative ( or, at least, creative-for-hire ) world back from the edge. Clients, eager to generate mildly positive results for fear of waste, will insist as much. We, eager to continue our own rides, will be tempted to capitulate. Concurrently, the well will begin to dry, as the fringes inevitably do, returning home to the safety of what provides. And all of this can / will / may happen at the very time when the edge is most necessary.

Surely those brave enough to have approached the edge despite these trends will find themselves riding the crest of the next surging modality.