CONSUMERS DRAFTING COACHES
The NFL player draft is now a prime-time media event. In ratings this year, ESPN pulled more than seven million viewers on its evening kickoff. That gave it a lofty second slot in audience size. [...]
September 2010
SURVIVING IN STYLE: IS SIMON GRAJ’S SURVIVAL STORE RETAILING’S NEXT GENERATION?
AFTER YEARS IN THE BRAND consulting and retail design business, Simon Graj and Graj+Gustavsen, the firm he founded 20 years ago, are pioneering new retail formats. Engineering a shopping experience based on human needs, the [...]
August 2010
OUTFITTING TIME
The Digital Age isn't just sharpening our senses. Digital is retooling them. Records of what we see and hear have never been so accurate. Digital is also breaking down the boundaries between the senses and [...]
July 2010
IS YOUR BRAND LEGALLY COOL ENOUGH?
In the film Legally Blonde, Elle (played by Reese Witherspoon), as an absolutely unexpected Harvard law scholar, comes up with some totally improbable lines. Like: "It's impossible to use a half-loop stitching on low-viscosity rayon." [...]
WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?
Ideas go in and out of fashion. Any fool knows that. A far more interesting premise: It's not just ideas that lose their shine. A certain species of idea may be on the rise or [...]
May 2010
CREATIVITY AND CAPITALISM
Kevin Kelly just penned an eye-popping article for Wired. It's titled "The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online." Every business person ought to read it, especially all those charged with 'creative' tasks in [...]
PRICE: THE NEW ABACUS
As a society, we're doing a better job of managing the economics of a better life. That includes taking a sharper look the price-tag when we want to splurge on upscale things. Reading labels with [...]
April 2010
NOW TIME – 5
Living in NOW has its own very exacting economics. Focus is imperative to getting it right. You have to discriminate between what is important and what is not. This criterion is essential for small businesses [...]
NOW TIME – 4
Hockey great Wayne Gretzky played the game with a wonderful attitude: "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been," he once said. This puck-and-action-centered thinking is a liberating [...]
NOW TIME – 3
Niche marketing doggedly pursued a single-minded target. What kind of person are you and how do I serve you best? NOW-niche marketing expands the question. What kind of person are you NOW and how do [...]