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July 31, 2007

Another Ad Agency Disruptor?

Yes, it’s been a dizzying—and thrilling—past couple of years as new disruptive business models rise to the surface across every industry imaginable like digital froth bubbling over a cappuccino. Just last week I came across another one—this time for the ad industry—that I thought was cool, and worth sharing: OpenAd.net, a sort of eBay for advertising, marketing, and design ideas. How it works: any company looking for a creative idea posts a brief, a timeframe for turnaround, and how much they’re willing to pay. OpenAd’s global network of 8,000 creatives spanning 122 countries can compete for the business—and may the best ideas win.

The companies posting briefs can be anyone from a corporate behemoth like Coke, to a mom-and-pop shop NYC bodega; equally, the creatives competing can be a freelance art director in Ghana, or a creative team at Crispin Porter + Bogusky (assuming Alex okays it). Companies can access the best creative ideas from any corner of the earth, while creatives can win business for brands that otherwise wouldn’t let them past parking lot security. For instance, P&G posted a brief for a Gillette Fusion campaign in the US and Puerto Rico, and Indian agency Live 1 Entertainment won the business, licensing their idea to P&G for some $4,000. Talk about the borderless wild west.

Interestingly enough, OpenAd is hubbed in Slovenia: its cofounders are Katarina Skoberne, an English-French-Italian-German-Slovenian speaking former ad agency entrepreneur and TV-host (not to mention, she has a degree in electrical engineering), and Vital Verlic, a creative, who rolled out the site in 2003.

Of late, ad agencies have been the proverbial dart board for competitive disruptive models--any chance something like OpenAd could be a viable threat? What other democratizing forces have you stumbled upon?

Posted by Danielle Sacks at 11:35 AM | 2 Comments

July 27, 2007

EarthLink's Rethink: Build It and They Will Come?

For cities that do it right, citywide Wi-Fi is cooler than just being able to check your e-mail while sipping a latte downtown – it could save money, save time, and maybe even save lives, when used by first responders and other public workers.

But to have a nifty wireless network, you have to build it first. Enter Atlanta-based EarthLink, which has been building and planning networks in some of the country's biggest markets. The company's new President and CEO Rolla Huff announced today that the company would be rethinking and likely rolling back its rollouts of Wi-Fi networks across the country.

In most cities where it's formed partnerships with local governments, EarthLink has signed on to build a Wi-Fi network at its own cost and recoup it by selling network services. But build it and they will come isn't turning out to be as much of a winning strategy as originally hoped, as I discussed in an article this week. And cities in all stages of the process are finding that legal, technical and financial roadblocks truly abound.

In EarthLink's second quarter earnings call this morning, Huff told investors that "The Wi-Fi business, as currently constituted, will not provide an acceptable return," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

EarthLink, which reported a $16.3 million loss for that period, is realizing what competitor MetroFi realized a while back – that if you're going to bear all of the costs upfront for building a Wi-Fi network, you need a good plan for making that investment back. It might not be easy convincing cities that thought they were getting a freebie to instead commit to a bigger buy-in upfront, but that's probably what EarthLink will have to do if it wants to keep unwiring the country.

Posted by Elise Waxenberg at 5:58 PM | 1 Comment

Paper vs. Plastic: The Great Green Debate

Which is better for the environment - paper bags or plastic bags? Lawmakers in various parts of the country are betting on paper. In many cities, politicians are considering banning plastic bags in grocery stores because they are not biodegradable and can be harmful to wildlife.

Finally, politicians doing something tangible and immediate to protect the environment! Unlike reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which will take years to take effect and no one is really sure how to accomplish anyway, advocates of the bans say outlawing plastic bags will produce successful results now.

But is this plastic prohibition really the answer? Yes, paper bags are biodegradable and not likely to suffocate a coastal bird. On the other hand, plastic bags require a lot less energy to manufacture and recycle. They're also easier to ship, thus using less gas. Not to mention the fact that 90 percent of stores use plastic bags, not paper.

Continue reading "Paper vs. Plastic: The Great Green Debate"

Posted by Liz Webber at 3:03 PM | 9 Comments

Coming Clean on 'AquaFib'

The No. 1 bottled water in the country, Pepsico’s Aquafina, is re-purified municipal drinking water. Yep: Pepsi bottlers around the country tap into the local tap water supply, put the water through an intensive purification process Pepsi calls “Hydro-7,” then bottle the water and sell it to us.

But you’d never realize that, even if you studied every word on Aquafina label, because there’s no hint of the water’s source (although the Aquafina logo does include images of lovely mountains).

Yesterday, Pepsico and an activist group announced that Aquafina labels will now carry the three words, “Public Water Source.” Enigmatic language at best, but a step closer to transparency.

Continue reading "Coming Clean on 'AquaFib'"

Posted by Charles Fishman at 1:41 PM | 4 Comments

July 26, 2007

Design: Proving the Value of Design

We know that design is an expense—just look at any company's balance sheet. And we know intuitively that for many companies, design is a profit center. But few organizations can actually prove that great design drives profits. One data point: a Whirlpool survey of 15 "design-centric" companies including BMW, Nike, and Nokia found that when it came to measuring their return on design (ROD), most were clueless—they simply relied on a rough calculus of basing their future design investments on past performance.

And yet, as more and more companies begin to boost their investments in design, CFOs are increasingly seeking a bullet-proof system for forecasting their ROD—one that's a little more dependable than "trust me, I'm a designer." The quest to empirically prove design's ability to generate profit is beginning to take hold in companies like Whirlpool, Procter & Gamble, and Hewlett-Packard.

One of the pioneers of the return-on-design movement is Rob Wallace, managing partner of Wallace Church Inc., a package-design consultancy that works with consumer-brand giants like Nestle, Samsung, and Home Depot. Wallace's 2001 article in Design Management Review amounted to a clarion call for quantifying design's value. In a recent phone interview, Wallace remained adamant that objective business measurements will ultimately underscore the power of design, even as he conceded that the effort is not without its share of controversy and obstacles. Here are excerpts from our conversation:

FC: Why have you been pushing designers to work with companies to calculate their return on design investments?

Wallace: I set out 15 years ago to find a methodology I could use to prove the ROI on brand-identity [i.e., packaging] design, which is our specific expertise. My motivation stems from that old adage, If you can't measure it you can't manage it. Businesspeople operate in a world of numbers. As designers, we have to embrace that world. We've always been about aesthetics—we're more interested in whether a design "moves" someone —which is all well and good, but that's not the way executives make decisions.

FC: You've said that many companies want to calculate their ROI on design, but few ever get around to actually crunching the numbers. Why is that?

Wallace: Our clients say they don't have the time or the allocation of resources to do the pre-design research, much less the post-design research. They barely have the time and money to do the quantification of the design before it hits the marketplace, and now we're asking them—six months or a year after the product hits the market—to put the time, energy, and money into quantifying the extent to which the design moved the needle on revenue. Plus, it's difficult to untangle design's influence from all the other influences—like engineering, marketing, and distribution—that contribute to a brand's success.

Seven years ago, we surveyed many of the major consumer packaged-goods companies—like Nestlé, Unilever, Coca-Cola—to learn about their measures for tracking the financial value of their brand-identity efforts. Design managers—even heads of consumer research—want to embrace measuring design ROI as a company-wide best practice, but when the rubber hit the road I got very little response. I got probably 18 to 20 case studies out of hundreds of requests. And the results I did get were published results of sales increases; a few went so far as to show the amount of profit that the increases generated. But in terms of what I need to determine the actual ROI, I'm not by any means getting an overwhelming response.

FC: Then what makes you think that design drives profitability?

Here's one example: On average, based on two dozen case studies with Fortune 500 companies, for every dollar invested in advertising, packaging and promotion, and visual communication at the point of sale, companies realized a $7.21 ROI. But when the advertising didn't change (or there was no advertising)—and packaging design was the only thing that did change—there was a $15.17 average ROI on every dollar invested.

I'm confident that if the ROI on design was truly measured, design would come out quite well, and it would be treated by the finance side as the adult it now wants to be. The ROI on design is not only a tool for showing design's true value, it can also show how and when design can be most critically used as a tool to continually generate the highest profits.

FC: So why are many design managers ambivalent about measuring ROI?

They've spent their entire careers being visualists; they're just not comfortable with numbers. Some are scared that the numbers might indicate that they're not doing the best job. To those people I say, I get it, you make sense. But you've got to be a leader in this process because it's going to change and you're going to be quantified. It's time to find a universally acceptable platform by which we can all hold each other's feet to the same fire and be measured.

If the design managers don't embrace this the CFOs will. They will take the lead in determining design's ROI. And [design managers] will hate it.

Posted by Bill Breen at 2:21 PM | 4 Comments

July 25, 2007

Innovation Wednesday: Advertising In User Generated Nation-Must We Do Everything?

As if programming debates and blogging endlessly about the minutiae of our collective lives wasn’t enough, we the people are now taking matters into our own cams to show the Madison Avenue ad geniuses how it’s done.

The latest entrant into consumer generated advertising is Heinz. Ketchup lovers and wannabe filmmakers have until August 6th to create and upload their own Heinz commercial to the super special website, seeking internet fame, glory and a grand prize of $57,000. (Get it? 57?) The company is using ketchup bottle labels to promote the contest – 57 million specialty bottles were made! – and according to their website, more than 1200 videos have been submitted.

"If the old model was to spend money on TV advertising to get people to go to the store to pick up a bottle, the new one is to use the ubiquitous Heinz packaging to ask consumers to generate TV ads for us," said Michael Bollinger, director of client services for Smith Brothers Advertising, via Media Post.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the impulse. A lot. I’m just watching the great User Generated pile-on and trying to make distinctions between what is truly authentic, and thereby ground-breaking, and what is merely a creative (and thrifty) use of distributed talent.

Continue reading "Innovation Wednesday: Advertising In User Generated Nation-Must We Do Everything?"

Posted by Ellen McGirt at 11:47 AM | 2 Comments

July 24, 2007

D’oh! The Plot to Simpsonize America

I confess, I was a little sad that I was out of the office the day the Fast Company class photo that appeared in the June issue was taken. One crummy reporting trip and I missed my chance to finally get my mug in the magazine! But fortunately, I now have a chance to show you just what I look like….or would, if I had a yellow face, bug eyes, and lips that look like they were drawn on with a crayon. Which, I guess, they were. Now, if only I could get a bit part in the movie….

By July 27, when The Simpsons Movie debuts, the range of product promotions, tie-ins, and spin-offs is likely to make even the marketing of Harry Potter seem wimpy. But for the next week or so, the idea still is fresh enough to enchant. Which is why I couldn’t resist going to Simpsonizeme.com and seeing what I would look like if I had commissioned Matt Groening do my portrait. A striking resemblance, don't you think?

The site, which is a Burger King tie-in, launched quietly last Monday. Or at least it was supposed to. By mid-afternoon the site was overwhelmed by the crush of folks pining for that hip jaundiced hue. All this, without any visible promotion. What’s up with that? Do Simpsons fanatics all have RSS feeds alerting them to every news bulletin from Springfield? Remind me to check out Salary.com’s newest “Wasting Time at Work” survey. Somewhere, there should be stats on web slacking.

This past Sunday night, the first ads promoting the site, by Crispin Porter + Bogusky (full disclosure: my kid works for the agency, so I got a sneak preview of the site during a pre-launch debugging exercise) aired during “The Simpsons.” Since then, according to Burger King, traffic has really gone through the roof. As of 3 p.m. today, the site had had 153,300,000 hits, and 4,067,378 folks had managed to upload their pictures for a full Simpsonesque make-over. Many more were left pining for that marigold glow, as the site’s traffic still outstripped the capacity to keep up with it. Burger King says it's upped the number of servers from 18 to 38. A few dozen more wouldn’t hurt.

And that’s the trick with the viral beast: make sure you can feed what you unleash. Frustrated Simpsonizers can be crankier than Mr. Burns if courted…then thwarted.

Posted by Linda Tischler at 4:52 PM | 2 Comments

Lost in Translation -- How Do Linguistic Differences Affect Global Marketing?

I've lived in various parts of the world over the last few years, and although I'm one of those people who hardly ever watches television, even I've managed to pick up on the fact that the nature and content of commercials, advertisements and marketing ploys differs pretty substantially across cultures.

Growing up in India for instance, my commercial-viewing experience consisted mainly of happy housewives expertly wielding the latest in cookware; cricket players endorsing just about anything; and bands of convulsing, hip-thrusting movie stars singing about Pepsi or Coke to blaring Bollywood music.

In England the advertisements seemed to focus more on supermarket chains: Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda and Safeway. And of course there were enough ads for beer to keep Homer drooling all day long should he make a trans-atlantic trip. The commercials seemed to often aim to draw their audience in through humor, with less of a focus on the attributes of the product.

And then of course there are the American commercials. Although there are some ads out there that are superbly researched and orchestrated, I like day-to-day advertising in the U.S. the least: for one thing there's far too much of it (particularly car insurance and fast food commercials -- like we need any more Oreo sundaes...) For another, the marketing is far less subtle. Personally, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone on this one, I think people are less inclined to watch a commercial that emphasizes the fact that they are being sold something, than to watch one that tries to engage them on another level.

As a London acquaintance pointed out: "British ads are more understated, more laid back. They use fewer superlatives than American ones. They often try to get the audience to like the product by using humor and quirkiness, while American ads are far more about proclaiming how great they are.'"

But even leaving aside the more subtle cultural specificities that tend to color advertisements in various parts of the world, recently an article on marketing in the International Herald Tribune made me pause to think about something as base and obvious as the effect of language on marketing.

The article cites a survey commissioned by translation services company SDL International, stating that according to the corporate marketing managers surveyed, 'language' and 'translation issues' are the biggest obstacles to 'managing a brand effectively in global markets.'

The writer points out that while some leading brands marketed themselves differently in different cultures, traditionally, companies have been hung up on the idea of preserving and propagating brand consistency at all costs: consistency was equated with quality. Nowadays, with the advent of the Internet and the globalization of brands, the idea of consistency remains strong, but its implementation seems to be increasingly problematic.

Continue reading "Lost in Translation -- How Do Linguistic Differences Affect Global Marketing?"

Posted by Saabira Chaudhuri at 11:22 AM | 4 Comments

July 23, 2007

CNN/YouTube Debate: Final, Random, Biased Thoughts

The debate is over and the group is back on a conference call, ready to be debriefed by the Clinton campaign. There's a surprise guest scheduled to talk to the national throng, but a fairly heady debate breaks out while this group waits for the breathless campaign recap.

The conversation, which nearly devolves into a fight, is inspired by one of the YouTube questions: Does it bother anyone that only two families -- the Bushes and the Clintons -- have inhabited (or want to) the office of the President for the last decade and a half? The issue of dynasty bothers one member of the group, but not others. (An intense discussion of the meaning of legacy follows, along with some unprintable comments about the current President.)

The group abandoned the call entirely -- they've been on hold for a while -- in order to debate the debate, a discussion which at time got passionate. Which leads me to one of the big winners of the night -- the questions themselves.

It seems that the questions excited the group more than the candidates. The true YouTubish fare - the singing tax guy, for example - didn't get much love. But sincere questions, like the young woman who wanted to know why there were no nationwide standards for processing votes at the polls, or the man who wanted to know if Senator Clinton expected that she'd be taken seriously by Muslim countries that have alternate views on women's rights, impressed the group. These questions inspired long, heartfelt side conversations that spanned everything from modern campaign tactics to slave reparations to whether women were unfairly dismissive of other women candidates. For a liberal enclave, the debate was surprisingly varied, and in times quite emotional. In fact, the group did a better job than the candidates did in baring their souls and making their cases.

The other big winner was YouTube, which managed to solidify its brand by forcing the campaigns to create their own "YouTube" style videos which were interspersed between the question and answers - as if being able to be authentically YouTube was proof of something substantive. (FYI: My group just didn't think Biden's effort was true 'Tube.)

I didn't think a candidate emerged as a true winner, the structure didn't allow it. There were only a few truly unscripted moments, and the front runners all managed to pull off some emotional highpoints without shooting themselves in the foot.

But according to this (admittedly biased) group, the winner was Hillary Clinton. Their random thoughts:

* She articulated a viewpoint, didn't sloganeer but presented the thought process behind her viewpoint. Winner hands down.

* She seemed the most moderate - the rest seemed like left wing lunatics to me.

* Barack Obama continued to make no impression on me. I think he's clearly very smart, but just not ready.

* Yeah, but she won by not losing - it wasn't a great showing for anyone.

*She doesn't make a caricature of herself. Obama doesn't say much, so that's the reason he's number two.

* Bill Richardson is quite possibly the least likeable person I've ever seen on television.

*Biden is smart and incredibly capable, but comes across as angry. (The group graciously agreed that Biden could be Secretary of State.)

*The group expressed compassion for Obama: He's failing to meet the unrealistic expectations of the crowd. Clinton has the reverse problem of being assumed as unlikeably - so she surprises and delights by being even mildly funny or warm. (A fight breaks out about whether Clinton is mildly funny or terribly funny.)

*"I'm mildly offended by the way Clinton is being marketed by her team as "a compassionate friend" - I'm really impressed when she's being strong on the issues, not being positioned as a woman who may or may not have baked cookies."

As I unplugged, the group was still talking.

Looking forward to the view from the Republican side, when the CNN YouTube Republican debate airs in September. (I'll be hunting for a Facebook Republican group near me.) But unless the structure of the actual debate is different, I'm expecting that any group of viewers will learn more about each other than they will about the candidates.

Posted by Ellen McGirt at 9:15 PM | Add Comment

CNN/YouTube Debate: Climate Change

A global warming question was asked by a YouTube snowman character that sounded an awful lot like Mr. Bill.

Gravel makes his case for a "fair tax" -- a retail sales tax which would encourage an overconsuming nation to stop overconsuming.

Dodd wants a federal fleet of hybrid vehicles and a corporate carbon tax.

Awkward moment alert: Show of hands -- who took a private jet here?

Clinton, Obama, Edwards all raise their hands, trying not to look sheepish. Richardson joins in with a late hand that would have gotten him disqualified from any well-officiated rock, paper, scissors contest.

Posted by Ellen McGirt at 8:37 PM | Add Comment

CNN/YouTube Debate: The Crowd Likes The People, Could Give or Take Anderson.

Random comments from the house party (now 8 strong) on the format:

It seems disjointed and the flow is disrupted.

I like debates that have a strong moderator and that can do strong follow up, and bring the correct candidate into play.

I like the theory, I like the concept, you know the whole "democratic thing", but I think that it's basically not that different because it's the same old editorial process.

YouTube questions are more hard hitting. Some exceptional questions, but there is no follow up.

(They seem to miss Chris Matthews, even Wolf Blitzer. Anderson Cooper not cutting it.)

I like the idea, but I think it's a little misleading. It’s a "democratic hearing the people approach" but it’s obviously being edited. Some candidates are getting tougher questions, that's not working for me. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth -- it’s an editorial process. It’s being packaged as democratic and open discourse. And it's just not.

I'd rather have the journalists ask the questions and do a strong follow-up.

But some of the questions are fantastic -- and that's great.

Posted by Ellen McGirt at 8:28 PM | Add Comment

CNN/YouTube Debate: New Format, Same Show

Although there is a poignancy of hearing from real people -- for example, the mother of a deployed Iraq servicemember, the crowd agrees that there is little different about this format that moves the ball forward in terms of debate structure.

An unfortunate close-up causes one house party attendee to wonder if John Edwards has a rash. Discussion ensues. Proof positive that the content is not that compelling. Yet.

Side talk alert: The women in the group just learned about selective service -- didn't know about it, never heard of it. Thank God for Tivo. The men are schooling the women on the issue -- raised by a questioner. The screen is frozen, sadly, on John Edwards facial rash, while we discuss.

Clinton: Women should register for selective service. Draft not so much, universal service, yes.

Obama, same question: Mentions Tuskegee Airmen, proof positive that he's black enough. And women should register, forshizzle.

Q: Will Clinton Be Taken Seriously be Muslim States Who Deny Women's Rights?

Short answer, she assures us she will. She makes her case, the crowd goes wild. Clinton looks pleased, my hosts nod approvingly.

Posted by Ellen McGirt at 7:47 PM | Add Comment

CNN/YouTube Debate: Mary and Jen Want To Get Hitched

Kucinich: Uh, duh. Cites constitution, gets applause from the crowd.

Dodd: How would I want my daughters treated? Compassion for all; civil unions, not marriage. (He has daughters five and two? The mind reels.)

Richardson: I would do what is achievable - full civil unions and full marriage rights. Push for hate crimes legislation and abolish Don't Ask Don't Tell. Eliminate discrimination.

House party nods appreciatively. Long debate on the definition of marriage versus civil unions ensues, lasting well beyond the commercial break.

Posted by Ellen McGirt at 7:29 PM | Add Comment

CNN/YouTube Debate: First "Third Person" Violation of the Night

Joe Biden, in a question about bi-partisan along-getting and theoretical Republican running mates, chooses Chuck Hagel as his symbolic Republican VP. He then reminds us in the ill-advised third person that Joe Biden was responsible for many great bi-partisan things. Other candidates wisely dodge the question, thereby throwing Joe Biden under the Joe Biden express.

Oooo -- Obama takes on the race card by complaining about not being able to get a cab in New York. The house party, all white New Yorkers, (not that I see race) chuckles appreciatively. Obama looks appropriately annoyed for being asked, once again, if he was black enough yet.

Hillary Clinton openly acknowledges being a woman, and manages to avoid looking annoyed at being asked if she were woman enough to do a man's job.

John Edwards doesn't want the vote of anyone who wouldn't vote for someone based on race or gender. The house party wrinkled their collective noses -- nice, but cheesy -- is the call.

Posted by Ellen McGirt at 7:23 PM | Add Comment

CNN/YouTube Debate: Thank God For Mike Gravel

Always entertaining; the only thing that would make this house party more fun is if he were actually in the room. Watching him take wild swings at his fellow candidates is never dull.

He actually sputtered: You'll never get CHANGE if you vote for THESE PEOPLE. Utter contempt. Then he went right for Obama, and attacked his claim that his campaign doesn't take PAC money. (Question to the crowd: What's a bundler?)

Posted by Ellen McGirt at 7:15 PM | Add Comment

CNN/YouTube Debate. First Question

First question: Will you be different than do-nothing politicians who can't do their jobs?

Answer from Chris Dodd: Basically, no.

Posted by Ellen McGirt at 7:08 PM | Add Comment

My New Facebook Friends: CNN/YouTube Debate

I'm happily ensconced at my liveblog HQ, aka Stacey and Sascha's house, and trying not to dissolve into major apartment envy. (The happy couple have a killer river view and a gourmet kitchen.) But more important, they are hosting a Club 44 houseparty, 450 of which are happening around the country to engage female voters in all things Hillary. (Sascha is one of two men in attendance so far.)

The mood is warm and congenial, and the couple are excellent hosts. But Stacey is deadly serious about why she's here: She's shocked that women aren't more engaged voters. "How about the women who only vote after they get married?" she asks rhetorically. "I have a friend, 35 years old, she's never voted. That's not unusual."

The party begins with a conference call from the Clinton campaign, starring, among others, Mary Steenburgen, a long time Hillary friend. It was a moving tributed, and the assembled throng - all six of them - were thrilled.

Here comes the debate....

Posted by Ellen McGirt at 7:01 PM | Add Comment

You Watch, You Vote, YouTube the Democrats on CNN

Tonight marks the much hyped debut of the CNN YouTube Debates, in which ordinary citizens run the show by asking the candidates questions via videos which they've posted on YouTube. It sounds like the making of revolutionary, true voter generated debate... except for the fact that CNN honchos have vetted all the questions in advance.

So, it seems unlikely that any full-on YouTube freakery will make the cut. (We could find out once and for all who had a sense of humor.) But whether forcing the candidates to answer questions that have been "personalized" through the experiences of real people will trigger any true authentic responses is anybody's guess.

The debate is being hosted by The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. Candidates will be squaring off against a giant video screen, which will play a couple of dozen questions that were culled from the more than 2,000 videos that were submitted.

I'll be watching and liveblogging the debate from the home of one of my new BFF's - the administrators of a Facebook group called "I'm a Girl and I Vote!" so stay tuned.

I'm optimistic. Anything that changes the current nature of political debate, certainly televised debate, would be progress. But I gotta wonder if the medium itself isn't part the problem. Anyone who has been one of a handful of citizens who have shown up at a middle school basement in the dead of winter to hear a Presidential hopeful sling chili and press the flesh has seen the low tech version: Candidates facing real questions from real people, often with a remarkable degree of authenticity. It feels like a real conversation - the good, the bad and the profound - because it often is. Showing up matters. Getting rid of the journalists may be a good first step - I admire the impulse. But perhaps losing the blinking lights, the logos, the urgent music, and the silly American Idol vibe might not hurt either.

But one issue is still nagging me. Does it matter more who asks the question or who chooses the questions that are asked? It might have been nice, as a hat tip to the participatory promise implied by a wired world, if the "people" got to choose the questions by voting for them online, rather than simply letting the usual suspects frame the debate.

How CNN chose the questions.

Check out the submissions on YouTube.

Posted by Ellen McGirt at 4:29 PM | Add Comment

Ron Paul: The Internet Candidate

As any presidential candidate will (or should) tell you, the Internet has become a major part of any campaign, and, like everything else on the net, is rapidly evolving not only as strategists become savvier about using the Web, but as the Web’s technology becomes more sophisticated as well.

On the day of the first presidential debate on CNN featuring questions from the YouTube community, it’s interesting to note that the candidate the most fervent online support after Barack Obama is Ron Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas who, while not the kind of guy that stands in line overnight for an iPhone, is smart enough to embrace the groundswell of support he's received on the Internet, and, in an extended election cycle which lends itself to experimentation, has been one of the frontrunners in exploring all that the web has to offer.

Continue reading "Ron Paul: The Internet Candidate"

Posted by Michael Prospero at 11:16 AM | 9 Comments

July 20, 2007

Poor People, Presidential Candidates, and Wal-Mart

In the tiny town of Marks, Mississippi, they filled the potholes on Cotton Street just before presidential candidate John Edwards showed up this week to talk about poverty in one of the poorest communities in America. That detail was reported by the Boston Globe, as part of its story on Edwards’ three-day, seven-state tour of some of America’s most impoverished communities.

In the last 10 years, the working poor have all-but-disappeared from the conversation in America, but 37 million Americans live on $20,000 a year in income, or less. That’s $385 a week in income — $54.80 per day, to live on. (If your rent or mortgage is $1,600 a month or more, you’re spending more on shelter alone than 13 percent of America has to live on.)

It’s funny: The whole justification for the “global economy” is that it provides opportunity, that it lifts people living at the subsistence level — literally hand-to-mouth — out of poverty in places like China and India. But what about those in the U.S.A. who need the same kinds of opportunities?

Edwards is the only presidential candidate who has consistently talked about the less-well-off in America — although he has a significant intellectual conflict, which doesn’t have anything to do with $400 haircuts.

Continue reading "Poor People, Presidential Candidates, and Wal-Mart"

Posted by Charles Fishman at 2:41 PM | 7 Comments

Sustainability: The Inconvenient Truth About Idolizing Green Celebs

In case you hadn't noticed, celebrities have focused a lot of attention on the environment lately. Fans and critics alike are still talking about Live Earth, and the Discovery Channel just announced a new Planet Green network to launch in 2008 with programming produced by Leonardo DiCaprio. Not to mention all the Hollywood A-listers who act as unofficial spokespeople for the Prius. Ostensibly, all this media attention has galvanized all us regular folk to do more to help the environment.

However, it's one thing to say you care about the effect you have on the environment and quite another to actually change what you do in everyday life. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau from 2005, 77 percent of Americans drive to work alone every day. Less than 5 percent take public transportation, a statistic that has changed little since 2000. Of the 10.7 percent who carpool, over three quarters ride with only one other person.

Continue reading "Sustainability: The Inconvenient Truth About Idolizing Green Celebs"

Posted by Liz Webber at 2:26 PM | 3 Comments

July 19, 2007

Web: Facebook Makes Its Move

Facebook is about to send IPO speculation into overdrive again with its latest business move. This time they are not turning away suitors. Instead, they've made their first acquisition - the company announced ten minutes ago that they've acquired Parakey, a startup run by Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt, co-founders of Mozilla Firefox, an open-source and non-profit web browser.

From the company's press release:

“Blake and Joe built the Firefox web browser and then turned to the developer community to build on top of the foundation they’d established, not unlike what we’ve done with Facebook Platform,” said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook. “The work they’ve done with Firefox and Parakey and their approach to building products fit right in at Facebook.”

Ross and Hewitt are best known as the co-founders of Firefox, which has been downloaded more than 300 million times by people worldwide. Hewitt went on to build popular web development tools such as Firebug. In early 2006, Ross and Hewitt founded Parakey to build a platform bridging the gap between information on the web and the desktop.

No, we don't know how much they shelled out for Parakey. But Facebook has been on a remarkable roll with the expansion of Facebook Platform - they've grown to a stunning 31 million registered users. The only question I want answered: How many employees does Facebook have now?

Posted by Ellen McGirt at 5:38 PM | 1 Comment

Design: Vacationing with Design Eyes

Once you start to see the world through design eyes, it’s hard to stop judging your surroundings by a more demanding standard – even when you’re on vacation.

Last week, I spent a few days in Bermuda, then journeyed on to Miami for the rest of the week. I really tried to untether myself electronically, vigilantly ignoring my email, purposely not checking my office voice mail, rarely even turning into CNN. But I couldn’t help noticing the design decisions that alternately delighted and disappointed me in my travels. And, being a reporter, I couldn’t resist making a few notes on the back of a boarding pass on the way home.

Herewith, my top 10 list of design hits and misses from the road:

Top 5 Design Delights

1.The stepped slate roofs of Bermuda. These white-painted marvels have evolved over the course of four centuries to resist gale force winds and collect water.
Since the island has no fresh water, a Bermuda roof is required, by law, to capture 80% of the rain that falls on it. Talk about form following function! But they’re as cool as they are handy – in short, delicious design.

2. Mosaic highway overpasses in Miami. Sun, sand, turquoise water – all captured in the most mundane embodiment of municipal infrastructure. Somebody in Miami’s highway planning department has the big picture view of his/her city.

3. The Wacky Architecture of Miami. OK, so I didn’t love it all, but I was certainly amused by most of it. Miami’s the kind of over-the-top city that’s willing to greenlight all manner of architectural extravaganzas, often in yummy colors.
Between the sun, the heat, and the crazy buildings, it’s hard to have a serious thought in your head. Which, I guess, makes it a near-perfect vacation destination.

4. Pink buses in Bermuda. Funny how the right color can make something as banal as a bus feel festive. Somehow you don’t get the same rush riding a Greyhound to Pittsburgh.

5. Thoughtful airport touches in Fort Lauderdale: a special set of seats, right after security, where you can reattach your shoes to your feet; a cellphone waiting area outside, where cars can idle until their arriving traveler emerges from baggage claim; the Samsung mobile recharging stations at the gates, where laptop toters can gather to while away the long hours between delayed flights checking their email or uploading videos to YouTube.

My pet peeves? Read on....

Continue reading "Design: Vacationing with Design Eyes"

Posted by Linda Tischler at 10:00 AM | 1 Comment

July 18, 2007

"I'm NOT a Plastic Bag": Extreme Measures in Renouncing Non-Biodegradable Substances

Today marked the New York release of Anya Hindmarch's cultishly popular canvas totes which emphatically state, "I'm NOT A Plastic Bag." Said bags, which are made in limited numbers and sold for $15, have already been released in England (where they sold out by 9am), Hong Kong and Taiwan (where those in line were privy to both fights and stampedes). New York's release promised 20,000 bags to be sold in Whole Foods stores, and bag enthusiasts began lining up last night, wrapping around the blocks and braving near flash floods this morning, only to have all the stores sell out within several hours (with the Columbus Circle location selling out in just 29 minutes).

The endless lines were largely composed of people who plan to sell the bag on eBay, recognizing its fashion-appeal (and its lucrative potential: the bags are going for $300), not people who are concerned about the drastic effects of non-biodegradable plastic bags (those people are most likely already carrying totes or reusing their bags.)

Americans throw away 100 billion plastic bags a year (plastic bags that take somewhere around 500 years to decompose), and the first step towards changing this frightening number is to raise awareness, which Hindmarch's bags definitely accomplish. “To create awareness you have to create scarcity by producing a limited edition,” she said in a New York Times article today. “I hate the idea of making the environment trendy, but you need to make it cool and then it becomes a habit.”

Continue reading ""I'm NOT a Plastic Bag": Extreme Measures in Renouncing Non-Biodegradable Substances"

Posted by Aimee Rawlins at 5:42 PM | 8 Comments

Web: Can A Social Network Save Business 2.0?

Yesterday, I completely missed the news. The New York Times's Brad Stone wrote about, "Ad Downtown Threatening the Survival of Business 2.0." Forbes Brian Caulfield had even covered the impending demise of the publication, "Bye-Bye, Business 2.0."

And while I was sleeping on the development of this story, I even missed that a faithful reader, Colin Carmichael, had started a Facebook group called, "I read Business2.0 - and I want to keep reading!" The magazine's Editor in Chief Josh Quittner, who has been trying to secure private investors to keep the magazine afloat has even joined the group, along with various Web 2.0 luminaries, like Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist; Matt Cohler, VP-strategy at Facebook, and others as reported by Advertising Age in "Can Fans Save Business 2.0?"

Carmichael just launched the Facebook group yesterday, and it has already escalated to 281 members.

Yet, as the Advertising Age article reports, fans have been known to save television shows on the Internet -- via blogs, forums, and online positions, but bringing this method to the print media is an entirely different thing.

The power of social networking, though, can't be denied. Sites like MySpace and YouTube have broken music artists' careers, effectively launched products into the marketplace, and have even affected the 2008 Presidential Campaign -- just look no further than sites like techPresident, a group blog that covers how the 2008 presidential candidates are using the Web, and vice versa, how content generated by voters is affecting the campaign.

It's definitely a telltale sign about what the future of media looks like. Not that I think print will cease to exist, in fact I'm rallying against that, but the ways in which we receive our news will be more converged. And though I know that was promised in good 'ole Web 1.0, the reality is here now.

For instance, Red Herring was completely dead in 2003, but was later resurrected by publisher Alex Vieux and a group of investors. Now led editorially by Joel Dreyfuss, the magazine has a heavy focus on its Web content, particularly its blogs, and it offers an interactive digital version of the magazine.

Using Red Herring as a case study, we could say that it's possible that if enough people want something, they'll get that something. So maybe Time won't save Business 2.0, but if the enthusiasm and evangelism of the Facebook group ends up wielding any real powers, then maybe someone, somewhere, with a fat bankroll will come to save the day.

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 5:01 PM | 3 Comments

Innovation: Phil Knight's "Not Exactly Textbook" Moves

How Laika Entertainment came to be is an intensely personal story. I was fascinated by how Nike founder Phil Knight and his son Travis, who didn't share his father's passion for sports growing up, wound up working together - in stop-motion animation, which is Travis' passion. The Knights' Tale, which appears in our July/August issue, chronicles that family journey and explores the relationship between father and son.

Today, to kick off our new blog feature, Innovation Wednesdays, I thought I'd look at the business of Laika. The world's best known sneaker mogul didn't create his movie studio the way you might expect. After all these years, Phil Knight still considers himself an entrepreneur, one who makes moves that are "not exactly textbook," as he told me when we met in Portland.

And why not? Remember, Knight built Nike (originally Blue Ribbon Sports) a little differently when he took on industry giants Adidas and Converse. He relied on a band of diehard accountants and lawyers along with some key experts, namely Bill Bowerman, his former track coach at the University of Oregon. Knight is doing the same thing with his latest underdog. Henry Selick who directed The Nightmare Before Christmas, is the industry veteran in charge of the creative side at Laika. Dale Wahl - a Hollywood outsider, movie novice, and Nike veteran - runs the studio.

"One of the lessons I've learned from my other life is that there’s no sneaker school," Knight says. "There’s no exact formula on how these things work. It's not a science. You just rolls the dice and takes your chances."

Continue reading "Innovation: Phil Knight's "Not Exactly Textbook" Moves"

Posted by Chuck Salter at 12:20 PM | Add Comment

July 17, 2007

Marketing: The Anti-Gladwell

The sticky-wars have arrived. Yesterday AdAge's Matthew Creamer introduced Duncan Watts, a Columbia University sociology professor from down under who's challenging The Tipping Point's Malcolm Gladwell to a battle at the mic. Armed with a mathmatical and computer modeling aresnal instead of anecdotes, Watts debunks Gladwell's "influencer" theory. Writes Creamer: "The crux of Mr. Watts' argument is that even if influentials are several times as influential as a normal person, they have little impact beyond their own immediate neighborhood -- not good when you're trying to create a cascade through a large network of people, as most big brands do. In those cases, he argues, it's best to skip the idea of targeting that treasured select group of plugged-in folks and instead think about that group's polar opposite: a large number of easily influenced people. He calls this big-seed marketing. Sounds a lot like mass marketing, doesn't it?"

Oy veh. In the high brow stratosphere of marketing theory, one day it's all about the niche ("long tail"), the next it's all about the mass ("big seed"). Between Gladwell and Watts (who in 2003 penned the book, Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age, to much less fanfair), and Fast Company's very own Made to Stick columnists, Dan and Chip Heath, it seems an entire academic generation has emerged around the study of: how to get our ideas, products and brands to stick. You could argue it's the obsession of 21st century marketers.

Creamer goes on to interview a couple marketers who have discovered that Gladwell's "tipping point" theory (which, as I wrote about in my January 2005 profile on Gladwell, has become fully operationalized at companies like Pepsi and Coke's VitaminWater), is a hell of a lot more difficult to recreate, than it is to admire from a far. (Please, why is anyone surprised by this? Didn't you learn by second grade that doing is always harder than pontificating?)

But my favorite line from Creamer's piece is this: "An irony of our age is that, though everyone acknowledges consumers are in control, marketers still believe they're running the show, right down to trying to plan for virality as any creative told to "just go make a viral video" will lament. Virality is an outcome, not a channel to be planned." It's similar to a point I made in "Down the Rabbit Hole," a November 2006 story that deconstructs the labrynth campaigns the Blair Witch Project's stunt-men architected for Audi and Sega. Creating a tipping point phenomenon is not just some algorithm on Google or a magic widget you can click--it requires tireless hard work and attention, relentless strategy and creativity, and a deep respect for your audience so you can give them want they want, or better yet, what they don't even know they want.

Where do you stand in the Gladwell vs. Watts smackdown?

Posted by Danielle Sacks at 10:55 AM | 11 Comments

July 16, 2007

Web: Why Your Web Marketing Strategy Needs A Widget

The thing about Web 2.0 is that it keeps us on our toes, constantly changing the game. For instance, whoever thought that Travelocity's Roaming Gnome would need a MySpace profile page or that there'd be a presidential debates channel on YouTube or that JetBlue Airways could become your Twitter friend?

Honestly, there are far too many social networking sites on the Internets nowadays for any one company trying to build a brand to keep up. First you had to have Web video as part of your online marketing strategy, then you had to plug into social networks. Now the latest thing you must have, is a widget.

Back in October, Frank Gruber of the blog Somewhat Frank wrote an interesting entry, where he explained:

"A widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate html-based web page. A widget can be created for just about every site or service possible thus allowing users to pull it into personalized homepages (Netvibes, Spotback and Pageflakes), blogs (WordPress and Typepad) or other social website pages (AIM Pages, TagWorld and MySpace). "

So why does your business need one? Gruber discusses Widgets as a Web 2.0 tool, but after visiting last week's Widgetcon, an event expressly focused on widget marketing, Daniela Capistrano wrote about widgets as a Web 3.0 concept.

As page views are nearly out the door already and clickthroughs are likely not very far behind them, consumers are interacting with brands in entirely different ways than ever before.

Capistrano had this to say:

"Welcome to the Me2 Generation aka Web 3.0. It is their world, we just live in it. And as precious as your content may be to you, ultimately it means little to them if they are unable to interact with it, share it, and personalize it...

Have you made it possible for your content to live in the worlds that are important to your audiences?

We are not serving content to a passive generation anymore, satiated with just digesting our messages without any opportunity for interaction. We are dealing right now with an active generation, and we should be excited about that, because it opens avenues for not only boring-but-necessary things (like new methods of monetization) but for new ways of distributing truly creative content to passionate, informed, and engaged audiences. A true brand experience should be able to thrive in all sorts of environments."

Now that's not really her talking, it's more or less the overall message she took away from the conference. What she really had to say was this:

"I understand the urgency to monetize, to track, to measure, to control. But in the scramble to place a dollar value on every eyeball we just might be losing track of the real point - to strengthen the bonds between our content and our audience. Providing users with the tools to carry on the brand experience in useful and engaging ways is essential to remaining culturally relevant. A widget should not be seen as just a method of repackaging or recycling your existing content, nor as just a tool to create compelling experiences that inspire a viral sharing effect. I don’t believe there is a “super widget” that will save your company."

Like Capistrano, I've seen widgets used really well in teen marketing. It works because it enables younger generations to pimp out their profile pages on social networking sites, their blogs, or their signatures in HTML-based e-mail or forums. In fact I've even used a few widgets myself, to port my content from one site to another. Mostly, I use widgets as gadgets in my Mac OS on my computer. They provide quicker methods of my accessing some of my Web-related applications.

Yet it wasn't until I heard that Widgetbox created a set of widgets for Forbes.com that I started thinking about the potential for widgets beyond entertainment content and social networking.

But it also made me realize that there is the potential to overdo a widget marketing strategy. I'm not saying that Forbes has. In fact, they've created very useful widgets for their users. But what I mean is, companies could get it wrong. Companies that don't really need them may create them just because of the thinking that widgets are the next killer app -- that widgets are better than advertising.

The truth is, in this new age, the name of the game is engagement. So it's not really a banner vs. widget argument here. What it is though, is a time to be creative about your brand and about how you market your brand. What points of engagement work best for your constituency? If you're marketing to 65 year olds, maybe widgets won't matter much.

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 6:42 PM | 1 Comment

July 13, 2007

Whacked-Out About Whole Foods’ CEO Mackey

Just reading the headlines online this week about Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, you’d think he had been caught committing a felony, perhaps something particularly debauched.

• The Motley Fool: “Rotten Behavior At Whole Foods”

• Fortune: “Is Mackey Too Wacky to be CEO?”

• Seeking Alpha: “Whole Foods CEO Mackey is Out of His Organic Mind”

As first reported in the Wall Street Journal, and as now reported everywhere, the curmudgeonly Mackey has been posting messages for most of a decade on Yahoo! financial message boards about his own company, and smaller rival Wild Oats, using the pseudonym Rahodeb (his wife Deborah’s name spelled backwards, with the h and r at the end swapped).

Mackey was obsessively prolific: According to 24/7WallStreet, he posted 1,394 messages over seven years — four per week.

But the reaction to the revelation seems wildly out of proportion to the sin. Al Lewis, a financial columnist for the Denver Post, opens his denunciation of Mackey with this line: “Sounds like it’s time to bag the organic fruitcake running Whole Foods.” Clever. But resign? Mackey should resign? Actually Lewis has a better idea: Take on a different title at Whole Foods: “Whole Fool.”

And no less a figure than Jeff Sonnenfeld, former dean of the Yale School of Management, told Fortune: “"It is time to boot this guy out, but I doubt the board will.”

I’ve written two stories about Whole Foods and Mackey, one from back when the company was young and tiny and revolutionary, and again three years ago, in July 2004, when I wrote that Mackey was “a man who has done more to improve the quality, sustainability, healthfulness, and purity of the food Americans eat . . . than anyone else in the past 25 years.”

Maybe it’s because I’ve spent hours talking to Mackey, and talking to people about Mackey, but the idea that Mackey should be demoted or fired, or should quit, because of anonymous internet postings seems absurd.

Continue reading "Whacked-Out About Whole Foods’ CEO Mackey"

Posted by Charles Fishman at 9:34 PM | 3 Comments

CEO: I Am Rubber, You Are Glue

John Mackey, the vegan pulling down $1 a year as head of $5.7 billion company Whole Foods, the organic/natural/crunchy/gourmet chain, is taking a lot of FTC anti-trust-flavored heat for posting anonymously -- for years -- on a Yahoo investing forum about his company's own stock. Besides routing for the home team under screen name Rahodeb (Mrs. Mackey, don't you feel flattered?), Mackey also talked a heck of a lot of smack about competitor Wild Oats, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday in a front page story.

Courtesy Nicon Engineering

It gets a little more complicated: Whole Foods has found itself embroiled in an antitrust case for trying to merge with Wild Oats, that same company Mackey had described as "floundering" and a whole lot of other things in previous months online.

Oh, John. Couldn't you have just deployed a PR peon to sing your praises on the silly message board?

Despite the odd revelation yesterday, Whole Foods' stock picked up a little over 3.5 percent today on NASDAQ.

At first glance, this might look like a woefully regrettable mistake on Mackey's part. At minimum, it's certainly embarrassing, and at worst, it could help kill the deal with Wild Oats.

But on closer look, it's a very nuanced case, and the implications aren't clear. Mackey posted information and opinions about his and other businesses, but all of his posts were anonymous (though some on the boards suspected his identity).

It's certainly a faux pas, but does what Mackey did count as foul play, or was it merely "fun," as he describes it?

One ABC reporter thinks it smells like deception, and compared the Mackey gaffe with last year's controversy over the Wal-Mart fan blog that was exposed to have been funded by Wal-Mart's very own PR firm, Edelman. But is it really a fair comparison? When you put the Wal-Mart case next to Mackey's furtive forum posts, I think there's something a lot more sneaky to me about a big PR firm secretly backing what's made to look like a homegrown website.

The jury on the FTC case will be out for a while, which means we've got some time to render our own judgments. (Whatever happens, Mr. Mackey, I love those free fruit samples at my store in Chelsea - keep 'em coming.)

UPDATE: Mackey's sorry.

Posted by Elise Waxenberg at 4:51 PM | 2 Comments

Sustainability: People Who Pick Green-Colored Cars are Geniuses…

…but what about green cars? A recent column on Wheels.casuggests hybrid vehicles may be a passing fad. Sales (or lack thereof) of certain models seem to indicate just that, as does a survey published in a New York Times article last week: it found a large portion of Prius owners' number one reason for buying the car was the statement it made about them. (The Times article compares owning a Prius to wearing one of those "issue bracelets" first popularized by Lance Armstrong's cancer fund.)

The Wheels.ca column's biggest complaints about the Prius are its inability to achieve the same fuel consumption rates in real world conditions and the fact that it doesn't drive like a "real" car. If something better were available, the columnist contends, people would ditch the Prius. I've never driven one, so I can't really judge his assessment. However, I can sympathize with the notion that driving should be fun.

Continue reading "Sustainability: People Who Pick Green-Colored Cars are Geniuses…"

Posted by Liz Webber at 1:46 PM | 10 Comments

Marketing: How to Market to Tweens and Teens

The young ones are a difficult crowd. They're not known for responding to traditional forms of advertising and marketing. They're not known for consuming traditional forms of media and entertainment. They use P2P networks, and listen to their music and watch their TV and films on the Web. They even stay in touch with friends and make new ones there too. A difficult nut to crack for businesses who want to get them to purchase their wares and use their services.

The truth is, teens are a lot less connected then they were back in your day. What I mean by less connected, is that they're a lot less connected to adults. Studies reveal that this demographic spends less time with adults overall, and its primarily because the adults in their lives have enabled them with devices -- handheld gaming consoles, MP3 players, cell phones, and the like -- that keep them isolated.

So how do you reach them? And that's assuming you want to reach them. I'm betting that you do, because their spending power is huge and it's growing -- fast. According to The Teens Market in the U.S., a report from market research publisher Packaged Facts in June, the market for products bought by and for the 25.6-million-member teen market will experience a slight growth spurt, increasing from $189.7 billion in 2006 to $208.7 billion in 2011, despite an estimated 3% decline in the 12- to 17-year-old population in that same period.

With these numbers in mind, next week in San Francisco there'll be an entire conference that aims to helping brands better understand and reach that huge, elusive market. Mashup 2007, the brainchild of Anastasia Goodstein, author of Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens are Really Doing Online, and founder of YPulse, an independent blog for teen/youth media and marketing professionals providing news, commentary and resources on commercial teen media, takes place at Hotel Nikko San Francisco, July 16 - 17.

"The 2007 Ypulse Mashup is the direct result of 3+ years of me blogging about youth culture daily for media and marketing professionals at Ypulse.com. It's an opportunity for both longtime readers as well as new readers to meet each other and for topics discussed on the blog to come alive with the top thought leaders in the youth and technology space," says Goodstein.

Fast Company readers can register with the code FSTCMP for a 10% discount.

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 1:17 PM | Add Comment

July 12, 2007

Able Planet Releases Noise Cancelling Headphones for Business Travelers

If you're anything like me you're easily distracted when you're working, you listen to your iPod at dangerously high levels, and your attempts to remedy the former by opting for the latter prove pretty futile in most instances.

I've spent the last few weeks hunting for a pair of noise cancelling headphones that would help me get better sound quality than my existing Panasonic earphones on the one hand, and also drown out the office cacophony when I need to on the other. After some digging, I landed on a pair of Able Planet's latest Clear Harmony Active Noise Canceling Headphones, which although primarily marketed for business travelers, also suit my own less itinerant needs.

The headphones, which retail for $300, are based on a proprietary technology called Linux Audio that was originally developed for hearing aids. This alters the audio signal to increase the intensity of higher frequency harmonics, which makes it easier to hear at higher frequencies which are sometimes less clear. It ensures that high frequency sounds are not smothered by bass tracks, and claims to increase perceptions of loudness without an actual increase in volume, thus minimizing the potential for ear damage. The latter is a pretty big consideration for me personally, as more and more people I know seem to be complaining of tinnitus or asking the same question way too many times for comfort.

The Clear Harmony headphones advertise themselves as disability friendly and can be worn with hearing aids due to a new technology that restricts electromagnetic influence. They are also supposed to be great