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August 31, 2007
Education: The Doll Test, From K-12 to Kmart
This month, Kmart began selling up to four dozen new ethnic dolls in its stores. Coincidentally, this is the year that Brown v. Board of Education was effectively overturned by the Supreme Court. A critical component of the Brown case was psychologist Kenneth Clark's "doll test," which showed black kids favoring white dolls over the black dolls that looked like them.
A 2005 mini-documentary called A Girl Like Me argued that the results of the Clark doll test might still ring true over fifty years later. Yet the success of brands such as Dora the Explorer prove that ethnic dolls, which have been around for quite a while, are more popular than ever before. What's most significant about the Kmart dolls, besides the sheer variety, is that they're not restricted to a specialized ethnic line but are dispersed throughout the store's generic offerings. If they weren't considered so already, ethnic dolls are definitely now mainstream.
So what does this mean for education? Past challenges to Brown and affirmative action have forced educators to rethink how to make their classrooms diverse. Perhaps Kmart's mainstreaming of the multicultural brand can offer a lesson for educators. One thing's for sure: with all the new varieties on the shelves, the doll test is dead.
Posted by April Joyner at 6:39 PM
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Fish on Friday: Six Wives & a Fitness Revolution
If you’re in the gym this weekend, toning up on a weight machine, push a little harder and smile in tribute to the cantankerous fellow who made it possible: Arthur Jones.
It is the rare character who lives with the gusto, the contrariness, or the impact of Jones, who died this week at the age of 80.
Back in 1970, Arthur Jones invented and sold the first Nautilus weight machine, which he nicknamed the Blue Monster. And the Nautilus — variable resistance weight machines, named for the nautilus-shaped cam that makes them work — revolutionized training, helping trigger the fitness craze, turning gyms from dingy, barbell strewn hide-outs to sweaty, Spandex-wrapped social hangouts.
Jones was not likely to be found in Spandex. He was blunt, wore thick black eyeglasses and chinos, and looked more like a geek than a body builder, or a raconteur. He got interested in exercise equipment, he told Forbes magazine back in 1983, after frustration with his own body-building efforts at the Tulsa, Oklahoma, YMCA in 1948:
“I ended up with the arms and legs of a gorilla on the body of a spider monkey. I figured there was something wrong with the exercise tool."
Jones personal motto, according to this obituary in the Washington Post, was “younger women, faster planes, more crocodiles.”
Continue reading "Fish on Friday: Six Wives & a Fitness Revolution"
Posted by Charles Fishman at 2:22 PM
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Technology: Could Livecasting Become A New Advertising Model?
For months now I've had friends tweet on Twitter about watching Justin.tv, a live video streaming network founded by Justin Kan, who started the service by wearing a webcam attached to his cap 24 hours a day, every day. That was back in March 2007. Since then, Justin has garnered media attention and has grown the network to about 30 channels of livecasting entertainment, featuring 30 different personalities.
It's about 3:46 am ET right now and I'm logged onto, "24/7 with Ronald Lewis," where a topless African-American man is sitting near his bed with a boom microphone in hand, with a microphone filter affixed to the microphone as if he's in a recording studio. He appears to be viewing a computer screen, and after a short while of looking at the chat window on his live stream page I realize that's exactly what he's doing -- because he's seductively speaking into the microphone, responding to the comments being posted in the chat.
I've got an excuse for watching this though, I'm a terrible insomniac. I don't know what to say about the 1,707 users that are currently logged into Justin.tv or the five to ten consistent chatterers watching Ronald's channel. I lost my original amusement for the livecast a while ago, but I'm still sitting here with it open trying to figure out the possible business implications.
Sure there are ads to be interspersed, or pre-rolled within these videos, but imagine, if you will, Victoria's Secret 24/7. Picture it: a bevy of models prancing up-and-down the stage, all day and all night. Each one stopping at the end of the stage, and peering into the webcam to talk about what they're wearing, and to interact with customers who are watching and chatting. There'd be sponsors of course, but I envision another layer as well. What about shopping? A Victoria's Secret shopping experience could be embedded onto the Web page where the video and chat are housed, with customers being enticed to click as each new outfit or item appears in the live video. The shopping experience would contain search functionality so that a customer could look up whichever item the current model is wearing and talking about.
It might sound like a crazy idea. The programming and production would be major tasks. And where would VS get all of those models from anyway? Yeah, I know I'm coming at this with a lack of sleep, and Ronald Lewis now has his shirt on again. But if Victoria's Secret does this -- I want my consulting fee.
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 4:13 AM
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August 30, 2007
Design Thursday: Escaping the Commodity Trap
Imagine that you just got a new job as a brand manager at Kimberly-Clark. That’s the good news. The bad news? Your first assignment is to think up ways to grow market share for Kleenex, a product so commoditized that its very name veers into the generic. Yikes!
OK, so there are pink boxes and blue. Little boxes and big ones. Pop-up tissues, and ones that lie inert in their box. Tissues with virus-fighting properties and tissues that let you fend for yourself against marauding germs. And then…and then….uh....
Posted by Linda Tischler at 10:25 AM
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Sustainability: PETA vs. Al Gore
Animal rights groups are pissed. While environmental missionaries a la Al Gore have guilted the masses into trading in their Hummers for Hybrids and plastic bags for crunchy burlap sacs, they've left one critical piece out of their argument: ditching Kobe beef in favor of tofu.
According to an interesting piece that ran in yesterday's New York Times, animal rights groups like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) argue that being a meat-eating environmentalist--such as Al--is an oxymoron. (For more on meat-eating environmenalists, read Fast Company's September cover story on Adam Werbach). As writer Claudia H. Deutsch points out, the groups have compelling ammo to back it up: last November the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization released a startling report revealing that the livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined.
Instead of trying to convert consumers at large, animal rights groups are channeling their energy to influence the influencers: sway the environmental movement, who has the spotlight right now. The Humane Society is running ads in enviro magazines juxtaposing a car key next to a fork: "Which one of these contributes more to global warming? It's not the one that starts a car." Taking a more abrasive tone, PETA has created an army of trucks fitted with a cartoon-style Al Gore chomping on a drumstick, donning the tagline: "Too Chicken to Go Vegetarian? Meat is the No 1 Cause of Global Warming." PETA's manager of vegan campaigns, Matt A. Prescott, said that his group has written to over 700 environmental organizations with pleas to promote vegetarianism--to not much avail.
As a carnivore (albeit, a light one), I find this new case for vegetarianism surprising and convincing. But sadly, the friction once again surfacing between these two groups represents a broader challenge activist movements have been self-imposing for years. In recently reporting the story on Werbach (an environmentalist who got fed up with the methods of what he felt was an ineffective movement), I learned that activists from labor, environmental, human rights, women's rights, animal rights groups, etc, have a long-entrenched history of being siloed and not playing well together. Instead of focusing on all their common interests--fighting for a fair, healthy, sustainable world--they claw each other's eyes out with their differences. In the end, what have they achieved? Not only silencing each other's voices, but perpetuating that "activist brand" of being hostile, arrogant folks that are better at throwing rocks than creating effective, forward-moving dialogue.
Posted by Danielle Sacks at 9:41 AM
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August 29, 2007
Innovation Wednesday: The Blogosphere's Take on Ashley Qualls and Whateverlife
When you write a story about a 17-year-old who has created a Web site with monthly ad revenue of as much as $70,000, dropped out of high school, and turned down a $1.5 million offer to sell her business -- all this before she's even gotten her driver's license -- the blogoshere sits up and notices. A sampling so far:
From Naomi Grossman at smallbizresource: "The simple ingenuity of Qualls's idea and her passionate pursuit of it can serve as a reminder to small business owners of what they know is a key ingredient of success, but sometimes forget."
From Idolator and an item titled "You Knew It Was Coming: Teen Girls Now Really Do Control the Music Industry": "We're either looking at another viral marketing dead end, a generation of kids being used as drug mules for teenpop videos, or a future crop of record-exec Doogie Howsers."
From Leonard Bartholomew at Moxie-Drive: "If any of you don't already know, I have coined a phrase that I use frequently: Internet Marketing By Accident. Ashley's website is the best example that I have ever seen of this."
From Pat McCarthy at ConversionRater: "It helps to be your demographic. Even though I’m much more experienced on the web and in the web business world, Ashley would do a better job of building WhateverLife.com than I would because she is the target audience...You understand their needs, their wants, what they’re thinking, and what they do and don’t think is cool."
From Dosh Dosh: "I particularly like how Ashley quit high school and took classes online to concentrate on her business because it shows her passion and her determination for success. She knows that she has a golden goose and did the right thing by devoting full attention to it."
From Saba, Ink at Associated Content: "If the young lady could parlay a small initial investment from her mom into a million dollar enterprise, manage consultants in India, hire her friends as employees and purchase a home in which to run a business out of, why does she now need state "support" ? I have a few thoughts on that for the state but I'll just leave with this: "OMG dudes! Just leave my BFF Ashley alone to keep living her life....whatever?!?!"
Posted by Chuck Salter at 11:34 PM
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Media: Summer's Hollywood Hero
Late August is usually the time when Hollywood takes a break from the summer blockbuster bombardment and begins preening up for the fall award season. But this past weekend proved to be an exhilarating time. Box-office sales in the U.S. reached a record $4 billion, surpassing the industry's previous record set in 2004.
And with its current fascination with three-quels, this summer blockbuster season could be best described as 2004: Redux. Spiderman, Shrek and Jason Bourne continued to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars with the blockbuster franchises they solidified three years ago. This record-breaking summer is just an ode to the summer of 2004, when American audiences learned that a sequel could be just as good (if not better) than the original.
Posted by Oscar Raymundo at 4:01 PM
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Innovation Wednesday: When Nabbr met Whateverlife
Yes, that's Lily Allen pictured on the right giving a sassy shout-out to Ashley Qualls and Whateverlife.com. The visa-challenged British pop star is personally thanking the little-known 17-year-old entrepreneur from Detroit because Qualls' site, featured in our September issue, attracts about 7 million teen girls a month, girls Allen is eager to reach. And in the music industry's ever-emerging world of online marketing (see also Musictoday from our February cover), Whateverlife is a player. Thanks to the New York startup Nabbr and its nifty video player.
Nabbr CEO and music veteran Mike More created a desktop video widget that you can download from one site and embed on another. For many teens having a music video on their MySpace profile is "like a poster on your bedroom wall," More says. Unlike my beloved R.E.M. posters in the early 80s, though, Nabbr's widget is an effective viral marketing tool. It immediately turns any MySpace page, any site for that matter, into another distribution point. Your friends download the video to their site, their friends share it with their friends, and so on and so on.
That's what happened when Nabbr introduced the widget, making its debut on Whateverlife.
Continue reading "Innovation Wednesday: When Nabbr met Whateverlife"
Posted by Chuck Salter at 10:35 AM
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August 28, 2007
Marketing Tuesday: McDonalds Caters to Local Palates
I recently wrote a blog post, Lost in Translation – How Do Linguistic Differences Affect Global Marketing, on how, in line with cultural differences, advertising, commercials and marketing materials are necessarily differently constructed, conceived of, and perceived across different cultures.
A flurry of recent media attention towards McDonald's attempts to go upscale in Europe, brought me back to thinking about the direction in which marketing efforts are trending in an attempt to stay globally competitive in a world of increasingly porous international geographical, trade, and cultural barriers.
Multinational corporations and international companies seem to buying into the concept that altering not just their promotional or communications material, but also their products and services in line with different audiences, is an essential milestone on the path to success.
McDonald's in London, France and other parts of Europe has revamped its interiors- replacing plastic with leather and changing the color scheme. "To make McDonald’s and a Big Mac work in the country of slow food, we felt we had to pay more attention to space and showcasing," explained Denis Hennequin, president of McDonald’s Europe,
to the New York Times.
The fast food giant has also made significant additions to its menu in an attempt to woo local palates, offering porridge in the UK, soup in Portugal, and French cheese in France. The New York Times reports that a food factory in Munich has been served with the task of conceiving new menus for different tastes in the 41 European countries.
McDonald's move towards cultural sensitivity is a smart one: combined European sales have increased by 15% in the first half of this year according to the Times. And Europe isn’t even half the story. Being from India, I have noticed this strategy being adopted by the fast food giant there as well, with localized items including meatless burgers, paneer salsa wraps, and McAloo Tikkis being served up.
While clearly bent on being somewhat localized, the chain is also wisely conscious about ensuring that it does not dilute the consistency of its brand. "We would like to stay true to our roots while moving forward,” Mr. Hennequin told the Times.
This is essential. Particularly since the fast food industry runs on the basic premise of consistency (apart from speed), being sensitive to cultural differences while simultaneously maintaining the overarching message of the brand is a thin line to walk. Like so many other things, McDonalds and other big international chains out there are going to have to find a middle ground on this one. They seem to be doing fairly well so far.
Posted by Saabira Chaudhuri at 6:07 PM
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August 27, 2007
Tech Monday: Game on, again, for Nokia
This week, Nokia is re-relaunching its mobile gaming service, N-Gage, in a format that it hopes will be more popular to the legions of cell phone users who like to kill time on public transit by playing Tetris.
Posted by Michael Prospero at 2:07 PM
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August 24, 2007
Fish on Friday: Will You Die at Work Today?
Will you die at work today? Probably not.
For the 120,000 men and women who go down into America’s coal mines every day, well, they just might die. In the last 10 years, 298 coal miners have died in U.S. mines. Forty-seven died last year -- four per month, the most since 1995.
Except during mining disasters like the six men who remain trapped in the Utah coal mine, coal miners operate not just underground, but hidden from our sight and our consciousness.
And yet, as much as any profession, every American is utterly dependent on the work of those 120,000 miners. Half the electricity in the U.S. today comes from burning coal. Without coal miners, there’d not only be no lights or refrigerators, there wouldn’t be flat-screen TV or an internet.
Electric utilities burn 20 pounds of coal for every person, every day. And since 1900, 104,621 U.S. miners have died getting that coal out of the ground.
So what’s it really like to work in a coal mine? I’ve been down into the second-deepest hole in the world, and I can tell you, it’s not for the faint of heart.
Continue reading "Fish on Friday: Will You Die at Work Today?"
Posted by Charles Fishman at 6:15 PM
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August 23, 2007
Design Thursday: The Buzz Around "Design Thinking"
The phrase "design thinking" is certainly in vogue these days. In design circles, it's been part of the lexicon for several years. Stanford's d. school, to cite just one example, even uses the term on its home page. But now it seems that the phrase has entered the common vernacular—a Google search turns up roughly 141 million results. Which leads to three thoughts:
*While "design thinking" is on many, many minds, there's less than universal agreement on what it actually means. Consider a quick survey of references on design thinking and business:
For Roger Martin, design thinking "is about shaping a context, rather than taking it as it is."
Jeanne Liedtka asserts that design thinking "deals primarily with what does not yet exist."
Tim Brown suggests that design thinking is "inherently a prototyping business—once you spot a promising idea, you build it."
All of the above are aspects of design thinking. But when you add them and the many other definitions all up, a comprehensive description of the term remains less than clear—and leaves you wondering whether "design thinking" has really been thought through.
*As "design thinking" morphs into a buzzword, is it now becoming so widespread—and so vague—that it's demeaning to other professions? Dan Saffer raises that concern while crafting his own definition. "Are we saying that other disciplines aren't creative?" Saffer writes. "Certainly, design thinking is innovative and focused on problem-solving. But so is the thinking of many different types of professions: lawyers, engineers, and contractors, to name only a few."
*As the term's popularity ascends, there's a danger that we automatically assume that "design thinking" should be the de-facto approach to cracking any kind of creative problem. As Peter Merholz points out, that kind of hype fuels a "dark side" to design thinking—an arrogance that leads to "overbearing control," a "weakness for styling," and "condescension toward users."
Despite the lack of an adequate definition, "design thinking" is a powerful tool. But it's not a panacea. As any smart designer will tell you, sometimes "business thinking"—measurement and analysis—is more than sufficient.
Posted by Bill Breen at 10:23 PM
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Cover Story Outtake II: Down & Dirty With Hunter Lovins on Wal-Mart
Talking to long-time environmentalist Hunter Lovins—co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, co-author of Natural Capitalism (along with eight other books), professor of business at Presidio School of Management, the first accredited MBA program in sustainable management, her credentials go on and on—is like watching a documentary that you just don’t want to end. She seems to know everyone you’ve ever wanted to take a time-share in their brain, has perspicacious opinions, and always knows how to spice up sober issues with a dose of her homespun humor.
I interviewed Hunter for my September cover story “Working With the Enemy,” which chronicles the controversial journey of former Sierra Club president, Adam Werbach, who landed on Wal-Mart’s payroll. Here’s a glimpse into our hour-long conversation; what she had to say about Wal-Mart and the dangerous dance of activists being co-opted by corporations:
Danielle Sacks: When you first heard that Wal-Mart had outlined its audacious sustainability goals, did you buy that they were serious about it?
Hunter Lovins: Hell no. My feeling was, fair enough, they’re going to save themselves some money, put solar panels on their roofs and sell organic underwear. But if you roam the planet rapaciously exploiting people in developing countries and in communities here at home so people like me can throw away more junk, this is not sustainable.
But I had a realization—suppose the world you see around you is largely the world that we’re going to have? Many environmentalists in their heart of hearts have this fantasy, vision of somehow a small rural community life. For most of the world’s people it’s not going to be like that, there are more people living in cities now than rural areas around the world, the mega-cities of Asia are not getting smaller, they’re getting bigger. Wal-Mart has been a phenomenon of the suburbs, and of an individual car-based society. But if you look at the big trends of mass urbanization, and high energy prices so people won’t drive as much, that model starts to look just a little shaky.
Continue reading "Cover Story Outtake II: Down & Dirty With Hunter Lovins on Wal-Mart"
Posted by Danielle Sacks at 11:57 AM
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August 22, 2007
Cover Story Outtake I: Seventh Generation’s Jeffrey Hollender Dishes on Wal-Mart & Sustainability
In the course of reporting a story there are always many fascinating people I get to have incisive chats with, but painfully, never actually make it to the printed page. For my September cover story on Adam Werbach—the controversial environmentalist now on Wal-Mart’s payroll—one of those was Seventh Generation’s Jeffrey Hollender. Hollender, the president and CEO of the nearly 20-year-old nontoxic household products company (and incessant blogger), had some pretty candid sentiments on Wal-Mart going green. Here are some excerpts from our conversation:
Danielle Sacks: Last year I read that you won’t work with Wal-Mart because you’d “be selling our soul to do it.” These days how legit do you think Wal-Mart’s commitment to sustainability is?
Jeffrey Hollender: It’s definitely real and I would say they’ve come a long way in the right direction, but they also have a long way to go. The challenge they face is in some respect the environmental issues are easier to deal with than the social issues. Look at their impact in communities they do business in, sourcing products in China, when they go into a community there are more jobs lost than gained.
I think if they saw a clear path to how to address some of the labor or human rights issues, they would be more willing. In some ways they view this as a process that starts with the environment and moves into other issues. The challenge is, they have to explain why they’ve taken on some issues and not others. If they don’t take that initiative, it looks like they’re not recognizing it. They need to be more proactive on issues of equity and social justice than they have been.
Continue reading "Cover Story Outtake I: Seventh Generation’s Jeffrey Hollender Dishes on Wal-Mart & Sustainability"
Posted by Danielle Sacks at 5:59 PM
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Innovation Wednesday: Whateverlife and the Accidental Business
What kind of job did you have at 17?
I posed that question to the grown-ups I encountered recently while exploring Whateverlife.com. The teen-girl site and company was started by Ashley Qualls, an entrepreneur from a working-class neighborhood outside Detroit, who happens to be 17 herself. At that age, LeeAnn Prescott, the research director at Hitwise, was working at an amusement park, fashioning faux Civil War shots of people. Robb Lippitt, the former COO of ePrize who consults for Qualls, had worked his way up from dishwasher to prep cook to manager of Buddy's BBQ. Ceca Mijatovic, the founder of the girls portal dayZloop, didn't have a job yet; she was a foreign-exchange student from Yugoslavia. Me? I was delivering pizza for Domino's.
"Of course, this," says Ian Moray of ValueClick Media, referring to Whateverlife, "is something we all wish we'd done when we were 17."
If only the Internet had been around then. One of the many fascinating things about Whateverlife is that Ashley didn't set out to start a business. The Internet practically did it for her. Web design was a hobby, something she'd been learning online since she was 9. As a high-school sophomore, she figured out how to create layouts for MySpace pages, and her friends at Lincoln Park High School were keen to customize theirs, much like school lockers. As word spread throughout the MySpace universe, the 15-year-old couldn't afford the servers to support her exploding online audience. A friend suggested using Google AdSense, which generates ad revenue based on a site's traffic. Ka-ching. Whateverlife was off and running. Ashley has created nearly 3,000 layouts, her monthly audience is around 7 million, and revenue has grown from a couple of thousand bucks a month to as much as $70,000 - more than $1 million in less than two years.
The Accidental Business has become a burgeoning byproduct of the Web. Just look at the collectors-turned-entrepreneurs on eBay alone. By providing a cheap and instantaneous distribution or publishing platform, the Internet democratizes entrepreneurship. It's a beautiful and powerful thing. Ashley, whose divorced parents didn't attend college and knew little about the Web themselves, didn't have the resources and connections that Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, My Start-Up Life's Ben Casnocha, and myYearbook's Catherine Cook have drawn on so effectively. But Ashley did have a bright idea and the technology to share it.
On the Web, much to the delight of a new generation of entrepreneurs, it's often enough.
Posted by Chuck Salter at 12:35 PM
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Innovation Wednesday: Corel's Virtual Garage
What happens to an idea deferred?
Corel, the software maker who brought us WordPerfect and a whole host of design tools, didn’t want to risk finding out. Or, more accurately, one small band of engineering innovationistas decided to stop letting grassroots ideas get lost to the ethers – a familiar fate at even the most innovation-focused companies. So, a handful of employees created a unique system -- a “virtual garage” -- that helped the company capture, then evaluate and develop ideas that bubble up from the Corel rank and file. And, get this -- it’s working. It says something good about the employees who made the system, as well as the company that embraced their efforts.
Continue reading "Innovation Wednesday: Corel's Virtual Garage"
Posted by Ellen McGirt at 11:33 AM
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August 21, 2007
Media: Can Google, Limewire Outplay iTunes?
The digital music market continues to be an exemplary battleground for the implications new media has on pre-established business practices. Startup gBox and infamous Limewire are venturing into the digital music market to try to trample the dominion of the lower case i, the Apple iTunes store that is.
But how do they plan to compete with the well-established leader in digital music sales? By selling songs not encoded with that frustrating copy-protection technology, digital rights management (DRM). You know, the thing that prevents your friend from listening to the new Kanye song you just sent him because his computer is not "authorized." DRM is designed to stop the illegal copying of music and limits the number of computers that can play the purchased song. The iTunes store's songs will only play on the iPod, and the iPod won't play DRM-enabled songs purchased at other online music stores.
Continue reading "Media: Can Google, Limewire Outplay iTunes?"
Posted by Oscar Raymundo at 4:07 PM
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August 20, 2007
TechMonday: The Open-Source Consultancy
In the September issue of Fast Company, we look at five consumer electronics products whose design was inspired, or could be modified, by a larger community. Now, a young entrepreneur is hoping to harness that power to go beyond product development and create, in effect, a consultancy for all aspects of business.
Continue reading "TechMonday: The Open-Source Consultancy"
Posted by Michael Prospero at 1:22 PM
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August 17, 2007
Letter From the Magazine: Lessons of the Fall
There is no more common lament in corporate C-suites than the sorry state of the American education system. Our next generation is said to be woefully unprepared for the economy of the future, while other countries steam ahead, producing engineers and scientists. In response, companies from American Express to IBM have been stepping in to try teaching public schools how to teach. Few have been as aggressive as Microsoft. As Elizabeth Svoboda reports in the article beginning here, Microsoft's role in the School of the Future in West Philadelphia has meant more than Wi-Fi'd laptops for students. It has also meant the end of traditional math, science, and English classes, which have been replaced with interdisciplinary "learning sessions" and online courses.
Controversy looms over the Philly school, as it does over all corporate-education efforts: Whose interests are being served? Is producing mini-Microsofties and Citigroupians an appropriate goal for our schools? Mary Cullinane, director of Microsoft's U.S. Partners in Learning program, acknowledges that "[our] interest in education is very much a vested interest." Yet with high-school graduation rates running below 50% in some places, can schools afford not to take whatever help is offered?
Continue reading "Letter From the Magazine: Lessons of the Fall"
Posted by Robert Safian at 7:18 PM
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Sustainability: Next Stop: Tomorrowland
In the quest for more efficient, green energy sources, a group of researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have made a breakthrough: batteries made out of paper.
Ok, so it's a bit more complex than a piece of loose leaf. But 90 percent is comprised of cellulose (plant fibers), the same material used to make paper. Carbon nanotubes and an ionic liquid, a liquid salt that contains no water, make up the other 10 percent. These natural materials and lack of toxins are what make the battery so environmentally friendly.
Continue reading "Sustainability: Next Stop: Tomorrowland"
Posted by Liz Webber at 12:24 PM
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August 16, 2007
Design Thursday: Design Flambé
The last time I saw Murray Moss, he was downstairs in his Soho shop, composing a tableau of furniture that looked as it if had been salvaged from a particularly gruesome house fire. The pedigrees of the pieces were still discernible within their blackened skeletons – a Mackintosh chair here, a Sottsass étagère there.
I found the whole scene slightly chilling, but Murray was his customary cheery self, and told me not to worry. Nobody had torched his inventory --- or, rather, the torching was strictly by design.
I've since come to appreciate designer Maarten Baas’s work, so was delighted to hear that the 29-year-old Dutch wunderkind’s latest masterpiece, an artfully incinerated Steinway, 
had been the centerpiece when Moss’s newest outpost on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles opened last week.
Posted by Linda Tischler at 12:32 PM
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August 15, 2007
Media: Disney Takes Us Back to 'School'
You didn't have to pass 11th grade calculus to see that all the numbers add up to make "High School Musical" one huge hit.
The Disney Channel Original Movie was watched by 7.7 million people when it premiered back in January 2006 (6.1 million tuned in for the encore the following night). To date, over 160 million people have tuned in worldwide, and it has spawned a $100 million franchise with the soundtrack (the best-selling album of 2006), concerts and solo projects for its teen stars.
Continue reading "Media: Disney Takes Us Back to 'School'"
Posted by Oscar Raymundo at 2:40 PM
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Innovation Wednesday: Henry Selick and the Artistry of Stop-Motion Animation
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it to San Diego last month for Comic-Con, the world's largest comic book and sci-fi fan-fest and THE place to generate buzz about TV shows and movies aimed at these influencers. I would have liked to attend the panel featuring Neil Gaiman and Henry Selick, the creators of Coraline the book and Coraline the movie. Gaiman wrote the award-winning young-adult novel, a captivating ghost story about a supremely bored little girl who discovers an alternative universe through a door in her house. (Stardust, based on another of Gaiman's books, is in theaters now, and the positive reviews could bode well for Coraline.) Selick, who directed The Nightmare Before Christmas, thought so highly of the book that he wrote the screenplay and is directing the movie, due out next year. It's the first feature at Laika Entertainment, Phil and Travis' Knight's new animation film studio, an intriguing and ambitious venture that I wrote about in the July/August issue.
The Comic-Con faithful got a sneak peak of early footage. After watching some of it myself while visiting Laika a few months ago, I'm hungry for more. Selick has brought the animation mastery of Nightmare to a story reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz; an astute and feisty girl struggles to make sense of her strange surroundings and find her way home again. "Coraline is about something primal," Selick told me. "It's like Grimm fairy tales and the early Disney films. Why did they work so well? People often look at them as saccharine, but they had a darkness against the light."
Selick, who attended Cal Arts with Brad Bird and John Lasseter, brought his screenplay to Laika and joined the company as supervising director because the Knights offered him a rarity in Hollywood: the chance, he says, to "do it the right way." That means not only making Coraline in stop-motion animation (with puppets), but also in 3D, an industry first. And doing so without the meddling that comes with layer upon layer of big studio bureaucracy.
Continue reading "Innovation Wednesday: Henry Selick and the Artistry of Stop-Motion Animation"
Posted by Chuck Salter at 10:19 AM
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August 14, 2007
Marketing Tuesday: Will Murdoch Dilute the WSJ Brand?
"Readers can rely on this: The same standards of accuracy, fairness and authority will apply to this publication, regardless of ownership. Our reporters and editors feel an especially strong obligation because the Journal, from the beginning, redefined financial and business journalism." Gordon Crovitz, Publisher, WSJ.
Rupert Murdoch's recent acquisition of the Journal has done nothing to put an end to rampant speculation about what is to become of the nation's second largest, and what many call its most prestigious, newspaper.
Murdoch's reputation as an unscrupulous media baron with less concern for quality than for advancing personal business interests precedes him. "The Journal is as good as it gets in terms of high-quality journalism… Mr. Murdoch is a tabloid king with a reputation for taking everything he buys downmarket," says The Economist.
Many seem to believe Murdoch's ownership could inflict damage -- The WSJ online reports that by the afternoon after New Corp's acquisition, 170 readers canceled their subscriptions in protest. Some have expressed concern based on Murdoch's seeming penchant for tabloids, and "trashy" publications. Just how worried should the defenders of journalistic integrity and fairness be?
To give Murdoch his due, he couldn't have come this far without more than a shred of business acumen. Sure tabloids sell, but with the New York Post, News of the World and The Sun Murdoch already has a fair cut in the market for trashy sensationalism. Just because the 76 year old Aussie entrepreneur splashes the covers of these publications with bikini-clad (and often bikini-less) babes doesn’t mean he would dream of doing the same to the Journal. His $5 billion offer for Dow Jones has been criticized as $1 billion or perhaps even $2 billion too high, and Murdoch would not undercut his own interests by diluting a brand for which he has paid such a high price.
Perhaps a more pertinent concern is about the Journal's objectivity; the paper, although conservative, is hailed as a symbol of integrity and good journalistic practice. "The Journal is not really one newspaper but two- a newspaper and a highly opinionated conservative magazine. Hitherto it has succeeded it drawing a line between them. Will Mr. Murdoch resist allowing his own conservatives opinions to blur the line?" meditates The Economist.
And that is the crux. With the entrance of Murdoch, who has a notorious reputation for exercising his personal views over the media properties he owns, could the Journal become a right-wing mouthpiece for the news? Not easily according to some.
David Carr of The New York Times explains that the Journal’s editorial page editor, Paul A. Gigot, will retain significant authority -- to choose editorial board members, columnists, the editor of the op-ed section, the editors of the book review and other sections, and to have the final say over op-ed pieces as well as editorial positions.
If adhered to, this agreement will confer significantly less power upon Mr. Murdoch than the publishers of most other newspapers in the US. This is a big if however, as many claim that the Australian media mogul made similar assurances when he bought the Times of London in 1981, ones that he flouted soon after. If he does abide by the agreement then how much power he will actually exert, at least over the editorial page, boils down to how well Gigot chooses to stand his ground.
What's your take on how Murdoch's acquisition is going to affect the nature and content of the Wall Street Journal?
Posted by Saabira Chaudhuri at 11:57 AM
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August 10, 2007
Sustainability: Travelers Care About Being Green. Or Do They?
Environmental concerns are slowly seeping into all aspects of consumers' lives, and travel is no exception. As with most green awareness campaigns, however, just how concerned travelers are is a gray area.
A recent TripAdvisor survey assessing travelers' levels of commitment to the environment claims a sizeable number keep their green mentalities while on the road. A full two thirds believe environmental measures in the travel industry do make a difference. One third would pay more for green hotels (perhaps like the ones featured in this New York Times article), while almost 40 percent would pay more for a flight that was less harmful to the environment. Moreover, TripAdvisor found most travelers (78 percent) are willing to give up the daily change of sheets and towels once so common in the hotel experience.
Continue reading "Sustainability: Travelers Care About Being Green. Or Do They?"
Posted by Liz Webber at 12:05 PM
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August 9, 2007
Design Thursday: Proving Design Moves Markets
We know that great design fuels revenue and grows margins. But thus far, most companies -- with the possible exception of pioneers like Procter & Gamble and Whirlpool—have been unable to prove it. The main reason is that it's exceedingly difficult to untangle design's contribution from all the other business drivers--engineering, manufacturing, distribution, marketing--that ultimately fuel a product's performance in the marketplace.
There is, however, compelling evidence that in the aggregate, companies that excel in design kick some serious butt in the market that matters most to investors: the stock market. The data comes from the London-based Design Council, a publicly funded research organization that promotes the role of design in Britain. The Council reports that over a ten-year period, from 1995 to 2004, 61 "design-led" businesses outperformed the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 by more than 200%.
The Council's "Design Index" tracked the share prices of British companies that demonstrated a sustained record in racking up design and innovation awards--outfits like Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Easy-Jet, Rolls Royce, BP, and Unilever. It found that the organizations' overall performance was consistent: the Index rose more in good times than the FTSE 100 average and fell less in bad times. (The Council regularly re-calculated the Index to account for mergers and de-listings.) As the Council put it in an accompanying report that was updated last month, "The Value of Design Factfinder", the Index presents "clear evidence of a relationship between design investment, business performance, and long-term stock market value."
In a phone interview, Harry Rich, deputy chief executive of the Council, conceded that the Index does not demonstrate a causal link between design and stock market performance. "The claim is not that design is the magic bullet that made it all happen," he said. "The claim is that in a well-run business, one of the things you'll be doing is great design. You can put as much good design as you want into a business, but if you can't manage, say, your cash flow or distribution network, you won't be successful. In successful companies, good design is part of a total package."
The Council, in its attempts to demonstrate the bottom-line value of design, has been way out in front of US-based organizations. And yet, in Rich's view, the recent scramble to calculate the ROI on design investments might have gone a little too far. "There's an interesting paradox here: Sometimes, the requirements that we put on ourselves to 'prove' design's impact are greater than those we put on any other business area. The fact is, there are many areas in business where it's impossible to isolate and quantify the ROI. Think of the billions that are spent on strategic-management consultancies, and yet it's difficult to demonstrate a causal link between the consultants' advice and a business outcome. So we need to cut ourselves a bit of slack. Let's be realistic about what's provable."
Rich believes that if companies combine good design with good management, good financial results will follow. And he contends that designers have little to fear from the growing interest in calculating the real return on design investments. "My experience, in talking to executives, is that if they don't believe in design in the first place--if they think it's a bunch of nonsense--they won't be convinced otherwise by any kind of data. However, if executives are open-minded but want to see some evidence, you can certainly make the case that design will help make them more competitive."
Posted by Bill Breen at 1:43 PM
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August 8, 2007
InnoWed Deux: Al Gore On Innovation - Build It And They Will Come
A bit more on Current TV.
One of the most intriguing elements of the Current TV trajectory thus far, is how clear Gore and Hyatt were from the start that they wanted to do something completely different. In part, it was to address what they believed to be were the glaring inadequacies of a one-way medium – Gore spends pages exploring this theme in his recent book, An Assault on Reason. It is the very business of television that disturbed them. Hyatt told me that there was "an utter lack of innovation in the media industry"--a barely disguised oligopoly, as they saw it, controlling both content and competition. "We decided that we wanted to build a new kind of media company to democratize--small d--television first and the media industry generally," he said.
They pushed through their ideas under the toughest of circumstances. “There were about seven or eight times when this deal was all but dead in the water,” recalled Gore about hunting for a cable asset to buy. Innovation can be challenging in the best of times; but under pressures of deadlines, itchy investors and looming revenue targets, even the most high-minded goals tend to be pushed to back burner. But once they had a business to run, the two got busy making it what they wanted it to be. Not without drama, but evidently without compromise.
During the course of my reporting on Current TV, I interviewed several of the senior staffers. Joanna Drake Earl was Hyatt and Gore’s first hire, and no slouch in her own right. She has a varied background, from Booz Allen's entertainment practice, to Paul Allen’s Digeo . As the President of New Media, she’s actively creating new places for Current programming to appear. “We’re now exploring and concluding partnerships online with new media platforms – mobile, laptops, gaming consoles – any platform that makes sense,” she told me. With healthy license and advertising streams, it’s time to play. “Now that we’ve launched the tv network and reached our household distribution goal (50 million homes), we’re fulfilling our larger goal of becoming a global media brand.”
Drake shared a wonderful story describing the sausage-making that was early Current. It sounded like the kind of “what color is our parachute?" meetings that in the hands of a bad moderator – like one of those annoying consultants - can do more to alienate a staff than to solidify their resolve:
Posted by Ellen McGirt at 4:01 PM
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Innovation Wednesday: Al Gore Transforms Television With A Little Help From His Friends
Now that the Al Gore story is in print, I can no longer pretend that the hours I spend watching Current TV, the network he started with partner Joel Hyatt, is for reporting purposes. I’ve morphed into a bona fide fan, and I’m always delighted by the strength of the storytelling and the consistency of the programming voice. Within a half an hour of watching, I’ve typically laughed, been moved to tears and learned something interesting; any moments of boredom or disinterest pass quickly because, well, the pods are short. It really isn’t like anything else that you see on television, and it’s getting better all the time.
They’re also getting creative about the ways that ordinary people can get their own images and ideas on the air.
Posted by Ellen McGirt at 11:40 AM
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August 7, 2007
Marketing Tuesday: Study Confirms the Power of Brand Packaging
I recently wrote a piece entitled What a Packaging Makeover Can Do For Your Company -- it got me thinking about the issue of branding: what exactly branding is, how branding and marketing interact, and just how important packaging is to the whole process of branding, or perhaps rebranding, one's company, products or services.
In the course of my research I conversed with a number of industry experts about how heavily instrumental packaging is in the development and maintenance of a company's brand. All seemed to unanimously agree that packaging is intrinsic to the success of a brand. "Packaging is the number one medium to communicate the brand. "You need to pay attention to this area in your branding strategy because it is the first thing someone sees, touches, and essentially buys. Packaging is often more than a medium -- it can be part of the product," stresses Laurent Hainaut, founder of design agency Raison Pure.
While I was convinced, impressed even, by their assertions on how important packaging is for a brand, a study I came across this morning impressed me even further.
Funded by Stanford and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the study that appears in August's Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, asked 63 low-income children, ages 3 to 5, to taste identical McDonald's foods that were in marked (name-branded) and unmarked wrappers.
The results? The food in the unmarked packaging was always pronounced less tasty than the food in McDonald's branded packaging, even thought the two foods were identical.
About 77 percent of the children said that the McDonalds labeled fries tasted better than the plain wrapped fries and 54 percent expressed a preference for McDonald's-wrapped carrots – well over double the percentage of those who liked the unmarked sample. The results weren’t all that striking with regard to hamburgers however, with only 7 more kids choosing McDonald's-wrapped burgers than the unmarked ones.
An author of the study, Dr. Tom Robinson opined that the children's perceptions about the food were "physically altered by the branding."
While thoughts about the kinds of ethical responsibilities this places on advertisers and chains like McDonalds or Burger King definitely flashed through my mind, I'm more intrigued by the sheer extent of the impact that such marketing strategies have on us all, even children who may be too young to read.
Posted by Saabira Chaudhuri at 4:35 PM
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Technology: Steve Jobs Shows Apple's New iMacs and Software
At a press conference at Apple's headquarters today, Steve Jobs revealed the new iMac computers. There are two 20 inch models, one for $1199 and one for $1499 with improved features; and there is the 24 inch model for $1799. These new iMacs feature the rumored aluminum finish and a streamlined keyboard similar to a laptop. These iMacs, as well as new software, is all available for purchase today.
Jobs showed these updated programs, such as the iLife suite featuring iPhoto for photo management, iMovie for home video creation and management, iWeb to create websites, iDVD to create DVDs, and Garageband for musicians and amateurs to record sound and make songs. There was also iWork improvements, for presentations, word processing, desktop publishing, and spreadsheets.
All this updated software has new .Mac functionality. Apple's .Mac online networks will feature Web 2.0 sharing functions, allowing Mac users to send photos and movies directly from the new Mac software, or send it from mobile phone. For instance, users can create a video in iMovie, upload it to the .Mac site with encoding to watch on the iPhone, and let users download it. Users get 1 GB of online storage for photos and movies, subscribers who pay $99 a year get 10 GB.
Overall, Steve Jobs revealed nothing surprising -- no "one more thing" announcement -- but a solid lineup. Did you expect more? Does Apple need to do more to compete in the home computer market?
Posted by Kevin Ohannessian at 2:53 PM
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August 6, 2007
Tech Monday: The flying car--Give it up already!
Once again, we lurch towards our Jetsons-inspired future, this time, courtesy of NASA. The space agency selected The Cafe Foundation, a group of aircraft engineers, to host its Personal Air Vehicle Challenge, a $250,000 contest to see who can design a flying car for the common man. Their belief is that a nation of flying cars will reduce congestion, air pollution, and the time it takes to get to the in-laws.
In the press release, NASA believes that by 2020, "up to 45 percent of all miles traveled in the future may be in PAVs"--Personal Air Vehicles, i.e. flying cars. Putting aside the fact that $250,000 is a pretty paltry sum for such a contest--considering you can win $10 million creating a car that doesn't have to fly--NASA's statement assumes a whole lot of other things that'll have to happen, chief among them, safety. Considering that that nearly 2.6 million people were injured in traffic accidents last year, imagine what will happen when they start traveling along three axes.
In a CNet News article, the Cafe Foundation asserts that "people would be able to get a license to fly PAVs as easily as a driver's license," which indicates that no one at the Cafe Foundation ever went to the DMV. And is everyone who gets into a PAV going to have to go through a metal detector first, or will we just place TSA agents outside everyone's front door?
An equally specious argument is the one around pollution. Says the director of the Cafe Foundation: "We're burning up into smoke 6.7 billion gallons of gas annually (from being) stuck in traffic jams." True, perhaps, but what about the effect of burning gas at altitude? In 1999, an EPA study estimated that by 2010, aircraft could account for up to 10.4 percent of all emissions in some urban areas. Imagine what will happen when, instead of hundreds of airplanes in the sky everyday, there are thousands? And the pollution won't be concentrated in the cities, either. Because NASA's plan assumes a distributed model of PAV's flying into local airports, pollution, of both the air and noise kind, will be spread over a much larger area. Are your neighbors home? You'll know when their teenage son buzzes your house.
Considering that we need to start cutting pollution immediately, we'd be much better off spending our time and money on ideas and technologies that are more down to earth.
Posted by Michael Prospero at 6:29 PM
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Tech Monday: Fake Steve Jobs Outed
The New York Times website this Sunday had a little surprise for us all. One of the paper's best known journalists, Brad Stone, put the pieces together on who the Fake Steve Jobs really is: Dan Lyons, Senior Editor and tech writer at Forbes. I personally couldn’t have been more surprised.
Now Forbes.com has released an exclusive interview with Lyons, and the 14-month-old blog will be published on the site as of August 6th.
For all the FSJ followers out there, or even for those who've ever read a post or two, what does being busted actually mean for the satirical, and often cuttingly sardonic, voice of the FSJ's blog?
"Fake Steve Jobs will add a different voice to Forbes.com, but one that is in the Forbes tradition…" states Forbes.com Editor Paul Maidment. Hmmm… FSJ in the Forbes tradition…?
While Forbes has, in the past, demonstrated the ability to be unafraid to be controversial, how much can Dan Lyons get away with now that he's inextricably associated with the 90 year old conservative publication run by a highly controlling Steve Forbes.
States Lyons about the future publishing of his blog on Forbes.com in an interview for the site: "The deal is that nothing changes. They want it to be really edgy and fun. They're not going to edit it and they're not going to censor it in any way. They really want it to let it rip..."
It's hard to gauge reactions just yet, but companies, people, and the Real Steve Jobs now have a real live person to direct any complaints to. Forbes has its relationship with Apple to think about as well. One can't help but wonder whether Steve Forbes and company really are going to be entirely hands off about exercising editorial control of any sort on a blog that is posted by one of their employees on the official Forbes website.
And then of course there's the fact that this really is somewhat surreal. Lyons looks and sounds like an unassuming, good-natured, pretty normal sort of guy, and I for one had to make a definite leap of faith to picture him writing some of the more outrageous things that the FSJ is so revered for. Part of the problem with blowing Lyons's cover is that one now pictures the FSJ's posts as coming from a middle aged Forbes tech writer.
Will following episodes of The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs be able to retain their irreverent, snarky entertainment value? I for one am curious to read on.
Posted by Saabira Chaudhuri at 4:19 PM
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August 3, 2007
Fish on Friday: 'I want to get some stardust on me'
Next Wednesday, if everything goes according to plan, NASA will launch a teacher into space. Not just any teacher: the woman who was the backup for Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher headed for space, who was killed in the Challenger disaster in January 1986.
Yes, 21 years later, McAuliffe’s understudy Barbara Morgan will rocket into orbit aboard space shuttle Endeavour, which is scheduled to blast off next Wednesday.
You probably haven’t heard about NASA finally getting a teacher into space. The agency has been pretty quiet about it, the news media has been even quieter, and of course, Barbara Morgan is going to the International Space Station in the somnolent second week of August. Not that many schools are even in session.
But something else has changed. NASA figured out how to make itself comfortable trying again to send a teacher into space: Barbara Morgan isn’t a teacher anymore. She joined the astronaut corps in 1998, and her main job aboard the two-week flight of Endeavour will be operating the robotic arms of both the shuttle and the space station as a mission specialist. (In a bittersweet touch, Endeavour is the newest space shuttle, built to replace the Challenger on which McAuliffe died.)
There’s a lot going on in space these days, although we don’t pay that much attention.
Continue reading "Fish on Friday: 'I want to get some stardust on me'"
Posted by Charles Fishman at 6:08 PM
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August 2, 2007
Talking Trash
It’s not easy being green. Anybody who’s ever really tried to minimize his or her carbon footprint, knows that even when you’re committed to recycling and responsible purchasing, you can be foiled by forces outside your control. You buy a new set of tiny earbuds, and they come encased in a mound of nasty plastic and Styrofoam. You order lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and get a portion big enough for three (the upside: I now feel virtuous instead of cheap for my unrepentant doggie bag habit, and my predilection for tap over bottled water). You buy something online, only to trigger a torrent of unwanted catalogs.
Like many other design firms these days, the folks at Frog Design have been grappling with what sustainability means from a design standpoint. How can they be more responsible in conceiving objects so that they have less of an impact on our natural resources, and the life of our planet?
But recently, one of Frog’s staffers, Ashley Menger, a design analyst in Austin, decided to launch an experiment to see how much trash she, personally, was generating. The test: to see how much trash one individual produces in the space of two weeks. The rules: Anything that she couldn’t compost, flush or recycle had to be carried or kept within 5 feet at all times. To report on her progress, she launched a blog on the Frog Design site called