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September 28, 2007

Fish-on-Friday: Drug-Making, No-Stop Toll Booths, China Flights & More

A Friday sampler of innovation and business news from beyond the normal biznews channels.

MIT Wants to Modernize Drug Making
Medicine these days is made much the way Merlin would have — with ingredients and steps batched in a start-and-stop process. Effective, not efficient. Novartis has given MIT $65 million to develop a new way to make medicine — assembly-line style, the way everything from M&Ms to Priuses is made. “This is going to be an industry transforming project,” says the MIT professor in charge of the new research center. (Boston Globe)

Florida’s rental car customers whisk through toll express lanes
Florida officials who run the state’s toll highways have worked out a deal allowing rental cars to zoom through the automated express lanes. A boon not just for individual drivers, but for Floridians who share the road with so many tourists. (Orlando Sentinel)

More Non-stop Flights to China Coming (Just Not from San Jose)
All kinds of new non-stop airline flights are coming between the U.S. and China, including Atlanta to Shanghai and San Francisco to Guangzhou. Overall, the number of daily non-stops to China from the U.S. will increase from 10 per day now to 23 per day by 2012 — including flights from Philadelphia and Detroit. (San Jose Mercury News)

Computerizing schools: A digital final frontier
Driven in part by the data requirements of “No Child Left Behind,” public schools around the country are finally putting their data and operations onto computers and online using a company called Infinite Campus. Infinite Campus gives parents, along with administrators and teachers, online access to everything from performance testing data to homework assignments, at a cost of about $6 per student per year. (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

Medical Customer Service 101: Don’t Leave the Patients in the Scanner and Go Home (Bonus)
A bone cancer patient in Tucson was left inside a CAT scanner by clinic staff who forgot about her, closed the clinic and went home for the day. The woman had to call 911 to get out. A doctor at the facility said it’s happened before. (Arizona Daily Star)

Read interesting business news that isn't on the ticker? a management insight you want to share? a burst of innovation from an unexpected source? Send Fish-on-Friday a link.

Posted by Charles Fishman at 2:47 PM | Add Comment

Education: The Diversity Quest in Little Rock and (Corporate) America

This week marked the 50th anniversary of the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas by nine black students. News reports documented the Little Rock Nine's warmly-welcomed return to the school -- a stark contrast from the jeering mobs that greeted them in 1957. The article about the anniversary that stood out most, though, was the Washington Post's profile of Ernest Green, the lone senior in the group, who graduated from Central in 1958. Green now lives in Washington, D.C., where he works as managing director of public finance for Lehman Brothers.

As anyone who's casually glanced at Supreme Court headlines over the years knows, the push towards integration in education has been reversed by changes in social and legal opinion. Yet in the business world, often criticized for its lack of diversity, initiatives to attract diverse workers remain in place. Green only exemplifies the progression of the drive for integration from education to business. And as he acknowledged in the Post article, his previous experiences in Little Rock gave him more than enough preparation for his current position at Lehman: "It made me a tougher negotiator, able to control my emotions and able to handle the ups and down of business and life."

Continue reading "Education: The Diversity Quest in Little Rock and (Corporate) America"

Posted by April Joyner at 12:10 PM | Add Comment

September 27, 2007

Entrepreneurship: Ashley Qualls Takes Manhattan

Set your Tivo. Ashley Qualls, the 17-year-old wunderkind and founder of Whateverlife.com, is scheduled to appear on The View on Friday (after Diane Sawyer). Since our story on Ashley appeared in the September issue, her already extraordinary life has become even more of a whirlwind.

Let's see, she was legally emancipated from her parents, giving her control of Whateverlife's assets. She signed with a talent agency in Hollywood. She's considering writing a book about how she built her business. She turned down another offer for the site, this time for $2.5 million. Now she's all over the Detroit media. Crain's Detroit. The Free Press. FM 97.1. CNN even ran WXYZ's story. Yes, just your average run-of-the-mill month in the life of this teenager.

On Monday she arrived in New York for the first time, with her mother and Robb Lippitt, her consultant, in tow. Ashley is meeting this week with potential advertisers and attending Ypulse Tween Mashup, a marketing conference on Friday. When she dropped by Fast Company's offices after taping The View, Lippitt was fielding more emails for interviews and speaking engagements even as we were catching up.

I love this detail. She told me did her homework and learned that Barbara Walters' birthday was Tuesday. When Ashley showed up at the studio, she gave Walters a present - a Whateverlife t-shirt. Smart girl. As I keep telling everyone who asks me about her, she's a born entrepreneur.

Posted by Chuck Salter at 6:30 PM | 2 Comments

Technology: New Products at DigitalLife

At various keynotes and press conferences at DigitalLife several companies unveiled new products. In the morning, Gateway revealed One, a sleek all-in-one PC made with design and the user experience as the focus. The streamlined black monitor-computer seems to be competing with Apple's iMac. The Gateway One will start at $1300, but there are more powerful $1500 and $1800 models as well.

Palm presented the company's latest phone during a noon press conference. The Centro was described as a simpler version of the Treo, made for a mainstream audience who do not typically buy smartphones. It will be carried by Sprint. Palm CEO Ed Colligan showed off the Centro's browser and quipped, "This is all at broadband speeds. This isn't some Edge phone. This is 3G." And with a $99 price, maybe Apple should take notice.

The afternoon keynote I mentioned in my earlier post featured iRobot CEO Colin Angle demonstrating the company's newest robots. Joining the well known Roomba (sweeping) and Scooba (mopping), and the lesser known Verro (pool-cleaning), is the Looj robot for gutter cleaning. The company also showcased the new ConnectR, a remote-controlled "virtual visiting" bot with a camera, microphone and speakers. This is for users to communicate with others over distances. It reminded me of Erector's Spykee, but less sci-fi and more streamlined.

All attendees to the DigitalLife conference this weekend will be able to see these new gadgets for themselves. Will you buy any of them?

Posted by Kevin Ohannessian at 3:39 PM | 1 Comment

Design Thursday: What HP's Design VP Learned from IBM and Netscape

How do you design a coordinated, focused design strategy for a sprawling, $97 billion behemoth comprised of scores of business units that are used to operating independently? If you're Sam Lucente, who leads Hewlett-Packard's design practice, you leverage some of what you learned at your previous two gigs, even as you ignore the conventional wisdom on "managing design."

Continue reading "Design Thursday: What HP's Design VP Learned from IBM and Netscape"

Posted by Bill Breen at 3:03 PM | Add Comment

Technology: Live at DigitalLife

Today began the 2007 DigitalLife conference at the Jacob Javits center here in New York. As years past, the show has evolved again. Last year's emphasis on video games has been overtaken by a focus on Hardware and robots.

Looking at the various booths, there are a surprising amount of robots. From the more recognizable iRobot with the Roomba, to Erector's wifi-camera enabled Spykee. WowWee has a plethora of robots, dragon flies, pandas, and even Elvis. There is even a keynote later today discussing the role of robots in the home, held by iRobot. I guess the era of the Jetsons is finally coming.

The hardware emphasis is just as prevalent. Whether it is laptops and desktops from the likes of Dell, HP, Gateway, and Toshiba. Mobile hardware was around as well, with Palm and Nokia on the floor. There is alsto the random hardware from smaller manufacturers -- home servers, external harddrives, and business-card scanners.

Our digital lives are evolving and anyone coming to the Javits this weekend will see that. Stay tuned for more from DigitalLife.

Posted by Kevin Ohannessian at 1:23 PM | Add Comment

Sports: Is This New Football Startup Made to Stick?

If you knew who Marcus Katz was, you would probably think he's crazy. Katz is a San Diego entrepreneur who made his money in private school loans. And now he's committed $75 million to start a new professional football league.

We've seen this before. From the USFL to the XFL, startup football leagues invariably fail -- quickly. In 2001, the first televised broadcast of the XFL on NBC was seen by an estimated 14 million viewers. By the end of its inaugural season, fan interest was so low that the league was forced to shut down. Since the AFL-NFL merger in the late sixties, no league has had what it takes to last.

Enter the All-American Football League, set to begin play next spring. Crazy, you say? I assure you, Katz is not.

Continue reading "Sports: Is This New Football Startup Made to Stick?"

Posted by Matthew Finkelstein at 12:24 PM | 4 Comments

Sustainability: Cut the Greenwash

In an effort to keep the public from being duped by ads that might be little more than greenwash, the Norwegian government is putting a ban on car manufacturers from describing their cars as "green" or "environmentally-friendly" in their advertisements. Unless they can prove that claim without a doubt, which is close to impossible.

Even the Prius, a car that probably is a great deal better than most other options on the road right now, will have to give up its eco-slogan of "the world's most environmentally-friendly car." At least other makes of hybrids that don't get nearly the same mileage as the Toyota poster-car, at least not in this country, won't be able to jump on the green bandwagon. Norwegian consumers will just have to decide for themselves what the environmental impact of a car would be.

Continue reading "Sustainability: Cut the Greenwash"

Posted by Liz Webber at 12:08 PM | Add Comment

September 26, 2007

Innovation Wednesday: Meet the 2007 MacArthur Fellows

Over the years we've featured our share of MacArthur Fellows in Fast Company. Choreographer Twyla Tharp. Jim Fruchterman, the founder of Benetech, which creates technology for the disadvantaged. The late Samuel Mockbee, an architecture professor at Auburn whose Rural Studio designed and built housing for the needy.

This year's winners, which the MacArthur Foundation announced yesterday, is no less impressive. Go ahead and envy them the $500,000 no-strings-attached grant and the genius label. And once you've gotten that out of your system, read about them, and play a round of "Which MacArthur genius I'd most like to meet."

Here's my short list:

Saul Griffith, prolific inventor -- As a grad student at MIT, he created a way to produce low-cost corrective lens in underserved communities. Later he helped develop a hand-held human-powered generator, which could prove invaluable for impoverished communities. On a lighter note, an online engineering community he started evolved into Instructables, a ridiculously diverse collection of user-generated do-it-yourself projects (from bike chaps to infrarad goggles).

Mark Roth, biomedical scientist - One of the techniques he's researching puts mice in a state of suspended animation that's reversible. What does that mean for humans? The equivalent of a pause button that would buy surgeons more time.

Yoky Matsuoka, neurorobotics researcher - She's at the forefront of engineering mobility for the disabled that has long been considered unfathomable. Her high-tech prosthetic devices, including a robotic hand complete with tendons, might one day be controlled by the brain's neural signals.

Posted by Chuck Salter at 5:13 PM | Add Comment

Entrepreneurship: Bill Gross on Atoms and Bits

CNN Money has an interesting Q&A with Bill Gross, the serial entrepreneur whose brain birthed startups like NetZero, CitySearch, eToys, and GoTo.com. While the interview questions aren't particularly hard-hitting, they do encourage Gross to make a few salient statements about what he thinks makes an excellent startup. His first comment is about how his company, Idealab, looked for "disruptive" internet ideas:

... We look for a disruptive opportunity... for a big problem and a way to solve it that no one else was willing to try. I would say we're going much more after white space... We prefer to look for a big itch that isn't being scratched.

Continue reading "Entrepreneurship: Bill Gross on Atoms and Bits"

Posted by Chris Dannen at 1:30 PM | 5 Comments

Innovation Wednesday: Ripped from the headlines

The crack team of researchers here at InnoWed have scoured today's papers and news sites so you don't have to. Happy reading.

"If it's so good, why aren't you doing it?" - That, reports Thomas Friedman in The New York Times, is what China is asking the U.S. as pressure mounts on the Asian giant to clean up its environmental problems before next summer's Olympics. If only China's leaders were as pragmatic as Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott.

Job one is better mental health - A new study touts the benefits of mental health care provided by companies, writes the Associated Press. Although employers often cut corners on this coverage, employees with depression recover faster and miss less work as a result of aggressive treatment. "It's not just the right thing to do, it also saves money for the company," said a trucking executive in Illinois.

"One of the most generous and secretive philanthropists of modern times" - Jim Dwyer profiles Chuck Feeney in today's Times. Fascinating column about a quiet billionaire who gave away $458 million last year, the third most of any U.S. charity. My favorite line: Feeney is "what Donald Trump would be if he led his life backward."

Beautiful ride - This is no ordinary bike. You can pedal, sure, but it also cruises up to 20 m.p.h. on electric power. Oh, and it's a work of art that will stop traffic. Susan Carpenter of the L.A. Times takes the Electrobike for a spin. Nice video of the bike in action, too.

Posted by Chuck Salter at 12:11 PM | Add Comment

September 24, 2007

One Laptop Per Child: Failure is not an Option

The news that the XO Laptop developed by the One Laptop Per Child foundation is launching a buy-one-get-one sale to encourage first world consumers to help fund laptops for children in developing countries has spawned an eager chorus of nay-sayers quick to label the project a failure.

“The design was too top down!” They’re saying. “Not market-tested with kids in the countries it was intended for!” “Better they should have cell-phones!”

Tell that to the kid in Nigeria who told OLPC founder Nick Negroponte that he “valued his laptop more than his life.” Or the one who refused to give his broken laptop back to be repaired for fear he’d never see it again.

Continue reading "One Laptop Per Child: Failure is not an Option"

Posted by Linda Tischler at 5:37 PM | 8 Comments

Momentum Growth Conference: Kayak Has Momentum and Your Vote.

The polls have closed and the clear winner is Kayak, the online travel search site.

In just two years, Kayak has emerged as a consumer favorite, and consistently receives high marks in travel site rankings.

And now, they'll be the opening panel of the Momentum Growth Conference produced by Dealmaker Media. I've been a huge fan of Kayak's co-founder Paul English since his Get Human days. Now, I'm looking forward to getting to know more about Kayak, why it's working and what's coming next.

Thanks to all who voted.

Join us on October 4th in Mountain View, CA:

The Momentum Growth Conference honors 15 industry leaders dominating the web. The companies who’ve been chosen have real customers, revenues, partnerships, and have seen significant traffic growth over the last 12-18 months.

See you next month...

Posted by Ellen McGirt at 3:33 PM | 1 Comment

Ethics: A Bad Day For American Altruism

This week, the One Laptop Per Child project, whose mission is to provide basic PCs for students in developing countries, announced a sad incentive for donations: if you donate $400 to the project, they'll send one laptop overseas to a nation like Cambodia or Rwanda, and they'll send one laptop to you.

If you haven't heard about the "XO" laptops, as they're called, you can read about their features in detail here or check out what they look like here. They were designed by creative maven Yves Béhar to be ultra-durable, energy efficient, and refreshingly basic; with tiny 7.5-inch screens, diminutive memory, and wireless functionality, they boast the ability to link to each other and allow kids to participate in network activities. Indeed, this is their biggest selling point, besides their ability to function on hand-cranked power in off-the-grid regions. All this sounds great for third-world kids who otherwise would never have the experience of using a computer. The question is: why do I need one?

Continue reading "Ethics: A Bad Day For American Altruism"

Posted by Chris Dannen at 12:29 PM | 7 Comments

September 21, 2007

From the Magazine: The Design Dividend

Looking Good A portfolio of 63 design-driven British companies has beaten the broader market.

This issue is not only about stuff. Even beautiful stuff. It is also about cash and revenue and financial success.

What does design really contribute to an organization's bottom line? In a global marketplace where price competition and commodification have slashed margins and "reengineered" jobs, it can be easy to peg what designers do as an indulgence--style over substance, form over function. Committing business resources toward the tangible is just more efficient than--sniff--the soft world of design.

Many executives across corporate America embrace this ostensibly utilitarian approach, and many more pay lip service to the value of design without investing their dollars (or their psyches) in it. Sure, Steve Jobs may make design an advantage at Apple, this line of thinking goes. But what does that have to do with me?

Continue reading "From the Magazine: The Design Dividend"

Posted by Robert Safian at 8:35 PM | 2 Comments

Fish on Friday: Light Bulb Revolution, 14 Months & Counting

A year ago, I wrote a story about the dramatic improvements that finally made compact fluorescent light bulbs so appealing for home use. The story was keyed to Wal-Mart’s effort to single-handedly double the compact fluorescent bulb market in the U.S. in a single year (which it looks like Wal-Mart will do with millions of bulb sales to spare).

But for me, the story was also personal. In my family, I’m the light bulb custodian (following in the footsteps of my father, who has a passion for tracking the longevity of his bulbs). I buy the bulbs, I organize the bulb shelf, I replace the bulbs when they go dark.

So although I was assured by many experts that CFLs would change not just energy consumption, but the light bulb tending experience, I looked forward to seeing how that would play out in practice. Would the bulbs really come on reliably and quickly? Would we find the light appealing? Would they really last for years?

Fourteen months after installing a dozen bulbs, I’m here to offer a status report.

Continue reading "Fish on Friday: Light Bulb Revolution, 14 Months & Counting"

Posted by Charles Fishman at 4:42 PM | 1 Comment

Education: Reality TV -- It's Visual and Kinesthetic Learning!

CBS's new reality show "Kid Nation" has sparked outrage, or at the very least, strong concerns that:

1. the child participants were exploited, and;


2. this violated New Mexico's child labor laws.

But in a recent twist, which came just before the show's Wednesday night premiere, it turns out that the show is actually...educational programming.

Or at least, as reported by The New York Times, CBS took at least one step toward spinning the show's message in that direction by screening it for schoolchildren in seven cities nationwide. Reportedly, the show received an enthusiastic response. (Click here and here for two local reports.)

Continue reading "Education: Reality TV -- It's Visual and Kinesthetic Learning!"

Posted by April Joyner at 12:52 PM | Add Comment

Sports: The Owners Club

An article in The Chicago Tribune earlier this week speculated that local businessman John A. Canning Jr. may be the leading candidate to purchase the Cubs when the season ends, even if he is not the highest bidder.

His competition? Well, most notably there’s Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. Cuban is considered a controversial bidder, having been fined well over $1 million by the NBA since taking over the Mavs -- mainly for publicly criticizing the referees and other league policies.

Continue reading "Sports: The Owners Club"

Posted by Matthew Finkelstein at 11:47 AM | Add Comment

September 20, 2007

Design Thursday: HP's Design Strategy for the Blackbird 002

PC Magazine called it "the most compelling gaming system" in the past three years. Wired pronounced it "a force of nature." The influential AnandTech put it on "the cutting edge of design and technology." While the newly released Blackbird 002 has left the uber-geeks swooning, what's really remarkable is that it comes from Hewlett-Packard, a company that's not exactly known for producing exotic, extreme-performance computers. HP might at times act like a lumbering giant, but in creating the Blackbird, it was as agile as the machine's namesake—the SR-71 Blackbird surveillance aircraft. Here's a quick story on how the Blackbird 002 came to be.

It started last year, on a flight from Palo Alto to San Diego. Phil McKinney, who's VP and CTO of HP's Personal Systems Group, and Todd Bradley, who's the division's EVP, were on their way to evaluate a company with some "interesting technology," when McKinney struck up a conversation with one of the HP engineers who were accompanying them. The technologist proceeded to describe how he'd developed, working off hours, a motherboard that delivered twice the performance of anything that was on the market at the time. McKinney quickly realized that the motherboard could take HP into the gaming market, which the tech giant had never cracked. Before the 75-minute flight was over, Bradley approved a $1 million budget and a start-up team of 10 engineers to develop a souped-up computer for the gaming space.

McKinney heads up HP's Innovation Program Office, an internal VC group that gives employees the opportunity to build companies inside HP—and gives HP the opportunity to launch new growth engines. The IPO's current goal is to each year churn out two worldwide launches that demonstrate the potential to grow into $600 million to $800 million businesses within three to four years. That means McKinney and his team must vet between 200 and 300 "good" business plans annually—about one per workday. It's a ruthless process. "The problem with most innovation processes is that they don't kill good-but-not-great ideas, they simply wound them and let them linger," says McKinney. "HP is known for being nice, but our goal is to kill often and kill fast."

Blackbird's chances for surviving the IPO gamut improved markedly when HP acquired Voodoo PC, the boutique maker of Ferrari-quality gaming systems—Blackbird is the first product to be co-designed by HP and Voodoo. McKinney worked closely with the engineering team, whose leaders sat within a "two cube radius" of his cubicle. The design initiative for the Blackbird had none of the normal constraints that are applied to HP's core product line. The goal was to create an elegantly simple, iconic design—which meant that the handcuffs were off, and the engineers and designers were free to unleash all the passion and creativity that they could muster. Basically, they changed the look of a power PC.

"A lot of gaming PCs have a kind of 'power plastic' look, but the Blackbird is all metal—there's no plastic in the thing," says McKinney. "We mounted it on a raised stand, which cools the machine from every side—an industry first. We don't get hot spots, which lets it run cooler and quieter, and therefore deliver a much more robust performance. And we made the entire machine tool-less, so it's very simple to do upgrades."

While Blackbird is decidedly a high-end PC, it's also a test-bed for technology and design innovations—and a seed-bank for the future. "Some of what you see now in this product," says McKinney, "will eventually turn up in our mainstream products."

Posted by Bill Breen at 11:00 PM | Add Comment

Technology: I'm Wondering Why Y! Mash

Whoa, I'm a little concerned right now. Today I received an e-mail that a friend created a profile for me on a new social networking service. The new service is Yahoo's attempt at entering the MySpace and Facebook space, although it isn't the company's first. You do remember Yahoo! 360 don't you?

Well the new service, Y! Mash, allows others to create profile pages for you that you then either approve, edit, or delete. And that's the first reason I'm concerned. Do you really want a page sitting out there with your name on it, that you didn't create yourself? And how long does the page stay up, if you don't approve it? If you don't approve the profile, then you don't get to click around and see much of the other features.

The other features, are a mashup of sorts, just as the network's moniker insinuates. There's a little bit wicki -- where you can decide whether others can edit content about you and add modules for you, and they can decide whether you can do the same for them in return. Then there's a little bit Facebook -- where you litter your profile with modules. There's also something called "Pulse," that acts a lot more like Facebook's newsfeed -- alerting you on updates made by your friends to their pages -- than it does Plaxo Pulse, which creates a Web presence or lifelog, by allowing you to bring in feeds from multiple services that you use, to share with contacts in your address book. The Mash Blog has the rest of the lowdown on the service, which is still in beta on an invite only basis.

I, like many others I'd imagine, am none to keen on creating yet another Web profile, especially not one that appears to be more socially than business-or-career focused. (In that regard I'm an evangelist for social network portability.) Right now I'm not seeing a real branding benefit here either, but I do see where it could be fun. I think perhaps teenagers and college students have time for fun, but businesspeople on the other hand, need some other sort of social networking tool. And though I don't want too be especially harsh on the service before it officially launches, I'm not betting that it's meant to be more than what it currently appears to be.

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 9:00 AM | Add Comment

Sustainability: When It Comes to Going Green, Bigger is Better

When it comes to the environment, we are constantly told that every little bit counts. But it's often hard to see what impact an individual recycling an empty soda can or turning down the thermostat a few degrees in winter really has in the long run. When large corporations set their sights on going green, on the other hand, the difference is a lot more tangible.

If News Corporation succeeds in becoming carbon neutral by 2010, it will be the equivalent of taking 130,000 cars off the road, according to Greenpeace's research director. Who cares if Rupert Murdoch is saving money (or even making money off his new green image) - this is one instance where capitalism and environmentalism can happily coexist. As long as the changes are real and not a massive publicity stunt, I can only applaud News Corp. on this one. Let's hope other media companies are guilted into following Murdoch's lead.

Continue reading "Sustainability: When It Comes to Going Green, Bigger is Better"

Posted by Liz Webber at 1:22 AM | Add Comment

September 19, 2007

Media: The YouTubeization of Andrew Meyer

When University of Florida student Andrew Meyer was given the chance to question senator John Kerry in a Q&A session on Monday, he did not intend to hold back. Neither did the university cops who tasered and arrested the 21 year old after he refused to leave the lecture hall. Video of the struggle immediately surfaced on YouTube, and it has continued making a wave, inciting national debate on freedom of speech, police brutality and Meyer's intentions.

Known around campus as a prankster with a knack for stirring controversy, Meyer's Web site also documents his passion for political change. Perhaps Meyer was just playing around, not to be taken seriously, but he was harmless nonetheless. Although there's a blurry quality to the video, YouTube is flawless at showing unmediated transparency. Meyer may have wanted to provoke and cause a circus, but the video clearly shows how the act quickly turned against him. Even Kerry said that he "could have handled the situation without interruption."

Continue reading "Media: The YouTubeization of Andrew Meyer"

Posted by Oscar Raymundo at 4:21 PM | 2 Comments

Innovation Wednesday: Unique Social Networking Site helps Iraq War Veterans Find Work

Some returning Iraq war veterans are facing another battle at home: The fight to find a job. In fact, unemployment among young veterans is significantly higher than non-veterans in the same age group, mostly 22-24, and dramatically higher than the general population at large. This is frustrating from a moral standpoint, but also troubling from a practical one: Why aren't the skills taught in the military translating more easily into the private sector?

Continue reading "Innovation Wednesday: Unique Social Networking Site helps Iraq War Veterans Find Work"

Posted by Ellen McGirt at 2:10 PM | Add Comment

Entrepreneurship: New Economy, New Safety Nets

At the risk of adding to the morass of Facebook-related news coverage floating around the Web, it’s worth mentioning that Facebook announced this week that it is pairing with two prominent VC firms to establish fbFund, a $10 million venture fund specifically for Facebook Platform application developers. The announcement is widely regarded as a response to the Bay Partners’ Facebook-specific venture program called AppFactory and Altura Ventures' Facebook fund, and will offer similar seed-level funding of $25,000 to $250,000.

Obviously, most entrepreneurs out there don’t have any connection to Facebook -- so why is this announcement of wider import? Well, there’s some salient wording in the Bay Partners’ press release; they refer to Facebook platform as a new “operating system,” specifically, a “social operating system.” Put that term to most people, and they think of Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X. And then they think of the history of software development for those platforms. And then they realize the billions of dollars of potential that Facebook conceivably has to developers. Will some net-based startups begin integrating Facebook functionality simply to float on the rising tide of venture funds?

Right now, Facebook apps are little more than amateurish widgets that perform negligibly useful services. But as Bay Partners has articulated, new operating systems usually lead to new economies, and in new economies there is, presumably, incredible breadth of opportunity. And when you're dealing with a network that has access to all of its users contact information, there's nary a business in the country that couldn't find some way to utilize that to a meaningful end.

Continue reading "Entrepreneurship: New Economy, New Safety Nets"

Posted by Chris Dannen at 10:22 AM | Add Comment

September 17, 2007

Wal-Mart's New Ads: Spots Even a Curmudgeon Could Love

The Martin Agency’s new ads for Wal-Mart have finally hit the air, and I’m shocked to report that -- urban cynic that I am -- even I was touched. OK, so the company exploits its workers, squeezes its suppliers, and does other nefarious things, but it also delivers on its central promise: to save people money. And the Martin Agency’s ads capture that message so appealingly that you’re tempted to forget the rest.

Continue reading "Wal-Mart's New Ads: Spots Even a Curmudgeon Could Love"

Posted by Linda Tischler at 12:50 PM | 3 Comments

September 14, 2007

Education: Eat Your Vegetables! Or At Least a Nutritionally Modified Burger....

Quite a few headlines about nutrition have cropped up in the past week and a half. Although the battle against obesity still rages on, a federal judge struck down New York City's requirement that restaurants, including chains like McDonald's, include calorie information on their menus. Interestingly enough, The New York Times ran a piece last week on Hannaford Brothers, a grocery store chain based in Maine, and its nutrition rating program for each of the food products it carries. That article's conclusion? Healthy food sells.

It definitely sells to parents of schoolchildren, for whom the obesity issue arguably looms largest. Schools nationwide have altered their menus and blocked access to junk food during the school day -- by limiting or eliminating vending machines and curtailing candy and bake fund-raising sales, among other measures -- to promote healthy eating habits among their students. And if sugary, colorful, nutrient-deprived foods and beverages weren't a concern already for the nutrition-conscious, a recent study suggesting that food additives may be linked to hyperactivity make them even more so.

All this sounds like bad news, of course, for the big brands who sell less than wholesome food to school districts. The term "nutritionally modified junk food" made waves a few months ago, and the new school year gave way to anecdotes about whole-wheat pizza and baked "French fries." Whether or not these changes are innovative or merely gimmicky is debatable. But the recent NYC ruling and the Hannaford example suggests that making voluntary strides toward healthy food choices is more effective than forcing such steps.

For most K-12 students, though, nutrition isn't so compelling, which is why fast food chains -- which are more youth-driven than other types of restaurants -- might not jump to posting calorie information as quickly. The tension between voluntary and involuntary nutritional guidelines seen in the headlines comes to a head in the schools, where healthy food and "nutritionally modified junk food" during the day still results in plain old junk food after the bell rings. If voluntary's the way to go, how can the success of Hannaford's healthy selections be replicated in the schools? That's a question for districts nationwide -- as well as those ubiquitous brands in the halls.

Posted by April Joyner at 6:00 PM | Add Comment

Momentum Growth Conference: Help Me Pick The Next Facebook.

In case you haven’t noticed it’s startup fever back in the Bay Area/ Silicon Valley; my trusted sources tell me that they’re partying like it’s 1999 out there. Do you blame them? Many of the hottest young companies leading the web 2.0 trend today are based there - an interesting fact in and of itself – and according to Comscore web traffic rankings, these companies are gaining hyper speed traction. So what, you say? Well, what if you could identify the next break-out company of the year? Is there a company on the horizon as interesting and disruptive as Facebook?

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Posted by Ellen McGirt at 12:44 PM | 2 Comments

September 13, 2007

Sports: Goodell Faces Tough Decision On Patriots

In my last post, I praised the NFL for providing fans with the best possible product. One week later, it seems that I may need to revise that statement. If the New England Patriots really cheated, the fallout might be worse than you think.

As ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported yesterday, “NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has determined that the New England Patriots violated league rules Sunday when they videotaped defensive signals by the New York Jets’ coaches.”

While league officials deny that a decision has been made, expect Mortensen’s reports to be confirmed, as he is extremely credible. New England head coach Bill Belichick issued a vague apology yesterday, suggesting an admission of guilt. Sports Business Daily is now reporting that the league will announce its ruling by this Sunday.

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Posted by Matthew Finkelstein at 12:08 PM | 5 Comments

Marketing: Wal-Mart Ads Embracing People and Prices

Yesterday, Wal-Mart announced its new advertising slogan: "Save Money. Live Better." This is the latest move to embrace sustainability and improve the company's image. This line replaces the one that has been used for 19 years, "Always Low Prices."

This evolution of its message makes perfect sense PR-wise, but it is also practical. The slogan still conveys the affordability of the megastore's goods, but also promotes the increased focus on people and improving the world. The idealist in me thinks this is great. But the cynic in me says the company has made this move so criticism that Wal-Mart's employees don't make a living-wage and words like "The High Cost of Low Prices" are downplayed.

You can watch the latest commercials at the company's new Website. Do you think the slogan is an effective display of the company's mission? Or is it merely a calculated move to improve the retail-giant's image? Or is it both?

Posted by Kevin Ohannessian at 11:20 AM | Add Comment

Design Thursday: Ingo Maurer's Light Fantastic

You may not know the name of Ingo Maurer, the celebrated German lighting designer, but you probably know his work. If you’ve ever been to New York at Christmas, and seen the UNICEF crystal snowflake that hangs at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, you’ve seen his artistry. If you’ve ever been charmed by a lamp that consisted of little more than a light bulb with angel wings, you’ve been captivated by his imagination.

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

September 12, 2007

Education: Losing and Gaining Religion

With my last post about Brooklyn's controversial Khalil Gibran International Academy in mind, I couldn't help but notice recent headlines on a Hebrew charter school in Florida and Catholic schools in Washington, D.C. As I discussed last Friday, the primary objection to the Khalil Gibran International Academy was the threat of extremist Islam and pro-Arab sentiments being encouraged. Ben Gamla Charter School in Hollywood, Florida faced concerns that the study of Hebrew would lead to an unconstitutional promotion of Judaism. But the school has been allowed to continue its course of study, which, like Khalil Gibran, includes the same core curriculum as other schools in its grade level with added emphasis on language and cultural studies.

In Washington, D.C., Archbishop Donald Wuerl has proposed converting eight of its Catholic schools into public-funded charter schools because the archdiocese can no longer support the schools financially. The conversion would ensure that the schools' students would have an uninterrupted education. However, the schools would cease to be Catholic, which means the character, though not necessarily the educational quality, of the schools would be lost. The anxiety over the switchover, again thanks to the separation of church and state, leaves me wondering: could the soon-not-to-be Catholic schools integrate culture in a similar way as Khalil Gibran and Ben Gamla?

Of course, the curricula of those schools are driven by language study. Islam's associated with Arabic, Judaism with Hebrew, and Catholicism with... Latin. Latin is definitely not on Bush's list of critical languages (although aspiring academics should still study it). But with so many Latin American and African countries having large Catholic populations, perhaps Spanish, Portuguese, or an African language could be similarly promoted. Studying these countries, most of which are developing, would tie into values such as charity that Archbishop Wuerl hopes secularity won't erase. And because the history of Catholicism still wields global cultural and political influence, it's worth studying through a secular approach. If public schools have given cultural immersion in Judaism and Islam a go, a similar educational structure for Catholicism doesn't seem far-fetched. It would only widen the trend of specialized public education.

Posted by April Joyner at 6:11 PM | 1 Comment

Entrepreneurship: Direct Mail Isn't Dead Yet

A new service called Leadstash is boasting that it can make professional-quality direct mail campaigns that are financially feasible for even the smallest of small businesses. The company claims a database of over 50 million American addresses, with a localized search engine that allows entrepreneurs access to see how many addresses are available in their zip code. The catch: the site looks a little shady.

The service sounds well-conceived in theory; users can use online wizards to create letters, postcards and mailing labels, which are then mailed directly to customers in a designated zip code. For this privilege, small business owners pay a small monthly subscription fee of $50, with no cancellation penalty. Oddly, this fee is collected by PayPal, which (while obviously trustworthy in and of itself) seems amateurish, and doesn't inspire much confidence. To make matters worse, the site (which is rendered in drab Web 1.0) has a generic, clip-art logo of two hands exchanging cash. Does that signify me stupidly forking over my ad budget to some sketchy, faceless entity?

Still, $50 a month is pretty cheap for an entire direct mail campaign. However, they'd be smarter to charge a small fee per address, to make the service more practical for businesses operating in less populated areas, who might see a smaller return than say, a Boston or New York-based business. As the model works now, it would have the best value for city businesses, who can presumably access more addresses -- but who are also likely to have the lowest response rates due to competition and brand confusion, among other factors. In sum, the idea seems a little half-baked.

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Posted by Chris Dannen at 7:00 AM | 3 Comments

September 11, 2007

Marketing Tuesday: The Customer is King - or Just a Maharaja?

I flew half way across the world day before yesterday- further even- due to certain mishaps that occurred along the way. While doing so I came to certain conclusions. Here’s how it all unfolded…

I missed my connecting flight from Paris to Bangalore: courtesy of “technical difficulties” on the part of an unapologetic Air France. After several bouts of heated discussion, a thin-lipped airline representative informed me with some finality that I had two choices: either spend the night on the floor of Charles De Gaulle in Paris and take a flight to Bangalore the next day, or more appealingly (so he implied), wait eleven hours in Paris, board a twelve and a half hour flight to Singapore, (which incidentally flies right over India), wait another four hours at Changi airport and finally board a flight to Bangalore. Given the option of a seat and some food as opposed to a hard floor and no sustenance, I unwillingly chose the former.

Stiff, exhausted and smelling decidedly less fragrant than I considered optimal, upon my arrival in Bangalore many, many hours (and several airports) later, I discovered that all three of my bags were missing. After being barked at by the security inspectors, given an unwarrantedly hard time for carrying golf clubs by an oversized Air France official in New York, and being firmly told off by what felt like an army of misanthropic airline officials everywhere, I marched up to the customer service desk in Bangalore, tough, prickly and ready to do battle.

The response I got threw me off guard. Instead of insisting that I was wrong, that it wasn’t their fault, and that there was nothing they could do, the airline officials at the desk in Bangalore were nothing but polite and accommodating. Their manner took me by such surprise that I spent the first few minutes regarding them with extreme suspicion.

My trip, many others like it, and the differences in attitude I have experienced over the years between New York and Paris on the one hand, and places like Singapore and Bangalore on the other, got me thinking along a somewhat broader spectrum. Customer service has always been a big deal in India, and indeed in most of South Asia. Fortunately or unfortunately, the general idea in South Asia seems to be: “The Customer is Always Right,” dissatisfied patrons are appeased at all costs, and even if the results aren’t great, pleasing the customer is such a mantra that there’s an air of extreme servility to much of India’s service industry.

Making trans-cultural comparisons on such a personal level is obviously subjective, but as someone who has lived a good part of my life between the United States and India, the opportunities to do so are frequent and often lead to speculation that if based on shaky foundations, is at least food for thought… In wondering why the service industries between South Asia and the Western parts of the world are so widely disparate, I came upon a couple of possible explanations.

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Posted by Saabira Chaudhuri at 4:57 PM | 5 Comments

Media: Message of Fear

After nearly three years, Osama bin Laden has resurfaced in American mainstream media. A video emerged on Tuesday featuring the terror leader's still image and his voice in which he praises the 19 "champions" (suicide hijackers) who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Sky News / IntelCenter

AP Television news obtained the newest video from IntelCenter, a monitoring group in suburban Washington. The audiotape is the second message from al Qaeda released this week. On Saturday, bin Laden addressed the American people to convert to Islam in a video from al Qaeda's media production team, al-Sahab, who intentionally sent it to television stations and eventually posted it on the Internet.

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Posted by Oscar Raymundo at 11:52 AM | Add Comment

Customer Service: Bose Gets It Right

Several months ago, I wrote about how Bose's advertising campaign for the TriPort in-ear headphones prompted me to purchase them. And it wasn't just your average advertising either. During the 2006 Holiday season, anyone who traveled in New York saw these ads everywhere.

I felt I made an excellent purchase. The sound quality, though not perfect, was fine for my iPod. It was definitely better than the Apple buds that ship with iPods. There was only one problem though. The little rubber tips that help the headphones fit snugly in your ears, kept falling off every time they weren't on my ears. It was a frustrating experience, as they often fell onto the ground and were too dirty to put back into my ears. Apparently I wasn't alone in thinking this.

A couple of weeks ago, I received three sets -- in sizes small, medium, and large -- of new rubber tips from Bose, with a letter that read:

Dear Bose Customer:

We have received feedback from some customers indicating that under certain conditions, the silicone ear tips originally provided with the Bose in-ear headphones do not remain securely attached to the headphones. We've taken this feedback seriously and have designed new ear tips, which should remain more firmly in place. A complete set of these new ear tips are in this package along with instructions to help you select the proper ear tip size and obtain the best fit. They are being sent to you at no cost.

Additionally, later this summer, we will ship you our new Bose stability enhancement accessories, also at no cost to you. These accessories include a lanyard and a clothing clip that are designed to help the headphones stay more securely in place during certain activities such as exercise. These stability accessories are designed for use with Bose in-ear headphones, including those already purchased.

If you have any questions about this information, contact us at 1-800-819-7032.

Your satisfaction is out top priority, and we appreciate your support of Bose products. We hope your Bose in-ear headphones continue to provide you many years of enjoyable listening.

Sincerely yours,

Bose Corporation
G. Sean Garrett
General Manager

I still haven't received those additional accessories yet, but don't you just love it when companies listen to their customers?

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 10:58 AM | 10 Comments

September 10, 2007

Tech Monday: How Apple Sold A Million iPhones

It's not rocket science. We learned a valuable lesson from Steve Jobs in recent weeks. If a product isn't selling so well, and its cost seems to be its main prohibitor -- then, slash it's price significantly. That's exactly what Apple did, dropped the 8GB iPhone to $399, and gave $100 store credit to the crybabies who were early adopters and originally paid $599 for the device.

I must confess, initially we didn't think the iPhone would hold up to its predecessor's numbers. But by all accounts, it has not only exceeded expectations, but surpassed early sales activity of the original iPod. Go figure.

Of course the slashed prices made a major impact. But we also have to look at the third-party unlock software now out on the market, like iPhoneSimFree and iPhone Worldwide Unlock among others, that enables an iPhone purchaser who doesn't have AT&T service to swap out the AT&T sims card for their own carrier's. And while these are the best known in the retail sphere, numerous hacks for unlocking iPhones have been around on the Internets for a while now. Some work, some don't, and some don't even survive iPhone software upgrades--which often turn the unlock feature off.

Regardless, the iPhone is experiencing a healthy success. And while Apple may not have become the goliath of desktops and laptops, or even software, it's proving that handheld entertainment and communications devices is quickly becoming its forte. We'll just forget about its earlier flop that was the Newton, a personal favorite of mine. Looking back on the device now though, it was ahead of its time and has definitely become the blueprint for all PDAs and Smartphones ever since. And let's not forget how the company changed the music game either.

Sure, it may be Jobs' smoke and mirrors to some, but the truth is, the more the company innovates, the more successful it becomes. And the takeaway from that one is -- never let your company become a stalemate, otherwise new players will take your position. Apple may have written the book on that one, but it's also the sort of advice that companies like Google and Amazon hold to their core.

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 9:43 PM | 10 Comments

Tech Monday: New Media News Roundup

• New York City Launches 9/11 Health Website
  New York City has launched a 9/11 Health Website, which not only has the city owning up to the fact that 9/11 has contributed greatly to the poor health of thousands of its inhabitants, but it also works the other side of the fence and does the clean up act and its part for social responsibility by providing beneficial resources.
• Viral Campaigns Waste Marketers’ Time
  The recent JupiterResearch report “Viral Marketing: Bringing the Message to the Masses,” states that only 15% of viral campaigns launched within the last year have proven successful. Funny thing is, it's not that viral campaigns don't work, it's that marketers don't fully understand their audiences or what they're doing.
• Bionic Woman Fan Community Launches on Ning
  After watching an Amazon.com free first episode of the NBC's Bionic Woman, a fan decided to enlist the power of community and create a social network on ning dedicated to the show. So far only the creator of the network, myself, and the series' cast are members, but hey you've got to love the power of the Web for even making this possible.
• Social Networking Sites Don't Deepen Friendships
  Dr. Will Reader at Sheffield Hallam University and his team found that although the sites (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo) allowed contact with hundreds of acquaintances, as with conventional friendship networks, people tend to have around 5 close friends. Also, 90% of contacts that the subjects regarded as close friends were people they had met face to face.
• Frogify Your Mobile Phone
  Frog is like the iGoogle or MyYahoo homepage for mobile phones. It's a free set up that enables you to easily access your most used Web services simply from one home page. It's better than creating a Favorites list, and it's definitly made my mobile surfing a lot easier.
• YPulse Tween Mashup Comes to New York
  The Mashup conference, produced by Ypulse.com in partnership with Modern Media, helps media and marketing professionals understand how to reach tweens using technology in a multi-platform world. Kyra E. Reppen, Senior Vice President & General M