As Internet marketers, we learn all about reducing stress and anxiety in the user experience. We put “VeriSign Trusted” certificates on our websites. We us HTTPS and put tiny lock icons all over the place to assure our visitors that their information is safe. This isn’t a new concept. Businesses have always known that reassuring [...]
Archive for the ‘Business’ Category
Can you trust Hamas? The Better Business Bureau thinks so.
Posted: February 18, 2012 in Branding, Business, MisleadershipTags: Better Business Bureau, Branding, Business, can someone please explain, Hamas, Misleadership
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Fabuloso looks good enough to drink
Posted: February 4, 2012 in Branding, Business, MisleadershipTags: Branding, Business, can someone please explain, Fabuloso, jeffrey simons, packaging
Let’s do a little roleplaying. Pretend you’re a kid. Say, 5 or 6. And you’ve been playing, and you’re thirsty, and mommy has just come back from shopping, so you ask mommy if you can have some grape juice, and she says yes. So you go to the bag of groceries and find this bottle [...]
Artificially Sweet and Intentionally Misleading
Posted: January 10, 2012 in Branding, Business, MisleadershipTags: artificial sweeteners, aspartame, Business, can someone please explain, Equal, NutraSweet, Splenda, Sweet'N Low
Do you use artificial sweeteners? I don’t, but I’ve been around enough people who do to know that they don’t say, “Pass the Equal.” Right? People say, “Pass me a pink.” or “Are there any yellows in there? No, then I’ll take a blue.” Until recently, if you asked for a pink, you got a [...]
The Johnny Cash Project: moving celebration or grave robbery?
Posted: August 27, 2011 in Business, MisleadershipTags: Ain't No Grave, copyright, covers, creators rights, Huckleberry Finn, Lady Gaga, Mark Twain, Prince, The Johnny Cash Project, The Who, transmedia, user generated content
I may be late to this party, but a friend of mine just turned me on to The Johnny Cash Project. It’s an amazing example of crowdsourcing, billed as “A unique communal work, a living portrait of The Man in Black.” Basically, artists get to draw an image of Johnny Cash to be integrated into [...]
Who did Groupon and FTD think they were fooling?
Posted: February 12, 2011 in Business, Marketing, MisleadershipTags: FTD, Groupon, rip off, Valentine's Day
Question: When is a 50% off sale not really a bargain? Answer: When a company has jacked up their prices first. In the days before the internet and smartphones that let you scan a bar code and get competitive prices instantly, it was common practice to jack up prices before putting them on sale. Customers [...]
The Revolution In Education Part 2: Let them eat virtual cake
Posted: January 28, 2011 in Business, Education, Misleadership, Value for ValueTags: Academicearth.org, Bill Gates, education, Florida's Class Size Reduction Amendment, Kahn Academy, Miami Beach High, online learning, Revolution, virtual classroom
A financial crisis brought about by foreign wars and financial mismanagement and malfeasance. An administration, desperate to meet the demands of the people and stay solvent, forces through legislation that is opposed by many in the government and by the people. The first lady, when told that the people had no bread, replies, “Then let [...]
The four R’s: Reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmatic and Revolution!
Posted: January 20, 2011 in Business, Education, Misleadership, Value for ValueTags: Academically Adrift, college, education, Revolution
What does the start of a revolution look like from the inside? Revolutions don’t have a precise starting point. It is easy to say that the American Revolution officially began on July 4, 1776 with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But was that really the start of the revolution, or merely the official [...]
Who really owns Huckleberry Finn?
Posted: January 6, 2011 in Business, MisleadershipTags: Alan Gribben, censorship, Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, NewSouth Books
Like so many of you out there, I am outraged at the sanitizing of Huckleberry Finn by replacing the “N” word with “slave.” At first, I assumed Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books must be doing it to sell books to schools and libraries that banned the original, riding the wave of political correctness and sensationalism [...]
Looking for Mr. Right on my cell phone
Posted: October 29, 2010 in Business, Value for ValueTags: cell phone, Droid, Droid 2, mobile phone sound quality, Voyager
Don’t you hate it when people rant about the good old days? I know I do. “You young whippersnappers may not remember this, but in the good old days, Ma Bell ran the phones and you could hear a pin drop on the other end of the line. At least, that’s what the teleeevision commercials [...]
