Electric Artist

Apple with and without Steve Jobs

This is a great feature on NYTimes.com that's quite well done.   What once was the raison d'etre of Apple (having a legend-like CEO at the helm) is no longer as great as it seems.   So much of Apple's equity lies in Steve Jobs...when he goes...perhaps the equity does as well.  What do you think?

Check out the feature [HERE]

Top 5 Domain Name Sales

As told to you by Good Magazine

Innovation - Borders Books

When most people think about the process of driving innovation within an organization, they tend to think that to be innovative, the idea - or change - needs to be BIG.  Too often the feeling is that if it's not big, then it's not innovative.

But often, the strongest returns come from the smallest innovations.

Some of the best innovations come from ideas that don't, on their surface, seem very big at all.  For innovation to have an impact, the thing that needs to be "big" is the risk of changing the way things have historically been done, not the idea. 

A great example of this can be found in Borders Books. There's an article in today's Wall Street Journal about how Borders is changing the way they display the majority of their books in their stores. 

So what's the innovation?

Well, to jumpstart sales, Borders is drastically increasing the amount of books it displays on shelves with the cover face-out, rather than relying on the traditional way of showing just the spine. 

So at first blush you're probably thinking - "Duh! That sound pretty obvious, no? Innovative??"

But, in fact, to make this change, Borders stores will have to reduce by 5% to 10% the number of titles they stock. In the age of the Long Tail, where book stores have to compete with the deep inventories of Amazon.com, this change is not that small.  From a business standpoint, It's actually quite big.

The Journal states:

"The new display strategy is the brainchild of CEO George Jones, who says he learned when he was a buyer at Dillard's Inc. early in his career that dresses sell better when the entire garment is shown rather than hung sleeve-out. So he recently decided to test sales of books shown with the cover visible at a newly built prototype store in Ann Arbor, Mich., where the company has its headquarters. Results were so encouraging after the first two weeks -- sales of individual titles were 9% higher than at similar Borders stores -- that all of the retailer's superstores have been told to adopt the new strategy. The concept store gave us the opportunity to start from scratch and do it exactly as we wanted to do," Mr. Jones says.

For me, these types of innovations are ultimately the most effective ones because what they end up doing is breaking what is the most powerful roadblocks to innovation: "This is the way we've been doing it for years." 

There's a terrific quote in the article from John Deighton, the editor of the Journal of Consumer Research. He says"

"Breakfast cereals are not stocked end-of-box out. You want to your product to be as enticing as possible. It's a little bizarre that it's taken booksellers this long to realize that the point of self-service is to make the product as tempting as possible."

For me, true innovation is about taking a risk and changing the way your business is done.

Jay Z...Ad Man

Well, the rumours back in early January weren't exactly right, but the man who declared, "I'm not a businessman / I'm a business, man," is back in the news with a new business venture.   Jay-Z ... adman.  Full article here.

Bespoke London Tour Guides

Another great example of the long tail taking action -  Here's a great idea for tourists who actually want to visit city sites that are very tailored to their liking (Art, Design, Fashion).   You can't be all things to all people, as the saying goes, and guided tours are no exception. Now Urban Gentry is offering a set of customized, insiders' tours of London for those interested in art, fashion or other elements of style.

This is something I actually would book - Kudos to Urban Gentry for the great concept - keep them up!

New York Bike Sharing

Imagine walking to a sidewalk corner and finding a public bicycle. With a cellphone call or swipe of a card, you unlock it from its bike rack and ride it across town. Once at your destination, you steer to the closest bike rack and, with one more call or card swipe, return the bike to the public network. You pay less than $.50 for the trip, and the bike is once again available for the taking.

So-called “bike-sharing” already exists in cities across Europe, with Paris alone currently installing over 10,000 bikes at 750 stations. Bike-sharing is revolutionizing transportation networks and greening the urban fabric. Well...now it's launching in New York City...

check it out here.

Malcolm Gladwell : What We Can Learn From Spaghetti Sauce

One of my favourite authors Malcolm Gladwell (Blink, The Tipping Point) has a very interesting commentary on the career of a food industry consultant that ends in a revolutionary way we view product marketing.  I really enjoyed this one.

Bag, Borrow or Steal

Bag, Borrow or Steal the designer handbag rental firm lets customers pay a monthly fee, pick and order handbags online, and borrow them for as long as they like. Monthly fees range from USD 19.95 per month for the Trendsetter membership level (one bag a month from the ‘trendsetter’ collection), to USD 99.95 a month for the Diva membership, which allows access to the couture collection. What's really interesting is that the company is thriving, raked in millions in venture capital, and is expanding into other categories as well. More of these luxury rental firms have now started to pop up:  From Bags to Riches and Bag, Steal and Borrow