6 posts tagged “fast company”

As is pointed out by Fast Company, China does not really have it's own global brand. As  close as they come is Lenovo, the name given to IBM's PCs that a Chinese company bought. So, the only "brand" China has is the ubiquitous "Made in China" branding that equates to cheap and disposable. Made in China = Cheap and Disposable and now because of the fiascos previously posted about, unsafe at any cost.

FC notes that Reuters has indicated the rise of a new generic brand: "China Free." This "counterbrand" implies that the undafe ingredients have been removed from the supply chain.

A tale of two brands: if China does not mind its ps and qs, China Free will put a real kink in the juggernaut's economic progress.

I used to be a dyed-in-the-wool user of bottled water and Fiji was my favorite of all, although it was usually a bit more expensive that the others on the shelf - with good reason it turns out. This article has, perhaps, one of the best summaries of the industry that I have seen. If you happen to have tasted San Diego's water, you would understand a lot of the affinity for bottled water. Now days, I buy my water from a local water store (The Water Lady) in a 2.5 gallon re-usable bottle. I use that water daily for brewing coffee and in anything that water plays an important part - like rice. At 30 cents a gallon, it is far cheaper than any of the stuff that is locally available - barring those quarter a gallon dispensers that are outside most grocery and liquor stores.

The Water Lady uses several techniques with her water - the standard RO and ultra-violet exposure, yada, yada. She may still challenge you to bring in your water and directly compare it to hers (although I haven't checked up on that in years) and I took in a bottle of Fiji. Oh well, Fiji did look really great in the bottle - but that was the bottle, but to the taste, it was not worth its hyper-priced premium of the time. One thing I do like about her store is that when you are cycling past, you can fill up the standard cycling water bottles free - well at least a couple of them. I wouldn't want anyone going by with dozens stuffed in every nook and cranny of their lycra togs expecting to fill all.

Now, if memory serves, Consumer's Report used to run a tasting test of several bottled waters against a standard - NYC muni tap water, and time and time again, the tap water came out on top, sooooooo, if that holds true today, all you New Yorkers who are drinking bottled water are pissing your money down the toilet - but hey, what else is new?

But, here is the real question on my mind - children's dental health? Most muni water sources are treated with some type of fluoride that is supposed to be beneficial to teeth - please no conspiracy theories here, and my question is with so many young children now drinking water without the fluoride treatments, will the once-a-year dental cleaning and treatment be enough to stave off a dental epidemic in the future?

Time will tell.

If the big record companies want to get a handle on how to make the web really work for them, they need to pay heed to indie music's use of web-based media to get their works out, purchased and not lose a bunch of sleep. Fast Company's blog reports that indie music is making real inroads with portable media players because they make it easy for people to cherry pick what they want. That is the key attraction, although band fans may buy the entire album to support the bands, the rest of us may like as few as one tune. So, we can buy and download that one tune -- same for band videos --and bear the cost of a fair price for the one tune and not the cost of an entire album, which we probably would not buy. Paradoxically, San Diego recently had an indie music fest and relatively few of the 70 acts had either CDs for sale at the event or websites where their music could be bought. So, while a some groups are making it work for them, they are really few in number. The word needs to spread. 

Fast Company has a column about work and play and the advantages of doing work that is so enjoyable it becomes play. However, if you follow this far enough there is a Catch-22. I loved, and still do to a degree, photography and used to roam around with my trusty Nikon FTN and shoot anywhere and everywhere and then duck into my trust B&W darkroom. Then I found the perfect job and one that I really liked - teaching photography and I had it all. That is until I was so innundated in my daily by photography that when it came time to play, the last thing I wanted to do was carry a camera or dive into the darkroom. Too much of a good thing, you know. 

Have you thought about your e-mail sign-off line? Not your sigline, but sign-off? Seems what you say is not an easy choice and what it says might spell out the way the deal goes. Are you a "Warmest regards" person? Or do you just send "Best?"

In personal e-mails, I usually just sign my name in lowercase. The folks I correspond with know this fits my informality in personal situations, others send me the same or any in a range that expends to "luv" or "l8r."

But what does that line say about you in a business e-mail? The "brand called 'you'" should care.

The Washington Post (via MarketingVOX) reports that two of its political reportage stars are leaving for an as yet unnamed multiplatform news organization. Traditionally, even though the reporters became well-known, the brand was still the media they worked for - the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and so on. Now, reporters have built enough personal brand that they can market themselves in other ways than merely getting a better job. Yet another woe for newspapers that are seeing declining circulation and ad revenue. As Fast Company said years ago, You are the Brand!