Ok, let me explain what’s going on. Pilot is a stationary company responsible for those things we used to use all the time… you know: pens?  Well in a clever merging of the “old” with the “new” they have come up with a way to turn your own handwriting into a font!

Check out how it’s done here:

Emails can be impersonal and uniform, I guess in some ways we stamp our personality with the content. Bringing back personal handwriting to emails is not just a novelty; it’s a deeply felt connection to our sense of individuality and the written word that, to a certain extent, has been lost.

Unfortunately we can’t save the program to our computers yet and have to go to www. PilotHandwriting.com to send emails (…but directing traffic to their site is also pretty smart too, right?)

Sites like Teefury are also offering up unique items for just 24 hours- after that they’re gone- they won’t offer them again. This enforces the feeling of ‘buyer’s accomplishment’ that comes with buying something that there’s a very good chance not many people will have.

Creating a situation or experience that gives a consumer a feeling of being “in on it” is few and far between these days; but definitely on the rise and easy to accomplish with pop up stores. Low overhead because there’s no long term lease allows for more flexibility when spending money on the goods that will be in the store. Limited goods means you can test new products and themed, disappearing stores bring back that sense of wonderment, that feeling of excitement that you get when you open a present; when you find one of these stores, you generally have no idea what’s going to be inside or how long it will be around.

Well back off! Because “the man” just trademarked it!

What we have here is two “green” companies that want to use the lovely daisy on their packaging. Method, who emerged in 2004, was “considered pioneers in the green marketing world, bringing transparency, humor, safe ingredients and good design to cleaning products. In the opposite corner, Clorox and Greenworks.”

In this passionate piece from treehugger they explain:

“Greenworks from Mega-corp Clorox launched with a bang, the blessing of the Sierra Club (and a whole lot of advertising on TreeHugger) in January, 2008. Hugely successful, they have been eating Method’s lunch ever since. And now they want to eat their daisies. They have sent Method a cease and desist letter (pdf here) including the following friendly message”

What we have is a clear cut example of what we have been warning companies against since the Green Hot™ trend emerged:  Walk the Talk.

Greenwashing is common. I think some companies believe that most people don’t look past the “clean, pure, organic” looking packaging.  And, you know what? To a certain extent they are right.

But just as the “Go Green” trend started in hard core, conservation sub-cultures…so will the “Savvy Shopper” trend continue to grow into the mainstream.  There are already many sites that expose companies for not being what they claim they are.  You’ve been hearing the “Transparency” catch cry for awhile now…are you ready for the rise of the “label readers” and “ethics researchers”?

As treehugger says, this trade marking decision has left Clorox: “looking petty and evil” and remind us all that “there is more to being green than what is in the bottle; business practices matter.”

Less is more; natural shape and age are what current casting directors are looking for. Television executives at Fox Broadcasting, for example, say they have begun recruiting more natural looking actors from Australia and Britain because the amply endowed, freakishly young-looking crowd that shows up for auditions in Los Angeles suffers from too much sameness.

What I’m seeing is a move towards transparency, simple, clean, natural. So, can that translate to business ideas and practices as well?  Showing your true colors, flaws and all!  Another example of all the Buff Culture™ movement is the trend of actresses being photographed for magazines without makeup and/or photoshopping.  Celebrities, from Jessica Simpson to Kim Kardashian, are posing nude and untouched, fakeness is fading and real is rising.  Dare to be Different.

In the spirit of Buff Culture, “If I look good I am good,” mentality, we have to learn to accept ourselves—lines, wrinkles and all.  Especially if you’re an actress looking to star in a period piece or costume drama, note that big bubble boobs aren’t gonna fit in the gown and puffy lips look like an allergic reaction.  Stand out amongst the masses, be yourself.

I’d like to talk about an experience I encountered last night, granted it’s in World of Warcraft so I’ll try to keep my nerdy bias out of it. We’ve featured evidence in Power Plays on the effects of MMORPG’s as far as esteem goes. One key thing that is very true for a lot of players is maintaining the integrity of their characters; one thing that goes a step further than that is having rare items and achievements in game.

I will be willing to say I am one of those people that plays WoW not because of the fun nature of the game, because I’ve been playing so long all sense of fun has worn off. I play for the loot; or in game items for those of you who aren’t so articulate in the scene. For most players, WoW exists as a separate entity from everyday life where you can completely escape into an alternate persona. And that means you take the same human desires with you, only transferring them over to a digital format.

Say you want a BMW or a Mercedes in the real world, that prestige factor of having a car not everyone has; well this goes for WoW as well. Mounts in the game are one of the most coveted items, they range from the common to the extraordinary. Some can be purchased through in game vendors for next to nothing, and some take years to acquire. To explain that a little better, when you kill a boss or unit in WoW, they have a loot table. This table contains anywhere from 5-60 items. Some bosses will drop a mount, and usually the drop rate is around .5%-2%. This means that every time you kill them, you have half to two percent chances that it will drop.

Personally, I’ve been farming one for nearly two years and still haven’t even seen it. So to say that luck plays a big factor is prestigious drops is an understatement. Because that’s what makes WoW interesting, you can have someone who’s brand new to the game get something that half the WoW community covets. Psychologists have proven that loot drops in the game give incredibly addicting mental rushes, which could help explain the 11 million players.

Now, a few months ago I put a story up on here about RMT(Real Money Trading) and how it changes the game when it comes to vanity items. Blizzard had opened a pet store, and they were selling two exclusive in game items for real money. This of course drew mixed reactions, but in the end it didn’t really explode amongst the community because they were just vanity pets.

So what happens when they announce that the pet store is going to be selling a mount? Enter the Celestial Steed; a mount speculated to drop off an upcoming dungeon based on it’s looks and design. Initially, the community was heavily interested in where this mount would drop, what the drop rate would be and how amazing it looked. That all changed when it was added to the Blizzard store.

From the moment the Celestial Steed was listed for $25 online, the message boards began burning with activity; posts about how ridiculous it was, how much Blizzard had sold its integrity for money, and praise for giving everyone a chance to have something that looks so cool. And this is where the line divide grew. See, there is a large base of the WoW community who believes that people who don’t earn their loot/mounts/achievements are called Welfare Toons; because they feel they just skip along without having to earn a thing, and having a purchasable mount only drew out the claws.

However, the double edged sword here is that for people like me who collect mounts, it means sinking $25 in to add another one to my tally, so yes I did buy it. And upon checkout, despite the flaming online I was placed in an order queue of 70,000 people. This means that Blizzard made roughly $1,750,000 in around ten minutes of release.

But most people didn’t care, they were getting a cool mount. This all changed when people actually logged in to give it a ride. The floating city of Dalaran, home of most upper level players and transportation gateway to the world, was full of about 3,000 people all riding the same thing. And in about another ten minutes, people who had bought the mount already put it away for good, because something so cool becoming so common just made is look bad.

Given another hour or so, and it was full out being mocked. Veteran players were commenting to each other about putting everyone on an ignore list that was riding around with one. It turned the citywide trade chat into a venomous ground of assault. And made what looked like the next coveted mount into a mere joke that is now referred to as “The Sparklepony”.

So, moral of the story here is simple. If you’re planning a limited edition, or to release something you want to be rare or really coveted you need to make it so. I know that everything is driven by sales, but sales and desire are two entirely separate things. What’s the point of selling a limited item if everyone who gets it never talks about it or shows it off? You’re not pushing your idea, you’re killing it off by commonality.

What really draws me to this is it’s a new take on customization, something we focus in on in the Wave of Deity Complex™; the ability to personalize and select your own options, beyond the simple idea of “yes I want cheese on that.” Sure, not everyone is going to end up with what they want to happen, but the fact that you can have a hand in deciding the fate of a character is pretty interesting and fairly unexplored outside of the singing competition popularity contest of American Idol.

We’ve seen everything from the customizable soda machine to the paint by number dress, and I think this may rank up there in the top of unique ideas, granted there’s not much information out on the project. Because eventually, customization gets boring, when you can customize and personalize everything, nothing really feels compelling when people ask how you want it. But throw it into a mass audience all pushing for different outcomes, then maybe we’ve got a new champion. Think of it as crowd sourcing television, a concept that is being used in Japan right now for snack foods.

You gather the popular opinion, and build the product around it, instead of around what a creative team decides. However, if they’re planning this to be a weekly show, then the writing staff’s and production crew is going to have their work cut out for them. But then again, what the people want the people get.

Mervis Diamond Importers is producing a diamond coated iPad, which will only cost you around $20,000 for around 11 carats of ego. So, what does this mean? It’s pretty much the portal opener, much like the first iPad case and cover designers. We’ve been talking about the idea of speedpreneurship for around two years. The idea is that when something is announced, less than 24 hours later, accessories and what not will become available, seemingly out of nowhere.

Where speedpreneurship comes into play here is that once someone unlocks the luxury gateway for excess, then the flood comes gushing out behind it. Prepare for crystal covers, gold plates, diamonds, gems, whatever is expensive, will find itself on the outside of an iPad.

And as companies move to cater to the super rich for opulent and extravagant upgrades, everyday companies begin to do the same thing at competitive price points, except we get stickers and decals instead of diamonds and gold. But it’s beyond the point of luxury, it’s the point of speed.

It may sound far-fetched, even laughable, but the former news chief of the Canadian Broadcast Channel  (CBC) and current managing director of Al Jazeera English (AJE), Tony Burman, isn’t joking. Comparing the rise of his network during the 2008 Gaza conflict to CNN’s spectacular rise during the Gulf War, Burman makes a strong case for why now may be the perfect time for AJE to step up as a serious contender in the American market.

According to an in-depth report on Alter-net, AJE has successfully established itself as the voice of the developing world.

With more than seventy bureaus run by staff drawn from some fifty nations, a typical news day for AJE might include reports on a nomadic camel-herding tribe whose members are key rebel leaders in Darfur, a lawsuit against Chiquita (formerly the United Fruit Company) for financing paramilitary death squads in Colombia, the effects of the global financial crisis on Pakistani carpet weavers, and the recent massive spike in arms sales to the United Arab Emirates. AJE currently broadcasts to 150 million households in more than 100 countries — with the exception, until now, of North America.

Impressive, but, the greater story here is that domestic and international perception of American news  networks has eroded to all-time lows. Here are some sad statistics from The Pew Center for your consideration.

Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight

only about a quarter (26%) now say that news organizations are careful that their reporting is not politically biased, compared with 60% who say news organizations are politically biased

Nearly three-quarters (74%) now say news organizations are influenced by powerful people and organizations compared with 20% who say they are pretty independent.

To make the situation even worse, the economy and the Internet have taken their toll on advertising revenues, forcing news organizations to make serious cuts or shut down entirely. Investigative and International reporting have seen the biggest cuts; According to the Pew Research Center’s annual State of the News Media report, coverage of international events by American media fell by about 40 percent in 2008.

This brings further harm to the legitimacy of American networks and creates a window of opportunity for AJE, who’s coverage continues to expand,  to become a legitimate source for international news.

Burman tells Alternet….

“The mainstream American networks have cut their bureaus to the bone,” says Burman. “They’re basically only in London now. … The channel plans to open ten new bureaus in the coming year, including one in Canada. …”At the risk of sounding incredibly self serving….that’s where, in the absence of alternatives, Al Jazeera English can fill a vacuum, simply because we’re going in the opposite direction.”

In reality, I am not sure whether Al Jazeera will have a major American presence, but, there is little doubt that trust in the American media has never been lower. Americans may not be ready for AJE, but there is no doubt they are ready for change.

Yep.  Sucks huh?  You know what sucks even more?  Choking down the “diet”, “lighter” or “better for you” version of the thing you actually want …only to have this article on Lifehacker tell you that calorie claims can be quite… off.  UGH. Thanks guys.

They give examples of Lean Cuisines calorie content testing higher than the label and “Wendy’s grilled chicken wrap (one of the healthiest foods at Wendy’s) promised 260 but loaded in at 344 calories.”

Apparently: “frozen meal makers face stiff penalties for selling underweight packages, so they tend to err on the side of heavier portions. It’s a margin of error—20 percent, by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s reckoning.”

Then I came across this somewhat humorous article about how much exercise it would take to burn off popular fast food items.  For instance, Six Chicken McNuggets have 290 calories and 17 grams of fat -which they claim can be burned off with 9hrs of vigorous sex.  Giddy up- I guess…

We’ve been talking a lot about labeling lately and what kind of impact it has on a consumer’s choice. Interestingly, when Starbucks posted the calorie content, customers quickly switched to lower-calorie Starbucks foods. But they didn’t switch to lower-calorie beverages.

I also wrote a blog not long ago about Project Label that “strives to provide the consumer with a standardized way of comparing similar products in terms of the products’ social impacts.”

The key word for me is standardization… I know there has to be some wiggle room for portion sizes/weight but if there’s a hundred more calories in the product than what the label says then I seriously question if it’s worth it!