Smile: Marketers Are Mining Your Selfies for Sales Leads

You're on camera, but it isnt exactly candid. Marketers are employing a host of new software targeting and imaging techniques to assemble data from your selfies about your consumer preferences . 

Instagram, Flickr and Pinterest are often willing accomplices because if it can be proved that planting logos or products moves more merchandise, advertisers will pay the services for advertising or placement.

There are, of course, privacy concerns. But those may pale besides the financial ones: At some point consumers are going to demand payment for the use of their images and the products they 'endorse.'

If anonymous amateur athletes can win these legal rights, it is probable that a massive - and expensive - class action law suit is not far behind.

The laws are ambiguous, but that may not stop legislators from throwing their constituents a legal bone - and probably trademarked in the bargain. JL

Douglas MacMillan and Elizabeth Dwoskin report in the Wall Street Journal:

Most people who upload photos don’t understand they could be scanned for marketing insights.Advertisers pay to find their products’ logos in photos on Tumblr and Instagram. Software can detect patterns in consumer behavior, such as which kinds of beverages people like to drink with macaroni and cheese,

Homekit: How Apple Plans To Dominate the Smart Home

How many tech companies does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

As many as want to do it. Because like it or not, they are focused on growth and they think your home or apartment represents a truly mouth-watering opportunity.

The consumer has already conclusively demonstrated that he/she/it will happily trade information and money for convenience. Privacy is a concern, but many tech firms have already concluded that's more of a marketing task than a regulatory challenge. Say all the right things about respect for personal information and you are, ahem, home free. Well, not free to the consumer, who is going to pay a bundle for both the connectivity - and for having someone like Apple manage it for them.

Google, Apple et al are going to be fighting it out over the right to manage your connection with the rest of the known universe. Google fired the first shot with the acquisition of Nest, its smart thermostat. Apple has produced a more comprehensive strategy called HomeKit, built around a hardware and software system.

The larger strategic question is what consumers will be willing to pay to have all of this connectivity 'managed.' It is not unreasonable to assume that cable tv companies, electric utilities and anyone else touting their electronic chops is going to get into the game potentially affecting profitability for all.

The challenge, as it has been with electronic wallets, is whether anyone really wants a closer relationship with their refrigerator or wants to foster deeper understanding between their toaster, their garage door and their tablet. But before we get too skeptical, it is worth remembering that stranger things have happened. JL

Aaron Tilley reports in Forbes:

Apple made crystal clear they were going embrace being the vehicle for communication between these devices.

China Helps Push Mercedes to Best Sales Month Ever

For Daimler-Benz, the corporation that produces the Mercedes, the East is black. As in profitable.

Daimler just announced its best sales month in the company's history and Mercedes purchases in China are a big reason for it.

What is curious is that reports about the Chinese economy of late have been filled with doom and gloom. Predictions about the country's financial implosion have been almost as vast as its population. And some Chinese cities, especially Beijing, have attempted to curb the acquisition of new drivers' licenses in order to combat both traffic congestion and air pollution.

So the growth in sales of Mercedes may be attributed to the strength of its brand versus competitors like Audi, which has had a traditionally strong presence in China, to the resilience of an economy whose mysteries are not always revealed by the limitations of financial reports or national accounts and, perhaps, to the enduring appeal of individual mobility despite all of the obstacles placed in its path.

It should be noted, in passing, that while Mercedes sales in China were setting records, those in the Americas and Russia were disappointing. Talk about keeping your eye on the prize...JL

Andreas Cremer reports in the Reuters:

Daimler had fixed competing sales channels in the world's biggest auto market and created a new management board position responsible for Chinese operations.

The Science Behind Free Samples

You may be one of them. One of those people, that is, who is inclined to try free samples. And if that is the case, chances are you will try any free sample, even if its a product you would never ordinarily buy in the normal course of your oh-so-human existence.

Because it turns out that there is a science to free sampling, a psychology to be more precise. It's far more targeted than you might think. People are either inclined or not inclined to try, but when they do, they also tend to buy whatever they have sampled, to the point that - as the following article explains - sales can be boosted exponentially by the practice. It also turns out that this can enhance customer loyalty and expand customers' willingness to try new products which expands the retailer's ability to add range and margin when deciding on product selection.

The reality is that as we generate more and more data about consumer preferences we are also learning more about how the intangible benefit of tripping emotional triggers may work best when accompanied by the very tangible dividend of having something to put in your mouth. JL

Joe Pinsker reports in The Atlantic:

Samples have boosted sales in some cases by as much as 2,000 percent.

When a Simple Rule of Thumb Beats a Fancy Algorithm

A danger inherent in Big Data and our attempts to make sense of it is the propensity to assume that complicated information requires torturous analytical methods to unravel its mysteries.

We see this in the proliferation of statistical arabesques and baroque flights of rhetoric employed to justify the time and effort invested in teasing wisdom out of complexity. Which is not to say that there is no value in newer methodologies requiring experts with advanced degrees to effectively manipulate them.

But there is a reason, as the following article explains, why tried-and-true metrics have attained that status: because they are able to synthesize for the harried manager, what is essential to discern the direction, velocity and quality of a number at a given moment. In an attention-deficit-driven world, simplicity and speed may ultimately prove more valuable than a few extra degrees of accuracy. JL

Justin Fox reports in Harvard Business Review:

“In general, if you are in an uncertain world, make it simple. If you are in a world that’s highly predictable, make it complex.”

We Invest in People, Not Deals: Is Venture Capital's Big Lie Being Exposed?

Tech has always held itself - and been held - to a somewhat different leadership standard. Perhaps because a significant feature of the industry's foundation myth has been that it is doing something good for the world in addition to innovating and making big bucks.

So there has been an unspoken expectation that tech entrepreneurs and those who fund them are, as a result - morally superior. As retch-or-belly-laugh inducing as that may be to those who work in the industry, the popular press and the public it serves have consciously helped foster this perception.

Which is why the recent spate of bad publicity is so interesting. First, because tech has come of age and no longer needs to impress anyone as a way of protecting its growth prospects, meaning it doesnt care as much about what others think. And second because as so often happens, some, possibly even many, of its denizens have become so wealthy that they have confused their commercial success  with a more generalized infallibility on subjects as diverse as politics, science and economic development.

From perennial bad boys like Oracle's Larry Ellison to those prone to comparing tech critics to Nazis such as HP director Tom Perkins and on to confrontational-bordering-on-abusive CEOs such as Uber's Travis Kalanick or Zynga's Mark Pincus, it seems that the nice guy quotient is in retreat - to the extent it was ever dominant - and that those who don't play well with others have become pre-eminent.

It is possible that this is a temporary or cyclical event, reflective of circumstances specific to this point in time such as globalization. Or it could be that tech is now being held to the same standard as the rest of the business world, which is to say that making investors money is the only standard. JL

Sarah Lacy comments in Pando Daily:

Every venture capitalist will tell the same casual lie: That they invest in people first and ideas second. They invest only in people they’d want to work with. They say no to companies that don’t treat people.You don’t have to look too far into this year’s frenzied dealmaking, and at the price tags to know that’s complete bullshit.

Tale of Two Cities: Tech Companies Review Contract Employee Practices as Drivers Seek to Unionize

The US Supreme Court just heard arguments in a case brought by Amazon warehouse workers who want to be compensated  for the mandatory inspections they must endure at the ends of their shifts and for which they are currently denied pay.

Google is promising to hire 200 security guards as Google employees after reports surfaced that its contract guards were being underpaid.

Uber's drivers are beginning to challenge its pay practices.

And Facebook is confronting what is probably a first but not last unionization effort by the drivers of those controversial  Bay Area buses that shuttle tech workers from The City down to their offices in Silicon Valley.

The issue is the disconnect between tech companies with multi-billion dollar valuations and the often paltry compensation received by those enterprises' contract workers. While many Facebook, Google, Apple and similar employees in northern California are relatively well paid, they are surrounded by others who work for the same companies but who are contractors, frequently part-time, and often unable to support themselves and their families on what they earn in an industry with generous margins.

The industry faces a perception issue which may be contributing to an erosion of reputational equity. More ominously, this may, in turn, lead to a  more tangible problem, which could, ultimately, include legislative regulatory mandates. JL

Steven Greenhouse reports in the New York Times:

Companies are constantly seeking to underbid one another for contracts. “That hampers their ability to pay these workers decently, and that keeps pulling the common denominator down.”

Why Steve Jobs Obsessed About Office Design

How often have we heard from those who have achieved greatness that they stand on the shoulders of giants?

That the manifest success of a product or an industry is due to the cumulative efforts of many who often labored unrecognized and unrewarded yet who ultimately contributed to breakthroughs of stunning significance.

And yet, we retain an obeisance to Marlboro Man culture, the I-did-it-my-way belief in the lone genius who changed the world, or at least the neighborhood.

It is particularly fascinating to view this in the context of technology, where the inventions and innovations and Ah-Hah moments are so often the result of prior discoveries whose importance could not quite be grasped at the time or which simply needed one more step before realizing their potential.

Apple has been especially well-known for going it alone, for attempting - and usually succeeding - to control the process - and it has the legal bills to prove it from its myriad lawsuits against transgressors real or imagined.

But, as the following article explains, Steve Jobs was obsessed with office design - as he was with so many details - because he recognized that collaboration and cooperation were the intangibles that spurred the creative process inside the organization. He recognized that creating that sort of environment was too crucial to be left to chance.

And so, in the same way that he worried about the details of screen size and rounded edges and metallic feel, he also gave considerable thought to perfecting the ways in which people interacted, combined and separated in order to create the sparks that would stimulate and inspire those working in those spaces to do their best. In this way, he helped redefine leadership by demonstrating conclusively that there were assets not found on the financial statements which could, nonetheless, substantially influence their trajectory and strength. JL

Walter Isaacson reports in LinkedIn via an excerpt from his latest book, The Innovators:

Silicon Valley’s greatest advances came through collaboration – making serendipitous encounters critical.

What Tech Startup Employees Hate Most About Their Jobs

It's been the dream job for a generation now: sign on with a startup, work with a Band of Brothers, share the pain, joy and brilliant effort, go public, make a bundle, be acknowledged by your peers and an envious public as a tech genius and live happily ever after.

Only - what a surprise - it turns out that for most that dream can be an illusion.

It's not that tech startups are any worse or better than any other gig, they just have their own character, pace and ethos which are not necessarily for everyone. If stability, regular business hours, being able to hang out with like-minded individuals in a low pressure, collaborative environment is your desire, this type of work is probably not for you.

Balance and reason are not the key operating assumptions. Sensitive managers with time to mentor you are probably going to be in short supply. But if running with the wolves, embracing risk and daring the unknown are your meat, welcome. The following article emphasizes the worst characteristics of such work, conformity to the prevailing commercial belief being the most benign. But the real point, often difficult for anyone with ambition and smarts, is know thyself - and to thine own self be true.

There is a reason why so many people are addicted to the startup life and keep signing on for another try. It's just best to know the trade-offs and whether - for you - the benefits outweigh the costs. JL

Lily Newman reports in Slate:

“The best and worst companies tend to be startups. The worst ones don’t usually live long enough to become big companies, so there’s a survivorship bias that leads us to think of startups as innately superior. It’s not the case.”

New Social Network Ello Just Went Viral: But For How Long?

A few years ago, another business concept based on membership, in this case auto rental, the company specifically being Hertz, ran a series of ads mocking its wannabe competitors by portrayng their promotional efforts as 'Just like Hertz only different.'

The point was that positioning oneself as just like a dominant enterprise but with a couple of differentiated features was unlikely to unseat the market leader because ultimately, it was larger, had more resources at its disposal and the cost, in intangible terms like the hassle of de-and-then-re-connecting is just too high.

So welcome to Ello. It has most emphatically become a thing. A new social network that is attempting to establish itself as the anti-Facebook. The ostensible appeal is enhanced privacy protection and no advertising, which are really one in the same as the commercial appeal of advertising on a social network is access to the personal information of its members.

The initial response must have been heartening: all those folks frustrated by Facebook's contempt for their personal information and interests wanted to make a statement. But the reality is that the data suggest that most consumers, while possibly concerned about who knows what about them, understand that privacy is no longer an option. As the following article explains, if you really care that much, give up your computer, your phone, the internet and credit cards. For starters.

This is not to denigrate either the concerns of those who do care nor to belittle the efforts to find an alternative. But what society must confront is its inability, so far, to make acceptable trade-offs. From financing internet access to making all of this connectivity work, something has to be sacrificed. We have come to believe that we can - and deserve - to have it all. It's just not yet apparent who or what is going to fund that. JL

Ben Thompson comments in Stratechery:

A social network is only as good as the number of friends that are on it, and the best way to get friends on board is to offer a kick-ass product for free. In other words, the exact opposite of the feature-limited product that Ello is proposing.

Going Global? Most US Corporate Boards Still Lack International Representation

Are you a global enterprise or simply operating globally?

That distinction may seem to fine for some but it is an increasingly important question.Whether the institution is Chinese, European, American, or reflects some other geographical legacy there is still an inclination to populate the board of directors with homeboys.

It is especially worrisome, as the following article explains, that this lack of global awareness is prevalent among companies who generate over 50 percent of their activity outside of their home market.

This is consistent with CEO claims that they need a board comprised of individuals who 'understand the business' or 'with whom the other board members are comfortable' and similar cliches that generally reflect the desire to have board members who support the current regime and won't rock the boat.

This is hardly the stuff of disruptive innovation, despite all the hortatory calls to action heard at investor symposiums or on the executive conference circuit. But the reality is that lack of cultural and geographic diversity can impede the growth of organizations too tone deaf or merely inexperienced in the ways of the markets from which their future success will almost certainly be derived. JL

Joann Lublin reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Even the most global U.S. companies are fairly provincial: One in 10 directors is a foreign national at the 100 businesses where more than half of their revenue comes from outside America

What's Happening to Samsung: Can It Avoid the Fate of Nokia and Motorola?

We've been here before: Blackberrys, Razrs, Nokia 1100s. The 'it' phone that everyone had to have until they didnt. And when things went bad, they went really, really bad, not just for the product, but for the entire company.

Nokia became a forgotten subsidiary of Microsoft. Motorola?Who can remember - or care? And Blackberry is on life support, still cranking out new products that few people want until it figures out what it might become when it grows up. The history of not staying ahead of the curve, or of failing to remember the Innovator's Dilemma, the disruption that comes from the cheaper, newer concept (and re-emphasize cheaper), is relentless and unforgiving.

Samsung, until  a few months ago, appeared to be more than holding its own as the leading purveyor of affordable smartphones. It had battled Apple to a draw over patents and its relationship with Google appeared to assure, if not a second Wintel-like partnership, at least a pretty secure and profitable future.

The strategic challenge is that competitors are attacking Samsung at the head and the tail of the market. Apple's iPhone 6 and the jumbo-sized 6 Plus have re-confirmed dominance at the high end while a host of competitors from China and elsewhere in Asia are nibbling away at Samsung's lower end base.

Differentiation is hard to come by when you are competing on both technology and fashion. Price is a tough way to make a living. Design and brand aura are owned by someone further upmarket. Samsung is too big to be a niche player but maybe just big enough to hang around till the next cycle. JL

Simon Mundy reports in the Financial Times:

Samsung’s lack of control over the “ecosystem” means that “the options that it has to differentiate its products in the future are extremely limited”.

Traffic Congestion and Crumbling Infrastructure Cost Los Angeles Drivers @$2,500 a Year

There have been growing concerns about the ability of traditional accounting methods to capture the real costs and benefits of the post-industrial service economy.

Among the factors not represented on audited financial statements are the impact of brands, technologically-induced productivity (or the lack thereof) and environmental costs.

A new report from California encapsulates these absences. Failure to maintain roads, bridges, sewer and water mains as well as the private telecom networks is costly. The roads alone are adding 61 hours a year - or more than two days - to the average Californian's commute, and $44 billion to the cost of doing business there. This works out in Los Angeles alone, to almost $2,500 a year per motorist in an economy where household income has been stagnant for decades.

In a globally competitive economy, these conditions contribute to lost opportunities and real tax dollars as jobs and revenues search for the most efficient and least costly locales. The supposed savings from deferred taxes and public expenditures are paltry by comparison. JL

Matthew DeBord reports in Business Insider:

Los Angeles and San Francisco-area residents are losing 61 hours a year to congestion. Roads and bridges that are deficient, congested or lack desirable safety features cost California motorists a total of $44 billion statewide annually.

Inferential Mapping: The Challenge of Providing Context Awareness

There is a growing recognition that data provided without interpretation, especially of the context in which it is being observed and considered, often does little to add value.

Designers and data specialists are increasingly attempting to provide the additional information that converts raw numbers into wisdom.

The breakthrough is in offering inference rather than just fact or object so that the user may make a more informed judgment about whatever space they are in - whether virtual or physical - in order to optimize the time, effort and resources expended.

While this value-added knowledge is welcome and even necessary in order to support the growing dependence on data services, the challenge is in assuring that the implications, inferences, interpretation and context are objective. Research has demonstrated the power of inherent bias, even if such bias reflect attitudes about shape, structure or color scheme rather than socio-cultural or economic point of view.

The reality is that purchasers of these services must constantly be aware that they are seeing someone else's perceptions which do not necessarily reflect their own values or experience. This may or may not be negative or positive. It just pays to remember that it is almost certainly going to be different.  JL

Luke Dormehl reports in Fast Company:

Context-aware maps, rather than simply confirming the physical artifacts around you, could fill users in on the high-level subtleties about the place they’re traveling through.

Intellectual Property Reaches the Ridiculous: The Legal and Moral Battle Over the Word 'How'

There are moments when we may rightly feel compelled to ask whether the big data/knowledge economy has sharpened our insights - or just rendered us oblivious to common sense.

Last year witnessed the battle over who owned the color red. Or more specifically, which shoe designer owned the application of said color to the soles of the products that business produced. Christian Louboutin won that epic battle, though the courts rendered a somewhat Solomonic decision, limiting that right to soles, not to other parts of the shoe, nor to the entire color.

If that dispute - let alone decision - seemed a bit silly to those who do not customarily drop $500 on a pair of kicks, well, at least the application was specific enough to be understandable.

Now, as the following article explains, we are confronted with a legal battle over the use of the word 'how.' The contestants are a company that makes Greek style yogurt and a consulting firm specializing in creating ethical corporate cultures. There is no doubt a connection there, though it may escape those who do not possess a finely honed sense of the absurd.

The real issue would appear to be whether knowledge has fostered notions of arrogance that defy not just common sense and usage, but also the trends in socio-economic development. The hundreds of millions that Apple, Google, Samsung and others have thrown at debates about who invented or patented what gadget or line of software code have been demonstrably wasted. The world is moving too fast to worry about it and sustainable competitive advantage has evaporated even if speed were not a defining characteristic.  The courts in the US are increasingly expressing their frustration with this sort of grandstanding.

That one of the litigants in question - the plaintiff, in fact (the person who filed case claiming he owned the use of the word 'how') - purports to stand for ethics in business is especially ironic given that the universe of organization, operation and innovation is increasingly one defined by collaboration, not by sole ownership which denigrates the contributions of predecessors, to say nothing of common linguistic usage.

We may celebrate the fact that intellectual capital is, belatedly, enjoying a rise to financial prominence that mirrors its importance as a contributor to economic significance.But the more frequent the attempts to frivolously apply the concept to justify spurious economic ownership, the less likely that prominence will be sustained. JL

Jonathan Mahler reports in the New York Times:

Trademarks are meant not to prevent companies from stealing others’ ideas, but to protect consumers from mixing up brands. Mr. Seidman will need to demonstrate that people might be inclined to confuse a yogurt manufacturer with a company that provides consulting services.

The Biggest Cybersecurity Threat? Underpaid Employees

Russian mobsters and Chinese military technicians may be perceived as the threat about which enterprises should worry, but according to the FBI, the most likely cause of cyber-security breaches at most institutions are current and former employees.

When people believe that conditions are unfair or that they are being taken advantage of, they will try to seek redress. All too often in this economy, however, they are reminded that they are lucky to have a job, that they could be replaced with relative ease - or that the entire effort could simply be relocated to a less expensive locale in China, Bangladesh or any other low wage export platform. This is as true of supposed knowledge workers as it is of their factory-based brethren.

If people believe they have no recourse and that no one cares, they may be inclined to act on their own. The result can be anything from theft of data to destruction of property. The problem for businesses is that the impact of such actions in a connected economy is likely to be far greater than the savings from refusing overtime or reducing an employee's hours. JL

Allison Schrager reports in Business Week:

Like other kinds of stealing, data theft may stem from low morale. Workers often steal when they feel their employment relationship is unfair. That attitude is most common when workers consider themselves underpaid.

Predictive Lead Scoring: To What Extent Can Sales Be Automated?

To managers, the primary benefit of big data is that it promises to reduce uncertainty in attaining outcomes. Whether budgets, sales, profits or less well-defined goals, the idea that inputs can shape the attainment of objectives is enticing.

Predictive lead scoring is about as applied as it gets. The very notion is that sales leads can be narrowed through statistical analysis of correlations and causes to the point that time, effort and resources are only focused on those targets likely to produce the desired result. This saves money by reducing the amount required to generate a sale and it makes money by assuring that those funds expended produce not just one outcome, but provide a template for further eliminating the risk in ongoing initiatives.

The question is to what degree the sales process can be automated. There is already a technological meeting of the minds - or devices - by which automated ordering systems link with automated sales systems. This works for established products or services but makes the introduction of new innovations even more difficult.

The real challenge will be designing processes that anticipate needs in such a way that they can game the systems created to manage purchases. But even when that is done - if it has not been already - there is probably going to be a need for human interaction, even if it is only to answer questions about the automated predictions. JL

Stewart Rogers reports in Venture Beat:

The values — assigned to attributes or behaviors — are generated based on their statistical relationship with outcomes of interest, rather than an assumed but unverified relationship.

Shrinking to Grow? Why eBay, Yahoo and HP Are Re-Scaling

Organizational and financial trends can be as viral as diseases or pop culture icons.

Within a couple of weeks, eBay has announced the spin-off of PayPal, HP is reported to be calving its PC and printer division as a separate entity and in the rather frigid glow of the post-Alibaba IPO, Yahoo is being forced to ponder its potentially smaller operational future.

That Meg Whitman was the CEO of eBay and is now the CEO of HP is probably more than a random coincidence. History suggests that her East Coast roots and traditional business training have impressed upon her the importance of staying on the good side of the capital markets where the trend is your friend.

And what the markets want is for managers to leave the value creation - and more importantly, extraction - to them. They will pick the portfolio of businesses  in which they want to invest, thanks all the same: they have no interest in paying someone else to do that for them. You do what you do - design new products, create new markets, invent new technologies - they will figure out when to buy and sell the corporatized result.

There is a certain cyclicality to this: conglomeration goes in and out of favor, as does concentration on the core. There are always anomalies like Alibaba, though Chinese businesses tend to get a pass because most Europeans and Americans cant speak the language all that well in an economy where opaque socio-political rules can determine success or failure. But the basic rule is that the big guys in finance want to make the decisions when it comes to adding or subtracting.

The eBay divestiture makes strategic sense but probably happened sooner rather than later due to the pressure of a notorious greenmailer who has reinvented himself as an ostensibly more respectable private equity investor. HP troubles have long been evident, not the least due to the tragi-comic ineptitude of its board whose egotism is exceeded only by its inability to govern. This spin-off has been bruited about for years.

That these actions are happening now signals that the limits of scale for second-tier companies have been reached. The building blocks are being reassembled in new ways to prepare for whatever the future may hold. Even Larry Ellison's announced re-engineering of responsibilities may be a sign that an old era is ending, even if the shape and direction of the new one is not yet apparent. The only certainty is that finance and technology remain critical to each other's success, however that may be redefined. JL

Richard Waters comments in two articles in the Financial Times:

In the technology world, grafting growing companies on to more mature ones is always prone to instability. Investors hanker for pure growth plays. The future and the past often make for uncomfortable bedfellows

Is Modern Technology Killing Us?

It might be fairer to ask if modern technology is killing us even as it is expanding our horizons, our sense of wonder and our perception of what's possible.

Like most innovations and changes, there is a period of adjustment and it is how we adopt the new technologies as well as adapt to them that will define, in the end, whether they are ultimately beneficial.

The history of technology suggests that the positive view does prove to be the case, in large measure, because survival of the species is the primary biological imperative so that we will bend these forces to our will or die trying. And we're still here, which suggests that the human factor has prevailed, at least so far.

And it is worth noting that the chance of a new technology being rejected is rare, even when, as in the case of atomic energy, its costs and benefits are the subject of serious on-going debate.

But it does not necessarily follow that one is a Luddite for asking the question, especially given the degree to which technology defines, accelerates, mediates, enhances and dominates modern life. JL

Erika Etelson comments in Truthout:

"Science now makes all things possible . . . but it does not thereby make all possible things desirable." - Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine

Antartica Has Lost Enough Ice to Cause a Measurable Shift in Gravity

This may not entirely explain why you've been feeling off balance of late, but it does stand to reason that a decline in density of any substance, particularly one on which you stand, could have an impact on gravitational pull.

The implication is that the potential effects of climate change are not limited to rising sea levels and a re-appraisal of what constitutes waterfront property, but that many aspects of existence we have come to take for granted should no longer be regarded with quite the same degree of assurance. Critics are quick to dismiss such reports by suggesting that the changes are so miniscule as to be unnoticeable if one does not possess the proper scientific instruments and the ability to understand what they measure. But this ignores the possibility that effects are cumulative and may accelerate change as they accumulate.

A benefit of having access to lots of data is that it enables us to change our opinions rather than to pick and choose only that which reconfirms our own predispositions, especially when they may be wrong. JL

Wired reports:

Though we all learned in high-school physics that gravity is a constant, it actually varies slightly depending on where you are on the Earth’s surface and the density of the rock (or, in this case, ice) beneath your feet.

Coke and Peps Both Launch Naturally Sweetened Sodas - Exclusively Through Amazon

What does this say about consumers' unique attributes: the two largest soda companies in the world both launch new products based on the same natural plant-based sweetener after years of declining sales due to concerns about health, weight-consciousness and reports of the negative effects inherent in the use of artificial sweeteners. 

Oh, and they both plan to do it via Amazon rather than through their usual distribution channels.

We feel compelled to add that they have both chosen a shade of green as the dominant color scheme for the new products.

Convergence, convergence, convergence. We will leave aside, for the moment, the question of how Big Data has given marketers unique insights into their customers' desires. But we will note that that the move makes sense, although how they intend to differentiate their products given all these similarities will probably come down to legacy brand preference rather than any new initiatives.

That testing a new product via Amazon is less expensive is probably true, though we do not have access to the data. And certainly Amazon's customer will skew younger, health conscious and more tech savvy, making them a logical test market. But whether this is a trend for the future or an example of why sustainable competitive advantage is increasingly difficult to establish is a good question. JL

Reuters reports via The Chicago Tribune:

The move illustrates how the food and beverage industry is expanding into untraditional distribution channels like e-commerce as it searches for growth.