Mon, 22 Oct 2007 02:09:36 GMT

It's Your Choice: How do You Choose

I'm trying to loose weight. In an effort to embrace my new life, aka single and over fifty, I have shifted my focus from what everyone else needs from me to what I need for me.

One of which is to become healthier. After a life time of bad habits and bad choices, I, like that skinny bit*h in the photo depicted, am faced constantly with the choice between Krispy Kreme doughnuts, moist, sweet, delicious doughnuts or an apple.

Sometimes I make the right choice and sometimes I DECIDE to make the "wrong" choice.

As I look around I discover that probably the one thing we are faced with every day ALL DAY LONG is the task of making a choice. Seth Godin talks about choice this weekend:

The choice of more products. The choice of more retailers. Many a click away. The choice of more consumers to ask for an opinion. The choice by marketers over who to market to (precision increases). The choice of workers to be virtual or flexible or change careers.

For those of you reading that are "of an age" you'll remember, like I do, that choice wasn't really something we needed to concern ourselves with as young adults. There weren't the number of choices there are today. However, today's up and coming consumers have known nothing but the ability to choose. In fact, they rely on the fact that there are many alternatives available to them and most do considerable research before making a choice.

So that means that every product and service we offer has competition. We can't stand by our wonderful products/services and assume that people will choose us just because WE know how wonderful we are.

We need to actively position ourselves in a manner that makes it easier for our target prospect to CHOOSE us.

That blasted apple needs to sing out "choose me, not that hip-increasing doughnut, I promise to be more satisfying!"

So if it is a proven fact that customers have more choices - what are you going to do about it? How are you going to make them choose you?

Deborah Chaddock Brown
Writer Posted by: Deborah Brown      Read more     Source

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:24:55 GMT

Cate Blanchett-Style Icon

Looking for a new style icon? Look no further than Cate Blanchett. Seriously, anything she does, copy it. She always nails the red carpet and she looks amazing. I mean I'm not partial or anything to her, since everyone tells me I look like her, but you know, no biased opinions here. The best part about Cate Blanchett? She can pair a $14,000 couture gown, with hair that she did herself and she looks flawless.

She once said "You can't please everyone, but hopefully you'll surprise people." How fantastic is that? Whether it be with fashion or your personality, I think that is a great way to look at life.


*This is my favorite dress and someday it will be mine!!






Posted by: Ryan      Read more     Source

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:21:11 GMT

Perfect for eco-friendly shopping

If you look in a typical New Yorker's apartment, you'll find a stash of plastic bags from grocery stores. You know the kind, the ones that San Francisco has banned from supermarkets. It might seem a bit excessive until you realize that San Francisco alone hands out 180 million bags a year to shoppers. There was also the "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" frenzy this summer, which ended up feeling more about "awareness creation" than making an impact on people's behavior on a large scale.

For a more practical approach, try the Minusbags, which are designed by MB Mullan in Brooklyn and hand-stitched in New Hampshire. I like the functionality of them (they machine wash and hold 3 plastics bags worth of stuff.) They have a smart design, which replaces loud corporate logos with smart graphics of fruit. I also like the given reason that minusbags are better than plastics bags: because, "you can buy a dozen Krispy Cremes all for yourself and no one will be able to see them."

The Minusbag sell at $16 at a few locations on the East Coast, as well from their online store. Posted by: Sarah      Read more     Source

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 02:20:53 GMT

Youtube Filter

Via Crankgeeks - Couldn't resist uploading this one. Pretty much sums up the new "Filter". But I disagree with Furrier. Theres lots of great legal content on Youtube . Please don't use "My Videos" as proof of this. Arrr.. Posted by: Zinzi      Read more     Source

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:10:28 GMT

How well do we know ourselves?

Since we’re into life today, I thought I’d show you one of my favourite parts of the J. Craig Venter genome (very neat interactive map hosted by PLoS, and much easier to look through than the 88 — you’ve been warned!). Near the bottom of the poster, you’ll find this:

Over 74% of Venter’s 50 odd-thousand isoforms have unknown molecular function. What a humbling reminder of how little we know about the form of life we are most familiar with: ourselves. Posted by: PhilipJ      Read more     Source

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:34:44 GMT

Amazing Parking Accident

A giant Cadbury Creme Egg crushes a car.
Must be an advertisement.



(thanks Don) Posted by: Gerard      Read more     Source

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:36:17 GMT

Nature's Great Survivor: The Water Bear

Freeze them, boil them, dry them, expose them to open space and radiation - after 200 years they'll still be alive!

Tardigrades (known as water bears or moss piglets) are some of the most interesting animals in the world, simply because they can survive so well in the most extreme conditions. Posted by: Gerard      Read more     Source

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:33:32 GMT

Back Of Beyond Times

The Back of Beyond Times is an online tabloid newspaper, reporting about everything that is going on in the mythical country of Kashgar. The site is run by Alexander Bews who paints all sorts of figurines. Posted by: Gerard      Read more     Source

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:29:36 GMT

Cycas taiwaniana

Thank you to Michael Charters, the person behind the oft-referenced-by-BPotD Calflora.net for sharing today's photograph. Michael submitted it via the BPotD Submissions forum on the garden's site; the original image is in this thread: Cycas taiwaniana. I should also mention that one of Michael's ongoing projects is “What's Blooming at the Los Angeles County Arboretum?” – certainly makes me want to visit! Thanks, Michael.

Michael has also described this photograph: “This is the female strobilus or cone of a Cycas taiwaniana, or as it is sometimes listed, Cycas revoluta var. taiwaniana, showing the sporophylls or cone scales. The cone scales are modified leaves which will bear 2-8 ovules that will eventually become seeds after fertilization.” To read more on cycad biology, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney has produced the top-notch The Cycad Pages. I'd also be remiss if I didn't suggest the Gymnosperm Database's entry on the Cycadales.

Cycas taiwaniana is listed as endangered (A2acd) by the IUCN Red List, meaning “An observed, estimated, inferred or suspected population size reduction of greater than or equal to 50% over the last 10 years or three generations, whichever is the longer, where the reduction or its causes may not have ceased or may not be understood or may not be reversible, based on .... direct observation, a decline in area of occupancy, extent of occurrence and/or quality of habitat, and actual or potential levels of exploitation.” Quite grim. The Wikipedia entry on cycads summarizes in plainer language: “In recent years, many cycads have been dwindling in numbers and may face risk of extinction because of theft and unscrupulous collection from their natural habitats, as well as from habitat destruction”. Also, read the New York Times article by Lauren Kessler: “The Cult of the Cycads”. Posted by: Daniel Mosquin      Read more     Source

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 21:25:23 GMT

Sleuth

"It's tempting to call the new Sleuth a soulless remake, but that would imply that the original had a soul," writes Fernando F Croce at Slant. "What keeps the film's motor running is the interplay between the two actors. [Jude] Law has the opaque agility of a cunning scam artist, but it's [Michael] Caine's look of bemused wryness (the way he sizes up his younger co-star as if to say, 'I were you once, kid') that almost makes one believe there's something remotely human at stake in the picture's vacant ingenuity."

"[Anthony] Shaffer's play had a political context that, however crude, gave it some urgency," writes David Edelstein in New York. "At the height of the counterculture, he was trying to expose the snobbish, reactionary, patriarchal bigotry and xenophobia at the heart of the drawing-room English whodunit. [Director Kenneth] Branagh and [screenwriter Harold] Pinter don't have any larger purpose."

Updated through 10/13. Posted by: dwhudson      Read more     Source