10 things to learn on May 11th

10 things to learn from the almighty WWW today:

Brand Inspiration From The Far East: Branding Strategy Insider

For example, let’s look at sake, Japan’s traditional rice wine. When you’re in Japan, you’ll observe a gesture that’s typical in the hospitality of the country. It’s a gesture that has relevance to branding and business in general. The eggcup-sized sake cup will be placed in front of you, sitting in a receptacle of some kind – an elegant cherry wood box, an everyday saucer. When your host or companion pours your sake the cup will be filled to overflowing, the receptacle it sits in receiving the overflow and itself being filled to the brim. This over serving expresses the generosity of the host, restaurant or bar. It’s a gesture to show gratitude for your presence. And it exhibits a desire to give you more that you expect. You’ll agree that this vignette opens vistas of meaning – brands must over-deliver and exceed customer expectations. Yet, so often, brands simply meet expectations. I’ll never forget my first sake.

Market Design: Marriage market in India

"First, the parents or relatives of a prospective bride or groom place an ad in the newspaper. Each ad indicates a PO box (provided by the newspaper), and sometimes a phone number, for interested parties to reply. They then get responses over the next few months (by mail or by phone), and elect whether or not to follow up with a particular response. While ads are placed by both sides of the market, "groom wanted" ads represent almost 63 percent of all ads placed.
When both parties are interested, the set of parents meet, then the prospective brides and grooms meet. The process takes time: in our sample, within a year of placing an ad, 44 percent of our sample of ad-placers whom we interviewed, were married or engaged although most had placed only a single ad. Of those who got married, 65 percent met through an ad, the rest met through relatives or, in 20 percent of the cases, on their own (which are referred to as "love marriages")."

Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen | PBS

From crime beat reporter for the BALTIMORE SUN to award-winning screenwriter of HBO's critically-acclaimed The Wire, David Simon talks with Bill Moyers about inner-city crime and politics, storytelling and the future of journalism today.

Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen | PBS

The financial industry brought the economy to its knees, but how did they get away with it? With the nation wondering how to hold the bankers accountable, Bill Moyers sits down with William K. Black, the former senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. Black offers his analysis of what went wrong and his critique of the bailout

Apple's design process – BusinessWeek

Interesting presentation at SXSW from Michael Lopp, senior engineering manager at Apple, who tried to assess how Apple can ‘get’ design when so many other companies try and fail. After describing Apple’s process of delivering consumers with a succession of presents (“really good ideas wrapped up in other really good ideas” — in other words, great software in fabulous hardware in beautiful packaging), he asked the question many have asked in their time: “How the f*ck do you do that?” (South by Southwest is at ease with its panelists speaking earthily.) Then he went into a few details:

Why are DVDs sold in larger packages than CDs?

The racks on which vinyl discs were displayed were just wide enough, in other words, to accommodate two rows of CD cases with a divider between them.

Making the CD cases a little less than half as wide as the record sleeves they were replacing thus enabled retailers to avoid the substantial costs of replacing their storage and display racks.

Before DVDs became popular, most film rental stores carried videotapes in the VHS format, which were packaged in form-fitting boxes that measured 135mm wide and 191mm high.

These videos were typically displayed side by side with their spines out. Making DVD cases the same height enabled stores to display their new DVD stocks on existing shelves, while consumers were in the process of switching over to the new format.

Making the DVD package the same height as the VHS package also made switching to DVDs more attractive for consumers, since they could store their new DVDs on the shelves they used for VHS tapes.

100 Awesome Blogs By Some of the World’s Smartest People

We won’t judge you if you weren’t the smartest kid in preschool or if you didn’t graduate with honors, if you graduated at all. But we will encourage you to try a little harder by checking out these blogs by some of the world’s smartest people. From the environment to health care to law to economics to art, these bloggers are sharing their knowledge from years of research and experience on the cutting edge.

10 Firefox Add-ons for Web Designers | 10 Volt Media Blog

irefox has emerged victorious from the Great Browser War – at least as far as web developers are concerned. While it may not be the most-used browser for the everyday web surfer, Firefox is clearly the first choice of developers for a few very simple reasons. Its support for web standards is legendary, but the real super powers come from Firefox’s extensibility. With a plethora of add-ons and extensions, created for developers by developers, Firefox becomes much more than just a browser and turns into an essential part of your toolbox. Rather than digging through your source code with squinted eyes, use Firefox add-ons to pinpoint Javascript errors and debug them like a pro. Use add-ons to measure areas of your page, select colors directly from the site or view the specific CSS assigned to a pesky <div> element. You can even get a leg up on assuring your sites are accessible and use valid markup – all thanks to Firefox’s add-ons.

How to have Much Less Stress and Much More Happiness

I know that right now many people are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, and that is only natural given the incredible onslaught of difficult and depressing news we are bombarded with day in and day out. Although I am doing pretty good right now, there was a time years ago (actually my first few years of college) when I was struggling mightily to keep my life on track and moving in a positive direction. It was then that I decided that if I wanted my life to get better, I would have to get better. So I set out to learn everything I humanly could about how to build a happy, joyful and successful life. After reading hundreds of books and listening to hundreds of hours of motivational/self-help audio programs, I boiled down everything I had learned into my own personal “Strategies for Success” life-skills handbook. What I’d like to do in this blog is share two very simple workshops that I believe can have a strong positive impact on reducing the stress and anxiety in your life right now

50 Awesome Online Lectures for Social Media Masters | MatchACollege.com

Social media addicts and the developers, designers and business managers who run social media sites have totally revolutionized the way the rest of us get our news, network, promote our businesses, and connect with (and meet) friends. But even if you think you’re a social media smarty-pants, check out this list of 50 awesome online lectures dealing with social psychology, member-driven community structure, identity, etiquette, and marketing.

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