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Branding Money

Place your career/life in the Money magazine logo and draw what conclusions you can. Money money Money.

The Way

The Wayback Machine has always been super interesting to look at for snapshots of life on the interwebs at particular points in time. Seriously, check it out – https://archive.org/.

Now you can also go to the dystopian Wayforward Machine. Alarming? Fascinating? Truth? PopUps? Really?

You can read more in this ZDNet article.

The Agony of Almost

I love the story of Molly Seidel running her first marathon and finishing second to earn a spot on the U.S. women’s team for the Olympics. “What is happening?”

But I also love this story in the NY Times on finishing fourth (NYTimes.com, 3.1.20).

It is better to have competed at the highest level and come in a close second – or in this case fourth, or in the case for most of us somewhere near the bottom.

Product Failures

Cue Cat, Google+ and ummm…. Zima.

cue-cat

These are the products that I’ve experienced from this list of the biggest product failures of all time.

Admit it, you tried Zima, too.

When Corporate Innovation Goes Bad – The 132 Biggest Product Failures of All Time (CBInsights, 6.25.18)

Got XXXX?

Great write up of how the Got Milk campaign came to be. It still hasn’t gotten through to me (I detest milk pretty much), but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the message.

Got Milk? How the iconic campaign came to be, 25 years ago (Fast Company, 6.13.18)

Corporate Profanity

I am loving CB Insights lately. That and Axios and TicToc by Bloomberg.

Sh*t Talkers: Corporate America’s Dirtiest Mouths On Earnings Calls

CB Insights, March 29, 2018

What would you do with a client who couldn’t keep the bleepity-bleep in check?

Retail Bankrupties

I love this kind of list/timeline – does that make me evil?

retail-apocalypse-timeline-3-15-18

Credit to CBInsights who has been doing excellent analysis with the right amount of snark.

The Batman Effect

Researchers from the University of Minnesota and Hamilton College studied work perseverance in four and six year olds and found that those kids pretending to be superheroes (loosely defined as Batman, Bob the Builder, Rapunzel and Dora the Explorer) worked more than those who were asked to think of themselves in the first person or those who were just being “me” (World Economic Forum, 12.4.17).

Makes sense. I’d be a much better librarian if I could imagine myself to be Bunny Watson in Desk Set or Sydney Bristow in Alias or yes, even and especially, Wonder Woman.

The Cancer Post

Not so bad, this one.

Just saw this article, er comic, on Vox – “I had cancer. This comic shows how much pressure I felt to be a hero.” It’s about pervasive cancer culture and how it makes it even tougher to fit in and to fight the disease. Even that word “fight” becomes laden with misconceptions. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I do like the use of the word “survivor.”

This week, too, NPR tells us, “Cancer Is Partly Caused By Bad Luck, Study Finds.” I can’t help but be drawn to these headlines even though I’m not sure exactly what to do with them.

All in a week’s work of surviving.

Hanging Around

“I think journalists could learn a lot from hanging around with successful librarians.”