Monthly Archives: January 2012

Dark Star

I went to see the Dark Star Orchestra not long ago,  For those of you unfamiliar with DSO, they deliver what can best be described as the Grateful Dead experience, often better than The Dead themselves did.

lighting bold in red and blue square.

Image via Wikipedia

They play Dead shows – we saw one from May, 1972 – as the band did.  They look like them, they sound like them (and in fact are way more consistently good on a night after night basis) and if you shut your eyes, you can be at a Dead show from whatever decade they’ve chosen to present.

“Interesting,” you say, “but what’s the business point?  Good question. Continue reading

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Filed under Thinking Aloud

What’s A Bagel?

Those of you in the NYC area have heard of Stew Leonard’s.  For the rest of you, Stew’s began as a dairy store (Clover Farms I believe) and is a sort of supermarket combined with a theme park and petting zoo.  Don’t go on the weekend or after school hours!

Stew Leonard's

Image via Wikipedia

Recently, a local blogger pointed out yet another quirk (I’m being overly pleasant here) of the “I’m entitled” behavior which runs rampant around here:  that of eating much of what Stew sells while you shop by a tiny minority of the customer base.  I read Dan’s initial piece and shook my head in sympathy, or at least until a follow-up piece yesterday that featured a great business insight from Stew Junior who now runs the company.  I think we can all learn from it.

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Filed under digital media, Reality checks

3 Reasons Companies Aren’t In Social (Yet…)

Let’s start the year with a quick report on a survey released over the holidays wich you might have missed (the study, not the holidays – hope you had great ones!).  It comes from InSites Consulting via eMarketer and the report begins with the understatement of the year (which at this point is pretty easy to be).  The topic is social media, something that as we enter 2012 is not a “what” but a “how” issue for most businesses.  But let’s start at the beginning. Continue reading

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