From the monthly archives:

November 2008

Stillborn innovation at Campbell’s

November 25, 2008

Late last year, a colleague left my place of employment to go work for Campbell’s soup as a Director of Innovation. She sent an email to a bunch of folks with her new contact info and at the end of her email it said “eat a lot of soup”. My initial reaction was that this […]

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Rite Aid makes the lifetime boycott list!

November 24, 2008

About a month ago I went to Rite Aid to buy some Pepto. I happened to walk by the shelf with deodorant and saw that the product I use had a $5 rebate. (There was a sign on the shelf.) So I picked up the deodorant. I asked the clerk how to redeem the rebate […]

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A huge miss for Starbucks

November 23, 2008

On a recent trip to my local Starbucks, I saw a brochure for the new Starbucks Gold card. I was intrigued. I’ve been going there a lot and the 10% discount attracted me. But I have to admit somewhat sheepishly that I was also attracted by the thought of being in this elite club. Starbucks […]

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Is it always moral to push consumers to consume?

November 14, 2008

I am getting a lot more emails from retailers I have purchased from. These emails are offering all sorts of incentives for me to purchase. Now I haven’t called this spam (I know there is a formal definition) because I don’t really mind getting these emails from retailers I like. And if I do, I […]

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Chill out for charity

November 10, 2008

A few weeks ago I participated in a fundraiser for charity, the Walk for Hope in Potomac, Maryland (info here). The reason I participated is that I was invited by a friend who is, herself, a breast cancer survivor. And, of course, I think it is a good cause. To be clear, participation meant that […]

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A miss by Ben & Jerry

November 4, 2008

I saw that Ben & Jerry’s advertised free ice cream on election day. So I told my future ex-wife (FEW) who was home with the kids today. She took them and found out that they were only giving ice cream to the voters. That’s a big miss as far as I’m concerned. They should have […]

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How about we actually educate kids on election day!

November 4, 2008

What is the deal with closing schools on election day? I think it’s all wrong. Kids should be in school learning. It’s not like we have such a high-performance education system in the US that we can afford to cancel a perfectly good day for learning. Now I’ve read that many public schools cancel classes […]

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The consequences of over-regulation

November 2, 2008

We live in an over-regulated society. The government tells us what kind of toilets we can use, how our homes must be built… It’s crazy! Well apparently, all of the regulations that could possibly have been created by our way too intrusive state, have already been created. So now all that is left is for […]

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