DIAL LOG

Disney Photo Collages

As part of an upcoming celebration at the Disneyland® Resort, people are being asked to submit photos from their visits to the parks which, if chosen, will be included in a series of photo collages. Though it may seem silly to some, I sent in photos from our first visit with our […]

Soft Sell

The January 2005 issue of Fast Company magazine has a great article entitled “The Soft Cell” (pp 72-73, not available online) which profiles CDW’s success through relationship selling.  CDW positions itself as a partner, not merely a vendor.  They are there more to solve problems than sell products.  By solving its customer’s problems, CDW […]

Nature Favors the Extremes

As a follow-up to my Q&A with Laura Ries a couple of months ago I recently asked for her thoughts on a particular case of a company going to the extreme – Hardee’s and its Monster Thickburger with 1420 calories and 107 grams of fat.  Here is what she had […]

More TV’s

According to a Nielsen Media Research survey published in The New York Times, 23% of U.S. households (25 million) now have four or more televisions (up from 19% last year).  On the other end of the scale is 23 million households with only one. I have three.  How many do you have? via […]

Top 1000 Things You Need To Know

Seth Godin has started a list of the 1000 things everyone should start learning as of third grade.  An interesting exercise to which I’ll add my two-cents: How to make an effective argument. How to negotiate. How to physically defend oneself. The value and power of kindness. How to write basic HTML. […]

One Million Dollars (plus shipping)

I hesitate to post this because I really don’t want to give this stunt any more publicity, but I just have to say something…this guy is auctioning off a pair of his used sneakers for $1,000,000 and will only cover shipping if the buyer is in the United States?!?  An international buyer will […]

Honda Tries to Hook Kids

As a means of marketing its new family vehicle, the FR-V, Honda has created a marketing brochure for kids that is available alongside regular brochures in UK dealerships. The piece, catering on reverse sides to 4-7 year-olds and 8-10 year-olds, includes games, puzzles and interesting facts about the vehicle (like how long one takes […]

TiVo Wants to Stop Generic Use of Name

TiVo is aggressively trying to stop the use of its trademarked name as a generic term, especially as a verb, as in, “I TiVoed my favorite show last night” or, “I’m going to TiVo that tonight.”  As quoted by a TiVo spokesperson in The New York Times… ‘We do aggressively protect our trademark,’ […]

15,073,280 16,777,216

With clearly too much time on my hands this morning, I found myself wondering how many cells one could have in an Excel spreadsheet. Turns out (unless I’m mistaken, which is totally possible, but I doubt it) the answer is 15,073,280.  I was able to scroll down to row 65,536 and over to column […]