One “W” We Love: The Walter Towers in Prague.
Ahh-inspiring architecture; this time the giant Walter Towers project in Prague, designed by the architects Bjarke Ingels Group.
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So Much For The Sore Ankle. Brett the Jet Throws Six Touchdown Passes Against the Cardinals to Win Big.
Brett the New Jet threw a career-high and Jets-record six touchdown passes, tying with the last Jet who had any claim to fame, Broadway Joe Namath. New York took advantage of a series of mistakes by Arizona in a big second quarter before holding on to beat the Cardinals 56-35 on Sunday.
Guru’s Note: Ex Cal Golden Bear, now Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers hurt his right shoulder during a 30-21 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Packers don’t expect to know how serious the injury is until Monday.
Guru’s Note #2: While some would quibble that my frequent coverage of anything Brett, Golden Bears and Green Bay does not qualify as the new product development that’s this blog’s mantra, I would argue that football delivers new products every Saturday and Sunday.
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And in Pebble Beach, Rocks Rock.
Yes, there is something to do in Pebble Beach besides golf.
These Zen-graceful rock columns, some as high as 5 feet, started appearing a few weeks ago on a stretch of white sand on the beach at Spanish Bay. This past Wednesday, 50 or so people showed up to stack the rocks , most tourists who happen to spot the columns as they wind around the awe-inspiring homes and seascape of 17-Mile Drive.
Source: Monterey Herald.
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Girls Rock. Especially with Pink and Purple Zebra Guitars Made for Wii and PS2.
Calling all tweenage girls. Or anyone who just happens to love pink, purple zebra and hearts. Thanks to Radio Disney faves AJ and Aly plus video gaming pros PDP, it’s gonna be a Rockin’ October. That’s when fashionista-femmes who love Guitar Hero and Rock Band can take their perky pick of two girly game controllers created for the Wii and Playstation2. No more yucky boy-bandish designs to ruin your stylin Guitar Hero session. With a babysitting-savings price of $69.99, fans can choose either the hot red skull and crossbones design or the Girl Power Pink guitar with purple zebra print.
Guru’s Note: To see why this is such a genius marketing move, check out the new study on Teens, Video Games and Civics from the Pew Internet Center, which puts the percentage of American teens who game at close to 100% –in deep defiance of the assumption that gaming is solely a boys club. Thanks to the proliferation of virtual worlds, games/widgets on social media like Facebook and MySpace and soon, these new uber-femme-targeted accessories, something like half of all teens are playing games on any given day. Pew’s stereotype-shattering research is the first national survey of its kind and is definitely a must-read for anyone working in this category. (Moi!) It’s obviously a study Radio Disney, EA, Nintendo and PDP have already devoured.
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Awwww. Garbage Bags So Cute, You’ll Want to Take the Trash IN.
A Japanese creative group, MAQ, has succeeded in making garbage bags adorable. The aim of Rabbit-Kun is to inspire a more responsibly eco attitude about waste so that people will carry their trash home rather than leave it outdoors. Kind of a cute version of ‘Leave no trace behind.’
The aww-inducing sack is the latest in a MAQ’s collection of Garbage Bag Art Work. Other colorfully cute creations include bags decorated with fish, flowers and pine trees. There’s even a bag starring Sesame Street’s trashy Oscar the Grouch, created as part of an eco-program for kids.
Now if they can only forget the plastic and transfer their cutesy-wootsy Garbage Art to eco-bags. Hemp Hare anyone?
Thanks to Elit Alice.
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New From Seventh Generation: Create A Virtual Tree with Your Own Green-Friendly Ingredients.
The point of all this creativity is to emphasize the importance of knowing and showing what’s inside the products we use. Seventh Generation makes safe, non-toxic products for your home and family and their site is rich with widgets, tools and blogs like Ask Science Man and Inspired Protagonist in support of eco-education.
The virtual tree builder lets visitors select a tree shape and type in whatever ingredients they choose. The site then searches the internet for your choices and you can watch the tree bloom with branches that include images of your selected ingredients. You can then save your tree to a virtual forest, watch video clips detailing Seventh Gen’s manifesto and scan a label reading guide that includes downloadable widgets for your mobile devices. If you name your tree, Seventh Generation will send you coupons and special offers.
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Guru’s Note: The essence of doing Usability Testing is to try to break the site. That’s why I couldn’t resist trying to break my virtual tree. So I entered ingredients like: Parabens, SLES, SLS, talc, phenonip and that old reliable Phthlates. I just wanted to see if they would let me build a toxic tree or if they would send me a Red Alert. It turns out: neither. The first time I tried it, I got a simple message saying: Ingredients not found. The second time, the tree just vanished, never to return.
Guru’s Note #2: Given my proclivity toward playing with widgets, especially do-gooder green widgets, and given the sudden profusion of such things, I’ve decided it’s time to cry foul. Shouldn’t there be some point to these Gidgets (green widgets) beyond being semi-engaging and merely seeming green? When I heard about Seventh Generation’s new tool, I thought it would really be a tool . . . that is, something that would help me find healthier household products. I thought that when I entered my favorite ingredients in my Virtual Tree, the tree would be ‘blooming’ not just with pictures of orange slices and olive oil, but with actual products created from those ingredients. I thought I could find out about new products and maybe even order them. I was even ready to accept a tree ablaze with only Seventh Generation products. But instead, nada. Thanks to my choice of favorite green ingredients, the Guru of New Tree was laden with glossy graphics of Lemon Drop Martinis and Mai Tais decorated with Hibiscus petals.
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SoCal’s Legendary Sprinkles Cupcakes Opens in Palo Alto.
If you ever thought a cupcake is a cupcake is a cupcake, you’ve never tasted Sprinkles.
Talk about droolworthy. Each scratch-baked, hand-frosted frou-frou is a mini masterpiece of mmmm. Flavors change daily, giving you an almost plausible excuse to keep trying new ones. Splurge with Red Velvet, Peanut Butter Chocolate, Ginger Lemon, Chai Latte, Coconut, Vanilla Milk Chocolate, Orange and oodles more.
Check out the new store at luxe shopping center Stanford Court in Palo Alto. 393 Stanford Court. 650-323-9300.
Guru’s Note: Order Sprinkles for that office birthday party or as a gift. They deliver!
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Trend Spotting For Springwise at San Francisco’s Outside Lands Festival.
Frequent Guru of New readers know I love tuning in to cool-hunting site Springwise for my fix of droolworthy new business ideas.
Springwise is powered by the Springspotter Network, a team of global marketing-savvy spotters who recognize a juicy new trend when they come across one.
Are you surprised to hear I happen to be one of those Springspotters?
Today I was jazzed to discover one of the ‘hot spots’ I contributed is featured in this week’s edition:
It’s one thing to offer luxury portable toilets for hire at private events, the way Igloo does. For a company like Visa to sponsor similar upscale conveniences as a privilege for its customer members, however, is quite another matter.
Yet that’s just what Visa did this summer at San Francisco’s Outside Lands music and arts festival, where it set up a VIP Signature Lounge reserved exclusively for the use of its cardholders. Those in possession of a Visa Signature card could gain access to private luxury restrooms a far cry above the porta-potties provided for the masses, along with a private bar and a free blanket gift for visiting the lounge. For entry, cardholders had simply to present their Visa Signature card, their ID and any valid festival ticket.
In addition to sympvertising—infusing one’s advertising with a dash of sympathy for consumers’ current plight—Visa’s effort provides a nice illustration of what our sister site trendwatching.com would call a brand butler offering, giving consumers some free but relevant assistance (branded, of course) to make their lives easier. Whether it’s a luxury loo or laundry service at a festival, consumers today are more likely to accept help from your brand than they are to listen to your ads. So put your money where your customers are, in their real-world lives, and give them a hand! They might just repay your kindness sometime. 
Website: www.visa.com/signature
Contact: https://corporate.visa.com/ut/contactus.jsp
Spotted by: Sarah Browne
Guru’s Note: Visa also happens to be smartly creating a presence on Facebook with its Visa Business Network. The network has 1753 fans, largely thanks to a terrific $100 ad credit, which gives businesses an opportunity to experiment with the increasingly effective Facebook’s mini ads.
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Wiki Launches The New Wikia Green
Do we need another green site?
Wiki Founder Jimmy Wales seems to think so.
Wikia Green launched last week, with the mission of creating a valuable resource for all things green and is based on the wildly successful Wiki platform.
‘A dynamic new ecology resource’, the site is already rich in consumer-generated-content with some 600 posted articles which span the green spectrum: lifestyle, travel, activism, how-to guides, climate change and technology.
According to sexy, sustainable style partner ecofabulous.com, the site was created by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. Wikia Green was the love child born when Wales met Al Gore, just before Gore received his Nobel Prize. After researching existing green resources, Wales realized that information about green topics was scattered and often overly scientific. Wikia Green took shape from his desire to unite the passion of the green community into one highly accessible resource.
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The New York Times Calls the New Microsoft ‘I’m a PC’ TV Commercials Risky — Guru Calls Them Right On.
Last Thursday Microsoft switched to the next phase of its $300 million television campaign. Thank God.
I can’t imagine why the New York Times considers it both ambitious and risky. Risky is being so bland, BS-sy and boring that your chief rival Apple is allowed to brand-nap your product and millions of users.
While some found the quixotic commercials featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld in search of real people worth a watercooler chat, many (including moi) found them baffling. But after the many years I spent working on Microsoft projects, I have a pretty good grasp of why the company felt it needed to take a gigantic leap away from advertising as usual.
Happily, ad agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky could tap into local talent. In recent years, Bill has decidedly morphed away from being the Evil Dictator of the Evil Empire to becoming a kind of folksy spokes-geek. He always played that role in the playful company videos that typically first aired during his Comdex or CES keynotes. It suits him.
The new campaign, which carries the theme “Windows. Life without walls,” still features Bill, this time in a cameo role, with the humble-pie email address: bill@windows.com. In the new spots, he is surrounded by everyone from celebrities like Deepak Chopra and Eva Longoria to everyday PC users, from scientists and fashion designers to shark hunters and teachers, showing off their individualism. And their pride in using their PCs.
But what it really does well is what everyone says Obama should do — hit hard at the competition.
The new “I’m a PC” spots are so right on, even for this proud owner of a glossy green Mac Book, that all I can say is ‘It’s about time.’
PS: The new ‘I’m a PC’ group on Facebook already has 527 members.
Update: Straight from Appleinsider’s Irony Files comes this tidbit — the ‘I’m A PC’ commercials were actually made on Macs. A Flickr user named LuisDS made the discovery. AppleInsider says he found traces of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system and Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 in the metadata files of the video.
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