There’s The Big Three from Detroit, now jetless and nibbling on humble pie as they carpool it to Washington armed with their freshly minted ’strategic’ plans so they can continue to troll for trillions.

Then there’s The Big Three from California, who in heated competition, each released new technology that’s projected to generate some hefty revenue.

An excerpt from today’s Seeking Alpha:

The three horse race between Facebook, Google, and MySpace to achieve dominance in the internet identity space doesn’t appear to be letting up any. It isn’t a mere coincidence that both Facebook and Google have announced their public launches on the same day; both are struggling to establish themselves as the de facto standard for both developers and end users. MySpace managed to beat out both Facebook and Google months ago when it publicly launched its service.

Which is why I wholeheartedly agree with the mavericky (and oddly charged) Mark Cuban who declared mere days after the Election that Obama had made his 1st big mistake.

Unfortunately, the economic advisory team that he has put together looks more like a semester’s worth of great guest speakers for an MBA class than an economic advisory team that can truly help him.

There are a lot of great minds on the list.

“Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Laura Tyson, who served as Clinton’s top economic adviser; former Fed Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson; Time Warner Inc. Chairman Richard Parsons; former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman William Donaldson and Xerox Corp. Chief Executive Officer Anne Mulcahy.

Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and Roel Campos, an ex-SEC commissioner, and Warren Buffett are also on the advisory board.”

Notice anything missing ?

Not a single entrepreneur. Yes Warren Buffett started a business, but he will be the first to tell you that he “doesn’t do start ups”. Which means there isn’t a single person advising PE Obama that we know of that knows that its like to start and run a business in this or any economic climate. That’s a huge problem.

So here we are in the midst of a (insert scary word), (insert scarier word) recession, with the media convincing us that we all should be cowed and question ‘the American way’, and yet these Big Three geeks are still scrapping in the schoolyard to beat each other to the punch. Silicon Valley and its neighbors to the South practice a quirky version of spiritual capitalism, worshipping gamesmanship and brainpower, and it’s this bootstrapping version of business that needs to be well represented in Washington as President Elect Obama assembles his economic team.

Certainly, the man who used social media to the max in his winning campaign has to include brainiacs beyond academics, politicians and big business, yes?

Guru’s Note: Thankfully, Eric Schmidt of Google is on board, although has reportedly turned down the first-ever office of CTO.

So I wonder what all those pigeons in San Marcos Square think of this?

I’m actually grateful to this guy Matt. His utterly shameless promotion via press release, social networks, and probably skywriting over Atlanta raises an issue that quite frankly, needs to be discussed:

Is there any correlation between the number of friends or followers on various social networking sites and strategic business savvy? If you have 500 friends, are you better able to counsel your clients? Does maxing out Facebook or Twitter automatically make you better at PR, better at marketing, better at anything?

Is it possible, even using the awesome tools now available to us, to create actual relationships of any kind with a social network of 5000? Can you have real conversations? Can you genuinely contribute? Or is it merely a matter of using your Uzi-style technology to power-shoot links?

And most of all, most importantly to anyone considering creating corporate, non-profit, or any kind of business strategy, are you listening? Are you paying attention to the fiercely fascinating fray of humanity out there? At the heart of Web 2.5 is two-way dialogue. If your focus lies solely in generating hardcore numbers, is power-listening even possible?

Matt’s not the only one out there, not the only pretender-to-the-business-throne promoting, pushing and claiming that Vegas-izing the numbers is a true business or sales builder. No, this new uber-social world is jam-packed with people who might consider getting a real job and learning some actual skills beyond self-promotion.

In the meantime, this press release is worth reading, if only for a little levity in the midst of the screamworthy news on CNN and CNBC.

The Powerful Promoter Promotes Himself Straight to the Top of Twitter - Matt Bacak Achieves Another Social Networking Milestone

Suwanee, GA (PRWEB) December 2, 2008 — What’s better than soaring to the top of a popular social networking site? How about skyrocketing to the summit of two of them? That’s the envious position The Powerful Promoter, Matt Bacak, found himself in last month when he entered the Twitter elite. Proving just how powerful his Internet marketing promotional strategies are, Bacak not only became a top three Atlanta Twitterer, but he currently outranks 99.9% of all members of the site. Internet marketers who would like to follow The Powerful Promoter’s tweets and improve their own promotional efforts can do so online at http://twitter.com/mattbacak.

Matt Bacak
According to Nielson Online, Twitter is the fastest growing social networking site, achieving a 343% growth rate between September 2007 and September 2008. Facebook came in at the number six spot, growing 116% over the same time period. For obvious reasons, landing in the top tier of either of these social media giants could boost an Internet marketer’s career, but accomplishing it in both is an almost guaranteed catapult into the stratosphere. Well, that’s exactly what Matt Bacak has just done.

Earlier this year, Bacak hit the 5,000 friends’ mark on Facebook to land in the top 500 members. Now he’s entered the Twitter elite, where, as of press time, he sat firmly in the number three slot among all Atlanta, Ga., Twitterers. That position places him handily ahead of the hometown big business competition: Home Depot. Consistently ranking in his region’s top ten, Bacak also ranks 468 out of 506,626 Twitterers worldwide.

Wikipedia describes Twitter as a “social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send and read other users’ updates (a.k.a. “tweets”), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. The service touts itself as a way to communicate and stay connected with others through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? By one measure, Twitter had well over five million visitors in September 2008. That figure represents a fivefold increase in just one month and equates to three out of every 1,000 Internet users.

“Anyone can call their promotional abilities ‘powerful’ but I actually prove that mine are,” says Matt Bacak of his most recent accomplishment. “I consistently rank in the top 500 Twitterers on the Net. If you were an Internet marketer who wanted to improve your promotional game, who would you trust? Someone who is all talk and no action, or someone who actually walks the talk?”

For more information on Bacak’s ascent to the Twitter top, contact Stephanie Bunn at (770) 271-1536. To learn more about the promotional strategies Bacak leveraged to get there, visit him online at http://www.powerfulpromoter.com.

Many thanks to @MaryHodder, who tweeted this story and link.

Last year I noticed that women were once again proudly displaying their breasts.

No, I’m not gay and no, I’m not some kind of pervert. My world has simply been so permeated by the ‘business casual’ of faded jeans, indy-band T-shirt and scruffy runners or the Dockeresque chic of Mommalution uniforms that the mere sight of curve-hugging fabric and plunging necklines was a smidgen of a shocker. Yet second-skin tops and stilettos were suddenly everywhere, along with the enthusiastic return of fishnets.  Photographer Monica Michelle is swamped with bookings for Boudoir sessions while ‘Bliss Pleasure Party’ entrepreneur Chrystal Bougon can barely keep up with demand for lacy lingerie and sexy toys.

At a Girls in Tech event in San Francisco, my fellow panelist the bodacious author Sarah Lacy, was mobbed afterwards by fans who were as likely to have questions about her fab boots as her fab book.

In May, Sex and the City smashed all box office estimates. We saw it at a theater in Santa Monica that was sold out from the first showing straight through midnight. Glam girls lined up in their Jimmy Choos, giggling with their own Samanthas, Charlottes, Mirandas and Carries. It was full court femme power, and I realized that girly glam was not just a budding trend but was in full lush bloom.

Several recent ethnography projects have yielded an emerging Persona — the Girly Green or the Glam Green, if not quite the Sexy Sustainable. This intriguing psychographic is as apt to be interested in Day to Night Barbie as she is a non-toxic ingredient. Can we have sparkle and shimmer and wrap it all up in natural green tea and shaved ginger? Can we have a Girls Night In, with organic spa smoothers and fragrant Lush balls melting in the tub? Can we forever lose the image of Berkeley granola ‘crunchies’ in Birkenstocks and replace it with the ’sexy, smart green living’ of new site EcoStiletto?

Fashionista sites like Style Hive, the 44-million-unique viewers per month strong Glam Media, and runner-up, the Sugar Network,continue to morph into Internet power players. Even newcomer BettyConfidential, initially positioned as a forum for women across many life stages, has reinvented itself with uber-girly stories about lipstick, sex and harem pants.

And then there’s Project Runway, the hit reality show that made sewing machines and tape measures sexy. “Fashion is the new food” declared one publication. Icon Tim Gunn chimed in with ‘It’s crack. It’s addictive.” Ratings continue to rise with each successive season.

So does all this girly glam mean that voila! women have finally achieved so much equality that we can now afford to literally let it all hang out? That women no longer need to dress or behave like men? That we have choices — every permutation of chic from chictini to Hillary’s custom pantsuits to Sarah Palin’s much ballyhooed booty from Saks?

Some thoughts:

For Marketers:

• Make no assumptions.Just when you thought that those 82 million Moms with their 85% of US purchasing power are marching into stores lugging their big green eco-purses, you may discover they’re actually clutching Kate Spade’s shiny new thing and tottering on their Naughty Monkeys, thanks to Zappos’ 400 employees’ persuasive customer service tweets. 
• In the early days of the Internet, we could get away with creating one persona –e.g. ‘Abby’ aka Mrs. P&G. No more. Women are schizo, splintered and trying to have it all, if only for as long as they can get a babysitter.
• If you had a solid Social Media Research program in place, along with an evolving Social Media strategy, you wouldn’t be wondering what this trend means. You’d know.

For The Rest of You:

The generations that grew up on the Marlo Thomas mantra Free to be you and me are doing just that.

Guru’s Note: If you’ve enjoyed this excerpt, stay tuned for my upcoming book, the trend guide: Rock Your Future.

Forget all those bland, boring, brunette-centric keyboards once foisted upon us by bland, boring, brunette manufacturers. Finally, here is the Geek Chic we Blondes deserve.  

European Trends has already released their hot pink Keyboard for Blondes in the U.K. and based on a strange video now available on youtube, it’s also sparking some major Blonde Moments in Russia.

The pink keyboard swaps out standard keys with more blonde-appropriate names. The backspace key now says “Oops!” and the entire row of function keys spells out USELESS KEYS. Hit the “$” sign and you get the sound of a cash register clinking.

The Keyboard even has special keys that type out “OMG,” “ALI” (Absolutely Love It!), or “XOXO.”

The best? The Caps Lock now says: “Warning! size XXL letters.”

At $49.95, it’s compatible with Mac, Windows, Linux, and Paris Hilton.

Thanks to CNET Crave.

Besides, who doesn’t want a hot new assistant?

Here’s Mr. Tweet’s bio line on Twitter: I am your personal twitter assistant - add me as a friend, and I’ll suggest to you which influencers and followers you should check out. (More coming soon! )

Mr. Tweet is exploding out of stealth start-up, as thousands flock to this neat new way to optimize Twitter.

In fact, Mr. Tweet is so busy that as of today, he tells me it will take ‘roughly 94 hours to be ready to serve you.’ He did apologize profusely. Hey, it ain’t easy being the new tweet on the block.

While you’re waiting for Mr. Tweet to serve you up neat new information, ideas and inspiration, go check out Mark “Rizzin” Hopkins’ post on Mashable.

Mr. Tweet was created by: mingyeow and ambivalence.

The old-fashioned, Leave It To Beaver, church-basement concept of the Potluck Supper is back in style.

For those of you who missed this very 50’s ‘harvest gold, Kraft Recipe way of life: a Potluck supper is one in which everybody brings a ‘covered dish’ to the table. Usually this is a family favorite, a specialty of each particular cook. One woman may bring her Sunday best chicken casserole; another brings his homemade wheatberry muffins; yet another bakes up a sumptuous Red Devil’s food cake. And so on and so forth, until the table is rich with the imaginative recipes of each of the chefs.

A potluck gives everyone a chance to shine in their own special way. No one dish is the star; no one cook dons the apron. Which is why, even if you haven’t potlucked in eons, you ought to think about the enduring idea behind it.

In life, we all bring something to the table. Some of us are talented artists, others excel at sports, others are savvy in business. No one quality is necessarily greater than another– no one talent whups another. Sometimes we meet someone and say ‘Wow, look at the way she aced that serve. I can’t do that!’ Or ‘gee, he’s really great at closing a deal. Sure wish I was that good.’ We tunk ourselves because we feel we don’t stack up. Sometimes we let this stop us from trying, from going further, from expressing our own abilities — whatever they are, wherever they may be on the path to excellence.

That’s when we need to remember the concept of Potluck. Each of us, every single human being, brings something unique to the table. Each of us brings something worth sharing. Whether it’s boundless ideas and energy (Adryenn), an eye for making everyone look their photographic best (Monica), the gift of loving support (Allie), creative business savvy (Claire) or style to die for (Corinne) . . . all are making an important contribution. It takes everyone, every flavor, every taste and texture, every dish to make a Potluck.

Today, more and more people are RSVP-ing a resounding YES to the new Potluck Economy. We’re bartering, trading, link-exchanging, Freecycling, donating, giving of ourselves and our stuff in a myriad of imaginative ways. New technology is letting us collaborate, communicate, co-work and co-create. We’re couch surfing, ooffoo-ing and crowdsourcing.  We’re innovating breakthrough ways of working, living and being. It’s definitely not business as usual. Thank God.

This then, is the new Potluck Economy. Welcome to the table. What will you bring?

Guru’s Note:  This is an excerpt from my upcoming book:  Rock Your Future. The New Trends, Tips & Tricks.

Guru’s Update: Here’s a good article on bartering from the Monterey Herald.

It took more than a half-century for focus groups to die. From their invention in the 1940’s via noted sociologist Robert K. Merton through their glory days in the 80’s and 90’s, last century’s leading qualitative methodology had a great run. It wasn’t until 2005 or so, when then Yahoo CMO Cammie Dunaway plotted to ‘kill’ all the focus groups and author Douglas Rushkoff dubbed them ‘useless’ that the death knell officially sounded. Yes, there was a sputtering revival or two. (Online focus groups) But CNN finally nailed them completely with this year’s Election Coverage of perpetually undecided voters, ‘moderator’ Soledad O’Brien, and the ratings-friendly perceptual analyzer dials decorating the screen in happy primary colors.

Which is why (as a veteran Focus Group moderator and advocate) I was so surprised and gratified to read the latest news on last weekend’s wildfire VOM (Voice of Moms) aka Motrin Gate. Ad Age details the frenzied timeline plus the general take-away, including this paragraph:

Ultimately, Ms. Presnal (key Mommy blogger) said she sympathizes with J&J’s plight after having received at least two e-mails from (VP) Ms. Widmer last week. Reading from one, she noted that J&J had worked with focus groups of moms in developing the campaign.

“We listened extensively to moms, the insights about their lives, and how their pain impacts them,” Ms. Presnal said, reading from Ms. Widmer’s e-mail. She continued from the e-mail: “I think where this went wrong was the creative expression we used. … The tone was intended to be real and lighthearted, but it came off as irreverent. … We did conduct focus groups with moms. But truthfully they probably weren’t extensive enough to uncover this.”

Mon dieu! Amazingly, the ‘creative’ is getting blamed here. No quotes about how ‘useless’ or ‘dishonest’ the Focus Groups were. The only perceived glitch in the groups is that J&J believes they didn’t do enough of them.

With hundreds of Focus Groups under my moderator’s black belt, I certainly understand both the limitations of the tried-and-true and the temptation to switch to the newer, sexier Social Media Research methodologies.  I am deep into shiny new things myself: Twitter Product Parties, Hybrid Chats, Buzz Audits and Crowdsourcing Polls.  In fact, more than half of my research requests in the past 6 months have come from clients itching to jump on the intriguing Social Media Research bandwagon.  There’s good news from key social networking fronts: both Facebook and Linkedin have big plans to help researchers get uber-targeted, fresher data.

Still, I have to defend the original concept of Focus Groups, which I firmly believe is still viable — when effectively designed and conducted.

Guru’s Note:  Stay tuned for Part 2: Five tips to bring your (traditional, that is, f2f) Focus Groups into the 21st Century.

The best design ideas are so elegant in their simplicity most of us feel like dunderheads for not thinking of them.

Here from Jonas Trampedach comes one of those ideas: The Tea Bag Coffin.

With the ‘Tea bag Coffin’, the drinker can tidily bury the bag under the cup and out of the way.”

Well, duh.

(Thanks to Likecool.com)

Note2Self: Do NOT beta test anything on the Blackberry. Do not even fall for version 1.1. No matter how cool it seems, no matter how easily it installs. No matter how many blogs swear that it’s ready for prime time.

Note2Self #2: The next time you hear the siren-call of “state of the art voice recognition software” or even “Voice-enabled”, RUN for the hills, even if said hills are teeming with rattlesnakes like the ones here in Carmel Valley. Haven’t you been falling for those sexy vox promises going way back to Dragon Naturally Speaking Software circa 1996?

Here’s what the smart folks at the usually reliable Lifehack said about Vlingo:

Voice-enable your Blackberry with Vlingo, which goes beyond voice-dialing to voice-texting and even voice-emailing. Vlingo takes over one of your Blackberry’s application keys (my Curve has two, one on each side; I’ve assigned it to the one on the right, the one that controls the camera by default). Hold the key down, say a command, and Vlingo goes to work. For example, I say “Send email to Bob Smith subject You’re an idiot Message You forgot to take the coffee off your car’s roof as you drove away” and Vlingo creates an email reading “You forgot to take the coffee off your car’s roof as you drove away” with the subject line “You’re an idiot” and the email address from Bob Smith from my Blackberry’s address book. You can search the web, update your Facebook status, create tasks and memos, even open built-in applications and a handful of third-party Vlingo-enabled apps, all using your voice.

It would be so lovely if the above gushing geeky paragraph were true. But aside from the disappearing phonebook and email snafu, what I got when speaking clearly and distinctly into my beloved Berry “I am testing Vlingo and sending a message to you” was “D lingo is beating Paul with you.” Now folks, I am a former (really bad) weathergirl and (really good) dj. I rid myself of any lingering Cheesehead accents years ago. So when I tried again with my perfectly enunciated vowels and consonants, and the text that emerged from Vlingo was “org hooking by d ing”, I reluctantly resigned myself to the currently sorry state of Voice-enabled technology and hit delete.

Note2Self#3: Before installing any new app, check to make sure that the FAQ includes UNINSTALL directions in addition to INSTALL. Nowhere on Vlingo’s site — including the Troubleshooting and User Info — could I find information on how to UNINSTALL. And an email sent to them has so far gone unanswered.