The Feel Good Economy

From the January 2010 Globe and Mail Report on Business Magazine   If you want to make people feel good about your company, it doesn’t hurt to make them feel good about themselves “Paying it forward” is an old idea with new life lately. Brands as different from one another as Dove, Starbucks, TalkTalk wireless…

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Wacky Pack Stories: Hostile Thinkies

My best friend’s name was Sten, as in Stendhal. As in Stendhal Beauregard-Vincent, his father having been important at one point in France. Then he (Sten’s father) had decided to grow a beard, become a boat designer and move to West Van. He designed sailboats for quite a few famous people, including the catamaran that song writer was later found dead in, floating off…

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The Boutique Individual: Brand New World

PART THREE: BRAND™ NEW WORLD, December 2006 My mother took a conservative position on toys: Less was better, in part because you should be outside playing anyway. I might have preferred a different approach. But now that I have a two-year-old boy and toys are again on my radar, I see the wisdom of my…

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The Boutique Individual: Personal Branding

PART TWO: PERSONAL BRANDING, Sep 2006 Everywhere I look in Sketch – Mourad Mazouz’s ultrafabulous London restaurant – I find whimsical, innovative ideas. Ever-changing video wallpaper in the bistro. Unisex bathrooms with individual pod enclosures. And on the plate too, where a typical chef Pierre Gagnaire menu experiments to the tune of Smoked Fish with…

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The Boutique Individual: Corporate Storytelling

Orange Crush soda cans

PART ONE: CORPORATE STORYTELLING, June 2006 When I was six years old, I went with an older cousin to look at sailboats in Fisherman’s Cove in West Vancouver. At the gas station opposite the marina, he parked his 1969 Dodge Charger and offered to buy sodas. What about one of these? He indicated his favourite:…

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