joe penrod: Deflated.

• Software Usability – The “Harry Potter” Solution

  "The idea was inspired by an article I read in the Harvard Business Review…dubbed “Harry Potter marketing” (for the well-known fictional character who ages with his readers), the authors contend that… Rather than targeting a certain age group, either implicitly or explicitly, with each of their brands — and then attempting to transition their customers from one brand to the next as they age — the article suggests marketing the same product to the same customers throughout their entire lifetimes, and evolving the product along with that customer segment. So a given face cream, say, might originally be formulated for women in their twenties, and its formulation changed gradually over the decades so that those same women could continue to use it their whole lives. Meanwhile, a new brand would be launched a decade later for the next generation of twenty-somethings, which would grow up with that brand…

• http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124838091

  French documentary recreates Stanley Milgram experiment and has game show contestants shocking a contestant (actor) when he gets questions wrong. 80% of participants kept "shocking" the actor even when he screamed out for them to stop.

The inevitable question is, How much of this industry is sincere? Last year, shortly after the election, Beck spoke with TIME’s Kate Pickert, and he didn’t sound very scared back then. Of Obama’s early personnel decisions, he said, “I think so far he’s chosen wisely.” Of his feelings about the President: “I am not an Obama fan, but I am a fan of our country … He is my President, and we must have him succeed. If he fails, we all fail.” Of the Democratic Party: “I don’t know personally a single Democrat who is a dope-smoking hippie that wants to turn us into Soviet Russia.” Of the civic duty to trust: “We’ve got to pull together, because we are facing dark, dark times. I don’t trust a single weasel in Washington. I don’t care what party they’re from. But unless we trust each other, we’re not going to make it.”

“How can we trust each other, though, when the integrated economy of ranters and their delighted-to-be-outraged critics are such a model of profitability? A microphone, a camera and a polarizing host are all it takes to get the money moving.”

So the article is kind of interesting, but doesn’t answer the question. The answer is YES. Yes he is, and so is Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow.

“We tell ourselves a tale in America, and you can read it in Latin on the back of a buck: E pluribus unum. Many people from many lands, made one in a patriotic forge. And there’s truth in that story — it conjures powerful pictures in the theater of our national mind. But it can also be misleading. Lots of Americans can’t stand one another, don’t trust each other and are willing — even eager — to believe the worst about one another. This story is as old as the gun used by Vice President Aaron Burr to kill his political rival Alexander Hamilton.”

Anyone who tells you, as Glenn has, the only reason everything isn’t perfect is because “…we’re being held back. And who is holding us back? Politicians. Special-interest groups. Political correctness. You name it — everybody but you” is making a buck off you. Anyone who inspires you to hate half the people in your country and start thinking of them as an enemy is bad bad bad for America.

I never talk about politics online because it is too easy for people to act like jerks in ways they never would face to face (including me), and I will probably let this be the end of my brief foray into moderate political ranting. But seriously people, can’t we stop encouraging these jerks?

via Mad Man: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America? – TIME.