Morning Advantage: Should You Trademark Yourself?
HBR.org 2012-06-14
It all started when accused killer Luke Magnotta made the front page of the Montreal Gazette holding a bottle of Labatt’s Blue beer. Labatt promptly threatened to sue the daily (circulation 160,000 or so), unless it took the photo down. A Twitter comment calling the brewer out for overreacting to a story few people would have remembered the next day went viral, and the subject (and the picture) became the hottest news in Canada. For this Labatt was labeled a laughingstock in Canadian Business magazine’s Sales & Marketing section. This was shaping up as just another ironic tale from cyberspace when three days later, another Canadian Business column — part of its optimistically labeled “Corporate Control” section — defended Labatt, making it clear that (under Canadian trademark law at any rate) not only is it illegal for anyone to print any picture of a Labatt product or logo without permission but that Labatt could collect monetary damages, adding, "I am surprised it has not done so already." Does that mean products have more privacy rights on the Web than people do? Maybe we should all be seeking trademark protection for ourselves as personal brands.
Pixar’s Rules for Storytelling (The Pixar Touch)
To paraphrase marketing expertJonah Sachs, storytelling is the only tool that has ever moved minds and changed behavior. Now, in a series of remarkably cogent tweets, Pixar story artist Emma Coats has been collecting guidelines from her more senior colleagues on what makes great stories work. Among her best in this set: "Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle." "You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer." And my personal favorite: "Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___."
Boom Times for Forensic Accounting (The Atlantic)
Business was slow in 2005 for Digital Risk’s new software, which gave loan underwriters detailed financial information about borrowers. Why bother, CEO Peter Kassabov says, when banks were just going to pass the loans on to investors? Today, business is booming. But it’s not banks buying its services now — it’s the investors, who are using the evidence to force the banks to buy back the loans they didn’t bother to verify. As one employee (who wouldn’t give his real name) says: "There’s nothing you can hide."
Labor’s Days
Why You Should Hire Like a Rock Band (Inc.) Facebook’s Empty Rooms: The Frontier of Office Design (Wired) Newspeak Comes to Health Care Coverage (NPR)