... creative and media agencies to mobile and analytics firms.

It's a move that could empty the wallets of agency evaluation consultancies. 

In some respects the new service is analagous with consumer-oriented Yelp Inc, a local directory service with social networking and user reviews. 

According to CMO Club founder and president Peter Krainik, he often witnessed chief marketers swapping recommendations informally at the club's dinners and events. "This is us helping people behind closed doors," said Krainik of the new program.

"We're connecting people, that's what the club is all about."

Since the inception of the program at the start of 2013, between five and ten CMOs per month have added recommendations. Mr. Krainik says the listings are growing, with multiple reviews for some vendors, as well as reviews for some bigger agencies.

The group last week began the program promoting the scheme with a PR push.

Evan Greene, CMO for the Grammys, says he's a "big fan" of the vendor-rating program and has both submitted reviews and used the service for recommendations.

"It's really helpful to see what people in a similar role are doing. It's an open exchange of ideas and recommendations".

But the project begs a thorny question.

Will busy marketers - who are concerned with everything from product development to distribution channels to consumer awareness, and not just their agency relationships - have time to regularly log on to submit their recommendations?

Moreover, will they actually be willing to spill the beans? Especially as most marketers view the work done by their agencies as a competitive advantage.

Reassures Krainik: "The review process is not laborious" although it certainly is thorough.

Each entry has fifteen questions, with a mix of drop-down menus and open-ended questions, in addition to basic information like reviewer name and vendor name.

CMOs can rank vendors on quality of service, on-time delivery, price and customer service. Mr. Krainik says that reviews can't be anonymous, and notes that he has personally approved each member of the club.

Read the original unabridged AdAge article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... 18,000 square-foot facility, claimed to  be "an Epcot Center for aging" that would draw consumers and industry leaders from across the country. The goal is to create what essentially would be a mall for fashionable and functional senior products, from furniture to cosmetics.

The project will aso serve as a 'living laboratory' in whch startups and other companies can demonstrate and test new products with a specific set of consumers.

One section will include a model home, called an 'idea house,' that will enable entrepreneurs to test and collect data on products designed to allow seniors to stay in their homes longer.

For instance, the bathroom might include new robotic-tub technology that helps lift seniors out of the bath. Another section will be filled with "eldertainment," such as virtual-reality games that promote fitness, mobility or rehabilitation.

One of InnovateLTC's clients is a Dutch company called Vita Care, which is developing "therapeutic motion simulation" systems that use video and vibrating chairs to simulate activities such as motorcycle riding or jet skiing. 

Assuming success stateside, it's seems invitable that the InnovateLTC concept will extend to Western Europe and beyond.

According to the company's website, InnovateLTC claims to be "deeply entrenched in academic research and has connections to several of the nation’s top universities".

Read the original unabridged AdAge article.

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... technology has changed at an exponential pace over a mere two-year timescale.

In particular, the UK government notes the pace of changes in such areas as 3-D printing, robotics and energy production and management via technologies like smart grids.

According to Wall Street Journal blogger Ben Rooney: "One of the more interesting suggestions is the importance of smart fabrics such as technology woven into fabric which could be used to make clothes to monitor potential falls of an elderly wearer or the heart-rate of a patient.

Rooney also notes that: "What links many of the technologies that the UK government believes will be defining for the next decade is connectivity, they will rely on being able to talk to each other, to servers, or with sensors.

“There is also a stronger trend in the way that sensors, miniaturized communications and processing provide constant feedback and permanent connections to networks."

Read the original unabridged WSJ article.

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... how will new technology play a role in our lives eight years from now in 2020? 

Reports GeekWire journalist Taylor Soper: "The speakers had tons of insight, the discussion moved along well and there was plenty of time for audience questions".

The discussion was moderated by Scott Jacobson, a partner at Madrona Venture Group which funds innovative technology companies. The panel discussed everything from shopping with a mobile device to the pros and cons of physical and digital storefronts to analyzing how men shop differently than women.

They also talked about the planet's biggest and most famous e-commerce business, debating the impact of Amazon’s Kindle Fire and the potential of physical Amazon stores.

Here’s what each of the panelists had to say about the future of e-commerce:

• Scott Jacobson, Partner, Madrona
  “Companies need to create a durable and competitive advantage. If they are selling the same products I can get on Amazon or Ebay, that is a very challenging place to start. But sometimes durable, competitive advantages come from a unique product where you’re the only one who can make it or sell it. Sometimes it comes from a differentiated business model. There are plenty of opportunities, but it’s got to be something that is both differentiated and durable. By default, if it’s not differentiated or not durable, then somebody else is going to do the same thing. Look at Zulily. They took a differentiated approach to curating product and featuring that product and took the line of, ‘We’re going to feature local brands nobody has ever heard of,’ as a marketing kind of thing. They are extremely good at both curating all that selection and then very cost-effectively acquiring email addresses that turn into people visiting the website that turns into customers. That’s differentiated — curating and scouring this stuff — and they’ve been able to demonstrate the durability.”
   
• Amal Jain, Distinguished Scientist, eBay
  “I would pay attention to the service part. Here’s an example: You empty a cereal box and throw it away in the trash. People who hate shopping want the new cereal box to show up in your kitchen or at the door at the very least. This is the kind of service to pay attention to. A few weeks ago, I was thinking of buying something and I thought I’d just buy it later. Then I forgot. It bugged me. So people, they want to buy those things right away.
  Another thing I would pay attention to is price discrimination/differentiation, especially with coupons.”
   
• Nadia Shouraboura, founder/ceo, Hointer
  “What you will see is the vast majority of products going online. The other products need innovation. If traditional brick-and-mortar stores innovate fast, they’ll hold on to the customer. It’s about innovation and change. We need change in traditional brick-and-mortar.”
   
• Gautam Gupta, co-founder/ceo, NatureBOX
  “There are two things to think about. One is to really invest and think about your product, the quality of your product and how to differentiate the product or experience that you bring to the market. The second thing to think about is customer acquisition. How do you get traffic in the door of your site and convert those visitors to customers? I think a lot of people start e-commerce websites betting on organic traffic and P.R. and things like that. My advice to an entrepreneur would be to take a step back and really think about how they’re going to do that. These businesses are centered around transactions, so either the math works or it doesn’t.”
   
• Alex Tibbetts. General Manager, Nordstrom
  “It’s something about building a business around the customer, not around the product. The possibility of doing so is different and better than it ever was before, and the benefit of doing so is potentially greater.”
   
• Shirish Nadkarni, Co-founder, Zoomingo
  “I think there’s going to be an interesting battle between the traditional retailers and the pure play etailers. The etailers will try to mitigate their disadvantage versus physical retail by doing a better job of curation, discovery and personalization. Right now it is very much a search-driven behavior. They will also try to do a better job of allowing the customer get a better sense of fit and finish. Physical retail will try to leverage digital — especially mobile — technologies to improve the customer experience so they continue to prefer going to physical stores over buying online. This means equipping both customers and sales associates with the right information to making the purchase decision, as well as improving the checkout process. They will also leverage their physical store assets to allow customers to either pick up items from local stores or even the reverse where they can order something from the store and have it delivered to their home.”

Commenting after the event, Bellevue Mayor Conrad Lee said: “When these smart people learn and share opportunities and ideas from other people, they do great things, we benefit from them creating new businesses and that’s what we depend on for our economy."

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... told by Microsoft's marketing and data policy privacy manager Lyn Watts in his address to this week's PII 2012 [Privacy Identity Innovation Conference] in Seattle.

Warned Watts: "While the innovation on Kinect apps is incredible, when it comes to privacy there are things that you can do that aren't necessarily the right thing to do."

His topic was biometric-aware advertising, which will become more common as sensor-based devices gain the ability to recognize the people using them.

He not only talked about the promise of the technology, but also its potential privacy pitfalls.

Watts examples centered around Microsoft’s Kinect sensor, which is expanding its potential applications into more commercial settings as it moves beyond the Xbox 360 game console to Windows PCs.

So how should companies making biometric-enabled Kinect apps approach the issue? Advises Watts:

"From a privacy professional’s point of view, there’s a big mountain to climb here. Biometric data, as we know from our customers, is something that is seen as really exciting. And also there’s a little bit of trepidation.

"I think Xbox did a really good job of rolling out Kinect and being very up front about the privacy implications and giving customers control over those implications.

"Those are the sorts of things that the privacy managers for these companies are going to have to think about, too. Boy, be up front about disclosure, about exactly what the data is going to be used for.

"Get clear, clear consent. In a lot of cases, I think it’s going to be opt-in, check-the-checkbox type of consent. There’s things that you can do that aren’t necessarily the right things, and I think that’s going to be foremost on the minds of a lot of the privacy managers that are going to work in this space."

The 3rd annual Privacy Identity Innovation conference at Seattle's Bell Harbor International Conference Center [May 14-16] explored how to protect sensitive information while enabling new technologies and business models.

Read the original unabridged article here.

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... the vertical market in which their organization operates will bear little resemblance in 2020 to how it looks today. So just how will technology impact everyday operations?

• The data revolution, where technology has enabled employees to access increasing amounts of data and information more easily than ever before, is leading to a significant shift. Because of this, 63% of survey respondents predict a shift to decentralization in 2020, with flatter organizational structures and a spread of decision-making authority to the periphery of the organization and individual employees.
   
• With technologies that help more effectively to manage information, decentralized employees are empowered to make decisions. But for this new, decentralized workforce to succeed it is imperative that businesses adapt their processes to the digital world. With the rise in mobile working, it will be commonplace for employees to access critical information and collaborate whilst working from wherever they please – inside or outside of the office. As such, businesses will need to be more process orientated, ensuring critical information is centralized and data can be received, stored and retrieved by employees from any location – all the while remaining secure.
   
• Adopting business processes of this kind will mean decision making can be less hierarchical and employees, who are collaborating directly with customers, can make important business decisions, without delay. This ability to respond quickly will become even more essential, with business leaders saying they think customers will be the main source of new product and service ideas in 2020, with 86% agreeing that customers will become an integral part of the decision-making process [MT's italics].
   
• As well as customers, there will be an increased demand for experts from outside the organization to easily be able to input and retrieve information, with project teams of the future more likely to typically include members from outside an organization (such as partners and suppliers).
   
• By choosing the right partner to help them optimize business critical processes, organizations can ensure that information is controlled, secure and easily used by everyone who needs access. A managed approach will mean less duplication, greater consistency, and will importantly provide an accurate insight into access of information and the related costs that are incurred across the business.

According to David Mills, evp Operations, Ricoh Europe: "There’s no doubt that at the heart of a successful decentralization strategy will lie a network of integrated document processes to support the business decisions that will enable companies to grow in the future."

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... functional clothing becoming more popular with shoppers."

The research was carried out by engineers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Hubei University for Nationalities, and is published in the latest issue of the Applied Materials and Interfaces journal.

The study focuses on titanium dioxide - a chemical known, say the scientists, to be an "excellent catalyst in the degradation of organic pollutants".

The substance is already used in self-cleaning windows, odour-free socks and stay-clean kitchen and bathroom tiles. Initial efforts to extend its use to cotton fabrics proved limiting because the substance's self-cleaning properties could only be "excited" under ultraviolet lights, making it impractical for everyday use.

The team's breakthrough was to create a nanoparticle alcohol-based compound made up of titanium dioxide and nitrogen.

The mixture was added to triethylamine, an acid neutraliser commonly used in dyes. After being stirred for a 12 hours at room temperature, the liquid was heated at 100C (212F) for a further six hours.

The cotton fabrics were then immersed in the mixture before being squeezed dry, heated and immersed in hot clean water. Finally the coated materials were treated with silver iodide particles, which aid light-based reactions.

To test the effectiveness of their invention, the engineers marked the fabrics with an orange dye stain and exposed them to the sun. After two hours in the light, the team said 71% of the stain had been removed - a "dramatic" improvement over previously trialled techniques.

The process is also long-lasting. The experiment was repeated on the same cloth five times with no loss of activity - suggesting that the enhancement was stable. Washing and drying the material did not reduce its effectiveness.

Clothes industry experts say there should be huge interest in the process if it could be rolled-out on an industrial scale.

[Meantime, there's no truth in the rumour that Unilever chairman Michael Treschow and his opposite number at P&G, Bob McDonald, are jointly seeking to acquire a certain patent. Is there?]

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... and the beneficial knock-on effect on retailers' and manufacturers' bottom lines.

Proposed November 16, the rules mark the latest step in a lengthy campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption. They would build on the administration's ambitious standards that raise average gas consumption to 35.5 mpg over five years ending with the 2016 model year.

The latest standards would be phased-in starting with the 2017 model year.

When he disclosed his intent in July, President Barack Obama was flanked by executives from thirteen major automakers and the head of the United Auto Workers Union, signaling their broad support for the final proposal.

With exemptions and other provisions, actual mileage may be about 42 mpg for cars, with significantly lower requirements for light trucks, including minivans, SUVs and full-size pickup trucks.

The standards demand a substantial leap from the 2011 model-year average of 27.8 mpg and environmentalists praised the proposed new rules.

"These standards are the biggest single step any nation has taken to fight global warming," said Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign at the Center for Auto Safety. "You will see most 2025 cars and light trucks getting the mileage of today's Prius and Ford Escape hybrid. Most of the changes will be under the hood."

Carmakers have backed both the current and the proposed standards, but the National Automobile Dealers Association [NADA] criticized the proposed rules for adding a claimed additional $3,000 to average vehicle prices by 2025.

Wails NADA: "This regulation gambles that millions of consumers will be able to afford thousands more for generally smaller, more expensive vehicles that may not meet their needs.  This policy is contrary to what most consumers are actually buying today, despite the wide availability of more fuel-efficient models."

But the administration asserts that the new fuel economy standards won't push Americans to drive smaller vehicles and pointed out that truck and SUV makers are already working to manufacture far more fuel-efficient versions of their current models.

Moreover, the new, combined sets of fuel economy standards will save Americans more than $1.7 trillion at the pump, according to administration estimates - equating to about $8,000 per vehicle. The standards also would reduce the nation's oil consumption by 2.2 million barrels a day — "enough to offset almost a quarter of the current level" of oil imports.

Another claimed benefit is that heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by 6 billion metric tons over the life of the programs, according to Federal estimates.

The new standards will be open for public comment for 60 days after being published in the Federal Register. The administration said the Environmental Agency and the Transportation Department will also hold public hearings nationwide.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... (1) Strategic alignment; (2) A corporate culture that supports innovation.

These qualities comprise three innovation strategies:

• Need seeker
• Market reader
• Technology driver.

While no single strategy offers superior results, companies within each strategic category perform at very different levels.

And, no matter what a firm's innovation strategy may be — corporate culture is key to innovation success, and its impact on performance is measurable.

Specifically, the 44% of companies who reported that their innovation strategies are clearly aligned with their business goals —and that their cultures strongly support those innovation goals — delivered 33% higher enterprise value growth and 17% higher profit growth on five-year measures than those lacking such tight alignment.

Booz also asked innovation leaders participating in the survey to name the companies they considered to be the most innovative in the world.

For the second year in a row, Apple led the top ten firms, followed by Google and 3M.

This year, Facebook was named one of the world’s most innovative companies, entering the list at number 10.

In a comparison of the firms voted the 'ten most innovative' versus the 'top ten global R&D spenders', Booz found that over a 5-year period the former group outperformed the latter across three key financial metrics: Revenue growth; EBITDA as a percentage of revenue; and market cap growth.

Download "The Global Innovation 1000: Why Culture Is Key" (692kb, PDF)

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... of parking their derrières on special high stools as and when they feel the need to take the weight off their feet.

A study last year by the American Cancer Society found that women who sat more than six hours a day were 37% more likely to die prematurely than women who sat for less than three hours. The early-death rate for men was 18% higher. 

Also fuelling the trend to standing whilst working is a study released in January 2011 by the American College of Cardiology. It found increased mortality among people who sat longer at home than those who didn't.

Although there ar no official statistics as to the uptake of standing desks, anecdotal reports suggest Silicon Valley is embracing the stand-up trend.

Facebook managers report an upsurge in requests for standing desks, averaging five to eight a week and totalling up to 250 requests from its 2,000-plus workforce.

The company is also testing a treadmill station which enables a worker to walk or run while using a computer keyboard.

According to Google spokesman Jordan Newman: "Many employees ... opt for standing desks, and we offer them as part of our wellness program". However, Mr Newman was unable to cite the exact number of Google's high-deskers - a curious blind-spot for a company whose very existence is based on the numbers one and zero!

According to the WSJ report, one Facebookista, Greg Hoy - at 39 years a geriatric by Silcon Valley standards - asked for a standing desk seven months after joining the Facebook team. "I don't get the 3 o'clock slump anymore," he said. "I feel active all day long."

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.