Archive for the ‘Business/Investment’ Category
Europe: the ‘you have to act quickly’ sales pitch?
People who work in sales are familiar with the use of the ‘urgency’ or ‘impending event’ ploy to try to achieve a purchase decision. The sound of ‘I want to think about it’ is like finger nails on a blackboard to a salesman. Potential buyers use that statement or similar to put some distance between […]
Watchdog issues warning about Sean Wood Property Tutors enterprise
UPDATE: This situation has developed further. See Property Tutors’ Sean Wood is ‘not of good character’ – according to Authority & Judge 26 April 2012 — Remember this?: Calling all gullible gamblers! Here’s the latest badge of honour … And how it’s being reported … It’s also covered in the NZ Herald. Something else to add […]
Psychic TV
Oh My God. I just watched the classic Bond movie From Russia With Love which finished just before half-past midnight. At the end of a satisfying, anachronistic and nostalgic motion picture experience, and as Matt Monroe started to croon through the theme song (er, no thanks Matt), I flicked around the other channels and came […]
Write no early obituaries for Steve Jobs
Following up on the medical leave Steve Jobs took from Apple in January, this, today, while of course not unpredicted, is still a bit of a psychic bang. August 24, 2011 Letter from Steve Jobs To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community: I have always said if there ever came a day […]
Where Samsung says Apple copied the iPad from …
Apple’s patent infringement case against Samsung for ‘slavish copying’ of the iPhone and iPad and their trade dress, packaging etc is interesting for all sorts of reasons. What seems unquestionable is that there was no consumer product available in the past that resembled Apple’s iPad and that manufacturers like Samsung, HTC etc (ha!) were ‘inspired’ […]
Three golden rules of crisis management
There’s a worthwhile story How the jersey row unravelled a brand in the NZ Herald today about the ‘furore’ engulfing Adidas prompted by over-pricing the All Blacks souvenir/supporters’ jersey to New Zealanders. Dumb actions (like pressuring online retailers to ban sales to NZ @!#**!) and untruthful/implausible statements from Adidas executives only made things worse, as Geoff […]
Gizmodo displays its journalism skills once more
News is that Gizmodo, who reportedly paid the finder of the lost/stolen iPhone4 prototype $5,000 for umm, ‘exclusive access‘ to the device (cough, — so they could photograph it and dismantle it and plaster images of it on the web) won’t be prosecuted for those activities. District Attorney Announces Filing Decision on Misappropriation of […]
Ironic juxtaposition
I’m doing research for an upcoming project and spotted this rather striking juxtaposition of the front and back covers of NZ INVESTOR mag — May 2010 edition. See the wee picture of Sandy Maier on the cover? It’s illustrating an article: Corporate fix-it man Sandy Maier is making sweeping changes at South Canterbury Finance … […]
Makes you think
From The Guardian: Martin Rowson on the final crisis of capitalism European and North American stock markets are at their most volatile since the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. We had a GFC film festival at our house over the weekend watching Michael Moore’s Capitalism: a Love Story and the Academy Award winning documentary Inside […]
A business model to die for …
In the finest tradition of ‘wealth transfer’, here’s the end of the line for those who subsidized the debt-gorged Private Equity Partners ‘foray’ into book retailing. REDgroup: A ‘company’ (harrump!) conceived, badly-operated and then run into the ground by Australian accountants, taking with it a dollop of cash, milked by the ‘administrators’ then buried in […]
Smoke gets in your eyes, Carrick?
Tonight TV3 broadcast an Inside New Zealand documentary: Dying for a Smoke, highlighting some of the health issues and the political debate around suggested moves to increase controls on the sale of tobacco products — and even suggestions to eliminate tobacco products from the country by 2020 … which strikes me as a pipe dream, […]
It’s only ‘propaganda’ if you’re talking about the other side, right, Carrick?
A few days ago in the context of the public discourse around plain packaging legislation for tobacco products, No wonder tobacco co.s are SQUEALING … I briefly mentioned a PR flack who appears to be an advocate (paid or unpaid? Not clear) for Tobacco manufacturers. This spin doctor* Carrick Graham follows me on Twitter and […]
No wonder tobacco co.s are SQUEALING …
I follow a guy on Twitter who seems to be an apologist or spin doctor (paid or unpaid, I don’t know) for tobacco interests. This self-described ‘Public Affairs and Issues Management Specialist’ has been salting his tweets with messages baiting anti smoking groups like ASH (are they listening? Dunno) and filling the echo chamber with […]
Black hat techniques
Reminded me of Review: An odious little volume… – P
