ChristianSarkar.com

Yes, we still can!  Congratulations, New Orleans.

Click and play... stay positive.

A nice story from the World Bank blog about a grass-roots organization's efforts to stop petty corruption in India and around the world:

...the idea was first conceived by an Indian physics professor at the University of Maryland, who, in his travels around India, realized how widespread bribery was and wanted to do something about it. He came up with the idea of printing zero-denomination notes and handing them out to officials whenever he was asked for kickbacks as a way to show his resistance. Anand took this idea further: to print them en masse, widely publicize them, and give them out to the Indian people. He thought these notes would be a way to get people to show their disapproval of public service delivery dependent on bribes. The notes did just that. The first batch of 25,000 notes were met with such demand that 5th Pillar has ended up distributing one million zero-rupee notes to date since it began this initiative. Along the way, the organization has collected many stories from people using them to successfully resist engaging in bribery.

I like it. Now let's send some "zero dollars" to the Famous Five justices Supreme Court, the Blue-Dog Democrats, and the entire Republican party.

My client, Dean McMann, discusses the "customer intimacy" journey on his site:

This is what we are fed daily... small wonder we don't watch the news!

No excuses.

First Tylenol, now Toyota. Same old story. Silence is not damage control.

Now the NHTSA is looking at the pedal maker. There must be a way to check the electronics - some way to look at the log files, perhaps?

Note that both companies are blaming their suppliers.

Is this the result of in-house PR?

Hail Corporatocracy!

Brought to you by our Corporate Supreme Court and the Corporate Propaganda Machine, er, Media.

Quote of the Week: I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. - Thomas Jefferson

The courage of MLK is what makes us admire him most. Like Gandhi, like Nelson Mandela, like Malcolm X. Every once in a while we're blessed with leaders like this. And, what do we do? Generally speaking, we kill them.

And yet we are moving forward, despite the hatred.

One: donate to Paul Farmer's Partners in Health, and two: cancel Haiti's debt.

Orville Schell's portrait of a Nation that says "No, We Can't".

Somehow, I think that the US still offers the world the best way forward.

Yes, despite the lobbyists and the money-grubbing pirates in high office, there is still hope.

Don't give in, America.

That's all I have of this classic. 

Discussion: How do you respond to a letter like this?

Go Google, Go!

It's time. The Chinese government never has any qualms about "doing evil," so it's good to see Google stand up for some principles.

Looks like God is playing dice with the Universe.

Researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB), in cooperation with colleagues from Oxford and Bristol Universities, as well as the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, have for the first time observed a nanoscale symmetry hidden in solid state matter. They have measured the signatures of a symmetry showing the same attributes as the golden ratio famous from art and architecture.

And the winning number is:

or

The proper response to this should go something like "OMG!"

The Teabaggers and the Taliban share the view that opposing voices must be silenced.

Here's Mark Fiore's video:

And here's the full story >>

My client Gaurav Bhalla has just published an article in the January-February Harvard Business Review titled - Rethinking Marketing.

Along with his co-authors - Roland Rust and Christine Moormon - Bhalla insists that companies must shift their mindsets from a product-centered focus to building long-term relationships with customers.

This can only be done if companies reinvent the marketing function.

Says Bhalla:

"The traditional marketing department must be reconfigured as a customer department that puts building customer relationships ahead of pushing specific products. To this end, product managers and customer-focused departments report to a Chief Customer Officer instead of a CMO, and support the strategies of customer or segment managers."

You can sign up for Bhalla's Customer-Driven Innovation Newsletter and download "Rethinking Marketing" here >>

What a wonderful world. While you were wrapping Christmas presents, China decided to lock up Liu Xiaobo and throw away the key.

Xiaobo's crime?  He drafted Charter 08, which demands the open election of public officials, freedom of religion and expression, and the abolition of subversion laws.

His wife's cell phone mysteriously stopped working so she could not be reached by the press. Nice touch.

Click and listen. This was Steel Pulse live on John Peel's BBC program in 1981.

If this is how the New China plays the world, it looks too much like the Old China.

We need a new strategy to deal with this kind of stupidity. Obama can start by inviting the Dalai Lama to the White House.

This is how the government in the UK is helping the public understand the significance of Copenhagen. 

In the US we've got Sarah "Snake Oil" Palin - who is only too happy to urge a boycott.

Why is she still in the news?

Insights on Anger, fear, and escalation of commitment
via strategy-business.com

"...angry employees are more likely to commit further resources to a failing project or choice. By contrast, fear makes people second-guess themselves and often abandon support for efforts that have gone even slightly off the tracks."

OK. What happens when you have other emotions like sadness, joy, or just plain happiness? Do you make stupid decisions when you delude yourself? Or does a cynic make better decisions?

This is something that keeps happening with IBM's FTP server.

I was just trying to download this report: Seizing the advantage. When and how to innovate your business model"...

I have to say, this happens all the time on the site.

What's going on IBM? This is not exactly the best way to win friends and influence prospects.

P.S. - will let you know if I ever get to the document!

UPDATE: Not sure if this is the same document, but I found it on the UK site.

UPDATE #2: Look what I found at Booz >>

UPDATE #3: And this from EY >>