April, 25, 2004 archives

you wrote it down

well, it was not very helpful when i was on the road and did not have the piece of paper where it was written down.

fiesta broadway is today. it’s a sort of pre-cinco de mayo street festival in downtown los angeles.

you might think this would be the sort of thing the los angeles times would have information about. as far as i can tell, you would be wrong. but la opinión has things covered (en español).

i’ve started writing a quick review of trading up: the new american luxury by michael silverstein and neil fiske of the boston consulting group several times, but always seemed to get interrupted by something. (i’ve also read three or four other books since finishing it that i also need to note.)

the basic thrust of the book is that there has emerged a bracket of goods and services that is both higher-price and higher-volume than the typical product price curve would lead you to believe. it gives many great examples of how businesses have tapped that trend, including victoria’s secret and callaway golf clubs. according to their research, everyone has a few categories where they are willing to rocket, or pay more for premium versions. divorced women lead the pack in that regard, willing to do so in as many as thirty categories. but outside of those categories, they flock to the lower-price items. this is squeezing out the middle of many categories.

an interesting, well-written business book. definitely some ideas to take into account if you’re of an entrepreneurial mindset.

the los angeles times decided to write about fiesta broadway after the fact, and after spending a half-hour or so down there, i can understand why they didn’t pay it much attention. it really was little more than a bunch of tacky booths where they were handing out junk. (via l.a. observed.)

here’s another study that alleges some correlation between the prevalence of high-fructose corn syrup and type-2 diabetes. good thing we’re paying so much to giant companies to grow so much corn. it would be a shame for products containing corn syrup to actually reflect the real cost of corn. (via boing boing.)

the big con: the story of the confidence man by david maurer was a book that mark fraunfelder recommended over at mad professor. the book inspired the sting (which i have either never seen, or have not seen for a very long time), and is a fun non-fiction account of how the big con games operate (along with a few of the short con games).

i wonder if any of the big con games are still operated, or if the cons have simply come up with better ways of getting the same effect through legitimate corporations, churches, and government.