I picked up this nugget from Paul Arden.
As a teenager, he informs his readers that Victoria Beckham’s ambition was not just to be better than her mates or even a famous singer but to become a world brand.
“She not only dreamed about it but wanted it enough to go about getting it. That in itself makes her different from most of us.
"It’s not how good she was that mattered; it’s how good she wanted to be. What is interesting in her quote is that she didn’t compare herself with George Michael or Mariah Carey; rather, she saw the fame of Persil Automatic as her yardstick.”
She wasn’t competing with musicians, pop stars, dancers, and entertainers.
Her competition was finding a way to be a part of the end user’s everyday life.
You see, Persil Automatic is a laundry detergent.
A highly useful product. One that solves problems. Something that is top of mind for the consumer.
Such an original imagination powered her success.
Tucker Max speaking with James Altucher on a pod, reminded listeners that TV networks used to only compete with other TV networks.
Now they compete with every single person online.
CNN Worldwide boss Jeff Zucker competes with Twitter for breaking news.
Stephen B. Burke of Comcast competes with my cousin for entertainment.
The NFL competes with the Call of Duty World League for viewers and for players.
Bloomberg News, staffed by 2,300 editors and reporters in 72 countries, competes with Matt Drudge staffed by an internet connection in one city.
There’s more content being made today than ever before.
There’s more competition than ever before.
It’s just that I am not competing with you.
We are moving into a business environment where going small, going local, going tribal is happening again.
A business environment where you can be small-scale and matter.
A business environment where you can be small-scale and prosper from the benefits of mass-scale production and administration.
The days of mass are gone.
Today it is all about niche is rich.
You can be Porsche, or you can be Toyota.
You can be Southern Seasons, or you can be Publix.
Frankly, tiny is where humans work and operate better.
It’s a business environment where our customers keep us top of mind and automatic.
-Marc
Anthony Bourdain - Fast Company's Last Full Interview
An adventurous documenter of international food culture, Anthony Bourdain was the host of CNN's Parts Unknown, a chef, prolific food author, speaker, and one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People. Here, we sat down and talked with him about his creative process, what he looked for in his team, and the keys to his success (filmed August 2017).
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Fast Company is the world's leading progressive business media brand, with a unique editorial focus on innovation in technology, leadership, and design.
The bottlenecks which could constrain emission cuts
The green revolution risks running short of minerals, money, and places to build.
Economist
+ Two-thirds of humankind now lives in countries where wind and solar power offer the cheapest new electrical-generating capacity
+ Annual clean-energy investment, already at an all-time high, would have to exceed $4trn by 2030, three times its average over the past five years. And the market for key minerals needed to build clean-energy kit would expand nearly seven-fold
Thinner mints: Girl Scouts have millions of unsold cookies
AP reports the Girl Scouts have an unusual problem this year: 15 million boxes of unsold cookies. The 109-year-old organization says the coronavirus — not thinner demand for Thin Mints — is the main culprit. As the pandemic wore into the spring selling season, many troops nixed their traditional cookie booths for safety reasons.