Mixers for Moms and Babysitters

I love this idea for Mixers for Moms and Babysitters from Springwise.  It's a wonderful niche that can be duplicated elsewhere

Shame on the Red Cross

I'm with Seth Godin on this  What to do when you are wrong

The Red Cross got sued by J&J yesterday.

It turns out that in the 1800s, Johnson & Johnson had used the Red Cross symbol for more than a decade before the US non-profit started using it. It also turns out that they generously gave the organization the right, for free, to use the symbol for its work, forever, as long as they didn't use it for reasons not directly related to their mission.

Mission? The Red Cross recently licensed their logo to a brand of surgical gloves, for example. And first aid kits that a licensee sells at Target.

In the press release, Mark Everson, the Red Cross' president, is quoted as saying, "For a multibillion-dollar drug company to claim that the Red Cross violated a criminal statute, . . . simply so that J&J can make more money, is obscene."

I think that's a typo. My guess is that Mr. Everson meant to say, "Oops! J&J is a good corporate citizen, a significant donor to the Red Cross and the original and rightful owner of the trademark. We'll unwind our deals as soon as we can and go back to focusing on what we do best."

That's what I would do, anyway.

The Greying of Digital

Here's an age group that is more willing to pay for music than younger fans and has more money to do so. So why has it been left out of the picture?
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"It's a tiny fraction (of digital music buyers), but they're people who buy a massive amount of music," Hochkeppel said.
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"They need to be brought into the fold," he said. "No marketing and no attention is usually paid to an older demographic. They're sort of ignored and neglected by media in general. Youth is always the first and foremost target, (which) sends the message to the older consumer that 'This isn't for you."'

Blue Note Web site embraces the greying of digital

Web 3.0

So after Web 2.0, here's Eric Schmidt's take on Web 3.0

After first joking that Web 2.0 is "a marketing term", Schmidt launched into a great definition of Web 3.0. He said that while Web 2.0 was based on Ajax, Web 3.0 will be "applications that are pieced together" - with the characteristics that the apps are relatively small, the data is in the cloud, the apps can run on any device (PC or mobile), the apps are very fast and very customizable, and are distributed virally (social networks, email, etc).

Organize your family's essential information

Wendy Boswell, weekend editor of Life Hacker puts together an essential information kit for her family,  a subject dear to my heart, so I am going to excerpt most of it.

My mom had a minor stroke last week and was unable to speak. (She's fine now, thank God.) But when it happened, we had no idea where her "stuff" was - her insurance info, her bank accounts, even the location of the keys to her house was a mystery. Ultimately, we were able to get everything pulled together, but it was a waste of precious time that we could've spent on other, more important things.

If there's ever a time when you don't want to be caught unorganized, it's in the middle of a health crisis. You need certain documents on hand and ready to go when you're in situations like these. Today I'll show you how I've gotten my procrastinating booty in gear (finally) and made my very own essential information kit.

What do you need?
It took a crisis like this for me to realize that if I or my spouse ever become incapacitated, whoever comes behind us and tries to figure out paperwork is basically up Sh*t Creek without a paddle. So! First, I had to figure out what exactly it was I needed to have on hand. This would be:

Up-to-date medical insurance information
An updated will
Power of attorney information
Life insurance info
A basic guide to your bank accounts - numbers, passwords
A basic list of bills in case someone else needs to help you pay them
Doctor and vet info
Spare keys for both house and car
Now, this was just my list for me and my family. You can customize it as you see fit, but these were the most pressing items I had to track down for my mom last week. I'll probably add to this list as time goes by, but it's a good start for an essential info kit that your family and friends will be able to utilize in order to help you more completely.

Best ways to organize your info
Obviously, some of this information is not going to be able to go onto a computer, and that's actually (believe it or not) a good thing. Not everyone who will be in charge of taking care of you should you be medically incapacitated is the computer-savvy ninja that you are, so let's make this as simple and easy access as possible. You have a few options that are written in order of what works best:

First, start a paper trail: All your paperwork in one file in one place couldn't be easier. Make copies and hand them to your significant other and one (or two) friends and or family members that you trust, literally, with your life.

Next, scan and save: Y'all still have scanners, right? Scan those essential documents in and save them to your hard drive, a CD, and a USB stick. Label everything, and give simple directions on where this information can be found to your already mentioned friends and family. Make sure that they understand how to access this information - don't assume that they can figure out how to use a CD drive or a USB.

Lastly, store it on the web: This is technically one of the ways that I'm advising you to store your essential info, however: do NOT use this as the only way. Please. I'm begging you. There are a myriad of online storage options available to you, including the multi-faceted Gmail, and it's a pretty easy and secure option for making sure your stuff is all in one spot. This particular option is advisable after you've completed the paper trail and electronic backup; be absolutely sure to write down where this information can be found in case you can't help out yourself. Definitely, this is a super backup option, but I'm putting extra emphasis on the "backup" part of that sentence.

Don't put this off

Last week was a wake up call for me, to put it mildly. I don't ever want my loved ones to be put in the frustrating position of scrambling for paperwork for me, and I'm pretty sure you don't either. For more information, I invite you to read the following resources; but please feel free to chime in with your essential paperwork strategies in the comments as well.

Women's Web Thinking and Extraconnectedness

Michael Learned on Why Marketing to Women Requires an Holistic Approach

Not surprisingly, a woman’s more typically holistic buying characteristics are founded in the extra-connectedness of her brain. In fact, in comparison to a man’s brain, a woman’s brain typically has more connecting fibers between cells and a larger connecting tissue (corpus collusum)
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Noted socio-anthropologist Helen Fisher wrote in her book The First Sex: “As women make decisions, they weigh more variables, consider more options and outcomes, recall more points of view, and see more ways to proceed.” Fisher refers to women’s tendency to think in terms of interrelated factors (as opposed to men’s tendency to think more in a straight line or in steps) as “web thinking.”

As a result of web thinking, she says, women have easier access to both sides of the brain in any given decision, and are better able to integrate the emotional (does the community “feel” right?) with the rational (price, square footage, amenities, layout).