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Is Your Marketing Killing Your Consumer Electronics Product

the most successful products in the industry are various Apple devices (the iPad, the iPhone, and the Mac), the Amazon Kindle, and the Netflix service. These three companies create more mainstream evangelists as a percentage of their total users than other companies. So what's the difference between an iPad and a Samsung HDTV? Why does one create raving fans and the other create users Apple knows what its customers want because of its CEO, Steve Jobs. He has proven that he knows, on instinct, what will succeed with consumers. In fact, he famously avoids customer input and focus groups because he is so sure about his own gut feeling. But because your CEO is not Steve Jobs, you'll have to do talk and listen to your customers like crazy Here are 10 questions to ask: 1. Who in your home uses our product? 2. Why do they use it? (Leave it open ended, just like that.) 3. What do you do with the product? 4. What features do you use most? Why? 5. Which features do you ...

Should You Offer Different Prices for Cash and Credit

First, accepting plastic reduces the expense of counting, transporting, and preventing cash theft. Just as important, consumers aren't limited to spending what's in their wallet.

EU, a powerful reform tool

Enlargement fatigue has a mirror image: apathy and resentment. By expanding, the EU has a remarkable tool for influencing its neighbours, but only in the right circumstances. A country must want to join, it must be given strict conditions for reforms, it must settle disputes within and on its borders and it must see the promise of membership as genuine. Membership without conditions spells trouble; conditions without membership spells betrayal.

the best corner in Formula One

There are a number of contenders for the title "the best corner in Formula One". There is the roller-coaster switchback ride of Eau Rouge at Spa, the almost flat-out right handed flick of Copse Corner at Silverstone or the equally challenging 130R at Suzuka. However most drivers will tell you that, despite its relatively unassuming name, Turn 8 at Istanbul Park circuit is the ‘the big one'. They love it. Circuit designer Hermann Tilke often draws criticism for his "Tilkedromes". Critics complain that in the late 1990s he created a series of look-alike tracks, each of which produced dull races. However, when in 2005 Istanbul Park hosted the inaugural Turkish Grand Prix the track proved to be a winner with the drivers. The anti-clockwise design unashamedly copies some of the great corners at other tracks in the world. The first three corners are identical to the Senna-S combination at Interlagos. However Turn 8 is unique. The ultra-long, quadruple apex corner...

PolEco

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.’

Fiscal multipliers

Increased borrowing leads to more foreign investment in government bonds pushing up the exchange rate. The current account deficit that arises is the counterpart of the capital inflows necessary to finance government borrowing Indeed,  recent work  by LSE economist  Ethan Ilzetzki  with two co-researchers from the University of Maryland published by the NBER suggests the following: Fiscal multipliers are zero in countries with flexible exchange rates. Fiscal multipliers are lower in open economies. Fiscal multipliers are zero in high-debt countries.
Recent work by LSE economist  Ethan Ilzetzki  with two co-researchers from the University of Maryland published by the NBER suggests the following: Fiscal multipliers are zero in countries with flexible exchange rates. Fiscal multipliers are lower in open economies. Fiscal multipliers are zero in high-debt countries. Increased borrowing leads to more foreign investment in UK government bonds pushing up the exchange rate. The current account deficit that arises is the counterpart of the capital inflows necessary to finance government borrowing