David Lidsky's Blog, page 4845

Daimler, BYD Team Up to Build an Electric Sedan

Chinese automaker BYD has long promised a low-cost, high-quality electric sedan. And up until now, it has failed to deliver. The company may have just gotten the kick in the pants it needs, however, now that it has partnered with European automaker Daimler to build a four-door electric sedan--a different model than the electric e6 car that BYD has reportedly been working on.

The partnership makes good business sense for both companies. BYD has plenty of capital (including $250 million from...

Caribou vs. Starbucks: Go Big or Go Homey

Caribou's redesign makes a claim for Starbucks's pseudo-authenticity.

"Authentic." It's one of branding's holy grails, implying good ol' fashioned, home-spun quality, especially in tumultuous times. We've seen it everywhere, from fashion to food. Ironically, it's often the biggest companies that try to seem the smallest. Take Starbucks. It opened a stealthy, "neighborhood" café in Seattle last summer, called 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea, complete with open mic nights, poetry readings, and...

TweetMyJobs Moves in on Job Boards' Territory

Watch out, Monster.com, Twitter is becoming a job board.

Last year TweetMyJobs, an online job service, started connecting job seekers and employers by tweeting job openings. On Tuesday, the company announced that its services recently helped IHG, the world's largest hotel group, receive 18,000 highly targeted views of an available 1,000 positions.

"You hear someone's using TweetMyJobs, and you might think they're just hiring bellhops," says TweetMyJobs founder Gary Zukowski, "but they...

New Green Syringe Will Cut Medical Waste and Costs

Product design firm Cambridge Consultants unveiled today the Syreen, a new eco-friendly syringe that could forever change the way drugs are delivered to patients. Shelled in an amorphous polymer plastic that acts as a protective casing, the Syreen erases the need for the extra outer packing normally required by glass syringes.

The Syreen will cut average syringe packaging volume in half, and reduce weight by 30%. This is a massive improvement for an industry that produces over two million...

Business Inspiration From Kanye West

Creator of one the best rhyming couplets ever*, Kanye West has retuned to doling out gems ON HIS BLOG (my caps), this time opining on CREATIVITY (his caps) as he listened to his own music. Here are a few choice--if tongue-in-cheek--choice nuggets or anyone seeking the spark.

On creativity: "I'm tormented by the need to create. The feeling that something can be better, the feeling that something's missing, the feeling that something's needed."On opinion: "There's no such thing as fact any...

The Right Fight: How to Pick Battles on the Path to Grand Innovation

How does an organization create breakthrough performance time after time? How does a company develop meaningful innovations that work on many levels--for customers, for society, for the planet? How does a leader tell the difference between shortsighted thinking and real progress? The conventional answer is a version of "feel good" wisdom about getting everyone aligned. But it turns out that's not enough. After building trust and team-work, leading dissent, dissonance, and conflicts to...

There's Hope Out there for Android App Developers: "Car Locator" Creator Nets $13,000 per Month

Stories about iPhone app developers quitting their day jobs after slaving away in bedrooms at night are heartwarming, but a dime a dozen at this point. Rival app stores, like Google's Android Market and Palm App Catalog, are much smaller, with smaller userbases, and have so far lacked such high-profile app stories. Not anymore.

Developer Edward Kim, whose "Car Locator" Android app has been frequently bumped to the "featured app" section in the Market, wrote a blog post outlining the profits...

Viacom Yanks "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" Off Hulu

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are two of the most popular shows available at Hulu, and have even come to represent the possibilities of the service--personally speaking, I hit up Hulu most mornings specifically to catch those two shows, since I've long since abandoned cable TV. But today negotiations broke down between Hulu and Viacom, the owners of Comedy Central, and Viacom will be removing all Comedy Central content currently on Hulu--including the one-two news comedy punch. This...

iPad Rumors: E-Book Pricing, Launch Dates, and Wi-fi

The iPad may, or may not be, just 20-odd days away from store shelves, but there's still room for rumors to swirl. The latest ones are actually fascinating stuff for Apple fans, as they concern its launch date, and e-book pricing.

Launch Date: To Delay or Not to Delay?

Steve Jobs was vague about details at the launch, but that's okay--the iPad is clearly in production, and the delivery mechanisms are gearing up. So much so that several sources are pointing at a Friday March 26 U.S. launch, at...

Business Inspiration from Kanye West

Creator of one the best rhyming couplets ever*, Kanye West has retuned to doling out gems ON HIS BLOG (my caps), this time opining on CREATIVITY (his caps) as he listened to his own music. Here are a few choice--if tongue-in-cheek--choice nuggets or anyone seeking the spark.

On creativity: "I'm tormented by the need to create. The feeling that something can be better, the feeling that something's missing, the feeling that something's needed."On opinion: "There's no such thing as fact any...