Profit is overrated

Are you confident enough to give away some of your best stuff?

Nordstrom is.

I love it when someone or some entity is confident enough to be generous without worrying too much about how much they’re giving away. Creative partners, global leaders, basketball teammates…when you’ve got something someone else might want and can give it away, the good always gets greater.

I’m not saying Nordstrom’s latest announcement is completely selfless or entirely for the benefit of humanity. But it sure is a step in the right direction.

They’re opening a “philanthropic concept store” in Soho, with an eye turned to their goal of someday opening a flagship store in Manhattan , home and long time roost of Bloomingdales. The twist?

The store will give away all profits to charity.

This new endeavor is brilliant in many ways, not the least of which is getting New Yorkers to feel good about the Nordstrom name and ultimately getting them comfortable with setting foot in the store. With their legendary service, once they’re in the door, they’ll come back.

It also enables people to feel good about their purchases and charities to get lots and lots of unexpected donations.

If it’s true that confidence looks like generosity, then you better start spreadin’ the news, because Nordstrom is gonna be a part of it. New York, New York…

Boy, am I dumb. Seriously.

Incredibly stupid blogger alert: I never realized that red velvet cupcakes were really chocolate cupcakes with red food coloring. I thought they were somehow made from a magic recipe that made them taste velvety. I didn’t even get chocolate so much. I just got red. Now I'm just red in the face.

My daughter ruined everything for me tonight when she told me they’re just chocolate cupcakes with red food coloring. It reminded me of the time in high school when the girl I was dating told me that C-O-L-O-N-E-L was pronounced “Kernel,” not “Kollonel.”

Rumors abound about the origin of red velvet, including a Neiman-Marcus Cookie-like story. But to me it just seems like one day there was just vanilla and chocolate, and the next day there were these mysterious, indulgent, red saliva-inducing velvet cupcakes everywhere. And they were awesome.

So where did they come from? There are theories, including stories that go back almost 100 years, which of course makes me feel even dumber (although I suppose they’ve been pronouncing “colonel” correctly for a lot longer).

I bet the person who invented them wishes she got credit for it. Such a great, simple idea. The best kind. Take something that exists already, ask “What If?” and make it 10,000 times better.

Why texting is good for your brain

The digital age will improve the way you think and write. And you can thank Friedhelm Hiilebrand.

I thought of Friedhelm this morning. I wanted to send an email to an old friend to congratulate her on her new job, but I only had her email from her old job. So I found her on Linked In, added her to my network, and attached a note, which was rejected because it was too long. 300 character limit.

Which is generous compared to the 160 characters you get for a text, and the 140 you get for Twitter.

So I revised my note to her, chopping and slicing words and phrases.

And it wasn’t just shorter, it was better. Better use of words and better use of her time. Tighter, smarter, more to the point.

So thank you, Friedhelm Hillebrand and your German friends, who created the universal texting length and whether meaning to or not, forced us to write in a more compact form.

Yes, I know our children speak in a consonant-less language and abbreviate everything, but it’s nothing the US military hasn’t been doing in spectacular fashion for decades, and they’ve survived pretty well.

Amidst the evils of rampant spellcheckmania and media multitasking, I’d argue that the digital age is forcing us to think and package our ideas more concisely, and write with intelligent restraint.

If only there was a character limit to powerpoint presentations.

Gross National Spending

Meg Whitman is making news. Not about her campaign, but about her spending: She’s set a record by spending $119 million of her own money in her race against Jerry Brown in the California Gubernatorial race.

(By the way, who doesn’t love saying Gubernatorial?)

With that much money, she could afford to pay the payrolls for all but four major league baseball teams. She could buy the Pirates four times, but unfortunately, she couldn’t come anywhere close to making payroll for the Yankees. She probably couldn’t pay for their starting rotation.

Meg could pay the entire roster of any NBA franchise; she could help her home state by taking care of the league leading Lakers at 91 million, with just enough room to pay Kobe’s legal bills.

If she wanted, she could buy out New Zealand. She’s spent more than the GNP of 129 or the 182 nations in the International Monetary Fund, including Kuwait, Ukraine, and the Kiwis.

And if she fancied coffee, she could get somewhere in the vicinity of 30 million Venti lattes, which would keep her caffeinated for just over 81,000 years. She could even get soy and still be good for many millennia to come.

The ironies: While it’s been estimated that California television viewers will see one of her commercials an average of 26 times per hour, Brown has more money left in his coffers, and Whitman still trails him in the race.

Maybe she needs to take her talents to another state.

Is this what Keith Richards was drinking all that time?

Sometime a few years ago, Ponce de Leon and Xaviera Hollander came to the owners of Pom Wonderful in the same dream.

The result was a body of advertising materials from POW Wonderful that has been at times extremely effective and at other times almost illegal.

First they tried to convince you that you would pretty much never ever drop dead if you drank POM, in simple, clean, eye-catching ads..

Now they’re letting you know that POM Wonderful just may be an aphrodisiac. Striking print images and TV commercials too, with Malcolm McDowell doing the VO (he’s awesome).

Pretty average ads, some not even that clear in their message. But the FTC, as expected, has taken notice. So it must be working, right?

Makes me want POW wonderful for two reasons.

I want to have a lot of sex and live forever, sure.

But in case that isn’t really completely true, I admire them for putting a message out there that makes them stand apart and get noticed.