Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

From the archive, we pose a question that's still as relevant as ever: Why has Memorial Day, like so many of our national holidays, been reduced to appliance sales, fast food specials, and vacation deals? With the recent near-collapse of our economy, the ways in which we understand and celebrate national holidays seem particularly challenged. This erosion of meaning is just one of many examples of the growing gap between the promise of America--freedom and opportunity through sacrifice and unity--and how people experience Brand America

I think it's possible. However even more possible, I think, is that a Steve Ballmer departure is inevitable. Last year, I wrote a posting on this blog (tongue in cheek at the time) entitled "Why I want Bill Gates Back"

If we run out of phosphate fertilizer, it will mean bad things for our future eating. But giving our crops a fungus can help us stretch our supply. The human race has a food problem

Someone at Amazon must have read our post about how Apple spun the white iPhone 4 fail into a PR win , because it's making a game attempt at turning its Lady Gaga blunder around. The company is relaunching its Lady Gaga offer (99 cents for her new album, plus a free upgrade to 20 GB of cloud music storage on its servers), noting "this time we're ready." Earlier this week, a crush of Gaga fans jumping on the deal crashed the company's servers, creating hours-long download times and leading commenters to publicly flog Amazon via the comments section on the Gaga's Born This Way album page--creating exactly the opposite of the goodwill it was going for.

The Fast Company reader's essential source for breaking news and innovation from around the web--updated all day Web Ads Hit Record High In a sign that this bloody never-ending recession is indeed coming to an end, marketers are now spending record amounts on web ads, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. At $7.3 billion dollars, ads have spiked 23% year over year. To celebrate, we suggest actually clicking on a banner ad today to say, "Thanks, free Internet!" Download Torrents On iPhone (Jail-Break Only) Wish you could break the law all the time

The smartphone boom helps clever companies turn ephemeral real-world resources into marketable goods. #article-bucket a .article-view-enlarged { display:none; } CHAD MEYER and Omid Saadati met at a Bay Area coffee shop about a year ago, and the two young entrepreneurs immediately began talking about what everyone in San Francisco talks about when they first meet: how long it had taken to find parking. "We'd both been going around and around the block, and we'd seen all these prime parking spaces that we couldn't use," Meyer says

CEOs of two breakthrough, webby businesses show Fast Company how office policies built on frankness, trust, and occasionally awkward closeness engender a culture of success. Inside the multi-million dollar video streaming giant, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar has gone to extraordinary lengths to subvert his own power: He has no office, has a makeshift desk partly built from empty boxes, and personally takes each new hire out to lunch to learn what he or she thinks the company can do better.

Avery Johnson, coach of the New Jersey Nets, shares his keys to success in management, regardless of your industry. Avery Johnson overcame the odds as a player in the NBA

It sounds like a reality show pitch: The legendary Facebook investor, PayPal founder, and thorn in the side of college deans everywhere announces what happens when 24 people, picked to live among mentors and innovation experts, stop going to school and start getting real--in business. One climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.

There were more tornado deaths in April than any other time in history. The cause is unknown, but the damage is enormous. The weekend's tornado in Joplin, Mo., was just the latest--and most devastating--of what has been a rash of tornadoes.

Before I launched FamiliesGo! I spent the better part of a year talking to people, reading articles and blogs, and taking classes on starting and running a business. I heard a lot of the same advice over and over

Can laughs make the sale? Plus, the new deal-site ecosystem, loving the Like button, and the rest of the day's news for entrepreneurs. Each day, Inc.'s reporters scour the Web for the most important and interesting news to entrepreneurs

Yep, they are 30-day hack-a-thons--and they are helping launch big products, including Facebook Deals. Welcome to what one Facebooker calls "a playground for engineers." Tech giants such as Google to Facebook are famous for hack-a-thons, all-night marathon coding sessions where eager employees build something unrelated to their current projects

%excerpt% Read more from the original source: Inventing a New Business Model for Butchers

%excerpt% See more here: Walking the Walk (Running the Run, Etc.)