Brand Mix

Here's my weekly summary of interesting and entertaining posts I've read recently. A more comprehensive list: "Martin's Shared Items" is at the bottom of the page:

Japanese coffee brewing machine: boingboing
In a week where I posted a couple of times about coffee, I thought this story about a new SF cafe that brews its coffee in $20,000 "siphon bar" equipment was an interesting development.

Re-new your brand like a TV series: brandgymblog
What lessons can we learn from successful TV series that managed to keep on going for season after season. This post draws some interesting parallels - Building brand equities (logo, theme music, credits), co-branding (guest stars) and the need to get the balance right between consistency and change.

Layering: Seth's Blog
I love this idea about starting with something average and then continuously improving it until it becomes great. Seth gives the example of Wikipedia that started with 100 mediocre articles but but keeps on getting better and better each day. I think this is an approach that can help avoid action paralysis.

Poor standard of retail signage: boingboing
Cory Doctorow snapped this photo in London. It made me laugh. Nothing but the facts.

Housekeeping: Indexed
I always want to like these index cards by Jessica Hagy but usually I don't. This one worked for me.

Coffee and cigarettes, sold together at last: boingboing
I guess it really was a week about coffee. This also made me laugh, especially the commentary: "For people who like to smoke 40 cigarettes with their morning cup of coffee, Japan's AM/PM minimarkets are offering this convenient package."