Brand Mix

Here's my weekly summary of interesting and entertaining posts and articles. Mostly about the Olympics again this week:

1) Who's on First in Medals Race? Wall Street Journal
The answer to a question I've had in my head for a long time. Why doesn't the medal table make sense? Some medal tables rank countries by total medals won. Others by number of golds. The obvious answer would be to give a "gold" more points than silver and silver more than bronze. And, it turns out, that system was implemented as early as 1908. But, it also turns out, that the IOC is officially against all such tables and that's why the matter has never been resolved.

2) 35+ Examples of Corporate Social Media in Action: Mashable
A useful resource for those wanting to take a look at various corporate initiatives in social media. Includes some of the classics (Blendtec) and others including GE and the WWE.

3) Emotional Is Not The Opposite Of Rational: Ron Shevlin
I just love those tidy four-quadrant grids with two sets of opposites (e.g. High priority vs Low priority on one axis and High impact vs. Low impact on the other). But here's an example from Ron Shevlin showing how such grids sometimes steer you in the wrong direction. His discussion about the emotional vs. rational decision making is echoed in this post by Jeffry Pilcher.

4) Silver, Bronze & Regret: Predictably Irrational
"What do you think? Who is likely to experience more regret? Someone who won the silver medal in the Olympics, or someone who won the bronze medal in the Olympics?" Turns out those who get in the bronze are happoer than those that get the silver. At least according to the research.

5) Usain Bolt: It's just not normal: Freakonomics
The truly extraordinary run by Usain Bolt in the 200m is explored in statistical detail and compared to other sporting feats in cricket and baseball.

If you want to read still more about the Olympics, take a look at the latest on Landor's Beijing Brand Battle