June 12, 2015
Try That On!
That brand has such a cool clothing style (although a little pricey)--everything is sort of hippyish, natural, eloquent, cool grunge, and feminine with lace, beads, frills, ruffles, and more.
As we went through the store, we noticed the amazing fitting rooms with heavy tapestry-type curtains and these beautiful flowers hanging plentifully from the ceiling--ushering you to try out their clothes.
My daughter ended up getting a nice bag there, but the clothing also looks amazing and fits perfectly with her fashion sense.
It was interesting for me to learn that Free People was started by the same couple in the 1970's that founded Urban Outfitters.
Two retail success stories--but Free People is not only the cooler name, but the better clothing line.
Be Free People! ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
May 7, 2015
Parenting@CVS
The baby looks like it's trying to escape from the red shopping basket, but presumably the mother at the cashier is going...
"And I'll take one baby with the bottle of milk and Chiclets, thank you!"
Hey look at all that candy kid...this is better than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!
(Source Photo: Dannielle Blumenthal)
Parenting@CVS
April 7, 2015
Different, Better Than Mad Max
Ok, this is not a Mad Max black muscle car.
More like a Fast and Furious action racing vehicle.
When I saw this car in front of the new Pike and Rose in North Bethesda (gorgeous by the way), I thought this is becoming more like Miami than typical Washington, D.C.
Aside from the cars, the upscale dining, shopping, and iPic movie theatre (with luxurious reclining plush chairs and alcoholic drinks) has brought this area to a whole new level.
Mad Max eat your heart out or perhaps those of your post-apocalyptic adversaries. ;-)
(Source Photo: Dannielle Blumenthal)
Different, Better Than Mad Max
January 18, 2015
Barbie Pants Or Real Life
Her outfit was really cool--not sure the photo can do it justice.
She had these black pants that had these cool cutouts along the sides in the large diamond shapes.
So you had a combination of discrete pants with a little flair too (but not too much).
Overall with the boots and double shirts, it was a very fashionable outfit.
When we asked where she got the pants from, she said the very store we were in, so that was a good selling point too.
Let's just say we left some money behind in this store. ;-)
(Source Photo: Rebecca Blumenthal)
Barbie Pants Or Real Life
December 9, 2014
Hair Please Don't
I took this photo in the mall on Sunday of this mannequin head with hair in multicolors sticking up out of her head in all directions.
Uh, you gotta be kidding--is this actually going to sell anybody on a new hairdo (unless of course maybe you count it's shock value)?
See the mirror lying next to it too, so you can actually see how you would look in one of these get ups--if, of course, you really want to.
When the nice young Asian attendant lady saw me looking at this monstrosity, she runs over like can I help you, seriously.
Yeah, I'm doing some holiday shopping (Chanukah's right around the corner you know), and I'd like to get a new look JUST LIKE THIS!
Not today, but thank you. ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Hair Please Don't
December 6, 2014
10 Reasons To Love Traders Joe's and 2 To Not
1) Pretty much you can depend that their food is good and fresh, and a lot of it is readymade and "convenient".
2) Prices are a value considering much of what they sell is private label, premium, or super premium--like the "Belgium chocolate" above!
3) They have many items in single-serve portions, so the food is easy to make, clean up, and store.
4) The stores are relatively small, clean, well lit, and cozy with a limited number of goods, making shopping quick and easy--they've already narrowed the field for you.
5) They have freebies to taste in the aisles--tonight it was 2 types of coffee and a pumpkin cheesecake sample--the check out guy asked me if I had a chance to try it--uh, not on my diet, but thanks!
6) They have a cool customer service bell in front that they ring whenever you need something done--tonight it was as simple as replacing a package that had opened up--ring, ring--a clerk brought up a brand new one, jiffy quick.
7) They double bag the goods, so the bags don't break on the way home and the goodies don't fall out.
8) Typically convenient locations in major shopping areas and short lines inside...never have to wait more than one person ahead on the line.
9) They are eco-friendly and have lot's of stuff that is organic, non-genetically modified, and without artificial anything.
10) They ask you--and seem to mean it--if you found everything okay with your shopping experience, and seem more than ready to correct anything that was less than perfect.
Despite these wonderful traits, there is something about Trader Joe's that's Normal Rockwell all smiley, small-townish annoying and claustrophobic, especially in the age of the more modern megastore supermarkets and Costco warehouses.
So it's not the only store I go to--variety is still the spice of life. ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
10 Reasons To Love Traders Joe's and 2 To Not
November 26, 2014
Goods AND Serices --> AMAZON
Goods AND Serices --> AMAZON
November 4, 2014
My Favorite Couch
I took this photo in Tyson's Corner many moons ago.
If anyone knows where to get this couch, please let me know.
I want it--really! ;-)
My Favorite Couch
November 1, 2014
Swarovski's Crystal Balls
Crystal balls hanging in a display case.
Purples, pinks, greens, and more.
Feels fanciful and otherworld-ish.
These aren't the type you look in and see the future, unless you want to see more of the same crap we are in as a society today.
Well, hopefully, please G-d, things will be getting better soon.
And as long as these all don't start swinging...I won't need to puke!
P.S. After reading this one with a double entendre, my wife says I'm sort of a crazy guy...but funny!
So what's wrong with having some fun and being a little provocative? ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Swarovski's Crystal Balls
July 10, 2014
OJ x 6
At least 6 types of Tropicana OJ in the refrigerated section of this small neighborhood deli.
Get this:
- No Pulp
- Some Pulp
- Lots of Pulp
- Calcium (Enriched)
- Orange Peach Mango
- Orange Strawberry Banana
Ah, I'll just take the one made from oranges--the fresh ones from Florida!
Choice is a good thing, but consumers must be getting more picky.
Then again, maybe I am getting old, because I still remember when I only had to select between Tropicana and Minute Maid. ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
OJ x 6
February 14, 2014
She's Got Bling
However, I convinced her to get these "bling" sneakers from Guess.
It was out of her usual comfort zone, but it took her about 3 minutes to admit it--she loves 'em!
Good job Daddy. ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
She's Got Bling
January 24, 2014
Addictions R Us
He said something fascinating to me--which is that everyone is addicted to something.
Think about it--some are addicted to the hard stuff...drugs, alcohol, smoking.
Others are addicted to sex, work, shopping, exercise, even religion.
In modern times, there are new addictions to technology, gaming, and social media.
My friend is smart and we discussed or alluded to a number of reasons for the addictive nature of all people.
1) Meaning - Many people have a tough time dealing with the seemingly meaningless, mortal nature of their lives. Without a strong purpose and meaning, we can sort of float through every day looking for some anchor, stability, or rhythm. Addictions, for better or worse, can provide that habit or repetition compulsion. While not very meaningful itself, these addictions help people forget--temporarily, during their high or while they are being kept busy--that they are perhaps lost amidst it all.
2) Pain - Everyone has pain--emotional, physical, mental--these cause stress on people and their ability to deal or cope can be stretched thin, and they turn to some sort of addiction as a "crutch" to help them get through the day. It reminds me of a very crude song that I overheard years ago, called "F*ck the pain away" (excuse the language here, please). Anyway, simply replace the first word, with "work, shop, drink, and so on and poof, you have opiates (i.e. pain relief) for the masses.
3) Fear - People are afraid--afraid of living, afraid of dying--and addictions take us away from having the time to stop, think, and have to deal with our fears. If every minute, I am running around doing a million things--then I don't have the time to shut it all down and out, and deal with what's really going on inside. In fact, some people credit the Holy Sabbath day, as being beneficial to us to just stopping all that daily stuff at least for one day a week!
We are all human, and there is no one who is immune to looking for meaning, avoiding pain, and dealing with their fears.
The question is do we just throw ourselves into something to keep going or do we take more of a Buddhist approach, accept that life is suffering and try to raise ourselves above it through healthy balance, contemplative meditation, compassion and thinking about others, doing good deeds, and so on.
Keeping busy is good too--but going through life in a drug or otherwise induced fugue is not--then we've lost ourselves, which is maybe the point for our crazy world where addictions abound and we are all too happy to dive right in. ;-)
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Miles Cave)
Addictions R Us
November 29, 2013
Like That Scarf
Found this awesome scarf on Las Olas.
It is handmade and made up of this individual squares of beautiful fabric.
The store also had these gorgeous ties in a similar design.
Prices for the scarf was something like $395.
I admired, but wasn't insane enough to buy. ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Like That Scarf
June 2, 2013
Virtual Government--Yes or Nonsense
The author sees government as menu-driven, like a videogame, by a "rotating dial," where you choose whatever government suites you best.
In this world of virtual government, people are seen turning to private sector alternatives to get capabilities, customer service, and prices that are better than the government's--in some cases, this may actually work, like with private insurance.
However, this article goes beyond this notion to where government is not tied to the physical boundaries of the real world, but rather to virtual jurisdictions, citizenship, and even values held or abrogated.
While I agree that raising the bar on government is a good thing--expect more for less--and partnering with the private sector can make government more efficient, the idea of wholesale shopping government around is quite ludicrous:
- Will we hire mercenaries instead of having an armed forces?
- Will we rely solely on CEOs to conduct our diplomacy?
- Will justice be doled out by vigilantes?
- Will private inspectors alone regulate food, drug, and the financial system?
While compared to an iPad wheel for making service selections, Government is not the same as a library of songs or movies that one scrolls through to pick and choose what one likes and dislikes.
Like the old joke about the difference between family and friends...you can choose your friends, but you can't just choose your family!
While government can provide services virtually, it cannot be a government entirely sliced up by choice--where you opt-in for what you like and opt-out for what you don't--if that were the case, we would all selfishly take and never contribute to the greater good.
For example, "Hey, I like social entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, but I don't particularly care for contributing to space exploration or research and development for certain diseases that I may not be genetically predisposed to."
There is a civic commons where we must share--the prime example is a fire department. If I choose not to contribute, then the fire department still has to come to put out the fire or else it can spread to others.
In the end, we are not just a collective of individuals, but a nation bound together by core values and beliefs, and shared interests and investments in the future--and where by sharing the risks and burdens, we fall or rise together.
Like anything that you are seriously apart of--family, religion, organizations, and work--we take the good and work on the bad, rather than just immaturely throwing it all or in innumerable parts away.
Yes, government should only do functions that are inherently governmental, and we should avail ourselves of all the talent and expertise in the private sector for the rest, but no, we should not wholly think that we can replace government with loose and shifting ties on the Internet and purely profit-driven private sector players.
If Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda serving as modern virtual governments are the best examples of what can be accomplished, then we should all be running (not walking) to good 'ol Democracy of the U.S. of A.
Virtual government as a way to provision services as well as competition and augmentation by the private sector is great, but becoming a stateless state will not solve the large and complex problems we must face, not alone, but together.
Even though bureaucratic waste and abuse is bad, the system of debate, negotiation, checks and balances, basic human rights, and voting is good, and we should not just throw out the precious baby with the dirty bathwater. ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Virtual Government--Yes or Nonsense
March 3, 2013
Who's That?
They had these cool Frisbees with faces on them and I thought this would make a sort of funny photo.
So we posed underneath the "hot stuff, cool prices" signs.
Anyway, it's fun to let loose and just have some good-natured fun. ;-)
Hope you enjoy!
Who's That?
December 16, 2012
Amazon Will Bury Walmart
So I cannot tell you my utter disappointment the first time I went to Walmart--shabby storefronts, elderly door greeters handing out store circulars and stickers, messy aisles and shelves, with low price tags on a swirling everything, and sort of the image of crummy leftover merchanidse throughout, and top that off with pushing crowds trying to save a couple of bucks on the junk.
Let's just say, I'm not running back to Walmart, especially when we have online shopping experiences like Amazon--now that is much closer to nirvana.
No drive, no crowds, no wait, no up and down the aisles looking for what you want, no shlepping, and no in your face "everyday low prices" image and we won't let you forget it--instead easy to find, interesting, varied, and quality merchandise of all types, at reasonable prices, with an easy checkout process, home delivery, free shipping, and easy returns.
And as opposed to Walmart which is stuck in costly and inconvenient large brick and mortar stores, Amazon is investing in infrastructure of the future with convenient warehouse and delivery centers throughout the country, and more recently with their purchase of Kiva Systems in March 2012 for implementing robotics in their fulfillment centers.
On top of it, Walmart (with nearly 2.2 million employees worldwide) in its endeavor to keep prices low, have spun up their workforce with jobs--that are often part time and unpredictable, low wage, lacking proper benefits, unsafe working conditions, and with questionable advancement opportunties (especially for women). Throw on top of that bribery allegations for which they've hired a new complaince officer. Yet, Walmart has also somehow managed to keep their workforce from unionizing to improve things.
So how should we say this: how about straight out--Amazon gets it and Walmart does not!
And while Walmart has their own .com site--which coincidentally looks very much like Amazon's--Amazon is eating Walmart's lunch online, with according to NBC News a 41% revenue increase for Amazon's online sales versus just 3.4% for Walmart's. Moreover, Bloomberg BusinessWeek (29 March 2012) reports that Walmart's 2011 online sales amounted to less than 2% of their U.S. sales--they just can't seem to make the digital transformation!
So While overall Amazon sales at $48 billion are still only about 1/9 of Walmart colossal $419 billion, Amazon with it's high-tech approach (including their successful Kindle eReaders, cloud computing, and more) is anticipated to reach $100 billion in online sales by 2015.
Like the other big box retailers of yore, Kmart, Sears, JC Penny, Circuit City, Best Buy, and more, Walmart will decline--it will just take a little longer and with a little more thrashing, because of the size of their checkbooks.
Perhaps, as the New York Times implied years ago (17 July 2005) only stores like Costco (and throw in Nordstroms as well) with their tall aisles stocked neatly with quality goods, at low prices, and with better human capital ethos, will survive the big box retailer Armageddon.
My prediction is that within a generation Amazon will bury Walmart, if not literally so they are out of business, then figuratively with the best and most lucrative online shopping experience around--and as for the matchup betweent them, it won't even be close. ;-)
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Fuschia Foot)
Amazon Will Bury Walmart
August 19, 2011
Supercookies Are Super Invasive
You're alone sitting at the computer surfing the web, you're looking up health, financial, entertainment, shopping, and other personal things.
Supercookies Are Super Invasive
August 14, 2011
Images, Alive And Profitable
Images, Alive And Profitable
April 27, 2011
Smartphone Apps For Shopaholics
In the old Ginsu commercials, they used to say "In Japan, the hand can be used like a knife...but this method doesn't work with a tomato."
Smartphone Apps For Shopaholics
May 5, 2008
Personalization and Enterprise Architecture
Everyone likes to have things personalized for them. Personalization appeals to our desire to be unique and distinct—special in our own ways.
Online, we have the ability to personalize our portals, like Yahoo, so that we get the information (content) that we are interested in and the look and feel for the layout (format) and navigation that we are comfortable with.
We also like to get personalized recommendations (advice and offers) for things we might be interested in, assuming that the suggestions are pretty darn solid and hit the mark.
MIT Technology Review, May/June 2008, reports that “people do buy more when you help them find what they need”
Generally, while advertising often gets bothersome and we tune it out, people do like “that internet companies have dedicated such ingenuity, memory, and processing power to offering me good suggestions.”
Hence, the ever growing amount of:
- “Customers who bought this item also bought…” (Amazon)
- “Just for you” (Apple iTunes)
- Pop-ups
- Context-sensitive advertisements
On Amazon, for example, “reviews, recommendations, and rankings become an essential part of browsing and shopping.”
And the larger the number of users that the recommendation engines can infer from (the “network effect”), the better the personalized suggestions become.
Where’s all this personalization going?
“Perhaps Google’s Gmail will tell you—to whom you should forward that urgent email to, or remind you to keep in touch with a friend you’ve inadvertently ignored…[or] imagine Facebook suggesting what information should be shared with whom—or who should be sharing more with you.”
Those companies and organizations that can architect personalization and recommendations right for their consumers and end users stand to profit hugely. For example, “Netflix is offering a million dollars to anyone who can improve the efficacy of its (exceptionally successful) recommendation engine. That’s a small price to pay for a company who future depends on its ability to compete with Blockbuster and the digital video companies of the future.”
Time is money, and both are scarce and valuable. Enterprises that are able to develop personalized recommendations that speed up the shopping experience and help us get better value for our dollars—and at the same time aren’t “in your face” and annoying--will have an architecture that will pay off in terms of strategic competitive advantage.
The target enterprise architecture here is increased sales and profitability (performance); focused sales and marketing (business); greater personalization and useful recommendations (information); systems processing automated suggestion algorithms (services and technology), all done securely and with privacy assured (security).
Personalization and Enterprise Architecture