Carnival of the Capitalists

Welcome to this weeks edition of Carnival of the Capitalists! Thank you for stopping by!

We've got a long this week, so grab a cup of coffee, or two, and enjoy!

Todd at A Penny For posted about the BlogOn conference and comes home with as many questions as answers. Be sure to check this out as Todd will be inviting people to discuss a Writer's Guide to Blogging next week.

Last week was Culture vs. Strategy week at Fouroboros. It started off with this fantastic post and continued here and here

The Culture vs Strategy stuff was picked up by Johnnie Moore (the UK version) in this great post.

Hugh over at gapingvoid has a wonderful post on how to be more creative.

Michele Miller, of WonderBranding points us to a Newsweek article about what MRI Machines are revealing about brain behavior and ponder its use in the world of advertising.

Over at the EconLog, Arnold King has a fantastic post about Money & Happiness. Are they related?

Tom over at SandboxWisdom asks us about positioning (long time readers of this blog know that Tom and I have had some great debates on the topic). Can you name the positions of some of the top brands from the Interbrand Top 100 Global Brand study?

John Moore over at Brand Autopsy also has post about the Interbrand Top 100 Global Brands. A good read with lots of links to related material.

Jennifer Rice talks about teamwork in business and uses the Tour de France as an example.

From teamwork to leadership, Jim Stroup (author of Managing Leadership) has a post where he discuess about Action-Centered Leadership.

Tom Watson asks, "What does RSS really mean?"

Giselle from OS Commerce has a nice post about converting Browsers into Buyers

Leah over at the CoachingGym has a nice post on answering the "What do you do?" question when you're a solo professional

Lynne over at Knowledge Problem posts about Network Reliability as a public good, and what to do about it.

Mario, over at Duchs, has a very detailed post about The financial Operations of Rynair

Rick...! over at the Hello World blog provides an example of Three's a Crowd when explaining to your clients what you can and can't do.

Jon Henke of the QandO blog sends in this post by Dale Franks titled "The Argument Against Tax Cuts"

This is great - How long does it take a McDonalds worker to earn enough to buy a Big-Mac? Sent in by Simon

David Theroux points us to a post by Ivan Eland who questions the 9/11 commission report omition of a key player: Foreign Policy.

Jeff Cornwall looks at the planning that entrepreneurs should be engaged in to prepare for the possibility of another terrorist attack.

Les Jones points us to the weekly E-commerce report

Michael Kantor compares Fidelity vs. Ameritrade

Steve Verdon looks at John Kerry's engery policy

Martin Lindeskog provides a tongue-in-cheek look at campaign finance reform, the sources of John F. Kerry's soft money contributions, and the ketchup "war"...

Tim Worstall offers a quick review of why capitalism works.

Umair Haque looks at Apple vs. Real - a big topic this week - and looks at it from another angle.

Wayne Hulbert covers ways to find extra visitors

Mike Pechar over at Interested Participant posts about the loss of Ohio jobs. Since the onset of the sluggish economy many months ago, no region has seen job loss statistics comparable to the Rust Belt, in general, and Northeast Ohio, in particular. Listening to candidate John Kerry over the past year, however, one would think that just about everyone is unemployed and there is no hope unless a Democratic administration is elected. Read on

Pieter over at PeakTalk asks if the Wal-Mart Wars are running out of steam...

John over at Drakeview offers up a Recipe for PMO (Project Management Office) success.

Jonathan Wilde points us to a post on Catallarchy by Don Lloyd - Why the argument that the gold standard results in wasted
resources is bunk.

Speculator shows that UAL, despite massive efforts to get their house in order, remains just about the least competitive airline in the business. In his opinion: their days are numbered.

From the Big Picture blog: Markets are not skittish because the incumbent is in trouble - that’s getting it backwards, a perfect example of confusing cause and effect. Incumbents are in re-election trouble because the future discounting mechanism of the markets is incorporating a slowing economy into its pricing. While the markets do not always get it precisely right, they do so often enough that a weakening economy-which hurts equity prices-invariably negatively impacts an incumbent’s re-election chances.

Want to know what well-known futurist Watts Wacker says are the four major trends impacting the world today? Small Business Trends has the run-down.

David over at Photon Courirer posts a "Leadership Vignette"; this one is focused on the British General William Slim.

McGehee over at blogoSFERICS sent this in: Wal-Mart's membership subsidiary Sam's Club is requiring its customers in Alaska to use only either a Sam's Club credit card or Discover card beginning August 25 (presumably they'll still accept cash). The reason given for this new requirement is that airline miles promotions on the other card lines are too costly. This post looks at why this is probably a bad idea for Sam's Club.

And finally, Jeremy over at Ensight has a great post: Why I Love Doing Business - A Reminder.

[UPDATE] - I missed my buddy Michael DeWitt. Mike has a great post up over at SpookyAction about "The Theory and Practice of Customer Delight in a Nutshell". Sorry Mike!

Well, that wraps things up here. Thank you again for stopping by! Next week the Poliblog. Send your entries to capitalists-at-elhide.com by Sunday. For more info, go to the Cotc homepage