A discussion featuring Bob Anderson of Ahold USA, Dan Cooke of Kellogg Company, Kevin Kells of Google and Jason Katz of Catapult Marketing.

Kevin Kells: In the past, most industries tended to focus on emerging media as a transactional or direct response driver. But people increasingly are realizing the brand-building promise of emerging-media platforms. That’s a big switch from a headset standpoint. Brand-building and transactional are not mutually exclusive; they are highly linked ... read >>

It's easy enough to buy specialty foods over the internet, but for some shoppers the experience omits the all-important sense of place, reports Sarah Maslin Nir in the New York Times (8/18/10). "The whole experience of getting it in its context is something you cannot duplicate if you're not there," says Michael Stern of roadfood dot-com. "We could all sit in our den with the windows closed and watch TV and see every corner of the world, but having the experience of breathing the air somewhere other than our living room ... isn't something you can replicate."

For some, that experience is soaked in nostalgia. Anna Sturgeon has been known to drive seven hours from Cincinnati to the Carolinas to buy a case of Cheerwine, a cherry-flavored sodapop she enjoyed as a child. "It's walking into the convenience mart, seeing the display, grabbing one and cracking it open and it being so cold and refreshing," says Anna. "It cannot be matched by opening a malibox." Molly Dunn-Hardy has a similar feeling about Nellie & Joe's Famous Lime Juice, which she could order online, but instead has her father bring her a supply from Florida.

"Every time I open the fridge I see the little palm trees on the bottle," she says. "I think of running around on the beach when I was a kid, and collecting seashells." For Stuart Spivak, it's the joy of the journey to places like Kossar's Bialys in New York City. "My enjoyment of New York is taking the subway to go to the bakery," he says. "The guy who runs the bakery is a character. I enjoy all of that when I buy it and bring it back." Some retailers feel the same: "People always yell at us, 'Send this and that," says Martin Ricker of Lucca Ravioli, who refuses to ship anything because "it would take away a lot of the history of this place if you could buy it in Wyoming."

As more of its stores close, Barnes & Noble is viewed with more affection and less animosity as "a corporate bully ... that helped squash small, independent bookstores," reports Julie Bosman in the New York Times (8/31/10). "It's a community gathering space," says Monica Blum, president of New York City's Lincoln Square Business Improvement District. "I think the larger bookstores have worked hard to become those kinds of spaces." Unfortunately, it's not enough for the Barnes & Noble in Lincoln Square, which, "despite being a reliable site for readings and events focused on the performing arts," is closing.

"We recognize that this store has been an important part of the fabric of the Upper West Side community since we opened our doors on October 20, 1995," said Mary Ellen Keating, a Barnes & Noble spokesperson, in a statement. "However, the current lease is at its end of term, and the increased rent that would be required to stay in the location makes it economically impossible for us to extend the lease." Lillian Kelly is among those grieving the loss, but admits she really wasn't much of a customer.

"I love buying my greeting cards here," she says, explaining that she visits the store at least two times each week, mostly to frequent the cafe upstairs. "They're getting business out of me, I suppose," she says. "Even though I'm sitting there reading magazines for free." Roger Hawkins says he likes the store because there aren't as many park benches anymore. He says he mostly buys audiobooks, online. "I'm just killing time," says Jai Cha, who says he visits the store to read books, a chapter at a time. Barnes says its next chapter will be another store somewhere else on the Upper West Side.

"Since information helps markets work better, the cost of privacy is less efficient markets," writes Paul H. Rubin in the Wall Street Journal (8/30/10). That's the first of Paul's ten rebuttals to what he sees as "fallacies" about privacy. His point is that, contrary to what some may believe, our privacy is not free, given "a strong trade-off between privacy and information." Paul also says that the costs of privacy are not "borne by companies" because "consumers get tremendous benefits from the use of information."

He notes, for example, that Google's various free services are "all ultimately funded by targeted advertising based on the use of information." Naturally, Paul also forwards the most common anti-privacy argument -- that when ads are targeted, consumers "get better and more useful information more quickly." He further contends that the quality of those services would decline if Google didn't have the information required to "better target searches," for example. "Shorter retained search histories mean less effective targeting, " he writes.

Refuting the argument that privacy invades our personal space, Paul points out that most information is used anonymously. He says that information-based price discrimination "makes it possible for firms to provide goods and services that would otherwise not be available, "and that less privacy creates greater safety, since information is used to combat identity theft." Opt-in doesn't benefit consumers, says Paul, "since the use of information is generally benign and valuable." And he says consumers should not be irate over how their information is used, "because there is no harm from the way it is used."

Despite considerable research to the contrary, "Generation Y's collective personality, if such a thing exists, is not likely to be much different from other generations'," reports Benedict Carey in the New York Times (8/3/10). Much of the current research on those born after 1970 says Gen Y, or the Millennials, are "low on greatness and high on traits like entitlement and narcissism." One recent study reports that the Millennials are "more likely than previous generations to see themselves as 'an important person.'"

But some psychologists are now challenging such characterizations, in some cases attacking the way past research was conducted or interpreted. Some say that the samples are skewed because they typically include only college students. Annie Murphy Paul, author of The Cult of Personality Testing, says the tests are inherently flawed: "We should keep in mind that personality tests are themselves cultural documents, idiosyncratic products of particular individuals that say more about their creators than the people who take them," she says.

A pair of university professors, M. Brent Donnellan and Kali H. Trzesniewski, meanwhile say that narcissism peaks in young adulthood generally, and isn't specific to Millennials. However, "a widely used questionnaire called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory," finds that scores related to self-importance have "gone up significantly, at least in some college samples." Dr. Jean M. Twenge, author of Generation Me, says the most dramatic increases are among women. And then there's the question of whether the increase is necessarily good or bad, because self-importance makes some people pompous, but others purposeful.

Certain city cafes are getting rid of the comfy chairs and tables in hopes of getting rid of some of their customers, suggests Oliver Strand in the New York Times (8/25/10). Among them is the aptly named Cafe Grumpy, whose latest location features "a counter in the back and a chest-high table in the front." If you want to linger, there's a bench outside. The idea is to discourage people from parking themselves with their laptops -- a practice that Grumpy had already banned at one of its other locations.

"I appreciate the idea of when you go someplace and it feels like a home away from home, but I don't think it should be a home office away from home," says Grumpy co-owner Caroline Bell. Some customers aren't happy about this. "I don't find it relaxing," says Kate Sebbah. "This is a time to sit down, relax, compose my thoughts." But others -- espresso drinkers especially -- like the stand-up approach. "I spent a semester in Rome when I was in college and coffee there is: you come in, you pay, you get it, you drink it, you slam it and you're out the door," says Matthew Schnepf.

Christian Geckeler, of manseekingcoffee dot-com, says less furniture is conducive to more conversation. "It's really lovely," he says. "You have a couple of bar stools and the baristas are right there, so the conversation just naturally happens." Mark Connell of the Bluebird Coffee Shop agrees: "A coffee shop should be a place to meet your friends and hold conversations ... instead of sticking your head in a laptop," he says. Starbucks in SoHo (image) meanwhile is hedging its bets with "a few stools, in addition to the expected tables and chairs."

Growing numbers of parents are looking for ways to teach their babies to learn a second or third language, reports Jenny Anderson in the New York Times (8/19/10). Some are hiring foreign-language babysitters (-: while others are investing in products like Spanish in a Basket :-). In some cases, it's because it's easier to learn foreign languages at a younger age. In others, it's because the parents have some kind of connection to other languages. It's also because they think it will make their children smarter, although there's some debate over that.

"Once you are trilingual, your brain can break down new languages that make it so much easier to learn your fourth, fifth and sixth languages," says Simona D'Souza, whose three kids speak German, Spanish and English. Research does indeed show "that learning a second language makes it easier to learn additional languages." But psychologist Ellen Bialystok says that doesn't necessarily mean being multilingual makes you smarter. "There are documented cognitive developments," she says, "but whatever smarter means, it isn't true."

Ellen's own research finds that multilingual kids "tend to have smaller vocabularies in English than their monolingual counterparts," and that they "have to work harder to access the right word in the right language which can slow them down" -- if only by milliseconds. But research also shows that "bilingual children do better at complex tasks like isolating information presented in confusing ways," and some believe this flexibility can be helpful in science and math. "We view it as a gift we are giving him," says Nir Liberboim, who "hired a Peruvian nanny to speak only Spanish" with his 18-month-old son.

"The perfect bike is one where every part is exactly where it belongs," says Max Schaaf, a builder of skater-inspired motorcycles, reports Austin Considine in the New York Times (7/18/10). Max runs 4Q Conditioning, a custom-bike shop in Oakland, California, and is "widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in skateboarding and custom bike building." The prevailing aesthetic is "minimalism: Every visible part seems to have an equally visible function; the pieces are as gorgeous and meditative as they are spare and athletic."

In other words, they are not "chrome cruisers with stretched-out front ends and high-rise handlebars ... These are sleek stripped-down machines, recalling a style, popular after World War II, in which owners chopped away excess to make their bikes leaner and faster ... Typical design features of the genre include custom handlebars, fenderless front wheels, suspensions shorn of all extraneous brackets and no-frills seating for just one person."

One thing these skater-bikes have in common with other choppers is a disdain for unmodified bikes. "Stock Harleys are boring," says Lee Bender, a skater turned biker. "It's kind of like going to Walmart and buying a skateboard," he says. Harley embraces these skaters, though, and "is using star skateboarders to promote a new variation of its Sportster model." The skaters themselves recognize "an overlap of skater and biker subcultures." As Max Schaaf puts it: "We're just wired a certain way ... For some reason the death and danger are just a part of us."

Lenny & John's in southeast Brooklyn is like any other pizza parlor, only different, reports Michele Monteleone in the New York Times (8/15/10). It's got pizza boxes stacked to the rafters. It's got those little plastic shakers of red pepper, garlic and oregano. A slice is two dollars and most days a pie is $13. But the one thing it's got that maybe other pizza parlors don't have so much is really powerful customer loyalty.

"Just last week I had 10 guys in here, all grew up in the neighborhood but now live in New Jersey, Staten Island, Long Island," says John Scandiffio, who opened Lenny & John's with his brother-in-law, Lenny Maffie way back in 1969. "They found each other on Facebook," (fan page) says John, "and they ended up over here." Rick Gonzalez says it's because Lenny & John's (video) is like the Cheers bar. "The food is great, the customer service is great, and there's always a friendly face," he says.

But there's more. Shortly after Nine-Eleven, John "hung an American flag on the back wall ... One by one, emergency workers stopping in for a pie to take with them to Ground Zero began ripping badges off their uniforms to hang on the flag. Today, 77 badges are on the flag" and John says he has hundreds more at home. "So many of the customers, I grew up with them, and when they come through the door it's like seeing family," he says. Lenny & John's is located at 2036 Flatbush Avenue near Avenue P.

It's a store with no hours, no retailers and no customers, reports Colin Moynihan in the New York Times (8/16/10). It's called the Brooklyn Free Store, and as the name suggests, everything is free. Open for just six weeks, it is located on a dirt lot in a white tent under a blue tarp behind a chain link fence with a purple sign that says: Take what you want. Share what you think others may enjoy (not limited to material items)."

Naturally, there are no doors or locks at Brooklyn Free. Its organizers say the store is "intended to demonstrate the feasibility of recycling and to offer an alternative to mainstream capitalism." Items range from canned green beans to brown wingtips, "along with a used toaster oven, a flashlight and a galvanized metal bucket." It's not all junk though: Some participants have "dropped off a digital camera, an electric stove and a TiVo with a recording capacity of 40 hours."

An earlier iteration of the same concept previously operated out of a Williamsburg storefront "from 1999 to 2005." The concept is based on "the original Diggers, a group of agrarian utopians in 17th-century England." Forty years ago, modern Diggers also ran storefronts in San Francisco and New York. "New York is world renowned for having the best garbage," says Myles Emery, an organizer. "There could be free stores everywhere." This one is located on 232 Walworth St. between Dekalb and Willoughby Avenues in Bed-Stuy.