Marketing chief Jaime Cohen Szulc unlocks true meaning for Levi’s. An exclusive Q&A interview by Tim Manners.

It could be Gareth Hornberger, the @levisguy on Twitter. It could be Levi’s iPhone app or information about Fader/Fort, an indie-music festival.

But it could also be a Levi’s pop-up print workshop in San Francisco, stamping out decidedly non-digital posters, books and T-shirts. It could even be the economically depressed town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, which Levi’s is featuring in an old-media television advertising campaign ... read >>

"Even as people embrace Kindles and other gadgets for reading, bookstores are finding a market for titles printed in small custom batches," reports Dana Mattioli in the Wall Street Journal (8/27/10). "Of course the fun is being able to watch their book being made," says Barry Bechta of Oscar's Art Books in Vancouver, which "has sold about 1,500 digitally printed books since it bought a special printer in March." Barry says that people like to gather around and watch the books as they are printed in-store.

For Oscar's, and other smaller independent bookstores, the ability to print books on-demand provides a way to compete against the chains with bigger selections. Oscar's uses the Espresso Book Machine, made by On Demand Books, which "partners with Google Inc. to get access to older so-called 'public domain' titles, and with Ingram Content Group Inc's Lightning Source for in-copyright titles." The machine costs more than $100,000 and Google collects a $2 licensing fee with each book, while the fee varies with Lightning Source.

Because of the costs involved, profits are lower than with traditional books, but retailers feel it's worth it "because the store is getting a sale it otherwise wouldn't." The selection of current titles isn't exactly comprehensive, either, but the on-demand demand is good and growing: "About four percent of books are currently printed digitally, but that's expected to grow to 15 percent by 2015," according to Interquest. Some book publishers are also looking into on-demand printing, but neither Barnes & Noble nor Borders has installed printers in their stores -- although Barnes does "about $20 million in annual sales for on-demand printing."

A relatively simple change in merchandising strategy is yielding big benefits for Nordstrom, reports Stephanie Clifford in the New York Times (8/24/10). The change, implemented 11 months ago, integrates in-store and at-warehouse inventory, which vastly increases the odds that shoppers will find what they're looking for. Not only that, but shoppers can either order the item for home delivery or reserve it for same-day pickup at a nearby store. The result, according to Jamie Nordstrom, president of Nordstrom Direct, is "some pretty meaningful results."

Specifically, "same-store sales increased by an average of eight percent," versus an average decline of 11.9 percent prior to the new approach. Nordstrom does not attribute the entire turnaround to the strategy, but in any case the retailer now boasts "one of the best improvements in same-store sales over the last year" versus its competitors. Jamie says Nordstrom implemented the new policy because it was clear its customers wanted it.

As he explains: "It was the first thing we did, because the No. 1 call we got at our call center was, 'Hey, I'm looking at this item online, can I look at it at my store?'" The strategy meanwhile increases the number of shoppers who shop in more than one way, who "spend four times, on average what a one-source shopper does." For Nordstrom, fewer leftovers also means fewer markdowns, and greater profits. "We can sell more without having to buy more inventory," says Jamie, "That plays through to margins and, ultimately, earnings."

Jules Pieri and Joanne Domeniconi are creating a "link between buyers and inventors" that they call "citizen commerce," reports Amy Wallace in the New York Times (8/8/10). Their website, The Daily Grommet, is designed "to enable consumers to find products that support their values" and "patronize innovative companies that its team believes will treat customers well." The Daily Grommet's staff does its own research to find such products "and features only products and companies it has battle tested."

Featured products have included "a hands-free flashlight, a newfangled pogo stick and an embroidered Peruvian belt." The criteria for selection includes "well-made products and impeccable service," from "nice companies. If those products preserve a craft or protect the environment ... so much the better." Jules says there's "a burning hunger for real leadership and access to authentic experiences and trustworthy people."

"We are seeing an unprecedented democratization of innovation, but existing retail and distribution systems don't give everyday people access to the fruits of that trend," says Jules, who also notes "that new, cheaper prototyping tools have made it easier to become an inventor." The Daily Grommet is based in Lexington, Massachusetts and "promises buyer satisfaction and a moneyback guarantee." Its endorsements can't be bought, and the site carries no advertising, but the Grommet makes its money by taking "a cut of the revenue" on all sales.

Americans watch about 200 billion hours of television each year, writes Clay Shirky in Cognitive Surplus, reviewed by Farhad Manjoo in the New York Times (8/7/10). Clay's issue with this isn't so much what we're watching; it's how much we're watching. His argument is that if we turned those hours -- this "cognitive surplus" -- into something more productive, like online collaboration, the world would be a better place, and life would be both more useful and fun.

To make his point, Clay worked with an IBM researcher to add up the amount of time people have spent on Wikipedia, the "collectively edited online encyclopedia." It turns out that Wikipedia "is the product of about 100 million hours of human thought ... In other words, in the amount of time we spend watching TV, we could create 2,000 Wikipedia-sized projects -- and that's just in America, and in just one year."

Clay further argues that this isn't so far-fetched, given that young people, especially, are switching their television time for "computers, mobile phones and other internet-enabled devices." In some cases, they are doing so to pursue collaborative projects, sometimes with a charitable element. But, as Farhad points out, not all online activity is "as valuable as Wikipedia," and suggests that having a "cognitive surplus" doesn't guarantee that "we'll spend it well."

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Injecting digital into your brand's DNA. By Michael Dennelly. (more)

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Dissecting "the shopper" can be every bit as complex and nuanced as dissecting "mobile."   By William Rosen. (more)