I just received a really cool new set of designs from one of our artists, something that I had not seen before – she took a whimsical … wait a minute, I can’t tell you because it IS new and fresh. Several client names immediately popped into my head who are candidates for this, so […]
If you do much reading about business trends and what is going on in that world today you will soon notice that there is a relentless drumbeat for people to throw off the corporate shackles and try their hand at “Entrepreneurship”. With a capitol “E”. I am, of course, all for it but in some […]
There was an interesting story this morning on NPR about a lawsuit filed by Ray Teller of the Penn and Teller magic duo. He had registered the copyright for a magic trick (called Shadows) back in 1983, however another magician has misappropriated the secret and is not only using it on stage but offering to […]
She may as well have told me I had a third head. “You have a serious case of pneumonia” is what she said. Really? Pneumonia? Who gets pneumonia? That’s what mothers use to scare their children, as in “you’ll catch pneumonia if you go out without a jacket”. It’s the scourge of elderly people and […]
We LOVE this show. If you haven’t seen it, go to ABC or Hulu and watch some episodes, check out the fan blog (inthesharktank.com), and while you are watching think about how what you do, as a licensing artist, is parallel to these poor hopefuls being chewed up by the Sharks. The real lessons you […]
Most people in this industry don’t know that in a previous life I was a boat dealer and yacht broker. I owned and operated a multi-location brokerage that sold both new and used vessels; we handled a number of high end lines over the years, and yes, occasionally I do miss it. In the world […]
Again. It’s not the first time, certainly we have seen sweeping changes in the way we live and do business, even in our lifetimes. Mechanical transport, electricity, telephones, air travel, radio and television – all these and more rearranged lives and businesses. But they did so at a relatively ordered pace since the infrastructure required […]
Normally I would toss these eagerly awaited gems out there and let you digest them as you will, but this collection from the recent Atlanta Gift Market seem to be wrapping around a couple of messages. The first is that the business is back – it was a great market and there are similar reports […]
I was reading an interesting article yesterday by patent attorney Andrew Spriegel about the realities facing inventors who approach him with what they are sure is the “million dollar idea”. You can find it here. After reading it through, I was struck by the many parallels to our own business and went back to it […]
It would be funny if it was not so tragic. The headline reads “China Factories Eye Cheaper Labor Overseas”. It’s well documented that labor costs have been rising – dramatically – in China over the last few years, something like 15 to 20 percent per year, and of course material costs for anything and everything […]