This Week In Brand Strategy & Marketing

Here is a look at some standout business strategy, brand-building and communications stories that caught our attention last week.

Discussions Shaping Brand Strategy, Creativity & Innovation

• Strategy: What It Is and Is Not
• The Job Jobs Did (on Steve Jobs’ resignation)
• Smart Brands in the Connected Age
• When Algorithms Control the World
• Data As Process
• Do More, Own Less: A Grand Theory of the Sharing Economy
• What’s Your Social Media Strategy?
• Why Online/Offline Mobile Integration is Going to Be a Huge Business
• Suspension Culture (as seen on Twitter and Instagram during Hurricane Irene)
• Does This Technology Serve Human Purposes? A Necessary Conversation with Sherry Turkle (Part One)
• Five Warning Signs to Watch for at Apple

Notable Ideas: New Products, Platforms, Projects and Services 

• 50/50: Make or Break (50 digital projects, 50 days for famine relief)
• Some Useful Examples of Visual Data: Hurricane Tracking Tools (for illustrative reference)
• World’s Biggest Startup Launches in Silicon Valley: @WalmartLabs
• Infographic: Google’s 11-Year Spending Spree
• Ticketmaster Teams with Facebook to Let You Sit Next to Your Friends
• United Continental Replacing Pilot Manuals with iPads
• NPR Tries Something New: A Day to Let Managers Step Away and Developers Play
• Data Scientist: The Hottest Job You’ve Never Heard of

Creative Branded (or not) Work (For Better or Worse…)

• Foursquare and Wall Street Journal Hurricane Irene collaboration: NYC Hurricane Evacuation Centers
• Red Bull‘s Smart Use of Social Media and Branded Content
• Twitter Boasts That It’s Faster Than Earthquakes
• Library ‘Living Books’ Program Will Loan Human Experts
• Coke Lets You Create Your Own Drink (on Facebook and in the Real World)
• OK Go Covers The Muppets