We’re back with our weekly recap of the interesting and inspiring, with a particular eye for what shifts and ideas brands should be tracking, evaluating and acting on. This is a collection of  some standout business strategy, brand-building and digital media stories catching our attention – several stemming from the conversations at SXSW.

Discussions Shaping Strategy, Creativity & Innovation 

• Addicted to Data: How An Obsession with Measuring Can Hurt Business
• How to Manufacture Desire
• Magic Mountain: What Happens Next at Davos (on some of the vapid aspects of the conference)
• How TED Makes Ideas Smaller (by branding them)
• How Much Data Do Americans Consume Each Day? (Infographic)
• Social Media Is A Spiritual Awakening, Not A Technological One
• A Summary of SXSW Panel: Marketing’s Shift from Waterfall to Agile
• The Top 10 Emerging Technologies for 2012
• IDEO: Big Innovation Lives Right On the Edge of Ridiculous Ideas
• What Is Content Marketing? (hint: if you’re advertising it, it’s not)
• The Arrival of The Digital Snob
• Ogilvy Notes: Illustrated sketches of notes from SXSW panels

Notable Ideas: New Products, Platforms and Projects 

• Homeless Hotspots: A Charitable Experiment at SXSW
• Usabilla: Collect, Rate and Save Design Elements from Any Website
• Is Your Agency Making Cool Sh*t? Or Just Talking Sh*t?
• The Co.Create Virtual Panel: Brand Content
• Project Re:Brief By Google
• The Well Project: Going Global

Brands, Companies and Entities of Note (some more obvious than others)

• Starbucks Concept Store Is A Lab for Reinventing the Brand
• Is JCPenney‘s Makeover the Future of Retailing?
• Instagram for Android Shown Off at SXSW (Better than iPhone app, founders say)
• Twitter, the Startup That Wouldn’t Die
• The Guardian On Open Journalism (Video)
• Content from Oreo’s 100th Anniversary
• With New Hardware, Square Begins Taxi Rollout
• Google Unveils Play

Digital & Social Media News and Resources

• Technology: The Numbers We Don’t Know
• What the New iPad Won’t Do (hint: enterprise software needs to catch up to it)
• The Economist’s Lean Back 2.0 (on the impact of tablets)
• Path’s Big Announcements This Week
• Netflix’s Apple TV Deal Could Signal New Business Model
• Twitter Plots Big Changes to Brand Pages
• Facebook Closes Down Gowalla