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.

Discussions Shaping Strategy, Creativity & Innovation 

• Love, Hate and Great Work from John Hegarty and Dan Wieden (and the motivation of healthy competition)
• Startup Delusion and Embracing the Schlep (on the importance of marketing)
• Cannes Lions: A (Pinterest) Recap of key ideas, sights, winners, etc.
• Cannes Lions Debrief: Facebook – The Psychology and Creativity of Sharing (designer Paul Adams on the death of the term ‘social’ – and its evolution towards integration into all experiences
• The Future of Advertising (the book was written collaboratively at Cannes – and already published by Hyper Island)
• Cannes-Cer? (on the risks of defining creativity at award festivals like Cannes)
•  Innovation Must Embrace the Crowd: World Innovation Forum
• The Rich Are Creating Their Own Economy
• How Nike+ Made ‘Just Do It’ Obsolete: From campaigns to products + ongoing service through data
• Ben Horowitz on Sexism in Silicon Valley

Notable Ideas: New Products, Platforms and Projects 

• I Need a Viral Video.com
• Inside Google’s Plan To Build A Catalog of Every Single Thing, Ever (on the importance of the infrastructure + ideology that will inform the way Google responds to search requests
• Shakil Khan – Head of Special Projects at Path – Shares His Experiences Working with Path and Spotify
• Nike+ Hacked to Track Tweets Rather than Steps
• Meet the Startups About to Revolutionize Mobile Loyalty Programs
• Sorry, Young Man, You’re Not the Most Important Demographic In Tech

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

• Kevin Systrom Says Instagram’s Future Is In Your Past
• Nick Wooster’s Next Chapter at jcpenney
• Project Re: Brief: The Documentary
• Klout CEO Gets Sauteed at LeWeb London (and handles it with grace, humility, openness and a constructive attitude)
• Strangers Have Spent 10 Million Nights In Strangers’ Beds, Thanks to AirBnB (Infographic)
• How the Apple Store Seduces You with the Tilt of Its Laptops
• Smart Car Twitter Response Is Brilliant

Digital & Social Media News and Resources

• Microsoft Announces Surface: A Windows 8 Tablet
• Facebook Mobile Ads Are Clicked 13X More, Earn 11X More than Desktop Ads
• Why Faces Matter to Facebook (on Face.com acquisition)
• Retail eCommerce Forecast: Challenging Economy Drives Online Shopping
• Twitter: Expanded Tweets
• Top Trends of 2012: The Consumer Cloud