Is it just us or does Fast Company have an odd policy when it comes to deciding who should feature on their cover (and even in their articles)? Sure, we love some of the writing in the magazine but why on earth would a magazine that is supposed to be future focused feature Intel or Nokia as their cover stories?

We recently wrote about the role of product innovation in brand differentiation, particularly in competing for today’s increasingly  sparse disposable dollar.  Recognizing this reality, Businessweek reports that Honda has appointed Tokanobu Ito, a veteran engineer and head of R&D, to the top spot of president and chief executive officer.
Brands like Apple and Research in Motion (makers of the Blackberry) have experienced success  by merging the business/R&D disciplines into its top posts – Steve Jobs’ involvement in Apple’s product design is well publicized, and RIM’s co-CEO and founder Mike Lazaridis is an engineer.  Both companies have seen their financial performance increase [...]

We were playing with Google Trends the other day and we did a rather unimaginative search to look at interest over time for 2 leading tech companies – Microsoft and Apple. The numbers on the graphs on Google Trends reflect how many searches have been done for a particular term, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time.
The graph above shows that interest in Microsoft was in decline and Apple in ascent but before the lines could cross – Steve Jobs poor health seems to have checked Apple’s growth and stopped the Cupertino based tech [...]