THE AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS:
WARREN Buffett says the US economy has “fallen off a cliff”, describing the crisis as “an economic Pearl Harbour”, as concern spread about the US administration’s fitful attempts to halt the collapse of the US banking sector.

The leading investor, an informal adviser to President Barack Obama, whose financial diagnoses are widely respected — although he conceded he failed to predict the severity of the crisis — said the economy had come “close to the worst case” imagined, and that recovery would be slow.

Mr Buffett, one of the wealthiest men in the world, said the entire banking sector had been hours from collapse in September, and would have imploded without the $US700billion ($1trillion) Wall Street emergency bailout.

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From Martin Lindstrom, author of Buyology:
NeuroMarketing is where science and marketing meet. Buyology bears witness to an historic meeting between neuroscientists and marketing experts, a union that sheds new light on how we make decisions about what we buy — everything from food, to cell phones, to cigarettes, to political candidates — and why.

A research discipline that’s still in its infancy, NeuroMarketing uses high–tech brain scanning techniques, such as fMRI and EEG, to investigate brain activity. This neuro–imaging hardware enables us to examine and analyze what really drives our behavior, our opinions, our preference for Corona over Budweiser, iPods over Zunes, or McDonald’s over Wendy’s.

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One of the most interesting things about electors is that they are also customers, too.

It was Professor George Gallup, one of the world’s greatest leaders of change, who discovered the power of this strategy and invented market research and the Gallup Poll at Princeton.

Both Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama are well aware of this fact and are deliberately exploiting the power of this insight in the design of their recession solutions.

Prime Minister Rudd is going to gamble 42 billion Australian dollars on this strategy and President Obama will gamble a trillion US dollars on the same strategy.

This will be one of the most remarkable experiments in the history of both governments. The world awaits with breath abated!

FORTUNE:

From tech (Larry Page) to Wall Street (Peter G. Peterson) to the military (David Petraeus) to entertainment (Tina Fey), accomplished people tell Fortune about the advice that most influenced their lives.

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Trendhunter.com: A successful rebranding campaign quickly separates marketing lightweights from heavyweights.

It’s no easy feat to mess with all of the hallmarks and associations a company has with its target market, and yet the entities in this slideshow have done so masterfully.

Fast food has taken a beating from a consumer base that is increasingly focused on health. McDonald’s and Burger King have each taken significant steps to separate their respective restaurants from the negative connotations of fast food, implementing luxurious restaurants that are every bit as aesthetically-appealing as their four-star counterparts.

Google has been the master of logo changes. The holiday logo changes that appear on Google.com have been celebrated, captured and archived by millions of Web users. Click here and check out some of the other companies that get it right …

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Trendwatching: Has there ever been more urgency for corporations to ditch the greed and embrace generosity?

It’s something that countless individuals have already started doing, of course: giving is the new taking, and sharing is the new giving.

And yes, we do realize that this month’s Trend Briefing is massive, but in this business climate, can you really afford not to spend some time figuring out how to get a little closer to your customers?

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Michael Hewitt Gleeson — On Sale!! « Speakers & Entertainers Blog
Michael Hewitt Gleeson — On Sale!! Internationally renowned speaker, Michael Hewitt Gleeson, is doing his bit to help businesses adapt and deal with the extraordinary economic times we’re experiencing. …