Economists (of which I am one) are cheering about recent economic measures for our nation. Inflation rates are falling without the high levels of unemployment expected to produce disinflation. Real wages have risen. Hard-to-employ groups are finding jobs as employers drop prior credential requirements. Indeed, the soft landing the US Federal Reserve Bank is shooting for may be achievable (underscore “may,” as so much uncertainty remains). So why does most of the nation (7 in 10 according to a March 2023 CNN poll) believe the economy is still bad? One hypothesis is that people are upset because, although the inflation rate is falling, prices remain significantly higher. They feel they need to spend a larger percentage of their income on meeting their needs. Yes, prices are up. And, higher prices make them worse off. But incomes are also rising. If incomes increase more…
Five mistakes in Twitter’s new brand name and symbol
Branding is a strategy for differentiation and growth. So too, is changing a brand name. Elon Musk’s Twitter has plenty of problems that require new strategies. It finally has a powerful competitor of size in Meta’s Threads. It lost nearly 60% of its ad revenue last year. The platform has regular bugs that hurt users’ experiences. And Musk reduced oversight of hateful and pornographic posts, leading brands to fear reputational damage and reduce ad spending on the platform. Musk’s goal for Twitter is ambitious. He wants it to be a single platform for all things online. For example, as one of the founders of PayPal’s predecessors, it’s not surprising he wants to add a payments business on Twitter to reduce reliance on ad dollars. He wants open and unconstrained communication among users, with users calling out and limiting the behavior of bad actors….