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If you like holiday reads don't miss Murder on the Toy Town Express a Vintage Toyshop Mystery by Barbara Early! Barbara is giving away either a paperback of Death of a Toy Soldier or hardcover of Murder on the Toy Town Express to one of our readers! Welcome back to the Wickeds, Barbara!
Something about the holiday season seems to just generate work. Maybe it's because I'm not at the top of my game right now, recovering from a nasty bout of infections, five courses of antibiotics, and oral surgery. And trying to promote a Christmas book. Or maybe I'm just getting old. But thinking about all that "needs" to be done between now and December 25th makes me want to cuddle up in my warmest pajamas, climb into bed, and hide my head under the covers until January.
Notice the word "needs" in quotes? When I hit that word, I had a personal epiphany—and yes, I know I'm mixing my holidays. How much of my burgeoning to-do list literally "needs" to be done? Do I need to bake cookies? Do I need to put up all my decorations? Do I need to attempt every cute reindeer craft I see on Pinterest? Do I need to kill myself making the holiday just as magical, plus a little more, than any Christmas I remember?
Cue the "Hallelujah Chorus." I've been emancipated from Christmas slavery.
I don't have to do anything. I suddenly had a glut of free time on my hands. I could spend more with friends and family. Or I could make a cup of instant hot chocolate, prop my feet up, flip on the Hallmark Channel, and watch heartwarming holiday flicks right up until the big day. Or better yet, read a nice Christmas mystery. Sounded good to me.
And when that little voice sounded, I knew I had to put down the remote and the e-reader and listen.
But…decorating the tree can be fun. And it was true. Putting all the decorations on the tree, making it pretty: it can almost become a form of creative play, much like coloring a picture at the kitchen table. I've always been a "Spoonful of Sugar" kind of girl, so stepping back and turning work into a game makes sense to me. Before long, the tree was up.
Because of a couple of very naughty cats, we've stored all our fragile and heirloom ornaments, and for the past few years I've been putting up a fun vintage toy tree, that goes with my Vintage Toyshop Mystery series. Here's a video if you'd like to see it. https://youtu.be/ReiIUBYecb0
I still haven't decided if I will do any more decorating, but I'm going to be careful not to put any the trappings (fitting word) of Christmas on my to-do list. I will not mark holiday success by check marks on a piece of paper. Instead, I can declutter my Christmas using the same one-question method people now use to declutter their homes: does it bring me joy?
For example, baking cookies. Does it bring me joy?
Okay, eating cookies brings me joy, so I might need to whip off a batch of my favorites. Seeing my husband's face when he realizes I've made his favorite also brings me joy. And the smell of fresh baked goods in the house is cozy and comforting. But do I need to make all the different kinds I often make? I certainly don't need to be eating them!
Setting up the Christmas village. Does it bring me joy? Some, but maybe not enough to warrant lugging three huge totes up the stairs, at least not this year. Maybe next year I'll set them up in the shape of a Christmas tree. Oh, that could be fun!
Readers, what brings you joy during the holidays?
Bio: Barbara Early earned an engineering degree, but after four years of doing nothing but math, developed a sudden allergy to the subject and decided to choose another occupation. Before she settled on murdering fictional people, she was a secretary, a school teacher, a pastor's wife, and an amateur puppeteer. After several years living elsewhere, she and her husband moved back to her native Western New York State, where she enjoys cooking, crafts, classic movies and campy seventies television, board games, and posting pictures of her four cats on Facebook. She writes the Vintage Toyshop series and the Bridal Bouquet Shop Mysteries (as Beverly Allen).


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NEWTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A woman whose teenage daughter's dismembered remains were found in the woods last fall has been charged along with her boyfriend with killing the girl in a "rape-murder fantasy" the couple shared, a prosecutor said Sunday.
"The hours and the days leading up to her murder were probably the most horrible and traumatic that any person should ever have had to experience," Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said.
Sara Packer and Jacob Sullivan face charges including criminal homicide, rape, kidnapping and abuse of a corpse over the July death of 14-year-old Grace Packer, online court documents show.
On the morning of July 8, Grace, who had been adopted by Sara Packer, was taken to the attic of a house the couple rented, where she was beaten and then raped by Sullivan as her mother watched, an affidavit said. She was then poisoned, bound and gagged and left for dead, Weintraub said.
When the couple returned hours later, they discovered Grace was still alive, so Sullivan choked her to death, Weintraub said. Sullivan told police it took much longer than he expected to strangle her, the affidavit said.
Investigators say the couple packed Grace's body with cat litter to mask decomposition smells and stored it in the attic. Officials allege they dismembered the body in October after being scared by a police visit.
The girl's torso was found by two hunters in a Luzerne County park on Oct. 31, and K-9 teams found the legs and arms nearby, the criminal complaint said.
Sullivan was arraigned early Sunday, and Sara Packer was arraigned later. They didn't enter pleas, were denied bail and were expected to be transferred to Bucks County Prison.
Sullivan apologized as he was led into court, the Intelligencer newspaper reported.
"I'm sorry for what I did," he said. "It was wrong."
Packer had previously been charged with child endangerment and obstruction. Police say she provided misleading information to investigators when reporting that Grace was missing from their Abington home in July.
Authorities say after numerous unsuccessful attempts to contact Packer through August, on Sept. 7 investigators learned Grace and her younger brother had been withdrawn from Abington School District. The investigation later revealed Packer had moved to Quakertown without telling police, and her 12-year-old adopted son, Grace's biological brother, had been enrolled in Quakertown School District.
Authorities said Packer kept cashing her daughter's monthly $700 Social Security checks and updated disability forms in August without mentioning the girl's disappearance. It's unclear what the girl's disability was.
Sullivan and Packer made a suicide pact and tried to overdose on prescription pills on Dec. 30, a criminal complaint said. They were hospitalized after being found by a woman who lived with them.
Prosecutors said Sullivan began confessing to the killing overnight Friday into Saturday to workers at the hospital where he was being treated.
Associated Press

subset: commoncrawl


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Of course, this isn't just any four-second clip. It's the sound -- a soft da-dum, da-dumm, with a lush fade-out -- that millions of computer users will hear every day, and perhaps thousands of times in total, when they turn on computers running Microsoft's forthcoming Windows Vista operating system.
To set the right tone -- clean, simple, but with "some long-term legs," according to Microsoft's Steve Ball -- the software maker recruited musician Robert Fripp.
Fripp, best known for his work with the '70s rock band King Crimson, recorded hours of his signature layered, guitar-driven sound for the project, under the close direction of Ball and others at Microsoft. Then, it was Ball's job to sort through those hours of live recordings to suss out just the right few seconds.
Fripp's involvement is not surprising. His occasional collaborator, Brian Eno, recorded sounds for Windows 95. Also, Ball, the Microsoft group program manager for Wave -- Windows Audio Visual Excellence -- has in the past been Fripp's student and business partner.
Ball, a self-proclaimed renaissance man who is both an engineer and a musician, considered the work of about 10 musicians for the project. Some of those people were influential in the final four seconds as well.
Redmond-based Microsoft seriously debated several other sounds before settling on the final startup sound about three weeks ago. The rejects included a longer, lusher clip and a quick, techno-sounding piece. While many people liked an upbeat ditty with a clapping rhythm, it was eventually nixed for sounding too much like a commercial. Ball said the hand-clapping also seemed like too "human" a sound when paired with the new graphic for Vista.
"There's nothing that's especially human about our new Windows animation," he said.
The short startup clip that was eventually chosen is meant to evoke the rhythm of the words "Win-dows Vis-ta!" and Ball hopes the sound will serve as a calling card for the operating system. It also consists of four chords -- one for every color in the new Windows graphic that appears as the sound plays. It's no coincidence that it's also four seconds long.
There are a total of 45 Vista sounds that Microsoft has spent the last year and a half perfecting, including the dings you hear when you get a new e-mail, receive an error message or log off your computer. Generally, these are more muted, less jarring variations of the prompts familiar to Windows XP users.
If it seems like overkill to go to all that trouble for a few seconds of sound, consider this: Microsoft estimates that the clips such as the e-mail alert will be played trillions of times in years to come. That's a lot of opportunity to annoy, offend -- or, if the job is done right -- please or appease computer users the world over.
One major concern was that the startup sound not grow grating after a time.
"You want a sound that people will love the first time they hear it, but it's a paradox to also say, 'Oh and by the way, we need people to love it the tenth, or the hundredth, or the thousandth time they hear it,'" Ball said.
That's one reason he was glad to have 18 months to choose the clips.
"We had time to live with the music," Ball said.
Still, for all the time Ball has spent on the sounds, he says one measure of success would be if people noticed them very little, if at all.
Ball is the first to admit that the percussive beeps in past Windows versions could be jarring enough to bother nearby workers or interrupt others in a meeting. With the number of intrusive sounds from cell phones, handheld devices and other gadgets only increasing, that's something Ball and his colleagues were keen to avoid with Vista.
"We want you to know they're there, and you would miss them if they were gone, but we would like them to be just barely noticeable, almost like they are part of the environment or part of your wallpaper," he said. "We want them in the background, rather than the foreground."
Microsoft this week announced that the new Outlook for Windows 11 is now at the "general availability" release stage for personal account users, but it's also arriving for organizations as a so-called "enterprise ready" release.
Microsoft on Thursday unveiled four new Surface devices for businesses.
Cisco is acquiring security and IT solutions provider Splunk for about "$28 billion in equity value," per a Thursday announcement.
Copilot for Windows 11 will be available on Sept. 26.
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Second Ultra Awesome Post
Orange, lemon or grape? What is your choose? With tetra pack packaging that retain more natural juices, all packages have been designed in a sustainable use, with papers and returnable bottles. Point of View The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked. "What's happened to me?" he thought. It wasn't a dream. ...Read More


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Reinvention is the Key to Sustaining a Brand
The tragedy of the day is Sears. They are nose-diving with no end in sight. After comparable store sales falling off between 16-17% in 2017, no one can see a way to reverse this trend. Wall Street 's collective view is that they will be lucky to survive 2018. They should have focused on reinvention all along.
What makes this so sad is they were not able to build upon the venerable brand equity established over generations. For much of the last century, Sears was the source of quality and durability for many things. It was literally where America went to shop. Most appliances that our grandparents counted on came from Sears. Their catalog was where Americans bought what they needed. Quality was assured. So powerful was the brand that it could carry the product offering of the "mail order bride", then used by homesteaders who could look at a Sears and Roebuck or Montgomery Ward catalog and order a wife delivered to his home just as easily as an appliance. (The Zoosk, Match.com and eharmony of the time). That's how embedded the brand was in our culture.
But things changed, and successive leadership never focused on reinvention to keep the brand relevant.
To prevent the erosion of a strong brand, leaders need to constantly evaluate where they are and where markets are headed. Of the powerful brands of the mid-to-late 1900's, what happened to Kodak, Howard Johnson's, Polaroid, Borders, and Blockbuster? Imagine the extraordinary brand equity each had built. At In the end, each brand did not manage their business into a changing future. Kodak didn't believe in the digital revolution. Howard Johnson's yielded being America's rest stop to fast food chains, etc.
The big message here is having the forethought and will to acknowledge change can help a company navigate the future. It is about embracing disruption. Great leaders must continually make this a primary responsibility. Particularly with the ever-increasing acceleration of change, the mandate is here, right now.
One significant consulting firm that specializes helping companies focus on the future in a rigorous and strategic manner is Innosight. They have developed formalized processes to look at the future and manage to it. We have seen it in action and it is impressive.
Net… don't put your head in the sand. Embrace that change will happen, identify what the future will look like and have a strategy to navigate there. If you do this well, you won't become a Sears.
January 12, 2018 Comments Off on Reinvention is the Key to Sustaining a Brand
United Airlines… It Could Have Been Me or You.
When a brand has a problem, and all brands do at some point or another, people process the nature of the flaw differently. If it touches them… they react very personally. Key media platforms, like YouTube, feed this beast and all of a sudden a brand has a real problem.
Brands that have critical "flaws" that don't directly touch us are not quickly damaged. For example, when VW misled us about their reporting incorrect MPG information, we read it as a corporate flaw. This was viewed as more distant, it remotely touched each of us, and then we moved on. Most people didn't attach any fundamental connection to the issue, so they tuned out. Sure, the situation has been an on-going nightmare for VW causing management firings and re-alignments, but from an immediacy standpoint, it is perceived to be a somewhat distant issue. So the brand damage has been significantly less than if the issue had touched us directly.
But security personnel dragging a passenger off a United plane in Chicago is different. It touches us because it could have been us. For those of us who fly a lot, on planes that are generally full, the idea of having to give up a seat and take another flight becomes a personal decision. Most business people are on very tight schedules, and don't have the time or patience to wait. Add to that the motive was United's business, not the passengers, and we become outraged for good reason. The United brand has been damaged.
What if you were told your seat was not available? That alone would be a problem. But take it to the extreme, what if you were dragged off a flight (not politely asked and escorted)? Now that touches me on a very personal level. We can imagine ourselves in that circumstance.
From a brand management standpoint, these types of flaws must be addressed differently. When an issue touches consumers as individuals, it becomes critical to step up and address the public head-on and immediately. Delays in communicating only signal that the corporation (brand) is not prioritizing us, but focused on protecting itself. Today, consumers are very sensitized to these cues.
Oscar Munoz, United's CEO, lost sight of this. His first instincts ignored the critical relationship the United brand has to its passengers. It took him a day or two to recover. But a lot of damage has been done.
The good news is that he did, relatively quickly, recognize what was at stake. Let's hope passengers and the media cut him some slack. He finally "embraced" how his consumers felt about his brand. In our opinion, he stemmed what could have been an even worse situation. Now he must build back the positive brand equity that was lost. This requires; fixing the problem, communicating to all of us how will never happen again, and then speaking to us with conviction that he (the United brand) understands us. His tone better be empathetic and not corporate, or we will put United even further down our list of preferred airlines.
April 14, 2017 Comments Off on United Airlines… It Could Have Been Me or You.
Tesla Drops "Motors." What's Next?
Tesla just announced that it is dropping "Motors" from its name to signal that it's moving into businesses other than cars. They will, at least in the foreseeable future, be an unparalleled sustainable energy company. However, at the pace they are moving, one can only imagine what businesses they might ultimately be in. Will that name hold?
Apple did this several years ago by changing its name from Apple Computer to Apple. Obviously, this was a smart move that helped them broaden their portfolio of products and services.
There are many reason why a company might move to change its name —an obvious one being a legal issue. Beyond that, changes can be driven by consumer trends, broadening portfolios, over-coming negative perceptions, or just trying to stay relevant. For example, Kentucky Fried Chicken changed its name to KFC to avoid healthy consumers thinking about fried food. Or Philip Morris created new name, Altria, to be known as more than just a cigarette manufacturer, but a portfolio of businesses.
So, for fun, below are a list of several companies that completely changed their names. Can you identify who they are today?
Blue Ribbon Sports
Brad's Drink
Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation
Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web
Lucky and Goldstar Co.
Pete's Super Submarines
Quantum Computer Services
Sound of Music
Stag Party
Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo
Wards Company
If you think about these things and are considering a business transformation, step back and look at your name.
There are interesting stories behind how these names became the ones we know today. How many did you know?
AuctionWeb, the first on-line marketplace, became eBay
BackRub was the original name for Google, based on the mathematical term "googol",1 followed by 100 zeros
Blue Ribbon Sports was the business that became Nike
Brad's Drink was the original name of a soft drink developed by a pharmacist that became Pepsi-Cola
Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation evolved into IBM, the name of its Canadian subsidiary
Confinity, started as a Palm Pilot payment company, renamed itself to become PayPal
Datsun today is Nissan based on the strategy to unify many products one-der one brand
Firebird is the original name for Firefox, changed for legal reasons
Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web became Yahoo, standing for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle"
Lucky and Goldstar Co. is today LG Electronics
Pete's Super Submarines is known today as Subway
Quantum Computer Services is today AOL, a shortening of America Online
Sound of Music became Best Buy, based on a successful fire sale after a tornado hit the company's main store promising "best buys" on everything
Stag Party was the original name for Playboy after a law suit was threatened by Stag Magazine
Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo was a radio repair shop that is known for making the first transistor radio, and today is known as SONY
ValuJet became AirTran after a well-publicized plane crash. Today it is part of Southwest.
Wards Company adopted the name of a retail format they owned to become Circuit City
February 6, 2017 Comments Off on Tesla Drops "Motors." What's Next?
Can Trust in a Brand Be Revived?
The question is… can trust be revived in a brand that is seriously damaged? Almost every year there are brands that amaze us with incredible stupidity… mostly generated by a drive for bigger sales numbers. Volkswagen not only misled consumers and dealers about emissions and gas mileage claims, but
tried to make it a small and inconsequential issue until investigators uncovered an ever-growing circle of management and leaders who actually knew exactly what was going on. Read more →
September 30, 2016 Comments Off on Can Trust in a Brand Be Revived?
Being Yourself is Terrible Advice… Authentic Brands Should Take Note.
The New York Times featured an interesting article by Adam Grant, a contributing Op-Ed writer entitled "Unless you are Oprah, 'be yourself' is terrible advice." It sheds some new light on what individuals need to focus on to "erase the gap between what you firmly believe inside and what you reveal to the outside world".
But doing this, being totally authentic and completely open and honest, has a downside and often a negative effect on advancing in the business world. Said another way, we really don't want to know everything about the authentic you. There is much truth here for organizations, as well.
In the corporate branding world, professionals have been trying to mine the authentic "self" of an organization… that inner essence which needs to be brought forward to present a brand that is true and honest. While this is a strong starting point, as Mr. Grant points out for individuals, perhaps organizations don't need to focus on all the warts and truths of their inner self, but define themselves to what they can credibly claim. "Rather than changing from the inside out, you bring the outside in".
Corporations do need to understand the foundation of where they have come from, but build their brands based on reasonable aspirations of what they want to be. It is a fine line between aspiration and over-promise…and this task has to be very carefully approached. But in the end, if that seam can be found, great brands can be crafted.
The magic is in the synthesis. Understanding the reality of the past blended into a vision of the future.
To quote Grant… "they just want you to live up to what comes out of your mouth." So spend meaningful time thinking about what that is, and then live it. Amen.
June 8, 2016 Comments Off on Being Yourself is Terrible Advice… Authentic Brands Should Take Note.
Political Primaries Spotlight Principles of Strong Brands
Brand experts everywhere are scratching their heads about how the candidates ("brands") in the current primary system are challenging beliefs and apparently re-writing the rules. The candidates in both political parties are exhibiting unpredictable, and in some cases abhorrent, behavior. We have looked beyond the immediate to remind ourselves that there are very true and proven principles about short and long-term brand development. Lest we forget, great, powerful, sustainable brands do share important characteristics. They are:
Clear and focused. Powerful brands know what they stand for and stay focused on their core positioning. Rather than bounce around with multiple promises, they understand the need to be almost singular in purpose. At this stage of the run up to the primaries, some of the candidates have demonstrated clarity and focus, and they are being rewarded for this.
Authentic and true. Great brands are authentic. Authentic brands understand what they are and do what they say. Their behavior is consistent with their promises. That means that the organization making the brand promise must be congruent. So "brand" goes way beyond communications or image. It is a mandate for behaviors. Love a candidate or not, those that rise to the top are true to what they are and do not get distracted.
Truthful and honest. Brands that win, over the long haul, are ones that are true and honest. They don't duck and weave between claims they make, but say things that they can back up. The gap between truth and fabrication will be a key determinate over the longer run.
Transparent. Strong brands develop a level of transparency so their key audiences understand that they are telling the truth, and not hiding or shielding key information. They understand that this transparency is the basis of the bond they have with their advocates. It would be fair to say that all the candidates, in both parties, are not transparent enough. Some believe that shouting louder masks the need to be transparent. In the long term, this strategy rarely works.
Consistent. Brands that last understand the need to be consistent over time. Brands that fail flip-flop from one position to another to satisfy immediate needs usually fail. That is because, in the long term, consumers and voters scratch their heads being unable to attach clarity and purpose to a constantly shifting target.
Delivery focused. Many brands can induce trial by making compelling claims and promises but only brands that actually deliver on promises will endure and develop loyalty. Consumers don't tolerate bait and switch, and what may push a short-term victory could actually develop long-term detractors.
Shouting the loudest is not an enduring platform for a brand. It certainly gets media coverage and awareness. But in the end, it is the guiding principles above that will shape the outcome and the future.
We believe that the degree to which a candidate embraces these principles will determine their long-term viability. Not just in their electability, but also in terms of their effectiveness. So while the American electorate is attempting to select one "brand" over another, those that survive over the long-term will have met the test better than others.
March 10, 2016 Comments Off on Political Primaries Spotlight Principles of Strong Brands
Apple's Refusal to Unlock it's iPhone is "On-Brand"
This past week has been a flurry of activity between Apple and the U.S. Justice Department about unlocking an iPhone used in the San Bernadino terrorist attack. It is a profound question, and not a new one. Apple's response so far has been consistent with the brand bond it has with its loyalists… that the relationship with consumers takes precedence.
In the New York Times, Eric Lichtblau and Matt Apuzzo cite that Apple's refusal "appears to be based on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy" rather than a legal rationale. They are partially correct. Apple knows that it is in the "relationship" business… and will, at all costs, defend that relationship with its consumers.
In a recent post, we focused on "Why Authenticity Matters". As we wrote, "Authentic brands do what they say. Their behavior is consistent with their promises". Apple is being true and authentic to its very reason for being. In the face of the immediacy of a legal challenge, it has deferred to its brand before compromising.
There is no question that this issue is complex. From a technical and legal standpoint, opening up the code could set a significant precedent that could have broad impact across many companies with strong intellectual property as a basis for their differentiation. Imagine some people being poisoned by drinking Coca-Cola and the company being asked by the Justice Department to reveal it's 130 year-old, secret formula for the purposes of helping in a criminal investigation. This example isn't as emotionally loaded as dealing with a terrorist situation, but the precedent is similar.
On the other hand, any way the authorities can gather information to thwart terrorist activities is a good thing to do. So this becomes a thorny problem.
There is no question that Apple needs to find a way to help the Justice Department without compromising its bond with consumers. Reading between the lines, both Apple and the Justice Department have essentially acknowledged this. The question is how to provide this information while protecting the Apple brand. I am confident, once the bluster dies down, this will be accomplished.
February 22, 2016 Comments Off on Apple's Refusal to Unlock it's iPhone is "On-Brand"
Why Authenticity Matters
One universal characteristic of market leaders and powerful brands is that they are authentic. Business leaders should challenge if they have embraced what authenticity means.
Authentic brands do what they say. Their behavior is consistent with their promises. That means that the organization making the brand promise must be congruent: its business processes have to be designed and aligned to ensure behavior that supports and delivers the brand promise. So 'brand' goes way beyond communications or image. It is an organizational mandate.
There have been three recent examples of brands that have broken this trust. Volkswagen completely diluted its brand by not only installing software in cars to cheat on emissions standards, but also hiding and denying this behavior for years. They impeded and obstructed regulators and provided misleading information, and thus violated not only customer trust, but also employee affection for the company. It will take years for VW to recapture its market position.
Takata, a leading supplier of air-bags, tried to duck responsibility for airbags that can explode when deployed by implying that it was a data manipulation issue. The truth did come out, and after years of denial, Takata is now paying the price for misleading customers. Their brand has suffered immeasurably. To quote the lead plaintiff, "The only thing they did not know was the names of the individuals who were going to be injured or killed, and the date it was going to happen." Ouch.
Chipotle did not appear to react fast enough when it learned about a Norovirus outbreak. Apparently, the procedure for "washing down" produce didn't seem to be effective. They have subsequently apologized, closed some restaurants and put in place new procedures. The question is whether consumers will believe that they will continue to act in a truthful manner. We give them praise for not denying the problem, but time will tell whether consumers believe Chipotle acted fast enough in the best interest of their consumers. For a brand based on credibility, they are dancing very close to the edge.
One of the benefits of being authentic is word-of-mouth recommendations and repeat purchases. In other words… loyalty. Whether B2B or B2C, understanding what authentic means and living it every day is a mandate in today's complex markets.
February 19, 2016 Comments Off on Why Authenticity Matters
Stories are the Building Blocks for Professional Service Firm Branding
Brands are ultimately about meaning. Stories are the building blocks of meaning. And stories that connect your brand with a fundamental human need can help you build a powerful bond with your clients.
In our experience, this is as true for management consultants, accountants, law firms and architects as it is for carmakers, technology manufacturers, fashion designers and food brands. The difference is that while we have long accepted that emotional connection can drive consumer purchases, we like to think that business-to-business purchases are driven entirely by cold reason. They are not.
We have spent many years interviewing C-suite executives who purchase professional services. Sometimes one firm has a "silver bullet", a tool or insight or method that nobody else has, so the choice is obvious. It happens, but it's vanishingly rare (and quickly copied).
More often, clients have to choose between firms that have very similar offerings, people and approaches. So how do they pick? We have found that they make choices based on the story the brand tells them… the story that the brand allows them to tell about themselves.
Certain narrative patterns or storylines tend to recur within particular categories of professional services firms. The table below illustrates a few of the story patterns we often see in our work with these firms.
Credit: Archetypal story patterns based on Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces, and Carol Pearson's The Hero And The Outlaw
Each of these narrative patterns enables a brand to evoke and address a deep human need, even when offering an abstraction such as professional advice. And each of these stories can be told in a multitude of different ways.
By understanding these patterns, a professional service firm can drive differentiation and preference.
So how do you discover and then develop your authentic brand story? There are strong clues in your firm's origin story and in the recurring iconic stories about the firm that your professionals tell themselves. The stories that clients tell about you (and the language they use to tell them) are also powerful sources. In both cases, it takes skilled questioning and astute listening to draw out the truth in the tale.
Once you have discovered the fundamental brand story that reflects the truth of your organization, it can then be developed into compelling market-facing messages, woven through all your communications and crucially, embedded in the culture of the firm and the behavior of your people.
August 7, 2015 Comments Off on Stories are the Building Blocks for Professional Service Firm Branding
Mean Something If You Want To Matter
Mean Something If You Want To Matter
Any brand that endures and stands out from the pack does so by connecting with a fundamental human need.
Professional services firms, which deal with abstractions and intangibles, can begin to build and leverage this deep human connection by first understanding what they stand for – what they intend to mean to their clients and employees.
A powerful, authentic brand captures and signals the underlying human meaning in your business – the thing that sets you apart and makes you matter to your marketplace of potential clients and recruits.
Your brand is therefore a strategic business issue, way more profound than issues like name, logo, tagline, or visual style. Those are symbolic expressions of the brand, shortcuts to the meaning in the business: they are not the brand itself.
One of the key challenges for a professional services firm is how to encourage clients to have a committed relationship to the organization, not just to the individual consultant. Brand offers a way to do this, by building a shared sense of the meaning in the business, while at the same time enabling individual professionals to express that meaning in a way that is authentic to them.
Our experience helping professional services firms to differentiate and market themselves effectively has helped us identify three key factors that set professional services brands apart:
- Relationship is the envelope that wraps the client work. Professional services firms need to understand and leverage the emotional value of the client relationship as a key differentiator
- Attracting and developing talent is as important as attracting and developing clients. Aligning the internal and external brand is crucial
- Vision, values and beliefs drive the behaviors that convey the brand. Understanding and clarifying these areas is essential to building a meaningful professional services brand.
Take McKinsey and The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the top two global strategy consulting firms. They each recruit similar people from the same set of elite schools, and they each address similar business challenges with similar intellectual tools. And yet clients see real differences and make choices between the two. How and why?
The answer lies in the meaning that both firms have built as they have developed their respective brands. McKinsey has come to mean power and control – the stability and order that enables prosperity. BCG on the other hand, has built its brand meaning around understanding and transformation – the insight that empowers you to change your circumstances for the better. Both are compelling meanings that speak to fundamental human needs, but each appeals to a different client mindset.
These two iconic consulting brands have used narrative and story to create meaning and differentiation as they compete for clients and talent. Our next post will explore how to use story as a tool to differentiate your firm, and to create meaning that attracts the right clients and the right recruits.
July 1, 2015 1 Comment


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Two of the nation's top retailers of chicken jerky dog treats are voluntarily withdrawing several popular brands after New York state agriculture officials said they may be contaminated with unapproved antibiotics.
Nestle Purina PetCare Co. officials announced Wednesday that they're withdrawing Waggin' Train and Canyon Creek Ranch brand dog treats until further notice. Officials at Milo's Kitchen, which is owned by the Del Monte Corp. of San Francisco, announced they are voluntarily recalling the firm's Chicken Jerky and Chicken Grillers home-style dog treats from shelves nationwide.
The move came after the New York Department of Agriculture and Marketing told federal Food and Drug Administration veterinary officials this week that trace amounts of residual poultry antibiotics had been found in several lots of each of the brands of jerky treat products.
The agriculture agency found very low levels of four antibiotics that are not approved for use in poultry in the U.S. and one antibiotic that is approved for U.S. poultry use, but is limited to nearly undetectable levels in the finished product, said Joe Morrissey, a department spokesman. The antibiotics include sulfaclozine, tilmicosin, trimethoprim, enrofloxacin and sulfaquinoxaline, he said.
The antibiotics are approved in China, where most of the treats are made, and in other countries, according to company statements.
However, Keith Schopp, a spokesman for St. Louis-based Nestle Purina, said that the issue is not related to the ongoing FDA investigation of problems with Chinese-made jerky pet treats that may have sickened more than 2,200 pets and killed 360 dogs and one cat, according to consumer reports.
"There is no indication that the trace amounts of antibiotic residue is related to FDA's ongoing investigation," Schopp told NBC News.
"Due to regulatory inconsistencies among countries, the presence of antibiotic residue is technically considered an adulteration in the United States," Schopp added.
FDA officials said they were confident that the detection of antibiotics "do not raise health concerns," and that they are "highly unlikely" to be related to the reports of pet illness linked to jerky treats that date back to 2007, according to a statement published late Wednesday.
FDA has conducted extensive testing and said it could find no toxins or other contaminants responsible for causing alleged illnesses ranging from nausea and vomiting to kidney failure and death. Officials said that the New York agriculture agency used a new, particularly sensitive test to detect the antibiotics. Morrissey said food specialists there tested the jerky treats because of "growing consumer concerns."
FDA officials reminded pet owners that jerky treats are not a necessary part of any animal's diet.
Robin Pierre, a New York pet owner, blames Waggin' Train chicken jerky treats for the sudden death of Bella, her 2-year-old pug in 2011. Pierre, who launched a petition urging companies to recall the treats, said she was pleased at the new move, but sorry that the FDA didn't act sooner.
"How many lives could have been saved if, six years ago, when there was first doubt that the safety of our companions was compromised, the FDA and all manufacturers of imported chicken jerky had issued a precautionary recall until the toxin was found?" she said in a statement to NBC News. "How much pain and suffering could have been avoided if only they had met their moral obligation six years ago and did the job the taxpayers pay them to do?"
Related stories:


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The Best Non-human Character Or Prop of 2011 as voted by you is so known by its fans that, its absence from most of this current season has been a frustration and a topic of conversation amongst its fans daily. The winner is, The 1967 Impala from Supernatural.
Born on April 24, 1967, As the prophet Chuck would tell the fans of Supernatural in episode 22 of season 5, "no one gave 2 craps about her, but they should have... because this 1967 Chevrolet Impala would turn out to be the most important car, no, most important object in pretty much the whole universe". Although the official ride of the paranormal hunters extraordinairre Sam & Dean Winchester has been mainly AWOL this season, many fans still love it more than many things in their own lives.
The Impala destroyed the challengers in the final, more than doubling its runner up, Gene, the cow from Fringe. Back in 3rd place was Dexter Morgan's knife from Dexter, the Doomsday Machine from Fringe was 4th, and Annies Boobs, the cleverly named monkey from Community was 5th.
Final vote results
THE IMPALA - Supernatural 864
GENE - Fringe 344
DEXTER'S KNIFE - Dexter 265
DOOMSDAY MACHINE - Fringe 216
ANNIES BOOBS - Community 200
About me
I occasionally argue with inanimate objects, but I usually win. So its all good.
June 2012


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For China's Olympic guests, a not-so-warm welcome
Beijingers say added security rules could stifle the Games.
| Beijing
"Beijing Welcomes the World."
That slogan is everywhere nowadays in the Chinese capital. But as the Games draw near, the eight-tooth smile that Olympic hostesses have been taught is beginning to look a little strained.
Fearful of terrorist attacks and of embarrassing protests, the authorities are draping a security blanket over Beijing so thick that many residents fear it will stifle the Games.
"They are not taking any chances, whatever the impact on ordinary people, either local or foreign," says Gilbert van Kerckhove, a longtime Beijing resident who is advising the city on Olympic issues. "They are totally paranoid; there is no other word for it."
In preparation for the Olympics, long billed as China's coming-out party, the government has tightened visa rules to restrict the number of incoming foreigners, snarled international broadcasters' plans to televise the Games, cleared almost all Beijing's itinerant vendors off the streets, and closed down one of the city's most popular English-language magazines, among other steps apparently designed to ensure control of the event.
The gathering mood here has caught the attention of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which organizes the games.
"We have asked the Chinese to try to find the right balance between security and operations, and I have confidence that they will do so," said the IOC president, Jacques Rogge, earlier this month.
'More serious' visa regulations
Attracting the most attention among Beijing's 250,000 foreign residents are the "more strict and more serious" visa regulations that a foreign ministry spokesman explained recently are aimed at ensuring Olympic security.
They have made it much harder for foreigners to get into China and to stay here once they have arrived.
The effects of rules introduced last month – eliminating multiple-entry visas, requiring applicants for visa renewals to return to their home country, and demanding proof of professional qualifications – have been felt most acutely among the hordes of young people who have been attracted to Beijing as an internationally fashionable place to live and who either study here or make a living as best they can.
Likely participants in the sort of protests the government is anxious to curb, they are not the sort of people the authorities want in Beijing in August. But the rules have also hampered international businessmen, prompting official complaints from foreign chambers of commerce.
"Business opportunities are being missed," the European Chamber of Commerce warned the Chinese government in a letter, since the rules "impose dramatic costs in terms of both time and money."
"Many European companies from multinationals to small- to medium-sized are experiencing issues with obtaining business visas," says the chamber's secretary general, Michael O'Sullivan, "and we have not noted any further changes in the situation" since the letter was sent.
Television broadcasters, meanwhile, are still battling the Chinese security bureaucracy six weeks before the Games' opening ceremony, seeking assurances they will be able to broadcast live from such iconic locations as Tiananmen Square and elsewhere.
It is still unclear, they say, whether Beijing will give way. "Unless the authorities relax and are a little more free with the media, they may well compromise coverage of the games," warns John Barton, director of sports at the Asian Broadcasting Union.
Ordinary Beijingers are more affected by minor irritants: new restrictions on what they can send in the mail (no electronics, no powder, no soap), a ban on the sale of fireworks, plans for airport-style security on the subway during the Games, and the disappearance of street vendors selling snacks and other items, most of whom come from out of town.
"The city police drove them all out," says one fruit-seller who has so far evaded arrest of his erstwhile competitors on a street near the Foreign Studies University. "It's because of the Olympics. They've all gone home ... and they can't come back until after the Oct. 1 holiday."
Such moves appear designed to reduce the workload for the 100,000 security agents – policemen, militarized police, security guards, and volunteers – that the city says it will mobilize for the Games. At the same time, 300 specialists in nuclear, biological, and chemical attacks will be on alert starting July 1, officials say, along with 100,000 commandos and ordinary soldiers in reserve.
A terrorist attack tops the authorities' list of security concerns, according to the police. They are especially concerned by the threat they see from militants demanding independence for the western province of Xinjiang, largely populated by the Muslim Uighur people. Earlier this year, the police announced they had foiled a plot by Uighur separatists to blow up a plane flying from the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi to Beijing.
Large gatherings canceled
But the government also appears nervous about large gatherings of foreigners. Last month the government banned a pop-music festival that traditionally attracts foreign bands and large numbers of foreign residents. It also canceled a conference of the Holland-based Institute of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences for which 6,500 international academics had registered.
"What has happened around the torch has resulted in a stepping-up of the whole security issue, and security weighs heavily on all the decisionmaking now," said Hein Verbruggen, the IOC official in charge of overseeing preparations for the Olympics, recently.
The result, fears Mr. van Kerckhove, will be that Beijing "will be a police city. There will be no mood ... because everything will be controlled."
The controls extend to even the smallest detail. Chinese sports fans have been provided an official cheer, designed by the ruling Communist Party's Office of Spiritual Civilization Development and Guidance, involving raised thumbs, clapping, fist punching, and the chant "Go Olympics, go China."
Foreign visitors will be permitted to choose their own cheers, but they will have to abide by the rules published recently on the website of the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games. These include a warning that "any illegal gatherings, parades, and protests and refusal to comply are subject to administrative punishment or criminal prosecution."
The guide also lists materials that may not be brought into China, such as items "that are harmful to China's politics, economics, culture, and morals."
It is still not clear just how many foreigners will attend the Games. Officials have said they expect half a million visitors from abroad, but difficulty in obtaining visas and tickets to Olympic events could reduce that number.
Only 25 percent of tickets to this year's games were allocated to international sales – half the proportion that organizers of the Athens Olympics sold abroad in 2004. Organizers point out that China is the most populous nation to host the Games, but their decision has made it harder for foreigners to buy tickets.
That may explain disappointingly slow bookings for hotels at a time when Beijing was meant to be bursting with visitors. Although the city's five-star hotels, where Olympic and national officials will stay, are registering a 77 percent occupancy during the Games, four-star hotels have so far filled only 44 percent of their rooms, according to Zhang Huiguang, director of the Beijing Tourism Bureau.
The figure "is even lower for three- and two-star hotels," she told reporters recently.
[Editor's note: The original slideshow may have implied that two photos taken in Nepal were from Tibet.]


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You won't need your GPS unit to find the Geocaching merit badge requirements. We've got them right here.
The merit badge pamphlet is not yet available, but the Boy Scouts of America wanted to get the official requirements in the hands of Scouts and Scouters as soon as possible. The BSA knows that troops, districts, and councils will be planning spring and summer activities around this newest merit badge.
Here are a few highlights of what Scouts will learn while earning Geocaching merit badge:
- Precautions necessary to have a safe time while searching for geocaches
- Geocaching etiquette and how the principles of Leave No Trace apply
- Geocaching terms
- How GPS technology works
- Steps for finding and logging a cache
- How to use geocaching.com, the official online home of geocaching
But it isn't all "classroom work." The majority of the merit badge involves Scouts searching for geocaches. They'll also have the opportunity to create and hide their own caches.
Click here for the PDF of the final, official requirements.
The timing of this merit badge's release in the 100th Anniversary year couldn't be better. The BSA's Get in the Game! geocaching program is in full swing. Scouting magazine's May-June cover story spotlights how one council used Get in the Game! to get boys fired up for Scouting. Look for the newest issue of Scouting in your mailbox by April 22.


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New update: Easy Sharing Flow
We just rolled out an update to the sharing flow that will make sharing your tracks easier and smoother than before. See what's new below!
The Public Sharing Note
First things first, the sharing note for public tracks is now on the upload page so you can add your note while the track uploads and transcodes. You can choose which social networks will get this update by checking the connected networks underneath the note (see how to connect your networks here). Your sharing note will appear on your follower's Dashboards and will be pushed to your connected, chosen networks. Keep in mind, this note will overwrite the current default message in your connections.
The Private Sharing Note & Access Overlay
We are introducing the private access overlay, which allows sharing to be done directly from the player. When you click the 'Share' button on a private track, you can now edit the privacy settings! Additionally, you can also access these settings by clicking the privacy indicator on the right side of the player.
In your track's privacy settings, you can add or remove users and write a personal note to the ones you are sharing the track with.
There you go — nice and simple! We hope everyone enjoys the new sharing flow! If you have any feedback, let us know in the comments.


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Penn Dominates a Handsome "All the King's Men"
- Christian Hamaker Contributing Film and Culture Writer
- 2006 22 Sep
Release Date: September 22, 2006
Rating: PG-13 (for an intense sequence of violence, sexual content and partial nudity)
Genre: Drama
Run Time: 120 min.
Director: Steven Zaillian
Actors: Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Anthony Hopkins, Patricia Clarkson, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo, Jackie Earle Haley
Consider the Curse of Jude Law. Voted one of People magazine's "Sexiest Men Alive" for 2004, the handsome actor seemed destined for stardom. After some strong supporting roles earlier , the actor's moment had arrived that year, when he had roles in five feature films – "Alfie," "The Aviator," "Closer," "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow," and "I Heart Huckabees." Most were creative and financial disappointments, and would seem to have nearly extinguished Law's chances at future leading-man roles.
Now he's back, starring in a hotly anticipated adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men," from director Steven Zaillian. Top-billed by Sean Penn, with equal screen time for Law, and supporting work from great character actors Patricia Clarkson and James Gandolfini, the movie looked like a sure-fire Oscar contender. Its literary pedigree and an earlier Oscar-winning adaptation of the book heightened expectations for this latest version.
But that was last year, before "All the King's Men" was pushed back to a fall 2006 release. More time was needed to edit the film, or so the studio said. Then the film screened at a major film festival to a lukewarm (at best) reception.
All indications were that the Curse of Jude Law had struck again.
So it comes as a relief to discover that this version of "All the King's Men," though far from perfect, works just fine as a story of power, corruption and political machinations, with a very human struggle at its heart. The film powerfully evokes a bond between Law's character, Jack Burden, and his surrogate father, played by Anthony Hopkins. A betrayal of trust between the two men and its troubling outcome make "All the King's Men" more than a story of well-intentioned politics gone bad. The film is about the power of father figures to develop character and trust – and how our flaws and human frailty can lead to tragic consequences.
Sean Penn stars, brilliantly, as Willie Stark, a young Louisiana politician plucked by powerful forces to run for governor of the state. The ride to the top has a rough start, as Stark's campaign – chronicled by reporter Jack Burden (Law), who will eventually go to work for Stark – fails to capture the public's attention. Only after Willie publicly tosses aside a close aide (James Gandolfini) does he hit his stride as a populist phenomenon, promising roads, bridges and hospitals to his "hick" constituents.
"People are saying God stepped in on Willie Stark's side," says one Stark partisan, and the politician takes up the call, exhorting the populace. "If you don't vote, you don't matter!" he shouts from his campaign-stop stage. "It's up to you, and me, and God."
Though opposed by "oil men," good-old-boy politicians and a lily-white judiciary, Stark triumphs in his race for governor and promises to pursue an agenda of public works for the underprivileged. "The power's in the hands of the powerless, and they've handed it to me," he proclaims.
The powerful are not happy. When a judge, who is also a surrogate father to Jack Burden (now employed by Stark), vows to expose Stark as a lawbreaker, the state legislature opens impeachment proceedings against the governor. Stark uses Jack to fight back, asking him to dig up dirt on the man who helped to raise him.
The conflict within Burden over whether to pursue the judge's past, and what to do with the information discovered, gives the story its moral center. Will Burden follow his conscience and refuse Stark's demands, at the possible cost of his job? Or will he subject the judge to public scandal in order to preserve a compromised politician?
"All the King's Men" has no heroes – everyone is flawed. But some people are clearly more flawed than others, and willing to go deeper in the name of preserving power. It vividly illustrates the adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The film alternates between the rise of the charismatic Stark and the initially less compelling story of Burden's professional and relational entanglements. But as the story of Burden and the judge takes center stage, the film sneaks up on us and delivers a vivid, powerful conclusion, ending with a final image that reveals the wages of sin.
Whatever its drawbacks – the female characters aren't given much to do, and the energy lags during the second act before heating up again toward the conclusion – "All the King's Men" is, in the end, a memorable story that sticks to your soul.
AUDIENCE: Adults
- Language/Profanity: Plenty, including racial epithets.
- Drugs/Alcohol: Several scenes of drinking.
- Sex/Nudity: Stark has a weakness for women, particularly female stage performers (referred to as "sluts on skates" by a scorned Stark lover); a woman lies naked on a bed, waiting for Jack to make love to her, but nothing transpires.
- Violence: Gunshots; murder; suicide; a joke about drowning someone; reckless driving.


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PETITCLAIR, PIERRE, notary's clerk, writer, and tutor; b. 12 Oct. 1813 in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, Lower Canada, son of Pierre Petit-Clair, a farmer, and Cécile Moisan; d. unmarried, probably 15 Aug. 1860, at Pointe au Pot (Pointe à la Peau), Lower Canada.
Although he came from a farming family of modest means, Pierre Petitclair had the good fortune to receive an education and become broadly cultured. After four years of study at the Petit Séminaire de Québec from 1825 to 1829, he was employed as a clerk in the court record office in Quebec, and under the guidance of notary Joseph-François Perrault* he received his initial legal training. However, the bar held no attraction for him, and three years later he became a copyist for another notary, Archibald Campbell*. A patron of the arts, Campbell owned a well-stocked library, was interested in both arts and sciences, prizing the humanities in particular, and enjoyed encouraging young people of talent. He was a real benefactor to Petitclair and undoubtedly exercised a great influence on him. But then he was dealing with a gifted person, for Petitclair excelled in mathematics, geometry, and philosophy, played the clarinet, violin, and guitar, sang magnificently, tried his hand at musical composition, appreciated painting, was adept with a brush, and above all was passionately fond of literature. He not only read everything that came to hand, but he himself had begun to write, first poems and then two comedies entitled "Qui trop embrasse mal étreint" and Griphon ou la vengeance d'un valet. He remained with Campbell for about five years, until 1837.
It was probably during this period that Petitclair had a love affair, about which little is known but which appears to have marked him deeply. In three poems, "La somnambule," "À Flore," and "Sombre est mon âme comme vous," he dealt with the theme of infidelity, and in his plays he had a way of disparaging love which often went beyond mockery and satire to betray a good deal of bitterness. It appears, then, that a woman had disappointed his expectations and that the experience was a profound shock to him. It probably explains why he remained a bachelor and felt no regret at abandoning Quebec for the isolated north shore of the St Lawrence.
During the winter of 1837–38 Petitclair accepted a position as tutor in a family with 12 children. The father, Guillaume-Louis Labadie, spent his time fishing in summer and seal hunting in winter. Petitclair accompanied the family everywhere, and hence lived in a succession of places on the north shore and the Gaspé peninsula before finally settling with the Labadies at the Anse des Dunes near Blanc-Sablon. From then on he returned to Quebec only for short visits. He was there in the autumn of 1842; this was the period when he reached the peak of his literary career, publishing within a couple of weeks three poems, "Pauvre soldat! qu'il doit souffrir!," "À Flore," and "Le règne du juste," and also a comedy, "La donation," which was first performed on 16 November and was well received. Subsequently Petitclair produced only one more comedy, Une partie de campagne, performed at Quebec on 22 April 1857 and published in December 1865. This play, which had taken longer to shape than the others, is probably his best work. It portrays an anglomaniac who makes himself look ridiculous as much through naïvety as through pride. Consequently this comedy has lost none of its topicality.
Pierre Petitclair is now no more than a name in the history of Canadian literature, and with the exception of Louis-Michel Darveau*, who wrote a panegyric on him in Nos hommes de lettres, no one considers him highly talented. He is rightly criticized for failing in his poetry to free himself from the formalist stamp of the classical era, and for yielding too readily to pre-romantic sentimentality. As for his comedies, they contain a few good satirical scenes and might still amuse the young, but on the whole they reveal him to be a rather poor imitator of Molière, Jean-François Regnard, Eugène Scribe, and Shakespeare. Nevertheless, Petitclair's work is not without interest. Reading a poem such as "Le règne du juste" or a short story such as "Une aventure au Labrador," one discovers that Petitclair not only was aware of the problems of his time but also had the wisdom to laugh at them and the boldness to denounce those responsible. Hence one must be careful not to pass too hasty a judgement on his three comedies or to see them as no more than the experiments of an amateur bent merely on his own diversion. The conventional plot conceals the true purpose, which is satirical. And, even more surprising, Petitclair, instead of putting the blame solely on the despotic and all-powerful Englishman, took aim at his compatriots. Perhaps better than others, he was able to see that under the régime uniting the two Canadas the French Canadian was an innocent who allowed himself to be outwitted with an ease more incredible than disconcerting. Displaying an audacity rare in the 19th century, he even flung a few barbs at the church, which he held responsible for the ignorance and excessive simple-mindedness of the faithful in Lower Canada. Hence, although his work is disappointing as literature, Petitclair remains important as a keen observer of his century and his milieu. Cultured and perspicacious, he understood the forces pitted against each other and sensed who in French Canada were tipping the balance of ideas on the eve of confederation.
[Pierre Petitclair's poems, "La somnambule" (1835), "Sombre est mon âme comme vous" (1839), "À Flore" (1842), "Pauvre soldat! qu'il doit souffrir!" (1842), and "Le règne du juste" (1843), were published first in newspapers, and then brought together by James Huston in Répertoire national (1848–50), vols.1–2, which also contains a comedy, "La donation," previously published in L'Artisan (Québec), 15, 29 Dec. 1842. Two other comedies were also published at Quebec, Griphon ou la vengeance d'un valet in 1837 and Une partie de campagne in a posthumous edition in 1865; these two, along with "La donation," are analysed by Jean Du Berger in DOLQ, vol.1. The manuscripts of the plays "Qui trop embrasse mal étreint" and "Le brigand" have not been located and were apparently not published. Petitclair also wrote the short story, "Une aventure au Labrador," published in Le Fantasque (Québec), 2 and 9 Nov. 1840.
Except for biographical dictionaries, few works deal with Petitclair. There is a biography by Louis-Michel Darveau in Nos hommes de lettres (Montréal, 1873) and an article by Victor Morin, "Un pionnier de théâtre canadien: Pierre Petitclair," in La Rev. moderne (Montréal), 14 (1932), no.2: 6, but otherwise Petitclair is now mentioned only as the first French-Canadian playwright. j.-c.n.]
ANQ-Q, CE1-17, 12 oct. 1813. ASQ, Fichier des anciens.
© 1985–2023 University of Toronto/Université Laval
Cite This Article
Jean-Claude Noël, "PETITCLAIR, PIERRE," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 8, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed October 2, 2023, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/petitclair_pierre_8E.html.
The citation above shows the format for footnotes and endnotes according to the Chicago manual of style (16th edition). Information to be used in other citation formats:
|Author of Article:
|Jean-Claude Noël
|Title of Article:
|Publication Name:
|Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 8
|University of Toronto/Université Laval
|Year of publication:
|Year of revision:
|Access Date:
|October 2, 2023


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Statistical Yearbook 2014
The Statistical Yearbook 2014 contains an almost endless number of figures and presents a detailed insight into the Danish welfare society throughout the recent decades. The book offers various perspectives on the life of the Danes.
Something for every taste
In the Yearbook you can read about both the softer sides of the society such as which movie was the most seen or which name the Danish parents prefer for their children.
You can also find economic statistics such as aggregated business and governmental accounts, GDP, exports and imports etc.
Learn more about Denmark
Included in the Yearbook are links to the the StatBank if you want to examine the figures even closer.
Naturally, the Yearbook also exists in a Danish version.
Also see Denmark in Figures and a portrait of the average Dane.
A source of fun and useful knowledge
By examining the Statistical Yearbook you will discover that it is a source of lots of useful and interesting information that only exists as a whole in this book.
You can search for peculiar and funny information like the information in the board game Trivial Pursuit, but you can also find knowledge that describes the serious aspects of the Danish society.
For those with no experience in statistics ...
The Statistical Yearbook contains hundreds of thousands of figures, and because figures themselves does not reveal everything we have written more than 150 pages of text and spiced them with more than 200 graphs.
... and for the experienced user
The yearbook is the largest collection of statistics that Statistics Denmark publishes in book-form, and there are just about 430 tables in the Statistical Yearbook.
Annually published since 1896
The Statistical Yearbook has been published annually since 1896. Leafing through the yearbook, the reader is introduced to parts of Danish history. From the first volume of the yearbook and onwards, the reader becomes aware of the existence of stories at different levels, each testifying to the great number of changes in Danish society and Danish language.
A story about the developments in society
For each volume of the Statistical Yearbook, statistics on, e.g. population size, geographic distribution and a great number of other statistics are updated. Thereby, the reader is able to keep up with the developments in society year by year, e.g. population pyramids, number of births and deaths, unemployment, public expenditure, etc.
Some tables are gradually omitted, if they are no longer of any importance to society, or because financial resources are not allocated for their upkeep.
Other tables are extended to include more categories or separate tables. Examples are income statistics, where the present yearbooks now include considerably larger and longer tables on income distributed by age, occupation, etc.
Other tables are reduced with regard to their size or number. For example, tables on Danish agriculture take up slowly, but with absolute certainty, less space in the yearbook, while statistics on the tertiary sector (trade and services, ICT, transport, etc.) gradually take up more and more space.
New tendencies are reflected by new tables
New tables are also continuously being introduced as a reaction to the tendencies in society. Year by year, it is only a small number of tables that are introduced, but over a great number of years, they give a clear picture of the developments in society. Below, examples of new tables, which are of historical interest to society, are mentioned:
In the Statistical Yearbook 1909 automobiles are becoming so widespread on the Danish roads, resulting in the construction of a table showing the number of motor vehicles.
Two decades later (in the Statistical Yearbook 1933) traffic accidents caused by, among others, cars became so widespread that a table showing traffic accidents was constructed and included in the yearbook.
In more recent years, pollution caused by cars has become a subject in the yearbook, which is also true of pollution caused by agriculture, shipping, etc.
At the beginning of the history of the yearbook, the trade union movements are becoming popular, and this is reflected by new tables in the yearbook showing the number of trade union members and work stoppages. Today, data for the tables are still compiled.
Later, this area was supplemented by statistics on industrial injuries, absence due to sickness, atypical working hours, working time accounts, and other statistics relating to working conditions.
During the Second World War, it is of current interest to focus attention on ration cards. A table on this subject is included in the yearbook until 1952. There are also statistics on US Marshall aid until 1954.
It was perhaps due to the occasional shortage of foods that a table showing the average calorie intake of Danes in 1947 was constructed. However, the compilation of data for this table was short-lived.
Statistics on radio and TV gradually appear and are extended, concurrently with the media becoming more widespread. An example of a new statistical area is ICT statistics.
The Statistical Yearbook comprises figures on usage of ICT and the Internet by businesses and citizens. There is also information on families possessing, e.g. DVD recorders and MP3 players, etc.
Corrections for Statistical Yearbook 2014:
Get as pdfStatistical Yearbook 2014 - Entire publication
Title page, colophon, preface and symbols
Population and elections
Living conditions
Education and knowledge
Culture and National Church
Labour, earnings and income
Prices and consumption
National accounts and government finances
Money and credit market
External economy
Business sector in general
Business sectors
Geography, environment and energy
Faroe Islands and Greenland
International statistics
Danish Industrial Classification and standard groupings
Definitions and glossary
Subject index
ColophoneStatistical Yearbook
ISBN pdf: 978-87-501-2132-9
Released: 23 June 2014 09:00
No of pages: 530
Contact info:
Margrethe Pihl Bisgaard
Phone: 39 17 31 62


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6 Celebrities with Sleep Disorders
You're Not Alone
50 million Americans have sleep disorders, including restless legs syndrome (RLS), insomnia, narcolepsy, and sleep apnea. Celebrities are not immune to these disorders either, so we've compiled a list of some of the most well known celebrities with sleep disorders.
Reviewed by:
Review Date:November 22, 2013
Last Updated:July 1, 2014