Random thoughts and stylings

I had some household shopping to do last night while at Target and could not help but notice their focus on earth friendly, green products. They still currently carry the traditional caustic chemicals we all use everyday, but are introducing and placing in prime locations the earth friendly products like Bare paper plates by Solo company and a whole line of Method products. In fact I was looking for liquid hand soap and the only product that I could find was the earth friendly Method line. (a review on Method at Inhabitat )

Many of us know that Best Buy and Walmart have started to build their stores more green and LEED certified, but the product offerings at both of those boxes is still for the most part anything but green. An interesting zag for a Target to go this far to the green in its product offering. Hats off to them for actually putting the products out there.

Okay we have all heard it said that you vote with your money. In other words what you believe in is represented by whom you spend you money with. If you believe in low prices you shop Walmart. If you believe in quality craftsmanship furniture you probably have a custom built piece.

I recently saw a tweet about the following article (http://bit.ly/nl164 ). Basically the article if you don’t have time to read it is about a woman at a flash conference in Minneapolis that went to a high profile seminar and the presenter Hoss Gifford made sexually explicit jokes and dropped the f bomb through the presentation.

After reading the blog I can tell you I would probably not recommend this guy’s work even if he is the best of the best in flash, which he really isn’t. But the point is not even about this particular presenter, but online media in general. How do you know what we are getting is in line with our values and morals? Do you care or are you out for number one? Do the values of a company or individual that you are purchasing either a product or service matter to you?

Today I was sitting in on a webinar about engaging social media from a business and marketing perspective. I could not help but think about what this actually meant for social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter. I have already heard rumblings of early adopters looking for the next thing because of celebrity pollution on Twitter. If business starts coming in and pushing ads as are now on Facebook, what does that look like for the future of this technology?

I understand that individuals are just starting into the Facebook and Twitter realms, but does that mean that business has to be in that realm as well? Are these mediums the same as a web site? Is it beneficial for a business to business company to join the social network scene? Or what about a plumber? I am not sure that I would follow the tweets of a plumber and his daily activities in order to do business with him/her. Now for humor possibly I would follow the plumber and his daily exploits.

From my user experience these mediums are about engaging people that you have a common interest in or would like to have engage with in someway. I would be like businesses getting involved in and trying to market to a chatroom or Instant Message stream. It could be done, but is the ROI high enough to try? Let me know your thoughts.