Business Lessons from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the Beatles

You know, it’s actually pretty good advice. However much contempt one (nameless now and forever) may heap upon anti-poverty campaigners who themselves somehow end up stinking rich, one can hardly argue with the principle that mo’ meditation, mo’ betta. I, myself, could internalize the second-last of these a little bit better. Or is that “manifest” instead? I always get those mixed up; maybe THAT is the Secret?

From the Financial Times:

  • Make yourself stand out
  • Choose the right product: easy to sell, impossible to disprove
  • Make good use of celebrity endorsement
  • Innovate around your core strength
  • Charge what the market will bear. If you can persuade people to part with $1m for your world peace fund to go on a training course, then, for heaven’s sake, you should.
  • Lastly, let people feel they are buying not just a product, but also a set of values, a lifestyle. The power of Om.

Indeed, my project for the next week is to revamp the business model to um, maximize transcendental prosperity and expansion manifestation opportunities, particularly as they relate to the bottom line.

Speaking of which, it’s time for my yoga…

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contextual advertising

See context here, here, here, here, here and here.

Start your own religion

Stolen from Dr Boli, but then, if he’s going to start a religion he can bloody well afford to spare this, eh?

the subprime mortage crisis, explained, plus bonus Jérôme Kerviel details

The Long Johns, John Fortune & John Bird, explain in interview just exactly how the subprime mortgage crisis really happened. Realer than you’d think (stolen from Valleywag)

My current favorite banking scandal-related fact: Jérôme Kerviel, the mild-mannered French rogue banker who lost over €4.9 billion in one month and may have thereby perpetrated the current market cliff-jump, had eleven friends on Facebook.

Parenthetical: Richard Milhous Nixon probably has more friends on Facebook and he’s for reals dead, not just career dead!

But the best part is, after the news broke, one by one as the day continued those eleven friends de-friended him while the journalists of the world watched and snickered. Justice in action! The internet’s revenge is swift, ruthless, and public.

Jérôme KervielFrom the Guardian:

There was speculation he could have been trying to prove himself to the bank, to create his own spectacular method of making profits or simply prove the system could be broken. Union officials warned he might have been caught in a quest for a good bonus…”If he was a genius, then we didn’t spot it, ” said Dominique Chabert, his university tutor. He was “not a student who made an impression on his year, either in a good or bad way”.

Apparently France’s tolerance for tragically mediocre Walter Mitty figures is less than its tolerance for Mickey Rourke.

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wait, it’s not Cheney?

A D&D player inside joke.

Bush Administration D&D Game

stolen from Adaen of High Adventure Games, because he stole this from me. This is how you got into Iraq in the first place, people.

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Blackwater, Blackhearts

Blackwater

from the always-reliable Get Your War On, via Can’t See the Forest