I just received an email from Chapters. Here’s what I saw:

Wow. They are going to save me 99 cents! Generous!

Usually the savings are in the range of 25-30%. I’ve gotten used to that I guess. So when I see a 9% discount (that amounts to less than $1.00!!), I think it’s pathetic, and I’m sort of irked that I bothered to open their email. I wonder if I’ll be quick to open subsequent emails from Chapters…..

I found myself at Moo.com today, directed there by Flickr to get some free mini-cards.  Aside from the fact that the end product looks very cool, and I can’t wait to get my 10 free cards, the interface is completely amazing.  Quite simply, it simply works.  Perfectly. Go try it yourself and you’ll see what I mean.  It’s ultra intuitive, smart and a little sexy too.  And I’ve been looking around for some non-business business cards so the timing of their launch is near perfect too.

Bravo Moo.com.

Really. The CEO at Home Depot believes that you, the customer, is the enemy, needing to be conquered.

From Business Week:

“In the military, we win battles and conquer the enemy,” says Ray. At Home Depot, “we do that with customers.”

There are so many shocking things in this article that it’s difficult to know where to start. I’m foaming at the mouth with disgust. Happily there’s both a Rona Depot and a Home Hardware in our village so I will never have to don fatigues and cross enemy lines in order to partake in home improvement projects. I’ve always thought that Home Depot was slightly creepy but I’ve never figured out why I felt that. It’s crystal clear to me now.

My friend Phil would like this I think - if only he lived in London. I think he’d like the mapping / running / sharing parts of this site. I am not crazy about the actual interface and while has been an attempt at added content, (such as training schedules), this stuff is pretty weak. There’s such great opportunity here - for a global running site full of visitor submitted maps, localized info and good content. I love that this site is lightly branded - seems very appropriate, value-add, yet at the same time, there’s no mistaking who is ’sponsoring’ the site.

I realize that there are a few similar, often non-branded sites on the web, such as this one, or this one or this one, but I think this RunLondon is interesting from a marketing perspective - there’s a lot of potential in this site.

Oh, this is good. So good. This is why I often hesitate to tell people I’m involved in ‘marketing’. Because this is what they think I do. Yikes.

McDonald’s has launched a blog. It’s actually pretty interesting, well written, and informative. It’s written by Bob Langert, Senior Director for Corporate Social Responsibility at McDonald’s. Here’s how he introduces the site:

I want to use this blog to introduce you to some of the people, programs, and projects that make corporate social responsibility a reality at McDonald’s–to take you along with me as I engage with some of our internal and external stakeholders in various parts of the world and to highlight our accomplishments, as well as the challenges we continue to face.

We want to hear from you because we are always learning and trying to improve. And you can’t learn–or improve–without listening. We live in a constantly changing world where the issues are complex and solutions anything but simple. With such complex issues, we may not always agree on the root causes or best solutions, but we can have a conversation.

Incredibly, comments are open and so far, are all supportive. I don’t know how closely the comments are being monitored (as monitoring comments in itself can be a full time job) but I am impressed with the (at least perceived) transparency. Of course the Terms & Conditions outline their thoughts on Comment ownership, censorship etcetera, but of course they would - I don’t fault them for this -it’s most definitely a corporate site. I’ll keep my eye on this blog to see its progress. It will be interesting to see what topics they tackle and how the blog is received. One to watch.