Word: gifting
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...increased as a result of its deal with Babies "R" Us, the company can argue that it will produce a better product because of increased profits. Thus, the consumer ultimately benefits. Babies "R" Us can argue that its higher sales can pay for in-store services - i.e., stroller demonstrations, gift registries - that would not otherwise be possible absent the minimum-pricing agreements with its Internet competitors. Again, the consumer would benefit. (See which businesses are bucking the recession...
Buried in Facebook's new payment terms is this gem: if you spend $1 to get 10 credits at Facebook's virtual-gift shop--where you can buy icons of unicorns as well as of sock-draped doorknobs (the universal symbol for "Keep out, we're hooking up")--you have three years to use up your points. After that, Facebook reserves the right to go rogue by "sending virtual gifts to your Facebook friends." This is yet another reason to rethink friending your boss, lest you one day unknowingly send her a (virtual) flaming...
...people spending real money on this stuff? Humor is clearly a big draw: a study last year by Lightspeed Venture Partners found that virtual ninjabread cookies are given twice as often as virtual chocolate. There's even a create-your-own-gift application, which has more than 300,000 users. Make yours clever enough, and you could horn in on the estimated $42 million in Facebook gift sales...
...century ago, Max Weber, the great German sociologist, famously divided sources of authority into three types: the traditional, the charismatic and the legal-bureaucratic. Americans like their leaders to be charismatic--a word derived from the Greek that means a person has a gift of grace. Political parties routinely look for presidential candidates with charisma (Barack Obama, naturally) and regret it when they don't find one (think Michael Dukakis). (See TIME's Barack Obama covers...
Charismatic leaders, Weber argued, inspire devotion; they are change agents. But not every society wants or needs charismatic leaders, and some have reason to shun them. The Big Men of Africa and the caudillos of Latin America have often been charismatic, and their gift to their people was not grace but authoritarianism. So can you be a leader without charisma? Sure. Just follow these tips...