Marketing Factoids

  • Music sales in the United States will decline to $9.2 billion in 2013, from $10.1 billion this year. source ›
  • Acquiring a new customer costs about five to seven times as much as maintaining a profitable relationship with an existing customer source ›
  • Consumers ages 18 to 27 say they use the Internet nearly 13 hours a week, compared to viewing 10 hours of TV source ›
  • more factoids ›
SEP 8

Manny Ramirez: Baseball's Most Innovative Player

Why the Dodgers' dreadlocked bad-boy is the best thing to happen to L.A. since skateboarding and margaritas

BusinessWeek, September 8, 2008 — Manny Ramirez and his dreadlocks have a lock on L.A. Dodgers' fans' hearts and minds, and are a shoo-in for the Baseball Hall of Fame. But I'd like to nominate him for one more honor: Baseball's MIP—Most Innovative Player.

No joke. I take quite seriously the meaning of innovation in its truest form—something that fundamentally changes the way people live, work, and play. For example, adding a button to a cell phone isn't innovation. But if that button turns the cell phone into a camera and that camera changes the way people record their lives and communicate with each other, then that extra button becomes innovation.

So I'm not talking about Manny's batting average or home run tally when I say he's an innovator. It's much deeper than that.

Category: Innovation
Tags: Disruption, Fun

Add Your Comment

(required)
(required)



(to prevent comment spam)
 


Any HTML in your comment will be removed upon submission. All comments are moderated, and it may take up to 24 hours for your submission to be approved and published. The BackPocket editors reserve the right to edit or remove comments at any time and for any reason.

Subscribe to comments on this article