Small bites.

(1) "The best way to say thank you is to buy the brand." I heard that from a woman sitting next to me on a flight that served a snack package of peanuts and a granola bar to each passenger. The peanuts were impossible for her to open, but she was pleased as punch when the guy sitting next to her had almost as much trouble opening them as she did. The Kraft bar opened at her first try.

"So nice when they open like that. I'll have to thank them."

"How will you do that?" I asked.

"I'll buy some Kraft products on my next shopping trip -probably a salad dressing."

Thank-you buying is hard to quantify, but it happens, possibly enough to deserve a place in ROI calculations for consumer friendly packaging.

(2) Even if your town isn't flooded with them, you are probably aware of Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese as well as Chinese dining options. While Chinese has remained the most prevalent of Asian cuisines in the United States, its mind share has slipped. Instead of seeing Chinese restaurants as the main alternative to American, Italian, and Mexican, it has become a subset of Asian food, one of the several Asian cuisines that Americans routinely eat out, take out, and enjoy.

(3) Confidence and resources are declining while demands for safety, talent, technology, sustainability, innovation, profit, and social accountability are rising. I recently heard a group of male CEOs share the frustration that their HR staffs are not keeping up with the changes in the kind of people they need to hire in order prosper in the next few years. They might do better if they looked harder at the mothers of teenagers who have survived on-the-job training in maintaining safety, developing talent, and facilitating innovation, and the active grandmothers who have the greatest vision and most personal passion for sustainability.

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