Uncategorized

What makes for an outstanding animated character? I was, this week, asked that question by a reporter from CNBC. To give my best answer, I asked for time to do some research. I wanted to see what critics believed were the best characters and then understand what those characters had in common. A little googling revealed that there were several lists of great animated … [Read more...] about What Makes a Great Animated Character?

Last June, I wrote an article entitled “Retail Competition, direct to you from the other side of the world.” Here is what I wrote: Before e-commerce, a retailer competed with the store down the street or at the mall. With the advent of digital shopping, competition could be from anywhere in your country. Now, it can come from the other side of the world.Retail Competition, … [Read more...] about Retail’s Growing Challenge – The “De Minimis Rule” Isn’t So Minimis Anymore

Joe L. Frost, Play and Playscapes, 1992. Joe L. Frost, the renowned scholar and educator who advocated for the importance of free outdoor play, playgrounds, and recess, died on February 17, 2020. Frost was a charter member of the editorial advisory board of the American Journal of Play. In his more than 50 years of research, including writing 20 books and multitudes of … [Read more...] about Remembering Play Scholar and Advocate Joe L. Frost

About 40% of U.S. small businesses intend to raise selling prices by 10% or more amid decades-high inflation, according to a survey from the NFIB.  Almost half the small firms are planning increases of 4% to 9%.The Bloomberg Open, April 26, 2022 Gerrick Johnson of BMO Capital on Spin Master: We have been impressed by the company’s (Spin Master) performance under the … [Read more...] about Quotes With Your Coffee #2

Is Mattel up for sale? It certainly seems that way, based upon a Wall Street Journal article by Miriam Gottfried and Ben Foldy. The article headlined “Mattel Has Held Talks With Buyout Firms“ reports that Mattel has been in talks with Apollo Global Management and L Catterton. The Wall Street Journal identifies both companies as “buyout firms.” Why is Mattel talking to … [Read more...] about Is Mattel for Sale?

We need your help in tracking toy industry inflation. We want to know how much prices have increased in the first four months of 2022. Please take this quick, 9 question survey. We will sum up the responses and provide you with results so that you can determine how you are doing compared to the rest of the industry. Thank you in advance for your support. … [Read more...] about Toy Industry Inflation Survey – 2022

This is the second in a series of articles explaining the Spielwarenmesse Toy Fair in Nuremberg, Germany. It is, by far, the largest toy exhibition in the world. To give you an idea of its scales, it has three times the exhibition space as the Jacob Javits Center in New York City. Now that Toy Fair has been moved to the Fall and it is unlikely that the Hong Kong toy events … [Read more...] about The Spielwarenmesse #2: Nuremberg By the Numbers

A series of stimulating quotes to read while drinking your coffee. A major industrial conglomerate has resorted to buying washing machines and tearing out the semiconductors inside for use in its own chip modules, according to the CEO of a company central to the chipmaking supply chain.“Chip-Starved Firms Are Scavenging Silicon From Washing Machines,” Debbie Wu, bloomberg … [Read more...] about Quotes With Your Coffee

A star ferry in the Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong, China“This is a story of what I was, not what I am.” ― Robert Graves, “Goodbye to All That“ Was there a better Hong Kong moment than slowly traveling from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island on the Star Ferry?  I don’t think so. That fifteen-minute journey cost only pocket change, roughly 32 cents U.S., but provided moments of … [Read more...] about “Goodbye to All That” – Hong Kong’s Star Ferry May Be a Thing of the Past

Pandemic, 2007, The Strong, Rochester, New York. Back in earliest months of the U.S. COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, you may have missed the flurry of board game articles all recommending the same game: Pandemic, the 2008 cooperative game where players race around a world map to cure four simultaneous infectious epidemics before the world is lost. Great minds think alike; The New … [Read more...] about Replaying Pandemic in a Pandemic