Since 2005, WalMart has been trying to leverage their scale (over 4,000 stores) into the banking business. Nearly six years ago I wrote a HuffPost column about their failed attempt to get an Industrial Loan Company charter (essentially a corporate bank license) from the FDIC. WalMart withdrew their...

The Zombies, one of the most influential bands to hit the U.S. during the British Invasion of the 1960's, made multiple appearances at this year's South By Southwest music conference, and by many accounts, stole the conference outright.

Their hit singles "She's Not There," "Tell Her...

In the foreword to her best-selling book on presentations, slide:ology, Nancy Duarte states that "every presentation is high stakes, and every audience deserves the absolute best."

A recent presentation by Sony introducing the PS4 will likely go down as one of the worst business presentations ever. It was certainly high...

Apple's stock is $504, down from a high this year of $705.The Motley Fool asks "Is Tim Cook The Next Steve Ballmer?" which is not meant as a compliment. Bob Lefsetz, a blogger and music industry veteran, calls Tim Cook "charisma-challenged," and "he starts...

This Friday a verdict will be announced in Russia in the trial of three female members of the punk band Pussy Riot, which could result in a sentence of three years for "hooliganism."

What was their "hooliganism?" On February 21 of this year, the three young ladies performed...

All week I've been trying to go to Chick-fil-A. Not due to the boycott or the counter-boycott. I've been trying to eat.

The crowds the past few days have been so big there have been traffic cops in the parking lot directing cars. Tonight, the crowds were so large, not...

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States, the value of our economy, is roughly $15 trillion. The GDP of the entire world is $63 trillion.

According to the Office Of The Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) the value of the derivatives on the books at J.P...

Some Wall Street analysts are upset that Mark Zuckerberg did not demonstrate fealty to them during his IPO roadshow this week by wearing a suit and tie.

Michael Pachter, an analyst for Wedbush Securities (who?), bellowed, "I think that's a mark of immaturity. I think that he has...

What was Walmart thinking? Or do they? Just as the noise has abated somewhat from their public relations woes of a few years back, the New York Times outs Walmart in a bribery scandal that will haunt the company for decades.

In 2006, I made a documentary called...

In May of 2007 I sent an email to a business partner telling her "You need to get off MySpace and get on Facebook.com. MySpace is so 8-track."

She wrote me back saying "Never heard of Facebook."

Bet she has now.

In those four years Facebook has garnered over 600...

The top 100 documentaries produced over the last few year all made over $1 million. Yet, if the IRS accepts a judge's ruling in an Arizona tax case, documentaries would be classified as a "hobby" and therefore treated as a not-for-profit venture, meaning you would not be able to deduct...

Last summer I wrote a post entitled "Will Verizon Get The iPhone?" in which I argued the point that at some point in 2010 the iPhone will make its way onto the Verizon network.

After using the new Motorola Droid on the Verizon network for a couple of weeks, the...

The Huffpo's lead today is about the Lou Dobbs "birther" controversy, and there are no less than 5 other headlines on the front page regarding the matter.

Having had some experience with Mr. Dobbs, I thought I might add some context to the matter. By the way, I have no...

In today's media world, little things mean a lot because of the speed that information can be disseminated in cyberspace. Take the case of Horizon Realty and Amanda Bonnen.

Amanda Bonnen tweeted to a friend in May, "Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon Realty...

It cannot have escaped Verizon's notice that AT&T proclaimed in a widely circulated memo that the recent launch of the iPhone 3GS was the "largest order day in att.com history" and the "best ever sales day in our retail stores." AT&T sold a million of the new iPhones in 3...

Golf is seen by many as a sport for entitled Caucasians, older folks, or simply people with too much time on their hands. But what golf has historically been is a game for gentlefolk, where one self-polices rules violations and generally behaves in a civilized manner, and expects his or...

I gave a speech at a healthcare association last week, and the main topic of questions directed to me concerned the announcement that Wal-Mart will be selling an Electronic Health Records (EHR) software package to physicians at Sam's Club. Priced at $25,000 the EHR system is priced at half the...

This week Geoff Gilmore, the longtime director of the Sundance Film Festival took another job in film in New York. This presents an opportune moment for the powers that be at Sundance to take a look at itself within the context of other film festivals, and other conferences in general.

UN Office of Drugs and Crime director Antonio Costa told the Austrian weekly Profil this week that the world illicit drug trade is "the most important of all agricultural markets," with drug transactions totalling $320 billion.

For comparison's sake $320 billion is slightly more than the revenues of BP, and...

The national employment report issued last Wednesday showed that the private sector shed 522,000 jobs last December. This is out of a total workforce of around 140 million. Circuit City is gone. Macy's is laying off. Home Depot is laying off. Microsoft is, Google is, Harley Davidson is. So are...