Cathy Hotka

This is an ideal way to find out if knowing your customers well provides a better retail experience. Google knows everything about its customers -- what they cook, the music they listen to, their interests -- so it will be interesting to see if that translates into sales. :)

I saw a television that responded to voice commands like "buy it" at least a dozen years ago at the IBM labs. Perhaps the reason we all don't own one is that there just isn't a market for it....

Intel's booth at the NRF show had some outstanding examples of digital signage. The issue for retailers, though, is content. It will be interesting to see how retail companies staff up to address this opportunity.

Less than 70% of American households have cable. The other 30% are looking for digital entertainment that costs less, and kiosks work for them. It's a mystery why Dish dismantled Blockbuster as quickly as it did.

Call me jaded, but when the ads are released a week before the game, and are discussed ad nauseum in the Twitterverse, they have near-zero impact on game day. Brands that made this mistake gave viewers an opportunity to visit the kitchen. Kudos to Fiat for keeping theirs a...

There is zero chance that sugar will be regulated. What's next, sin taxes on Crisco?

Okay, I'll be the contrarian. I don't want to interact with anything in the grocery store. I want to get in, find what I want at a reasonable price (that's getting harder) and get out. I'm just not sure that my smartphone is going to help me with that....

A gallon of milk is a gallon of milk. Conventional wisdom says that the customer will travel the shortest distance to get it...but increasingly he/she is willing to travel farther to save more. You can bet that the grocery industry is watching to see how JCP's moves pay off.

We spent $150 each getting our kids ready to work at Starbucks. This issue sounds fairly widespread....

Starbucks has been talking about this for at least ten years. Let's get going!