James Tenser

The evolution is from dichotomy to duality, as the line dividing in-store from online is growing fuzzy. Dynamic coexistence is the only sustainable strategy, but beware of generalizations. The success formula will be unique for each retail entity and it will vary with each shopping moment.

I suppose it was inevitable that food preparation and consumption would cross the threshold to become outdoor performance art on a massive scale. I mean, what creation could be more ephemeral than a paper sack of foie gras beignets?

Maybe The Great GoogaMooga and the new food fetishism it seems...

The minority/majority quip makes for a nice headline. It's a milestone of sorts, and the facts suggest we need to update our thought vocabulary.

It may remain a fact that the ruling minority in our country remains English-speaking, Caucasian and male. However, the great majority of Americans are "all other."...

Thanks for the thoughtful comments, fellow BrainTrusters.

Joan is right -- this is a two-track story. I'm more fascinated by the resilient nature of human habit than the threat of cyber stalking by marketers.

Ben correctly notes that there are (forgive the pun) pregnant moments when shopper habits may be...

While we might ironically observe that this advice about inclusion is being delivered by a privileged American white male, this makes his message no less valid.

In an ideal world, true diversity would be as effortless as breathing. This is an area of human resource policy that requires conscious...

As is evident from the BrainTrust comments here, we are just working out the right questions to ask about how consumers apply mobile-social-local-digital media to their daily consumption and shopping decisions.

One important insight worth amplifying is the existence of multiple diversities within and between demographic groups. These are...

Sears Holdings' strategies are hard for people like us to quickly grasp because we persist in viewing them through a conventional retail lens.

Better to discard the merchant frame of reference, and try to take this on its own terms. An asset is an asset. A profit-generating spin-off may be...

Interesting that our discussion here hasn't yet touched on another essential question: Did Walmart break Mexican law, then cover that up too?

We Americans have a vested interest in helping our neighbor to the south become more prosperous and stable and less corrupt. Walmart counts Mexico as its second...

Media sage Marshall McLuhan famously observed that newer media displace (not replace) older media.

The same may be said of newer retail techniques -- especially online, and now mobile. Digital retailing is an adjunct, an expansion, an added choice that has been layered on to traditional analog retailing. I...

This feels to me like the institutional investors are trying to stir the pot. Safeway share prices are at an ebb and speculators would like to see a bump.

A huge lesson for the supermarket business is that increased size no longer increases rate of profit. Empire building is...