Douglas Rushkoff’s 2001 PBS special that journeys into the world of the marketers of popular culture to teenagers

Douglas Rushkoff’s 2004 PBS special about “What’s going on in the world of today’s marketers and advertisers? What are the new and surprising methods they’re using to decipher who we are and what we want? And where is this taking us?”

I don’t agree with the term “tricking” in the headline of the article, but some interesting examples of persuasion around social issues (teen pregnancy, smoking, messy urination, etc.)

Alcatel-Lucent, the parent company of Bell Labs, is pulling out of basic science, material physics and semiconductor research and will instead be focusing on more immediately marketable areas such as networking, high-speed electronics, wireless, nanotechnology and software. The idea is to align the research work in the Lab closer to areas that the parent company is focusing on, says Peter Benedict, spokesperson for Bell Labs and Alcatel-Lucent Ventures. “In the new innovation model, research needs to keep addressing the need of the mother company.”