Best Buy Jumps in on iPhone Business
AT&T has had a sweet deal since the inception of the iPhone, being the only retailer authorized to sell it outside of Apple itself. 
The free ride has ended, and as CBS News reported, Best Buy now has the availability to sell the iPhone from its 970 full-size stores and 16 smaller stores. They claim to have upgraded their computer systems to handle cell-phone activation and spent 250,000 hours training its employees, but from personal experience I would be slow to buy it there.
It is suspected that Radio Shack will be the next retailer to get in on the iPhone frenzy. They already sell AT&T phones, but not the iPhone. AT&T continues to be the authorized provider, but time will tell on that as well. What looks like a big windfall, could become a disaster if they don’t stay on top of the service side. 

It’s Creeping Back In

On November 16, 2006, The Department of Health made Hawai’i the 14th state to go smoke-free and enacted a comprehensive law that protects workers throughout the state from exposure to secondhand smoke.
The very next day the air and shopping experience at Ala Moana Shopping Center became much better.
Now, just a year and a half later the security people at the mall do nothing to stop violators of the law, and the mall has even begun returning the ash cans just outside the doorways of many stores; this one at Long’s.
At the time of its announcement The Department of Health said, “This law will result not only in better work environments and public places throughout the state, but it will reduce tobacco–related illnesses and save lives.”
While there’s no doubt that things are better than before the law, I must say that a walk through Ala Moana Shopping Center without smelling smoke is becoming highly unlikely.

Politics and Politicians
Here’s another reason that I remain so non-political. Former U.S. Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards told ABC News that he lied repeatedly about having an affair with 42-year-old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her. How sweet is that?

The National Enquirer first reported on the affair in October 2007, and Edwards denied it, saying, “The story is false; it’s completely untrue, ridiculous”.

Edwards went on to say that he has not taken a paternity test but knows he is not the father of her child because of the timing of the affair and the birth. To add insult to injury one of his former campaign staffers claims he is the father. Who Can You Believe?
Will the real Daddy stand up please???

The story gets even jucier; In 2006, Edwards’ political action committee paid $100,000 in a four-month span to a newly formed firm run by Hunter, who directed the production of just four YouTube campaign videos, showing Edwards in informal settings as he prepares to make campaign speeches, talking about “who he is.”

More Annoying Airline Fees
American Airlines is changing Incentives into disincentives. They still call it their AAdvantage Awards program. A better term might be “Taking Advantage.”
They are discontinuing travel award tickets that require a miles plus co-payment, with Sept. 30 being the last date to claim such an “award.”
And get this, you can now “buy miles” with the airline’s buyAAmiles program.
There’s More:
-There is now a requirement of a nonrefundable co-payment of $150 to claim upgrade awards used with most discount fares when traveling between North America and Columbia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
-A non-refundable co-payment of $50 to claim one-way upgrade awards with most discount economy fares when traveling between the continental U.S. and Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean, or when between North America and Central America
-A $350 non-refundable co-payment when claiming one-way upgrade awards on discounted economy fares when traveling between North America and Europe, India, Japan, China, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay.

It’s no wonder that the airline industry is in such disarray. Changes like this will alienate your best customers and drive them on to another carrier. Grabbing more money is not the answer; offering more services at a fair price is the way to get more money; it always has been.

It Gets You OUT THERE
“Branding” is a powerful form of marketing that makes your company recognizable, as it did domestic cattle roaming about in the Wild West. It is a cost effective way to make your logo visible to people that may not be reading your print ads or watching your television commercials. This is an especially good tool here in Hawaii where we have anti-billboard laws.

It Says Who You Are
When the marketing team at Foodland designed or approved these plastic bags I’m sure they did not want to say, “We don’t care about our environment and wildlife.” I stopped to take this photo this morning while walking around Ala Moana Beach Park. If I had tongs or gloves I would have picked it up and placed it in a near-by trash can, but even that would not make it safe.      
Our society is becoming aware of how destructive plastic is to our environment and wildlife. Now is the time for companies that are using plastic bags to STOP, and convert to cloth. I wonder who the first grocer will be to take that step.

Shop Green
UPDATE:
I have been so moved by the comments on this post that I have moved the whole thing up so that it doesn’t get missed. Please read the comments and feel free to add your own. We absoultely must put a stop to this!

In case you missed my daily quote link about the damage that plastic bags do to our environment, you can see it by clicking right here.
If you already know, great, but are you doing something about it?
If not, it’s easy, just get a shopping bag like this one and use it. The environment is more fragile than you may know. We need to respect it or lose it. You can get your own green bag (and much more) at Down to Earth.
Mahalo for caring!

Greed Doesn’t Pay
My Dad drummed it into my head to, “Get a little bit of money from a lot of people”. He added, “If you deal with the masses you can live with the classes”. As tourism is dropping in Hawaii we see costs going up in order to get more money from those coming. This has become a vicious cycle. I’m all for selling more to the people who are here, but not by charging them more for the same stuff.
The airlines, restaurants and hotels are pricing each other out of business rather than making smaller margins on more people. Daddy used to also say, “Volume will make up for a multitude of sins”. 
While it’s true that you cannot be losing money and make it up in volume, you can make less money more times and do well with more volume.

PBN Survey
Pacific Business News just asked its readers how to get more people to come to Hawaii, and the overwhelming majority said to lower prices. When people feel like they are getting a good deal they will spend more. Las Vegas was built on this principle.