Category: Target

RE: Blogger Sees Red Over StarTribune’s Lack of Citation

As if I didn’t have enough reasons to grumble at the STrib – a reporter doesn’t credit their sources. Coincidentally, on a story covering questionable ethics.

“Come on, Jackie. You called me about this on Thursday afternoon. We discussed the story, I pointed you to sources where you could find more info, including the email of one of the sources you quote. You told me you’d mention The Deets in the article.”- Ed Kohler

BTW – Ed’s story hit my radar first.

ELSEWHERE:
The Wege hauls everyone back to their own corner:

“Just to be clear, the Strib clearly screwed over Ed Kohler at The Deets, and he has every right to complain. My issue is with the piling on. Bloggers steal. Period. I try to attribute but I also have a two and out rule: anytime I give credit to a blog twice in one day, I’m entitled to steal any other links I like from them without giving credit. Others have different rules, but hardly anyone gives credit for EVERY link every day. If nothing else you don’t plug Atrios because you chose to read his take on today’s Krugman before going to the NYTimes and reading it for yourself.” – The Wege

Way Off Target

I caught the same article Dave did this morning at the CP Blotter and didn’t think anything of it.

Thankfully, Dave did a little poking around and found the “three of every four dollars in profit” is not on all of Target profit, but rather on the 15% increase in profits in a single quarter.

What does that mean in numbers? Hypothetically. Let’s say a company has a year’s profit of just under a $1 million ($998,675 to be exact), 15% quarterly profit increase might look something like this:
Q1 – $200,000
Q2 – $230,000
Q3 – $264,500
Q4 – $304,175

Now let’s compare the two numbers;
(City Pages) 75% of Q1 to Q4 profits: $749,006
(Business Week) 75% of Q3 to Q4 increase: $29,756

That’s a discrepancy of $719,250.

That’s not just a big difference – that’s bad, deceptive, and misleading journalism.

BTW – if you want to crunch the actual numbers yourself, here’s Targets 8K filing. If you’re wondering, Target’s 2006Q1 earnings were $886 million.

What’s the Opposite of Tarjey?

When we lived in Evanston, there was this Target just a few blocks away. Stuff on the floor, expired milk in the aisle, very un-Target-like.

We got into the habit of asking people about whether or not a particular Target was “good.” We came back up here for a wedding and asked the clerk at the hotel where the closest Target was and if it was good.

She looks at us flatly, “All Targets are good.”

That may be. The Targhetto Project over at Magnetbox uses Twin Cities income and home sale data to calculate which one might be less so.

My local ranks: 145

Minneapolis Scobleized

Tim, Cody, Chuck and I grabbed a drink with Robert Scoble tonight. And I also met local open source CMS developer Tim Broeke from ElectricJet.

If you’re finger isn’t on the pulse of weblogs, Scoble is Microsoft’s überblogger. He was in town to start a conversation with Target. I applaud Target for this.

There are only a handful of companies people feel really passionate about. So passionate you don’t want them to get started (yeah, like me with weblogs and podcasts). These are companies that would have to do something really, really stupid for their impassioned customers to blink.

Target is one of those companies.

Jen is one of those customers. She knows Target’s different layouts. We get the Sunday Star Tribune for the Target flyer. There was a moment of silence in our house when T-1 was demo’d. I’ve talked to a number of others around the US, just as passionate.

To me, companies with a customer base this passionate are obligated to cultivate an intimate conversation. Whether this is weblogging, in its many forms, or some other community-building technique, I think that’s up for discussion and experimentation.

As always, I look forward to seeing the fruit of whatever seeds Scoble planted.