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Get ready to see bubblegum pink everywhere you look this Summer! Margot Robbie is starring in a new live action Barbie movie, and Mattel has already signed licensing deals with over 100 brands. Not only can you dress like her, but you can also dress your dog to match (courtesy of Gap.) You can wear her inline skates, eat her yogurt, relax at a Barbie Airbnb in Malibu, and play games on a pink Xbox console. But why should I care about a movie about a doll? I know, I know. I never thought I’d be writing a blog post about Barbie either. But if you can get past all of the pink, you might just learn a thing or two about enduring brands. It took vision Barbie can be traced to one person’s vision. Ruth Handler was one of three people that started Mattel in 1945. She was also a Mom, and saw her daughter (Barbara, of course) set aside her baby dolls in order to play with paper dolls that she could dress up in paper fashions and imagine as a grownup. While visiting Switzerland in 1956, Ruth saw a foot-tall doll based on a somewhat NSFW comic strip, but with clothes that could be taken off and changed. Handler bought three of them, took them home, and started prototyping what would eventually become Barbie. But when Ruth presented Barbie to buyers at the 1959 American International Toy Fair in NY, she got no takers. So she advertised directly to her target market with a TV commercial, telling kids that “everything from wedding gowns to sunglasses will be sold separately.” Those spots created such a huge demand that department stores were soon begging for inventory. 300,000 Barbies were sold in the first year. Mattel went public the next year, and soon became the largest toy company in the world. A long-term strategy While the explosive growth of Barbie was a surprise for Mattel, it was something else that became the biggest challenge for the company. By positioning Barbie as the “ideal woman,” Mattel realized that they were responsible for setting beauty standards for little girls during their most formative and impressionable years. And they were rightly getting flack for those standards being unrealistic. Even so, Barbie became one of the first female astronauts and went to the moon before women could get credit cards. She was a surgeon, a corporate executive in power suits, and a US President. She became a symbol of female empowerment, complete with a supporting partner in Ken (a man with no ambitions of his own.) Barbie was THE mega-star, and Mattel began expanding into other product lines. Well, expanding at least until the early 90’s. That’s when several questionable business decisions were made, competitors such as Bratz dolls and Disney princesses gained ground, and sales dropped off for a couple of decades. And the willingness to change That same slow down brought in new management. A mostly female development team updated Barbie, adding body types and skin tone options, along with more inclusive designs such as Barbie...

The GoodiDiz concept is simple. Credit unions do a lot of good in the world — and they’re also a strong and sustainable business model. So we’re exploring the good ideas, both inside and outside the CU world, that can do a lot of good while also being good business. Today's special guest, Denise Wymore shares here experiences in the credit union world.

The GoodiDiz concept is simple. Credit unions do a lot of good in the world — and they’re also a strong and sustainable business model. So we’re exploring the good ideas, both inside and outside the CU world, that can do a lot of good while also being good business. Today's special guest, Denise Wymore shares here experiences in the credit union world.

A conversation with Rich Jones on data integrity for credit unions of all sizes We’re kicking off a brand new series of video/audio podcasts with a bang, with our first guest, CU strategy superstar Rich Jones! The GoodiDiz concept is simple. Credit unions do a lot of good in the world — and they’re also a strong and sustainable business model. So we’re exploring the good ideas, both inside and outside the CU world, that can do a lot of good while also being good business. In our first episode, Rich and I talk about the power of good data in helping good people make good decisions. Data is potentially a powerful advantage for credit unions of all sizes. Today, we’re tackling a piece of the data puzzle; how do you make sure you have good, clean data? It’s a lot more complex than it seems at first, but you don’t have to be a gigantic credit union to start getting a handle on your most important data. You’ll enjoy plenty of real-life examples along with Rich’s clear, understandable insights into the process of getting good data, including: * What Data Integrity Means for Credit Unions* The Four Data Realities* Three ways data can get out of sync* Definitions matter* How Credit Unions of Any Size Can Start Building a Data Strategy* More Data Is Not Better Data* Understanding What Data Exists, Not What You Hope Exists* Making Data a Top Priority in Vendor Selection* Building a Data Team* Who “Owns” the Data Function?* Data as a Service* Data Governance You can learn more about our guest Rich Jones and get in touch via his website at www.Leading2Leadership.com. Your host is Brian Wringer, Wordsmith and Big Idea Guy for iDiz, Inc. You can get to know me and get in touch right here, at www.cuidiz.com Feedback? Questions? Got a few Good Ideas of your own? Get in touch if you have questions or feedback for Brian or Rich! And if you’d like to be a guest on GoodiDiz, let us know! We’re interested in all kinds of good ideas that help all kinds of organizations grow and do more good in the world. window.RTP_CONFIG = {link: 'goodidiz', mode: 'button'};