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Israel Cleantech Ventures said Wednesday it has closed its second fund with just above $74 million in commitments. Investors include institutional investors, multi-national corporations and family offices. The fund will invest in Israeli based or Israel related high growth, clean technology, early and growth stage companies.

PRESS RELASE

Israel Cleantech Ventures (ICV) today announced the final closing of its second fund with just above $74 million in commitments. Having raised its debut fund in 2007, ICV now has approximately $150 million under management.

ICV’s second fund has attracted an impressive list of new limited partners, including institutional investors, multi-national corporations and family offices. Many of its existing LPs also re-upped from the previous fund.

The fund is managed by partners Jack Levy, Meir Ukeles and Glen Schwaber working together with a team of venture partners – all industry veterans – led by Arnon Goldfarb, with nearly two decades of experience at Israel Chemicals and five years as CEO of a leading water infrastructure company. This very same team has been together since ICV was established and has provided consistently stable fund management.

The firm will continue its strategy of investing in Israeli based or Israel related high growth, clean technology, early and growth stage companies. To date, it has invested in 15 companies and seeks opportunities across diverse cleantech sectors including clean materials, wastewater treatment, alternative energy generation, energy storage & efficiency, green building, smart grid, process efficiency technologies and sustainable agriculture.

“With the successful raising of our second fund, ICV has further solidified its position as Israel’s leading specialist cleantech fund and we are able to take advantage of the ever-strengthening cleantech dealflow emanating from this country,” said Glen Schwaber, general partner of Israel Cleantech Ventures. “Our goal is to see all the relevant deal flow in Israel and to seek out the strongest entrepreneurs, with great technology, innovative business models and high-growth market opportunities. We will continue our strategy of working closely with our entrepreneurs to provide the support necessary and to add value, from the time we invest through the life of the company.”

Meir Ukeles, co-founder and general partner continued; “Our expanded and diversified investor base in ICV II reflects our strong market presence, with investors seeking a trusted partner to look at the innovation coming out of Israel’s cleantech sector and its potential to meet global market demands and current technological challenges. When we first started out in 2006, our database held approximately 120 companies mostly in seed and early stage and there was effectively no VC money available for cleantech in Israel. Fast forward to today and dozens of global funds have invested in approximately 150 deals in Israel and our database now holds over 1,300 opportunities. We look forward to building a strong portfolio for our second fund in the coming years.”

Rob Day, Partner at Black Coral Capital, an investor in both ICV funds stated; “Cleantech venture capital has legitimately taken some hard knocks over the past few years. For ICV to successfully raise a second fund in this environment is a testament to the ultimate promise of their portfolio and the strength of their team. Our current energy/resource scheme is unsustainable. Entrepreneurs smart enough to develop solutions to solve this problem and venture capitalists smart and risk-loving enough to back them will end up making phenomenal financial returns. We believe ICV is exceptionally well-placed to capitalize on the Israeli cleantech opportunity.”

About Israel Cleantech Ventures

Established in 2006, Israel Cleantech Ventures (ICV) is the leading venture capital firm dedicated to providing value added growth capital to exceptional entrepreneurs building Israel’s energy, water and environmental technology leaders. ICV currently manages $150M in two funds, has completed 15 investments and seeks opportunities across diverse cleantech sectors, including clean materials, wastewater treatment, alternative energy generation, energy storage & efficiency, green building, smart grid, process efficiency technologies, sustainable agriculture and in technologies that enable existing industries to work in a more efficient and environmentally friendly manner.

ICV’s investment professionals combine industry expertise gained through decades in senior management positions at Israel’s outstanding cleantech companies, with proven abilities in identifying, investing in and supporting VC-backed companies.

ICV funds are backed by leading institutional investors, multi-national corporations and family offices in Europe, the US and Israel.

Google announced the launch of several new measurement features for AdWords for Video designed to bring some consistency among video ad reporting and other forms of media.

One of the features is Reach & Frequency reporting. AdWords For Video will now show you reach and frequency metrics in the campaign reporting interface.

“These metrics give you more insight into how many unique viewers have seen your ad and the average number of times they’ve seen it, helping you better measure against other media such as TV,” says YouTube product manager David Tattersall. “To view these metrics on a campaign, ad or targeting group level, just click on Columns >> Customize Columns and look under the Performance section.”

There’s also a new Column Sets feature, which groups metrics by marketing objective. If you select Branding, you can see how broadly a video has been viewed, with unique viewer average view frequency and average impression frequency data. If you choose Website Traffic and Conversions, you can see website traffic, number of conversions, cost-per-conversion and conversion rate. If you select Audience, you can see follow-on subscribers and follow-on views. If you pick Views, you can see follow-on views and unique viewers.

There’s also a new GeoMap feature if you click “Map View”.

In case you have not yet had your fill of Microsoft Office news then here is one more tidbit for you. The productivity suite, which launched yesterday, is now available in the Windows Store, which is really the Windows 8 Store, since it is not available on any other platform. Before you get too excited, let me temper your enthusiasm.

Yes, we already knew there was not going to be a “Modern UI” version of the latest Office — known collectively, and confusingly, as Office 2013/Office 365/Office 15. Still, the debut in the Windows Store strikes one as an especially lame attempt. You see, FINDING the app in the store, does not mean you can GET it in the store.

Once you actually locate the app (not any easy process), you are rewarded with a link that auto-switches you to the Desktop and opens a browser tab to the Office purchase page. Seriously. These days it is all about ease of use, and this is NOT it. Clicking a link and expecting to get an app, only to be suddenly whisked away to another location on your computer is not my idea of user-friendly. Microsoft did not think this one through, and the price is a bad experience for customers.

Well, I suppose the good news is that the suite is listed in the Store. However, the company could not have made the process of getting it any crazier if it tried. Yesterday, all of this looked promising. I thought that Microsoft had done Office right. But I was too quick to judge, because it was only a matter of time before it would flub something.

Parthenon Capital Partners has made an investment in Envysion. Financial terms weren’t announced. Louisville, Colo.-based Envysion provides managed video surveillance as a service for QSR, retail, wireless, convenience store and cinema customers.

PRESS RELEASE

Parthenon Capital Partners (“Parthenon”), a growth oriented private equity firm with offices in San Francisco and Boston, announced today that it completed an investment in Envysion, a leading provider of managed video surveillance as a service (“MVaaS”) for QSR, retail, wireless, convenience store and cinema customers. Proceeds from the transaction will be used to provide growth capital for the Company and to provide liquidity to certain shareholders.

Envysion is led by Chief Executive Officer, Matt Steinfort, who, with his highly accomplished team, has developed a cloud-based MVaaS solution providing powerful video-based business intelligence solutions to numerous retail end-markets. Mr. Steinfort, who co-invested alongside Parthenon in the transaction, said, “Since we first met the Parthenon team over a year ago, we have been consistently impressed with their deep understanding of our industry. They have dedicated significant time researching the industry and have come into the investment with a compelling thesis developed over that period. We have worked closely with the Parthenon team over the past year to develop a shared vision to continue the growth and innovation that has made Envysion an industry leader. We are confident that the resources and experience that Parthenon brings to the investment make it the right partner to help Envysion reach its full potential.”

“We are thrilled to partner with Matt and the Envysion team,” said Andrew Dodson, Partner at Parthenon Capital Partners. “Having spent years in and around the security and video surveillance industries, we believe that video-driven business intelligence is revolutionizing how owners and operators manage retail and restaurant locations. With better access to broadband and affordable data storage, operators can utilize cloud-based solutions like Envysion’s to dramatically enhance their loss prevention efforts and improve operational efficiency by combining analytics with video. We believe Envysion is the clear industry leader providing these capabilities.”

Headquartered in Louisville, CO, Envysion was founded in 2006 with the goal to provide sophisticated managed video surveillance solutions to customers who needed an easy-to-use solution to enhance their business intelligence capabilities and provide insight into their retail operations. Today, the Company’s solution is deployed in thousands of retail locations across the United States and Canada and has been proven to drive meaningful profitability improvements and prevent millions of dollars in potential losses.

David Ament, a Managing Partner at Parthenon, added, “Since its founding, Envysion has partnered with some of the largest, most sophisticated operators within the retail, restaurant and cinema industries. By providing these customers with powerful, easy-to-use, cloud-based solutions, Envysion has substantially increased the profitability of these customers, reduced losses, increased operational efficiency, and driven the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Parthenon is excited to partner with the Envysion team to build upon its track record of growth and lead the industry into its next phase of expansion.”

ABOUT ENVYSION

Envysion enables large, national retail, restaurant, cinema and convenience store operators to increase profitability 10-15% by putting easy-to-use, video-driven business intelligenceTM into the hands of the entire organization. Envysion created the Managed Video as a Service (MVaaS) model which transforms video surveillance into a strategic management tool that provides instant and unfiltered business insights to users across operations, loss prevention, marketing and human resources. The MVaaS model enables Envysion to accelerate innovation by rapidly responding to market opportunities and making new capabilities immediately available to all users. Envysion’s platform quickly scales to 1,000s of locations and 10,000s of users without straining the IT department or network. For more information about Envysion, please visit www.Envysion.com.

ABOUT PARTHENON CAPITAL PARTNERS

Parthenon Capital Partners is a leading mid-market private equity firm based in Boston and San Francisco. Parthenon utilizes niche industry expertise and a deep execution team to invest in growth companies in service industries. Parthenon seeks to be an active and aligned partner to management, either through recapitalization transactions or by backing new executives. Parthenon has particular expertise in business services, financial and insurance services and healthcare, but seeks any service, technology or delivery business with a strong value proposition and proprietary know-how. Parthenon’s investment team has deep experience in corporate strategy, capital markets and operations, enabling the firm to pursue complex, multi-faceted value creation opportunities. For more information, visit www.parthenoncapitalpartners.com.

Sylvester Stallone had some secret taped discussions destroyed recently as part of a settlement agreement with his half-sister, Toni-Ann Filiti, who alleged in 1987 that he abused her. Filiti passed away last August.

As part of the settlement, Stallone agreed to pay Filiti $16,666.66 a month and secure a $50,000 trust to pay her medical and psychiatric bills. Though Stallone adamantly denies ever harming his sister, he paid his end of the settlement and saw to it that the tapes were destroyed per their agreement.

Stallone’s mother, Jackie, says that Toni-Ann was hooked on pills and needed money desperately, and that’s the real reason behind the lawsuit.

“Sylvester caved in,” Jackie said. “It was a very serious thing: Toni-Ann blackmailed him. She threatened Sly, quite frankly. This was nothing more than a shakedown. There were too many conflicting stories… At the time [in 1987] he was very hot, and his lawyers said, ‘Give her something just to shut her up.’”

Curiously, there was really no public mention of the lawsuit or the settlement when Filiti died last August of complications from lung cancer, though her son, Edd, did lash out at Stallone on Facebook. He later apologized.

If you’re one of the many jilted Windows Phone 7.5 users, your day has come. Version 7.8 is rolling out to Nokia phones as I write. “Notifications will begin to appear for Nokia Lumia 510, 610, 710, 800 and 900 owners with an unlocked phone or operator approved software during February”, company spokesperson Boc Ly says. “Simply connect your phone to your computer via Zune for PC, or the Windows Phone app for Mac, and follow the onscreen instructions”.

The update is long overdue, and in many ways unsatisfactory. For example, Nokia Lumia 900 debuted on U.S. carriers in March 2011. Three months later, Microsoft announced Windows Phone 8 with a bombshell: None of the current devices would support the OS. None. Those phones would get Windows 7.8, which lacks many of the features that make 8 great, by comparison. In the annals of dumb product development moves, I have to rank this one highly. Loyal customers rush to a new platform only to be dissed for it — and people wonder about Windows Phone’s slow start?

So what do you get for waiting?

“As well as major system updates, there has been a stream of exciting new features introduced to Nokia Lumia”, Ly says. “These include Internet sharing, Bluetooth sharing, imaging enhancements like Camera Extras, and the release of apps such as Contact Share, Play To and Nokia City Lens that are available”.

He touts other capabilities:

With Windows Phone 7.8 installed, your Nokia Lumia gets even better. The Start screen experience is completely refreshed with the ability to re-size your tiles: small, medium and large. In addition, there are also new options available on your lock screen, such as having a daily background image from Bing; plus there’s improved pocket and child lock screen security. Plus, there is increased language support, meaning even more people get to enjoy Nokia Lumia. These new benefits, together with the new look Start screen, will make your Lumia feel like a brand new smartphone.

There’s another baffling step backwards here that says much about Microsoft’s whole Windows Phone strategy. The 7.5 update dispatched to most WP devices, simultaneously stretched out over several weeks and independent of the interference so common among the carriers. Verizon Galaxy Nexus owners know this pain, being several Android updates behind on a flagship device that’s marketed as getting them right away. Google should never have let this happen, nor should Microsoft with Windows Phone. But watch out.

“Delivery of the update is operator dependent, meaning you will receive a notification in the coming weeks if you have an unlocked phone or if your operator has approved the update”, Ly says. “If you don’t receive the update notification within the next three weeks, please contact your operator for more information”.

That’s a step back from Microsoft’s position about Windows Phone updates when 7.5 dispatched in November 2011. The company promised them to all supported devices, regardless of carriers. But eight months later Microsoft unsupported all current devices for Windows Phone 8. Now, at least on Nokia handsets, carriers call the shots on 7.8 updates.

Windows Phone 7.5 owners, are you satisfied with this?

A mother and baby in a sunny ward at Butaro Hospital. Photo: John Cary

By Courtney E. Martin & John Cary

Pregnancy is supposed to be about life. And yet, every day, 800 women across the globe die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. In Malawi, which has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world, a shocking 1 in 36 pregnant women die rather than become proud mothers.

But could this oversized problem be tackled through design? Malawi’s new president, Joyce Banda, certainly believes so.

More and more, global health experts are teaming up with designers to tackle daunting challenges like food scarcity, water contamination and, yes, maternal mortality — be they environmental, product, or systems design challenges. David Kelley on human-centered design Using what IDEO.org calls “human-centered design” — essentially putting the user at the center of a deeply iterative process — some of the most cutting-edge thinkers in public health are seeing old problems in new ways. Design is no longer just a tool of the global elite; it’s increasingly becoming a lever for the poorest, most vulnerable people in the world.

Two activists with a deep-seated interest in how design can transform lives, we spent the first two weeks of the year doing fieldwork in Malawi. Despite the fact that it is considered one of the world’s least-developed countries, leaders in Malawi are looking to dignifying design. Banda, who came into office in April after her predecessor passed away, has pledged her precious time in office to emulating places like Rwanda, where human-centered design has improved the lot of many rural poor. Banda faces her first official election on May 19, 2014, giving added urgency to her efforts.

The Aspen Institute’s Global Leadership Council on Reproductive Health coordinated our visit to the country, and is also marshaling resources and support Banda’s way. She is the second female president in Africa, following in the footsteps of Liberian Nobel Peace Prize winner, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. (Watch Sirleaf’s Q&A on the TEDWomen stage in 2010.) The two are allies and perhaps symbols of a new dawn of women’s leadership on a continent that has long suffered from the corruption and violence.

One of Banda’s first acts in office was to double-down on a Presidential Initiative on Maternal Health & Safe Motherhood, focused on reducing maternal mortality from its current rate to 115 or less per 100,000 live births. She aims to do this by 2015.

Above, Michael Rosenblatt asks “How can we stop death during childbirth?” at TEDMed 2011.

One idea to this end: getting more women to give birth in clinics staffed with health providers and equipped to handle complications. In countries like Malawi, women have historically given birth in their homes with traditional birth attendants. This can be extremely dangerous. Should something go wrong, most traditional birth attendants aren’t trained to respond; many are also known to encourage women to push too fast, one cause of the scourge of fistula in the country.

So what is a country to do when 85% of its population, including women of child-bearing age, live in rural settings far afield of the few equipped clinics and hospitals in the country? It’s a question ripe for a design approach. The Malawian government has pledged to build as many as 150 “maternal waiting homes” near clinics where rural women can stay in advance of their due dates. One waiting home is already in service in Northern Malawi and seven more are currently under construction.

Jane Chen: A warm embrace that saves lives

Blueprints for these brick and concrete structures were developed by the Ministry of Health, taking two forms — a 24-bed version and a slightly larger 32-bed structure. Each is projected to cost between $70,000-$80,000, and will be funded by Malawi’s private sector and outside philanthropic support. These waiting homes have the opportunity to become beacons of hope in a country caught between natural beauty and devastating poverty.

But it’s not just bricks-and-mortar that Banda is using to change women’s lives; it’s also a human-centered design for the healthcare system — too long understaffed and disproportionately urban. The Presidential Initiative on Maternal Health & Safe Motherhood, for example, is already training tribal chiefs in the importance of clinic birth for rural women, recognizing that their influence will largely determine what kinds of healthcare options women feel compelled to access. Once the chiefs have encouraged women to get to clinics, they will be met by new community midwives (Banda aims to train over 1,000 by 2014) and training opportunities at the “waiting homes.” Indeed, the Malawian women we interviewed expressed that they would love to gain new skills and knowledge while they wait for their babies to arrive.

Resource-limited settings, like the rural villages of Malawi, seem like unusual places to find this kind of systemic and environmental design. But there are important precedents. For example, the breathtaking Butaro Hospital in Rwanda, designed by MASS Design Group and operated in January 2011 by Partners in Health (PIH).

Above, Marika Shioiri-Clark talks “Empathic Architecture” at TEDxStellenbosch, describing Butaro Hospital.

Perched on a hilltop once home to a military base, the Butaro Hospital proves that “if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere,” as Dr. Paul Farmer of PIH is known to say. Farmer is referring to the fact that this world-class hospital is found in a setting where there was no basic electricity until the advent of the hospital. But Farmer is also referring to a unique design imagined by professionals embedded in the community they sought to serve — rural villagers, doctors, and nurses. Further, the hospital was built by local community members using primarily local materials. Thousand of people were employed in making the facility’s exquisite lava rock walls, virtually all of them gaining new skills that may improve their livelihood in the future.

Many details at the Butaro Hospital tell a story about the ways that humans really heal. Rather than being a fortress of internal hallways and small, secluded rooms, like so many American hospitals, it is characterized by open-air external walkways and big, collective spaces with beds directly facing bright windows with beautiful views. Ernest Madu on world-class health care There are also countless places to gather and sit outside — including a beloved koi pond. Color-coded signage paired with the color of wards is bright and easy to understand for potentially anxious visitors, unlike the bureaucracy and bad lighting one finds too often in stateside clinics.

If all goes well, Malawi, like Rwanda before it, will have the potential to teach the so-called developed world something about dignifying design. It’s what many cutting-edge development and design experts are calling South-to-North strategies — where Western countries look to the Global South for the next, big innovations. It’s a refreshing reversal of fortune and a huge opportunity. Not just for the mothers of Malawi, but for all of us.

Courtney E. Martin is the author multiple books, including Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists. John Cary is an architect, author, and the founding editor of PublicInterestDesign.org. Together, they traveled to Malawi and Rwanda this month with a delegation from The Aspen Institute’s Global Health & Development program. They are also members of the TED Prize team and co-leads of The City 2.0, the 2012 TED Prize focused on the future of cities.

Mothers and children await care at health clinic in the Doa district of Malawi. Photo: John Cary

A shooting inside a Phoenix office complex today left several people wounded, although details surrounding the incident are sketchy at this time.

Police say an altercation occurred inside the building before shots were fired, and they believe the suspect may have left the scene in a white vehicle, though nothing has been confirmed. The building has been evacuated and there are searches underway for the suspect. Investigators are using police dogs to aid them at the scene.

The shooting comes at a time when the issue of gun control is a hot–and controversial–topic; President Obama and Vice President Biden have been working to change the gun laws in some states after the deadly tragedy in Newtown in December, when 26 people were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Since that day, several shootings have been reported across the country, including some in schools.

We will update this article with more information as it becomes available.

*Update*

Early reports say as many as five people were injured, with three of them sustaining “life threatening” wounds. The shooting came mere hours after former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords delivered a statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the need for more gun control.

Google has launched a new version of its Forms Google Drive app. It now includes collaboration features, so you can edit forms with others in real time, not unlike features in Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.

“If you need to work with two colleagues on a survey, all three of you can work on the same form simultaneously and even have a group chat on the side, without leaving the form,” says Google software engineer Nick Santos.

Google has also made some editing changes for those working alone. Changes are auto-saved, and edits can be easily undone or redone.

“Improved copy-and-paste will let you copy a list of bullets from the web or multiple rows of text from a spreadsheet; then, when you paste into a form, each line will be appear as an individual answer. And you can use keyboard shortcuts to get things done more quickly,” says Santos.

The update is rolling out over the course of the next several days.

Foursquare has just launched a new “Best of” page that makes use of nearly 3 billion check-ins from over 30 million users worldwide. The Best of Foursquare page breaks down the top food, nightlife, and entertainment across 30 major American cities.

Foursquare used a ton of data to compile these lists – tips, likes, dislikes, popularity, local expertise, etc. What they’ve come up with is an incredibly useful set of top-10 lists spanning tons of different venue categories.

You can start browsing the Best of Foursquare today.

Let’s say that I’m traveling to Houston, TX, for instance. Once I click on Houston, I’m presented with top-10 lists for food, nightlife, “things to do,” and steakhouses (each city has a different overarching set of lists). Each entry displays a photo, number rating (out of 10), and additional info like how many people are currently there or whether or not you or a friend has checked-in there.

I can see that the top bar in the city, based on all the Foursquare data points, is the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium. I can either click on the venue to go to its details page or I can quick-save the place to my to-do list.

If I choose, I can also narrow the list to “Best of” nightlife: beer or “Best of” nightlife: music venues. Same goes for food, which I can narrow down to view the top 10 Asian restaurants or Mexican restaurants in each city.

“One of the things our data shows is how each city is unique: Bostonians love seafood, Portland is a veggie paradise, and Philly may be the city of brotherly love, but what they really love is a good sandwich. Since no two cities are the same, each page is customized to help you get a feel for the local flavor,” says Foursquare.

If your business made it onto one of Foursquare’s various “Best of” lists, congrats! You can download a badge to show of your status as a Foursquare elite here.

Final Book Now Available

This volume highlights the papers presented at the National Academy of Engineering’s 2012 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium. Every year, the symposium brings together 100 outstanding young leaders in engineering to share their cutting-edge research and technical work. The 2012 symposium was held September 13-15, and hosted by General Motors at the GM Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. Speakers were asked to prepare extended summaries of their presentations, which are reprinted here. The intent of this book is to convey the excitement of this unique meeting and to highlight cutting-edge developments in engineering research and technical work.

[Read the full report]

Topics: Engineering and Technology

BlackBerry, formerly known as RIM, announced its newest handsets that will run on the new BlackBerry 10 operating system. Both devices feature a little something for everybody, including those that demand a physical keyboard on their handsets.

First up is the flagship BlackBerry 10 device – the BlackBerry Z10. This will be the device that RIM will market to consumers and enterprise customers alike. It’s more similar to the iPhone than anything else, but features a slightly larger screen than Apple’s latest smartphone.

The other handset – the BlackBerry Q10 – will definitely appeal more to the enterprise customer that wants something similar to a classic BlackBerry handset. The device features the physical keyboard that BlackBerry fans have come to know and love, while still sporting all the power and functionality of the BlackBerry 10 operating system.

Check out the rest of our BlackBerry 10 coverage here.

What will persuade you?

Every business is interested in what influences and persuades their customers and consumers, and one of the more common strategies to eliciting this information is to simply ask them. There are various ways that this can be done: You can ask customers directly during a face to face meeting, or you could get them to complete a survey or an online questionnaire. You could even outsource the task to a market research agency who’ll conduct surveys and focus groups on your behalf.

But regardless of how you go about asking the question, you need to recognize that there is a fundamental problem with asking people what will persuade them to change: Most of the time they won’t know the answer.

It’s not that they won’t give an answer. They’ll often provide plenty. It’s just that the answers they provide will have a high likelihood of being wrong. Here’s why.

The great majority of the decisions we make in our information-overloaded, distraction-heavy lives are made outside our conscious awareness, driven more by contexts than cognitions. As a result, asking someone to pinpoint what will influence them in the future is a bit like saying, “tell me how you will behave in the future when you are not thinking about what I have just asked you about?”

Behavioural scientists Wes Schultz and Robert Cialdini provide compelling evidence of why asking people to predict what will influence their future decisions and behaviors is so often ineffective. In one set of studies, they asked several hundred homeowners in California to predict which of four messages would be most successful at persuading them to take steps to conserve energy and reduce their overall consumption. The four messages were 1) conserving energy helps the environment; 2) conserving energy protects future societies; 3) conserving energy saves you money; 4) many of your neighbors are already conserving energy.

Those shown the message about what their neighbors were doing rated it as the least likely to influence their behaviours. Yet when meter readings were taken, the researchers discovered that this was the most effective message when it came to changing behavior even though this same message was rejected by most as having any sway. Even though most will deny its effect, our desire to keep up with the Joneses is both universal and automatic. For example, recent studies have shown that compared to the usual approach of threatening those who fail to pay their taxes on time with fines, it is far more effective to inform them that the majority of people in their neighborhood already have paid. By doing so, governments can realize many more millions in revenues.

Not only are we pretty poor at recognizing what will influence our future behavior, we’re not that great at recognizing what persuaded us after the event either. In one well-known study conducted at a busy New York City subway station, after counting the percentage of commuters who donated to a street musician as they walked past him, researchers made one small change to the situation: Immediately before an approaching commuter reached the musician, another person (who was in on the act) would drop a few coins into the musician’s hat. The result? An eight-fold increase in donations. When interviewed afterwards, those who donated universally failed to attribute their actions to the fact they had seen someone else give money first, preferring instead to provide alternate (and incorrect) justification for their actions. “I liked the song he was playing”; “I’m a generous person”; and “I felt sorry for the guy.”

So when it comes to getting to the heart of what actually drives decisions and behaviors, a message emerges that at first glance appears counter-intuitive: Stop listening to your customers.

In isolation, such a message merely provides for an attention-grabbing headline. In order to be even remotely helpful, an alternative also needs to be provided and I believe it should be this: Start watching them instead.

Alerting people to the fact that many previous guests reused their towels and linens during their stay increases significantly their own reuse saving the hotel chain fortunes in laundry costs. No amount of market research or questioning guests would have discovered this. In fact, I am pretty sure that most hotel guests would not want to think about what the person who stayed in the room before them got up to. The answer came not from listening to customers but by watching them instead.

The implication seems clear. Ask fewer questions about what people will do and instead set up small field tests and controlled studies that observe what they actually do. In most instances, they will be lot cheaper than traditional market research approaches, and yet the insights they reveal could provide a real competitive advantage to your business.

GungHo Online Entertainment (GOE), a Japanese publisher, today announced that it has acquired the video game development studio Grasshopper Manufacture. GOE stated that Grasshopper Manufacture will continue to operate under that name, and that games currently under development will not be affected.

Grasshopper is headed by Goichi Suda, also well-known as “Suda51.” The studio is responsible for some of the most interesting and unapologetically juvenile video games in recent memory. Its titles include Killer7, No More Heroes, Shadows of the Damned, and Lollipop Chainsaw.

“By joining GungHo Online Entertainment, we are aligning ourselves with a strong, established publishing force that will support our vision to further create inspired new games that appeal players across the world,” said Suda, founder and CEO of Grasshopper. “The Grashopper team and I have many new ideas to share with our fans as we move forward so this union with GOE will help us realize our future plans.”

GOE is most well-known as the publisher of the Ragnarok Online games, as well as the mobile game Puzzle & Dragons.

“We believe the strength of a publisher lies in its creative talent so with the addition of Grasshopper Manufacture and Suda51 we are adding some of the most innovative talent in today’s gaming world to our stellar family of independently-operated studios,” said Kazuki Morishita, CEO of GungHo. “SUDA51 projects are known to put a unique spin on every game so coupled with our proven ability to support development with AAA resources including a tailored online experience, we believe gamers will benefit from this collaboration.”

Grasshopper just this month released a teaser trailer for its upcoming Killer is Dead. The game features a James Bond-type assassin who operates in a dark noir-styled underworld.

Today is the big day — Research in Motion finally took the wraps off BlackBerry 10 and two new smartphones. The Waterloo, Ontario, Canada-based company, which new name is same as the device, bleeds market share to Androids and iPhone. During fourth quarter, BlackBerry fell out of the top-5 smartphone makers, as measured by shipment share, according to IDC. The latest operating system and new handsets might just well be the last chance to regain lost ground.

CEO Thorsten Heins officially launched the much-anticipated platform during BlackBerry World. The BlackBerry Z10 comes with a 4.2-inch touchscreen display and 356 pixels per inch, whereas the BlackBerry Q10 sticks to a traditional layout featuring a physical keyboard. According to Heins, both the on-screen as well as physical keyboard provide the best mobile typing experience, but more on the two after the break.

New Keyboard

The new BlackBerry 10 keyboard is gesture-oriented, mimicking the functionality of various keyboards from the default one included in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean to third-party Android alternatives like Swype and SwiftKey Flow.

For instance, swipe gestures can be used to delete words. Clearly, it’s not an entirely new concept; the Canadian company merely follows other players, cherry picking existent features — or that’s how it looks at first glance.

Hub and Flow

The new BlackBerry Hub features Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter social integration and bears a resemblance to Windows Phone’s People app by presenting per-contact social updates, but with added emphasis on business contact information.

BlackBerry Flow is the name of the gesture-oriented navigation interface highlighted on the Z10 smartphone. Judging by the features presented today, multitasking is a priority for the new operating system and appears to work nicely — although some users may have a hard time adjusting to the gesture-driven interface.

BlackBerry Balance

BlackBerry Balance is designed to fit within the bring-your-own-device-to-work movement, by allowing users to separate personal and work content, like apps and email accounts. It’s one of the most impressive features presented today.

BlackBerry Messenger

Although it’s not an entirely new feature, BBM is revamped for the latest BlackBerry OS. With BBM Video, users can make video calls and through Screen Share users can take advantage of remote homescreen viewing and share content.

BlackBerry Remember

BlackBerry Remember is showcased on the new BlackBerry Q10 smartphone. With the new feature, users can add attachments, audio notes and videos within folders as well as search for items on the devices.

During today’s presentation, BlackBerry also highlighted Evernote integration, which is part of the new Remember.

BlackBerry Camera

Part of the new smartphone operating system, the company formerly known as RIM also introduced the new BlackBerry Camera which allows users to take the “perfect picture” by using a time-frame in order to choose the right face shot.

Related to the new camera, there is also Picture Editor that can be used to add filters to existing photos simply by swiping on top.

BlackBerry Story Maker

BlackBerry Story Maker is a content-creation tool that can be used to add photos and video, as well as other types of content, and combine them in order to create a “story”. This new feature was showcased through a BlackBerry 10 video ad.

The Apps and Content

The Canadian manufacturer touts in excess of 70,000 apps available at the launch of the new platform. Among them: Skype, Amazon Kindle, WhatsApp, SAP, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn, SoundHound, TuneIn, The Wall Street Journal, Cisco WebEx, Bloomberg, Box and The Economist, to name a few.

In terms of games: Where’s My Water?, Where’s My Perry?, Jetpack Joyride, and Electronic Arts titles are among the headliners. The now ubiquitous Angry Birds is also available.

Skype, Amazon Kindle, WhatsApp, SAP and Angry Birds are BlackBerry 10-committed apps. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn are available as part of the social apps.

During the app presentation video I have also spotted some other apps and game titles such as Paper Camera, HP ePrint, Shadowgun and BBC Worldwide.

Availability

Although carrier testing is still in full-effect in some markets, BlackBerry Z10 will be available tomorrow in the United Kingdom from major carriers as well as retailers like Carphone Warehouse.

In the United States, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile will carry the BlackBerry Z10, with availability to start in March. North of the border, in Canada the device will be available starting February 15 at various carriers for $199 on a three-year contract.