soulsight®

I once got lost riding my bike when I was seven. I was new to our neighborhood, took a wrong turn at some point, and lost track of how to get back. It was confusing and scary. And then I saw a familiar landmark (a Dairy Queen sign) and it guided me back to a street that I felt comfortable and safe on. It was a great feeling to have all of the uncertainty wiped away with a simple, familiar sign that let me know that I actually wasn't too far from home.

I thought of that moment when I found myself on a 404 Error page that looked like nothing like the vacation travel site I was on. Suddenly, I felt the "Uh-Oh" of that wrong turn...

Walgreens, who in the past year launched a fresh food initiative for its stores, is now also offering its own private label beer...and for cheap! At $2.99 for a 6-pack (that's approximately 50 cents per can), Big Flats seems to be winning fans over with its great value in just its first few weeks out in market.

So will you be adding Big Flats to your next game party shopping list?

Last week, I attended The Social Media Club Chicago's first event of the year: Community Outlook for 2011. There was much discussion to be had, points to be made, questions to be asked...after all, we are a "social" group. Some insightful topics shared included:

• • Social media has changed the expectations for the speed of response time and service/communication from 9-5 to 24/7
• • We can marry social media into one brand voice by tying it to traditional media (ex: using Twitter to promote your other grassroots marketing campaigns)
• • The Groupon vs. Living Social debate -- the more important...

So here we are, smack in the middle of the MP3 era. We buy, sell, trade and download all our music digitally, and we store tens of thousands of songs on devices smaller than a credit card. But in the past few years, the vinyl LP, a relic long since abandoned 20 years ago, has been brought back to life by a whole new generation of music fans. With literally millions of songs available to them at the click of a button, fans are content to go dig for slabs of vinyl in record store crates and garage sales. And not just vintage records. Bands today are releasing their music with vinyl + MP3 combos, recognizing this growing trend.

Based on Beverage Industry's New Product Development survey, below are 7 key takeaways on what to expect in the beverage category this year...