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Sheena Iyengar believes the choice overload problem is "one of the biggest modern day choosing problems that we have." The more options we have, the less likely we are to choose any one of the options. Iyengar says this is true for buying jam, and for putting money away for retirement. She discussed some techniques for handling the choice overload problem in a recent talk at TEDSalon NY2011 :

There may be new apps and new gadgets to facilitate our engagement with one another and with retailers and other companies, but surely social media will only become a bigger part of our daily lives this year. It will be interesting to watch how companies push new ways of interacting, and what trends develop. At Harvard Business Review , David Armano makes his predictions. Armano is executive vice president of the interactive arm of global communications for Edelman Digital, and he predicts that some social media activities that started in 2010 or 2011 will take off in 2012. Namely: Convergence Emergence. The Cult of Influence. Gamification Nation. Social Sharing. Social Television. The Micro Economy. Read Armano's descriptions for these trends here . And then weigh in, either by offering up your comments , or in discussions with your peers/classmates. What has to happen for these activities to become meaningful trends? What social media trends do you anticipate being a big part of commerce in 2012?

Sometimes creating markets for products can be a lot more difficult than creating products. Seth Godin says that "buying something for the first time" is a fairly recent phenomenon. Before the second half of the Twentieth century, we bought what our parents bought, who bought the products their parents bought. So the challenge for getting consumers to buy new things, even when those products could really truly make their lives better and healthier, remains quite high in parts of the world where people are still buying what their parents bought. Godin discussed this challenge at the Acumen Fund's 2011 Investor Gathering :

The expansion of the mobile marketplace over the last decade has brought companies access to exponentially more data than they previously had on consumer behaviors and desires. Too much data, as it turns out. Collecting meaningful data has become a major challenge. The old tools simply may not work. In a new paper, George Day , Co-Director of the Mack Center for Technological Innovation and Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School , says there is a dangerous gap between the potential value of all the data and the capacity of companies to adequately analyze that data: The hypothesis that organizations are not keeping pace with market velocity and complexity is more difficult to test. Suggestive evidence comes from several sources. The first is the vast literature on information overload, which describes how an excess of information has resulted in the loss of the ability to make decisions, process information, and prioritize tasks (Eppler and Mengis 2004; Klingberg 2009; Meyer 1998). The second is the equally large literature on organizational adaptation in the face of environmental change (ranging from Miles and Snow [1978] to Hamel [2007]). Still, there is no longitudinal measure of the size of the gap. Some evidence comes from recent estimates that the amount of data available expanded at an exponential rate from 100 billion gigabytes in 2005 to 1000 billion gigabytes in 2010 (IDC 2007). This suggests an even greater rate of growth than Davenport and Harris’s (2007) claim that unique information per person is growing at 50% per year. In contrast, they estimate that information consumption per person is only growing at 2% a year. Taken together, a reasonable case can be made that the deluge of data has run up against the barrier of the limited ability of people and organizations to process it. The evidence sug- gests that the volume of inbound data and the proliferation of channels is going to continue for the foreseeable future. Absent any breakthroughs in human beings’ ability to process data, unless new tools and approaches are adopted, the gap will continue to grow. There are other reasons to suggest that the gap is growing and that new approaches are needed to begin closing it. During periods of technological disruption, most organiza- tions have trouble keeping pace. This is true of the effect of the Internet and cheap, ubiquitous communication technologies on the habits and behaviors of consumers and the creation of new business models for reaching these markets. The tendencies toward inertia and sclerotic decision making are fed by lag effects and organizational rigidities. Read the full paper here . And watch Day and colleague David Reibstein discuss the "data deluge" problem in this Knowledge@Wharton interview:

Steve Stoute , CEO of the marketing agency Translation , believes that traditional marketing does not fit with the new economy and in particular with Millenial consumers. A former record executive, Stoute came to recognize that the old way of looking at demographics no longer seemed relevant, so he coined a phrase to mark what he was seeing: "tanning." He came to believe that many American companies were missing out on connecting with American consumers across demographic lines by shunning hip-hop culture even as it continued to grow and grow. Stoute recently spoke about his new book, The Tanning of America: How Hip-Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy , in this HBR IdeaCast :

With the rise of social media and the increasing use of Facebook as a primary gathering spot online, many small companies are considering shifting to Facebook as their primary virtual storefront. Eric Packer , entrepreneur and founder of Small Business Search , says that may work out as the best bang for the buck for small businesses, as long as you think strategically. At Small Business CEO , Packer shares four tips for those business owners and marketing managers looking to focus on Facebook. The first tip: "Don't Be Boring!": With a standard website, it is okay to post relatively dry, informative content. If people come across this site, it’s likely because they were already searching for something that you were selling. However, people don’t go on Facebook when they want to purchase things. They go on Facebook when they want to be entertained by links and posts from their friends. In order to use your Facebook site effectively, you need to update it at least several times a week with entertaining content. What is entertaining content? Being told what to do in the form of a blatant advertisement is not entertaining. An informative article about things that your product does might entertain. A comedy video based on your product is definitely entertainment. Behind-the-scenes footage of popular events might be intriguing. Weird, unexpected happenings are fun to share. Automated posts are not entertaining. Completely random posts might entertain a few people. A variety of unique posts and content types centered on a similar theme, style or brand of writing and content sharing is definitely entertaining. On your small business Facebook site, people see your content next to their friends’ content. You have to be at least as worthy of attention as interpersonal relationships if you want to be successful. Read Packer's other tips here .

Do women want Harleys? Well, some certainly do. And it seems even a lot of women who don't own a motorcycle really like the brand. We'll leave it up to you to figure out why that is. But we mention Harley-Davidson because it scored very highly among women in a recent survey. Forbes contributor Caleb Melby took a look at the survey results, and he highlights a few of the brands that do well among women: Barbie, CVS, Kotex...and Harley Davidson. Melby writes: Harley Davidson, the traditionally male-associated brand, scored with women this past year – landing it a spot on the index for the first time at number 194. The iconic motorcycle brand staged a series of initiatives to celebrate the growing number of women enthusiasts, including women-only garage parties, a first-ever female “biker boot camp,” and the launch of “women riders month.” The company also gave women the chance to interact with fellow female riders on a new website, featuring tips and advice on how to turn their riding dream into reality. Read What Brands Do Women Want? here . Incidentally, Forbes has a lot of content focused on women in business right now. Click here for Forbes's list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women .

This chart from Marketing Sherpa reveals how marketers from nearly one thousand companies allocate their B2B marketing budgets: Note that this does not necessarily mean that marketers place double the emphasis on Web design as they do with social media. Marketing Sherpa's Jen Doyle points out that the first two items on the list--Website design and tradeshows--require "significant expenses" to do right. Read Doyle's analysis of the B2B marketing budget survey here .