Jason Calacanis sent out a message to his e-mail list several days ago titled How to Demo Your Startup, and TechCrunch recently reposted it.  Though it's about presenting a startup company's product (often to get funding), many different types of people will find this information extremely helpful for many different reasons.  I highly recommend reading the full text of Jason's e-mail here:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/09/how-to-demo-your-startup/

Avon, which hit a 52 week high yesterday, has announced a new men's fragrance created with Patrick Dempsey.  It's called Patrick Dempsey Unscripted, and will be available in the US in November and globally in 2009.  Normally, this wouldn't be something I'd be interested in writing about (I buy Burberry Brit from Holt Renfrew), but I started thinking about how this partnership could be expanded.  Isn't one of Avon's largest consumer groups actually its distributors, and aren't the majority of Avon distributors female?  I would have thought that bringing Patrick Dempsey on board to create a women's perfume would have been a guaranteed hit.  Is it coming down the pipeline, did Avon miss the boat, or am I missing something?  Maybe they simply couldn't get the trademark rights for the perfect title:  McDreamy.