Brand Growth. Are your brands ready for growth? In a recent issue of the ANA's Hub Magazine, Mike Shinall of Meridian Consulting Group says most brands are not: "Despite more ads, new products, aggressive pricing and other efforts that have traditionally brought results, many brand-marketing organizations are struggling," he writes. How about your company? Does it have what it takes to grow? Please take a moment to take our survey on Brand Growth.

Space Geeks. Guys like Paul G. Allen, Jeff Bezos and Larry Page are remembering what some people think NASA has forgotten -- the entrepreneurial spirit of space travel, suggests an article by John Schwartz in The New York Times (6/14/05). "The dreams and expectations that Apollo launched for all these entrepreneurs have failed to materialize," says Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, co-founder of X-Prize, xprizefoundation.com, a foundation that sponsors a $10 million competition to build private spacecraft. It's a dream long-harbored by Paul Allen, who spent $20 million to win last year's prize, and says he's driven by childhood memories of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. "I really got enthralled, and probably more than most kids," he says.

As a kid growing up in the 60s, Paul used to "go down to the five-and-dime and buy plastic rockets that could be filled with water and pumped with air, whose compression built up launching pressure." Now 52, and a Microsoft multibillionaire, he's playing with a much bigger toy called SpaceShipOne, "the first privately financed craft to fly to the cusp of space -- nearly 70 miles up." Of course, what he sees as fulfillment of a childhood dream, others take as a "geeky status symbol." Says Rick N. Tumlinson of the Space Frontier Foundation, space-frontier.org: "It's not good enough to have a Gulfstream V ... Now you've got to have a rocket." Whatever's propelling it, these space geeks may be stealing NASA's thunder.

"It's completely shifted," says Charles Lurio, a space consultant. "This is where the action is, not at NASA ... The current American space program is a passive activity that has no connection with those watching it or their children." NASA's Sean O'Keefe, while praising SpaceShipOne's success, sees it just a little bit differently: "If I had authorized somebody to jump into a plastic airplane fueled by laughing gas in just a flight suit, there would have been a Congressional investigation the next day -- whether it was successful or not." Of course Paul Allen acknowledges the dangers involved, and admits he wouldn't put his own life at risk for it. But ever the entrepreneur, he thinks plenty of other rich people will want to kiss the sky and, yes, he notes, "you could actually get a return on your investment dollar."

Tim Manners, editor