Trend # 1  Eventually a trend toward Style will move us to renovate our existing homes again. We’re all searching for stability and exercising restraint.  The housing slump and sagging consumer confidence has hammered the home goods industry.  But eighty percent of home furnishings sales stem from renovations.  When you start painting, it becomes a huge project because everything else starts looking bad. And the longer a family stays put, the more likely they are to spend, and on bigger ticket items. Demographics indicate this trend will be particularly pronounced in the post-college urban consumer.   Perhaps we can reveal some stylish home decor to inspire your next renovation.    

Trend # 2.  Electronics:  Everyone talks about the stylish panache of an iPhone or the tech cool of the Android but the new BlackBerry Torch 9800 ($199 with a 2-year AT&T contract) should succeed in keeping loyalists happy with “the original” Smartphone. With a great tradition of stable e-mail and messaging – it’s improved clean intuitive web browsing is now worth noting.  This includes toggling between multiple windows and the familiar pinch in zoom gestures.  The cool sliding keyboard will appease veteran BlackBerry users and the latest operating system allows for touch screen also. Overall it’s a winner for utility and dependability, (not quite groundbreaking) but still impressive.  

Trend # 3 Banana’s are big!  Here’s a cool factoid I found in BusinessWeek that seems like a trend but maybe it’s because I like bananas. : ) The largest retailer in the world, Wal-Mart sold more bananas than any other single item last year.  It’s the #1 fruit with 720 Billion bananas grown each year.  Don’t you just love bananas? 

Trend # 4  We better start retooling for longer life spans.  Whether it is for our parents or for ourselves, this is really about Independent Living in an aging world.  One of the biggest emerging economies is the 65+ set as the world’s population grows older than it’s ever been.  Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) start moving into this 65+ category next year, on the tail of the Ikes (those born between 1925 and 1945).   One of the unique features of Boomers is that we tend to think of ourselves as a special generation, very different from those that had come before.  We love shaking things up from Science to Fitness & Outdoor Sports, Traditional Sports, Women’s Studies, Rest & Relaxation, Music Interests, Global Interests as well as Memorabilia & Nostalgia.  Boomers were the first generation to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time. We had higher rates of participation in higher education and had an assumption of lifelong prosperity and entitlement developed during their childhood in the 1950s.  It seems our expectations are coming true. 

Hope you enjoyed hearing about these trends. Next week I’ll finish up with part III on Trends in Shopping.

So, Eat Pray Love is everywhere you look these days.  Craving a little good energy and Julia Roberts’ sunshine?  Have your own adventure:  1.) Julia’s escape from her ex-husband and a frenetic NY lifestyle begins in Italy for the amazing (Eat) segment as she enjoys a very user friendly pizza.  Here is our pizza pick . One review recalls Julia rejoicing in what appears to be a zucchini blossom oozing cheese, Mmmm.  I like these Hors D oeuvres as well as some “dolce far niente” – which is the sublime Italian art of doing nothing.   2.) Next, (Pray) we can follow her lead to India by standing on our heads with the mind clearing Yoga Lift.  I used to do it every morning hoping it would make me one with everything. :  )   3.)  As you probably know, her experience is capped by an encounter with a handsome Brazilian businessman in Bali (Love).  Have your own encounter with The Dom Perignon Experience.   This trend setting tale features reinvigoration, aspiration and welcoming new possibilities.  It might be easier to just visit one of our featured vendors like the Home Shopping Network (HSN) to see their; lush saris, stylish jewelry and inspirational furnishings from Eat Pray Love.  

Besides other great trendsetters like Rachel Ray, Daisy Fuentes and Isaac Mizrahi, may I suggest Steve Jobs who leads technology with elegantly simple, clean devices, Miley Cyrus leads her young followers with infectious enthusiasm, and Joan Rivers uses her “enhanced appearance” to guide us into the secrets of skin care!   

But the hottest trend setter of late is AMCs Mad Men.  Why is that?  Obviously dangerous liaisons make for heady TV fare.  Could it be the vitality of Men and Women living their lives with wild abandon?  Maybe some of us miss that ultra potent challenge of the status quo during the 60s?   Check out these Mad Men Barbie & Ken dolls.  A famous quote from Mad Men lead Dan Draper:  “Advertising is based on one thing: Happiness.”  Here is to happiness.  : )          Another muse from Mad Men’s Draper; Nostalgia - it’s delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, “nostalgia” literally means “the pain from an old wound.” It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It let’s us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.” Here is to nostalgia.        Live a Mad Men lifestyle with these cool products: a Professional Martini Maker, a Jessie Steele Café Toile Apron or her Pink Black Damask Apron.  And you could really take the plunge with the Soda Shoppe Round Dinette Table and 4 chairs or even My Favorite Barbie 1962 doll.  Go for the 60s bling with a Pearl and Swarovski Crystal Bangle with 24K gold plating. 

Most of us set our own trends, based on our personal style, passions and interests.  But trend setters help pinpoint things that sometimes inspire us.  Next week we’ll look a different set of trends.   Thanks for reading.

Tony

At coolproducts.com we are all about birthdays, anniversarys, weddings, and family.  We are building a system for people to use social psychology, crowd sourcing and eHarmony like matching to find the perfect gift product for the important people in their lives.    

Along those lines today’s post pays homage to those important members of our family circle, the parents.  We can’t all have famous TV parents but they are all unique and they are all important.  Give and take is insurance that a relationship will continue.   People in their old age want not a return for what they did for their children, but relationship in love.  Elderly parents want something of this same kind of unconditional concern from their children, as they gave.  Family relations are a matter of sharing and old intimacy. Family relations are a complex mixture of duty and affection. They are characterized by the love and attention, the time taken talking, reminiscing, telephoning, writing, and actually caring.  An old parent arrives, after a long journey with its epic narrative, at a stage in life when justice and respect from others is necessary and good, but love is better still.

The ancient philosophers believed that the unconditional bonds that unite parents and children are in accordance with nature - cementing existing relationships.  Gratitude is natural in that it enhances social cohesion and harmony, while ingratitude menaces these ties.  The ancients saw ingratitude as monstrous - having fangs that tear at human hearts and rip apart the fabric of family and society.  

In Roman times, filial piety (supporting parents in old age) was personified as a goddess. Her attribute was a stork.  When elderly storks lost their feathers and their power to fly, their offspring covered them with their own plumage and fed them.  The young birds also carried their parents about on their own wings, and solicitously exercised their stiff and feeble legs.   

As if bewitched, parents love their children by nature, and desire their welfare even above their own.  Aristotle says that no son can ever honor his parents as they deserve.  Families are about continuity; children are the future.  The virtues of family gratitude rebuff the short-sightedness of self-enclosed individualism, materialism, greed, and living for one’s own immediate self-interest.  Relationships between children and parents stand in contradiction to our modern rejections of hierarchy.  Parents have to learn to give up their own liberties to “bring their children up”, and teach moral behavior.  Just as young parents learn selflessness when they had children, a whole new level of understanding and generosity must be discovered by the middle aged as they watch their previously powerful, dependable parents slowly decline and become needy.

Modern people tend to have difficulty understanding that unquestionable relationship is the way the family benefits us.  Each of us longs for unconditional acceptance.   Even when it’s not forthcoming, the trick is to love those family members whom we have not chosen, and to recognize our own characteristics in those we may occasionally dislike.

Long after grown children have left home, the family’s presence continues to loom large in most people’s lives.  Family members help one another through hard times.  They share memories; each helps create the identity of each therefore weaving the family’s narrative.  It’s a profound lifelong influence.  Memory is part of gratitude, as it is part of civilization.

Fundamental to sociology is the question; “How do societies stay the same, even as they change?”  Some propose it is faithfulness and gratitude.  Keeping commitments, establishes the bond of repetition and iteration. Faithfulness and gratitude assure continuance.  If every grateful action were suddenly eliminated, society would break apart.  These are tough threads that bind society together.  Gratitude is the only feeling that seems to reside in a point in us which we do not allow to change.  This is the third in a series of excerpts from “The Gift of Thanks” by Margaret Viisser. copywrite 2008.  Brought to you by: 

Mindfulness, recollection and recognition.   

The mind is a driver in gift giving.  Getting the darn thing to kick in is the trick.  Knocking if off of square center.  We provide tools to help in this process at coolproducts.com.  This post is part two of my paraphrased notes from chapters 11-18 of Margaret Viusser book; The Gift of Thanks.  The following explores the concepts involved in gifts and memories.   

The memory is a frail vessel.  Seneca advised giving someone a durable gift, because few people are indeed grateful if they do not regularly see the item received. He basically felt what is needed is an object capable of reviving the memory.

It’s about understanding, thinking, thinking back or remembering, and appreciating.  Man is essentially a story telling animal.  What story or stories do I find myself a part?  Memory creates narrative. Gratitude is about making the past continue to affect the present.  Gratitude resembles loyalty but loyalty keeps on working even when our wills have to be constrained to conform to it.  Gratitude, on the other hand is something that must be felt.  In French, Merci, (thank-you) comes from the root words for commerce, merchant and market; Uttering Merci is about knowing the cost of something, its price.  Recognizing the value of what has been given. 

An important feature of gratitude is its ability to bind a person into memory and into a rich story of interrelationship.  Our personalities are embedded in a web of memories, to the point where to be deprived of memory is to lose one’s identity.   Gratitude is deliberate memory, and expression of openness to others. 

Memory ia abiding with what has passed, what is present and what is leading to the future.  It is a constant.

I’m an average guy and by no means an intellectual or a deep thinker.  Still, I find gift giving and its place in society to be a fascinating subject.  This series of three blog posts attempts to delve a little deeper than usual into the history of gifts.   Gift objects are a kind of shorthand for matters of great complexity.  They represent what we find difficult to say or to discuss, matters that are often far more important than the things themselves.       Gifts and favors are neither simple nor clear.  Contracts are clear.  Gifts are the opposite of contracts.  There are often mixed motives, an array of emotions and/or the satisfaction in giving and receiving.         Why give back?  Because we are grateful. Ungrateful people are likely to be thoughtless in other matters.   Thankfulness is a complex human emotion.  Doing something proves gratitude.        When we celebrate we may also feel amazement, love, and remembrance.  These are all aspects of gratitude. Giving and receiving produces a kind of glow and radiance.  The imagery is of light, and gleaming, and gladness, icing on the cake as well as an awareness of the frailty of good fortune.       A person doesn’t just receive, but takes the trouble to think about who gave and what this giving means.  Receiving is about appreciating the kindness, contemplating and reacting in awe.  It is akin to such things as the wonder of life and even the marvel that is our own consciousness. 

DEEP THOUGHT FOR THE DAY : )

The stage we play on is the cyclic movement of time – the yearly, eternal return of the seasons – as it opens to make room for the unfolding of a “historical” narrative.  With human beings, cyclic time morphs into a straight line (linear) with our struggles and decisions, taking center stage.  On this stage, there is a complete sequence of actions and characters, people giving objects or doing favors, receiving, being grateful, and giving again that forms the backbone of many stories and subplots.  

I created this post by paraphrasing chapters 11-18 on Gifts & Meaning of Margaret Visser excellent new book: The Gift of Thanks.  

Surprise Gift Giving

 Like islands within our mass society, small and close-knit intimate spaces are where we find gift giving.  Personal relationships remain vital and essential for human well-being.   Gift giving creates links between people through the ritual.   

Gifts are objects - handled in a special way.  Each stands for far more than just itself.  The object is a “tie” between two people.   We make a gift objectify preceding social relationships.  Truth is often found in the motives and intentions of its giver.  Like a lasso thrown across a chasm, building a bridge, a response to a song, a sentence  completed.  

We have worked hard to provide ourselves with autonomy and independence from others; but at the same time we deeply desire connections with other people.  Gifts create links, and a relationship is forged and encouraged by passing objects back and forth, wrapping them up symbolically adds meaning, removing them from everyday life.   They’re expressions of personal affection and respect. 

Gift decisions are made by thinking, watching and then seeing what the other needs.  To listen to things they are doing and needing.  Gift giving forces one to pay attention with alertness to wants.  Money gifts are “lazy.”  Money is kind of cold and when it’s gone, the memory’s gone.  With an object you’ve got something material to remember that person by.  Go shopping with detailed knowledge as well as inventiveness and imagination.   Find something they have not already bought for themselves. 

In O. Henry’s short story “The Gift of the Magi,” the advantages in possessing things are shatteringly erased, leaving behind only the givers and their relationship in love.  A young wife cuts off her beautiful hair to sell in order to buy her husband a chain for his proudest possession, a gold watch.  He sells his watch to buy her a set of tortoiseshell combs with jeweled rims.  In the end all these “two foolish children” have left is each other and the presents that each received, useless yet proof now of the perfection of the other’s love.  O. Henry’s last word to the wise: “Of all who give gifts these two were the wisest.“

Gifts are not commodities - the household, the site of privacy, is obviously the primary place for what is personal.  This is the small social world where gifts are exchanged.  In opposition to the invading force of cold, calculating, purely material commodity relations stands the ideal of the Gift, freely offered, unearned by the recipient, warmly expressive of love, tending to arouse gratitude, generative of return gifts, a cycle, a dance, of reciprocal affections.  Markets are about quantifiable results, gifts are concerned with people’s feelings and intentions.  Gifts encourage personal relationship, and give increase.  Free choice springs from my affection for you.  We are human beings, not commodities.  Each of us is unique, embedded in personal relationships, we find these, rather than money, enriching.

Within our network of relationships we experience depth, personal authenticity.  All freely given presents characteristically strive to be “more than expected,” to be “something extra.”  Givers like to surprise.  Reciprocity is a sort of ebbing and flowing, like the sea.  Make the first move and create new possibilities.  Then, a giver can hope, but never expect.    

Relationship – that’s what sweetens life.  A considerable part of what is given is the time spent in reflecting, remembering, planning, shopping, choosing, wrapping.  Setting the stage takes time, timing, and tempo to enact sentiments and social links.  Its hard work to pay attention to what others might want to receive as a gift.  Spending time and taking time for other people must be considered a costly gift in our society where time is money.

I created this post with notes from chapter three of Margaret Visser excellent new book: The Gift of Thanks.  This is a paraphrased assemblage of her ideas. 

Tony Schmidt

President

Heart of America E-Commerce

I would like for our company to be a great resource for gift givers.  Our mission at CoolProducts.com is to make gift giving vastly more convenient, much more successful and infinitely more satisfying. 

My next few blog posts explore the nature and historical roots of gift giving.  A new book from anthropologist Margaret Visser titled The Gift of Thanks provides much of my background for these posts.

 A great place to start would be The Three Graces

Visser describes the Graces;

“The ancient Roman Graces were three beautiful, young, naked (or, in earlier times, skimpily dressed) virgin goddesses.  They were shown dancing with their hands entwined, sometimes in a circle but usually in a row, with two facing forward and the middle one backward.  The Graces, it was generally agreed, represented the social obligations of giving, receiving, and returning gifts and favors.  They danced holding hands because a benefit passes from one person to another and eventually returns to the giver.  The Graces are girls because both Gratia and Charis (the Greek for “Grace”) are feminine nouns.  Their beauty is the elegance of an uninterrupted sequence; they represent gifts circulating without hitch.  They are happy because the whole cycle is joyous.  Virginal because gifts must not be bribes but rather “pure and undefiled and holy in the eyes of all.  Young because the memory of a gift should not “grow old”; it must not be forgotten but should provoke a response, and not too late.  

Over time the Graces became proverbial for their nakedness.  A Roman would sagely make mention of “Naked are the Graces”, meaning that one should be open-hearted and without hidden intentions when giving, receiving, and returning gifts and favors.   Some apply the proverb to ungrateful people, because they strip the Graces, as it were, by always accepting kindness in some form and giving nothing in return.” 

I can’t offer embellishment on Visser’s beautiful account.   It’s a lovely representation of the ancient roots of gift giving.

Tony Schmidt

President

Heart of America E-Commerce

Shopping for another person - Gift Shopping - is sometimes pleasurable and sometimes tedious.  

Buying decisions related to others is a subject that fascinates me. Displaying affection adequately in the modern world seems to get more difficult.  But taking note of milestones in each others lives and celebrating family events by going a little crazy over occasions  is a nice diversion.

CoolProducts.com Founder Tony Schmidt

To satisfy the events in our lives, the marketplace reactes by providing Department stores, Malls and Big Online Merchants   These A-Z methods of shopping have slowly displaced smaller local merchants.  They offer a more comprehensive solution than existed before.   

So what’s next?  It’s 2010 and shopping for another person is still a pretty tedious task.  The problem that CoolProducts.com tries to address is time.  What’s a person to  do when “time” is a limiting factor.  The ultimate goal of gift giving is to impress the recipient and satisfy the giver.  Noone wants to just show up with something we had to rationalize at the last minute.  Instead of driving to the mall or department store, then parking, dodging crowds and searching through the abundance we have created a software that helps you uncover the perfect item.   

So we are trying to create a comprehensive - TIME SAVING - solution for people.  CoolProducts.com is 1000s of merchants pulled together in one place and organized by 400 broad categories and 250 sports teams.  All major Department stores, chain retailers, mail order catalogs, airline catalogs, TV shopping channels and large, medium and small web merchants alike.  Gift Professor is a tool to filter through it all in minutes. A comprehensive approach.   Check it out!

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Thanks

Tony 

President

As the founder, I couldn’t resist demonstrating our People Powered Gift shopping invention…. could I ?         

The truth is, I almost did.

One night, (December 13^th to be exact) I realized that procrastination was about to get the best of me once again.  So I sat down, and in a period of about two hours researched and purchased all of my 2009 Christmas gifts.  I was able to surprise eight people with something special from our labor of love software-as-a-service website CoolProducts.com.  Granted I got a little carried away, like a kid in a candy store but I narrowed the selections down and clicked through to the merchant and placed each order online in record time.  Then I was done.  For the next two weeks, my conscience was clear and I didn’t have a shred of panic or remorse about my purchases for Christmas day.  The process was a little clunky at first until I remembered I could save the products into My Favorites.  I ended up with 210 personally selected products in My Favorites.   Then I carefully reviewed them and sorted the best ones down on eight small pieces of paper.  Then I tried to keep things somewhat equal since four of my target recipients where my children. On the final list, I had these products.      For my wife: a Diane Artware Delft Blue Turtle Tureen with Ladle  $63  QVC .  My wife and I love having family and friend dinner gatherings and I hoped she would like this large serving container.  She likes it, but it’s not microwavable.  Also, my wife does an amazing job of periodically changing decor in our house so I thought she might like a  Giraffes of the Savanna Sculptural Vase  $65 Design Toscano.  Truth is, I liked it.   To play it safe I picked up a Susan Boyle “I Dreamed a Dream” CD $13  at Borders.com since Susan is also a native Scot.   Total for the three: $141

For my Dad I bought a Kindle Reading Device $259 Amazon, and a neoprene Kindle Case $25 Amazon, and a digital book to load on the Kindle - Ulysses S. Grant   $10  Amazon for a total of $294.  I hoped he would enjoy holding something lighter than a 3-4 lb novel and might like receiving the New York Times or Wall Street Journal on a 10 ounce  8″x5″ devise. 

For my Mom: Jack LaLanne’s Power Juicer $94  WalMart online only because she’s recovering from surgery and since Jack LaLanne’s in his 90s so juice must be healthy.  I also got her a book (hardcover because it was not available on Kindle) Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne C. Heller $30  Amazon for a total of $124

For my oldest son I purchased a Rotary Cheese Grater $31, Sur la table (shown here), because he’s a gourmet cook.  For my oldest daughter: a Travel Table Easel $68  Blick Art Materials, because she is a wonderful artist.  For my youngest son: a Collapsible Snake Tong $38  from Reptile Supply, because he is an outdoorsman and for my youngest daughter: a Gabrielle at the Gate Jigsaw Puzzle $40 Victorian Trading Co. because her middle name is Gabrielle. Total for the four kids $177                                                        For the whole family a bought a new game: Civil Lore!  The Game of American Culture $30 Uncommon Goods, because for my buck, time spent together is the best time.  Since my youngest son had won a Wii in an engineering contest, and because I loved playing golf on the thing….it’s so realistic…I bought an attachment for it called the  Wii Fit system $139  Amazon, and a Wii Shaun White Snowboarding game $43  Best Buy, a Wii skateboard/snowboard for the Fit Balance Board $35  Buy.com (shown above).  This is an amazing product and very much like being there.  Total for the family $247  and a grand total of $980  Gulp.          Well, you can’t take it with you.  My wife supplimented my surprise shopping spree with many equally thoughtful gifts, but all in all I was proud of myself for once. 

I’m sure many folks bad equal or better results and I would love to hear about them, but this was remarkable for me.  Even at this early stage of our website, I had my best shopping experience EVER last month.  And it’s all thanks to the staff and participants at CoolProducts.com. 

My goal in 2010 is to create a more efficient system so that our users and myself won’t have to write out little lists of paper or have to browse every single possible item like I did. 

And by the way, all my products were delivered in record time, often just a few days later.  How do they do that?  Stay tuned.

Tony Schmidt

President

Today’s expert is our founder Tony Schmidt (me) :  )

I’ve been interested in Photography for 20 years.  I became interested when I realized I could make a living taking pictures.  I bought an existing photography company in 1988 to make money so these opinions are based on one inspired by the profit motive.  As owner of Heart of America Photography, Inc.  from 1988-2005, my staff and I photographed commencement ceremonies and large group pictures for over 400 institutions as well as numerous marathons in a 6 state region.   As an example of a consumer level camera setup that approaches pro, heres a  Nikon DSLR Outfit.  It includes a Nikon D40 DSLR Camera, AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm and AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 55-200mm Lenses PLUS a bonus Nikon Gadget Bag and 2-Instructional DVDS.  This would deliver great pics and it’s available at CoolProducts.com

Photography became an important part of my life and I hope to offer you some useful information that you can utilize when shopping for someone with similar interests.  Some things to keep in mind when shopping for someone interested in photography:

1.  Are they doing it as a hobby?  If so; do they like portraiture, nature, landscapes, citizen journalism, sports events, real life, etc?

2.  Do they hope to make money doing it such as; contracting weddings, events, free-lance jobs, newspaper stringer, magazine staffer, eBay?

3.  Are they film or digital people?  Film people really can’t make money any longer. Digital is the preferred media for gainful employment opportunities.  Digital people are likely to also be interested in image manipulation and programs such as PhotoShop and sites like Flickr.

As a photography enthusiast my preferences tend to focus on lighting.  Digital cameras are all pretty good these days.  It’s hard to mess up a digitally created image, and most cameras have enough megapixals to satisfy the naked eye.  In reality, it is my understanding that only when digital cameras offer 25 MP will they be equal to or better than 35mm film.  6 MP or better will produce excellent 8×10’s.  To me, the important issue is to be able to manually adjust your digital camera to accommodate different light situations and lighting systems.  

1.  Lighting is important to me because I like portraiture and lighting and because it is an arena where photographers can differentiate themselves.

2. Lighting creates dramatic photos.  That’s why Ansel Adams shot so many great landscapes early in the morning or late in the day.  When the light was low and streaming in from the side.

3.  Lighting can soften a subject and provide idealism.  Lighting is crucial for Black & White. I have always admired photos with the classic three to one lighting ratio where one side of the subjects face is dark, and the other side is three times brighter.  I also like hair lighting, and background lighting.   

Keeping in mind the recipient’s preferences it’s also helpful to know whether they are a beginner, intermediate or expert. 

With a beginner you might keep in mind what classes or training they have had, if any.  What kind of camera are they using?  Are they producing nice pictures already?  Do they keep albums of their work?  I would suggest products along the lines of Cameras (A NikonD90 is the standard) and Flash attachments.  

With an intermediate you might keep in mind that they probably have the camera they want.  An extra lens, or something to challenge them might be in order.  I’ve liked my wireless remote light triggering system and soft boxes for my light kit with stands. I also like using a domed backdrop light. I would suggest products along the lines of Pocket Wizards and Alien Bees.

With an advanced photography enthusiast you should probably assume they have almost everything they want.  Maybe a long lens they have been pining over.  Long lens with a low 2.8 F stop are optimal, but those can run several thousand dollars.  If they are into studio work, I would suggest products along the lines of a backdrop organizing system, a posing stool system, a heavy duty tripod on wheels, reflectors, or maybe a panoramic camera.

On the topic of gifts, the most unusual items that I have ever received or purchased, given my passion for photography has been the following items: A Hasselblad medium format camera which is the name brand standard for excellence.  This brand was taken to, (and left on) the moon.  My cameras and lens assortment made me a lot of money. Another fun item was a refractor wand to create the illusion of fast movement which was fun when my four kids were growing up.  But always, the most fun has been the latest and greatest Nikon Professional camera.  I also would have liked to have had a studio management software program. .    

 In conclusion, there are many factors in giving the right gift and avoiding embarrassment.  These are only some suggestions and you must rely on your knowledge of the person more than anything.  Good luck and happy gift hunting.

For more information on the topic I would suggest looking in these places: Coolapedia, Adorama, Best Buy,  Ritz Camera, Abe’s of Maine & B&H Camera.