California Envy

For a long time now, Apple's products have been marked with the line "Designed by Apple in California" or some such reference to the Golden State. I alway took that to be a sneaky way of saying it's made in America, even though it clears says "Manufactured in China." right after it. Seems others thought that was a good thing. Microsoft is now plastering Zunes with "Hello from Seattle." It's California Envy.

One of the great lessons from Bob Sutton's book Hard Facts, is that we tend to copy the surface qualities of the companies (and competitors) we admire rather than doing some hard work and figuring out the real sources of their success.