How to recognize the end of the recession, depending on where you’re standing.

As we all wait for the strangely reassuring sound of our economy hitting bottom, it’s worth spending a few minutes reading “What Does The End of the Recession Look Like?” by Annie Lowery in Foreign Policy. The recovery, when it comes, will almost certainly not be neat and clean. There will be winners, losers and massive shifts in economic clout. This article is a pretty good estimation of what the world might look like when the bounce begins.

Marketing solutions for an economy that’s swirling the drain

Everyone with a pencil, it seems, has written an article on what brands should do to fight their way through this ugly recession. You may find a few suggestions that are cleverer than most in this Harvard Business Review article by the middle initial-wielding team of John A. Quelch and Kathleen E. Jocz, “How To Market In A Downturn.”

It focuses on understanding the “recession psychology” of distinct groups of consumers and also the way these consumers categorize potential purchases in hard times. If you believe the wisdom of the ages can be contained in tidy matrices, this is the article for you.