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Khalil Wins NIH New Innovator Award Project will focus on combating antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Ahmad “Mo” Khalil. Photo by Mike Pecci

The improper and excessive use of antibiotics has led to the rise of “superbugs,” treatment-resistant bacteria causing a public health crisis of global proportions. To help combat this problem, Ahmad “Mo” Khalil, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the Boston University College of Engineering (ENG), has been awarded a New Innovator Award under the High-Risk, High-Reward program sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). His proposed project will focus on developing new and rapid techniques for diagnosing antibiotic resistance to more effectively manage and treat gonococcal infections.

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keep a running list of high-priority antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and N. gonorrhoeae is high on that list,” says Khalil. “It’s spreading very quickly and we are basically at the last line of defense in terms of options, so being able to prescribe the proper treatment quickly is critical.”

The current clinical methods for diagnosing and treating bacterial infections rely heavily on techniques that have been around since the discovery of penicillin. When a patient presents to a clinic with an infection, a sample is taken and sent to the laboratory, where the bacteria causing the infection are grown out. To determine an effective therapy, the bacteria are then grown in a panel of antibiotics to see which one inhibits bacterial growth, a process called antibiotic susceptibility testing, or AST. It’s a long process that can take days or weeks to elicit an appropriate answer to direct the targeted therapy, which is often a luxury that providers do not have. For certain infections, such as gonorrheal infections, AST is not even performed, making it difficult to know which antibiotic will be the most effective.

Because of these issues, doctors often treat with a broad-spectrum antibiotic instead of a targeted therapy, which has contributed to the rise of antibiotic resistance. Khalil’s proposed project will reengineer AST using synthetic biology, which is the engineering of molecular and cellular systems for useful applications. The resulting technology he aims to develop will allow providers to prescribe a targeted therapy tailored to the particular organism in a matter of hours instead of days.

“When you treat susceptible bacteria with an antibiotic, they express specific RNAs that act as biomarkers that tell you the antibiotic will be an effective treatment, while resistant bacteria do not,” says Khalil. “We are going to be looking at harnessing these molecular signatures as the basis of a new form of rapid AST for N. gonorrhoeae.”

Khalil and his team, collaborating with Tufts University and MIT, will engineer synthetic RNAs to act as biosensors that can detect these specific biomarker RNAs and subsequently express a readable output, such as a color change. Next, they will create a tool that will allow clinicians to prepare a patient sample and test it on a single chip that contains RNA sensors for a full panel of antibiotics, with the best treatment options lighting up. This will provide clinicians with rapid information to determine a targeted therapy for a particular strain of gonorrhea, including antibiotic resistant strains.

In addition to providing networking opportunities for young investigators, as well as initiating access to NIH funding, the New Innovators Award will provide a monetary grant of $1.5 million direct to Khalil’s research project. Recipients of this highly selective honor are chosen based on innovative, ambitious project ideas.

“It is a testament to our department, and to the young people we are hiring, that we currently have three active NIH New Innovator Awardees: Xue Han, Wilson Wong, and now Mo Khalil,” says John A. White, professor and chair of the ENG biomedical engineering department.

“I’m overwhelmed that I was chosen for this award, and it’s a testament to my entire lab and the hard work that they are doing here at BU,” says Khalil, echoing White’s sentiments. “It’s also exciting because synthetic biology is such a new field and this award recognizes its potential to solve real-world problems.”

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Weike Wang Wins Whiting Award

Weike Wang Wins Whiting Award A PhD’s novel about a PhD student takes emerging writer prize

Weike Wang (GRS’15) received critical acclaim for her debut novel, which recently earned a Whiting Award, with its $50,000 prize. Photo courtesy of Saavedra Photography

Weike Wang’s debut novel, Chemistry, is about a young PhD dropout wracked with indecision about how to handle her parents’ high expectations, a marriage proposal, and her future.

It’s a struggle that’s familiar to the author, who earned a doctorate in public health at Harvard at the same time she was enrolled in BU’s Creative Writing Program.

Wang has since chosen between the two careers, with writing coming out on top. And last week her choice was validated when Chemistry notched a big win: a Whiting Award, one of 10 given each year to up-and-coming writers. Among past winners are Saul Bellow (Hon.’04), Eudora Welty, and Seamus Heaney.

So Wang must feel that her decision to pursue a career as a novelist was a good one, right?

“It doesn’t make me less hesitant about a career in writing,” she says, “but it is encouraging. I try to keep a very practical outlook.”

It’s a cautious perspective that has helped define Wang’s voice as a writer. The 29-year-old says she takes a longer view, noting that it’s daunting to think about a writing career and what it might take to produce a meaningful body of work over 10, 20, or 30 years.

“Going into the arts is always difficult,” she says. “But I love it, not necessarily because of the awards, but I think and care a lot about producing good work.”

With Chemistry, she’s off to a good start. The book has been named a Washington Post Notable Book, won the Ploughshares John C. Zacharis Award, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. The book offers a fresh take on the immigrant experience, according to the Whiting Awards Selection Committee: “Wang deftly captures her narrator’s struggle to love and forgive, exploring with tenderness and rigor the provisionality of the stories we use to understand the world around us.”

Chemistry (Knopf, 2023) chronicles the life of a nameless doctoral student in chemistry at a well-known Boston university. The career path is encouraged by her demanding Chinese immigrant parents, but ultimately rejected by the protagonist, who loses it one day in the laboratory, smashing beakers in front of her classmates. She ends up on medical leave and starts drinking heavily. And while the narrator’s tone is spare, she frequently drops in arcane chemistry trivia that offers comic relief.

Award-winning novelist Ha Jin (GRS’93), a College of Arts & Sciences professor of English and director of the Creative Writing Program, says he was thrilled to hear of Wang’s award, which comes with a $50,000 prize. Prize money enables writers to keep going without distraction, he says, noting that another recent alum, Neha Kamdar (GRS’17), received a Stegner Fellowship, enabling her to write full-time at Stanford University for two years.

“With this help, Wang will definitely complete her next novel and continue to succeed in her literary calling,” Jin says.

Wang currently lives in New York, where she teaches writing and is working on her second novel, about the evolution of a long-term friendship, tentatively called Clementine and Will.

She says she finds writing a second novel just as challenging as writing her first. “Readers don’t want to read the same book again,” she says. “There’s more pressure to think about the audience. When I was writing the first novel, I thought nobody was going to publish this. I didn’t think about the audience at all.”

When asked what her real-life parents think about the Whiting Award, Wang laughs. As scientists, she says, they’re not very familiar with it. “They think that it’s a good amount of money and you should invest it and consider using it for a rainy day or a down payment on a house,” she says. “Or they want to know, ‘Will this help you get a teaching job?’”

The BU writing community remains a big part of her literary life, and she’s still in regular contact with classmates.

Leslie Epstein, a CAS professor of English, teaches fiction in the Creative Writing Program and says Wang’s collaboration with fellow MFA students and the way she used her imagination as well as her experience to come up with the idea for Chemistry, and at the same time meeting the demands of her doctorate, was remarkable to see.

“This took insight and talent of a very high order,” Epstein says. “It also reflects the closeness of the fiction cohort every single year. We are all proud of her.”

Megan Woolhouse can be reached at [email protected].

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A New Generation Of Health Care Leadership

blog / Healthcare A New Generation of Chief Medical Officers: The Evolution of Health Care Leadership

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Health care is now facing tremendous challenges, including employee burnout and digital transformation, to name just a few examples. As a result, the role of the Chief Medical Officer is evolving quickly. In today’s hospitals and medical facilities, executives with additional leadership or business education are in highest demand.

CMOs have always played a pivotal role in leading health care systems—to operate hospitals and communities while overseeing best-in-class care. Emeritus Healthcare brought together a panel of medical experts to discuss the health care leadership skills needed for today and the future.

The Challenges of Health Care Leadership for CMOs

Health care experts say CMOs no longer focus entirely on medical care and quality. They must also be proficient in finance, business strategy, people management, and delivering high-quality, accountable care at a lower cost.  

CMOs should also be able to effectively communicate with decision-makers as varied as boards of directors, senior hospital administrators, community leaders, and, of course, their own medical staff. That’s a broad constituency and one that may require a dash of diplomacy and the gift of persuasion.

“We do know hiring new leadership talent is very expensive, very time-consuming, very difficult in any industry,” said Ranil Herath, President of Emeritus Healthcare. It’s even more complex in health care due to recruiter fees, relocation costs, and signing bonuses, among other challenges.

One solution? Upskilling leaders from within.

“The implication of a cost of a vacancy is extremely high,” Herath said. Upskilling internally allows medical institutions to create “a ready-now bench of leadership at a significantly lower cost” while engaging and retaining top talent.

That’s why so many current and aspiring CMOs are enrolling in programs to teach them how to lead and effectively solve the complex problems facing leaders today.

Building Health Care Leadership Skills

The most successful Chief Medical Officers are the ones who know that an organization needs to do well before it can do good. That ties back to the basics: money, people, and quality.

Recruiting and hiring a new CMO is one of health care leadership’s most crucial staffing decisions. But it takes planning and purpose to find the right individual to lead an effective team.

“The CMO job is a really tough one and, in some ways, I think it’s becoming more difficult as the environment around us becomes complex,” said Michael Sacks, faculty director of Emory Executive Education and the Chief Medical Officer Program. “One of the things I observe is the breadth and scope of asks and requests CMOs get is really astonishing. Some of them are directly related to their training, and a lot it is not.” 

Sacks has been developing programs for the medical field for 20 years. He said those who enroll in medical leadership courses typically have experience in health care. However, they may need additional training specifically in leadership.

“They’re handed the keys to the car and [told], ‘good luck!’,” Sacks said. “Sometimes, it’s a nice fit with their skills; sometimes they just haven’t been trained in it. No disrespect; quite the opposite.”

He continued, “What I’m passionate about is designing leadership development for people in health care who can pick it up quickly with some more exposure, some frameworks, and then they’re effective in their jobs when they move forward. “

Among the most important non-medical aspects for a CMO to master: building a talented and cohesive team and understanding the financial aspects of their work and mission. These health care leadership skills are non-negotiable today.

“Now, with these three areas of people, quality, and finances so tightly linked together, the Chief Medical Officer of today is going to have to dig into the other aspects of people and finances,” said Dane Peterson, interim CEO of Emory Healthcare. “I think the challenge is going to be that it’s predominantly going to be through influence. [CMOs] aren’t necessarily going to have the direct accountability over HR.”

Developing Health Care Leadership Strategies

Health care centers are increasingly prioritizing prevention and screening efforts for the earlier treatment of complex diseases. This benefits the patient as it requires less intensive, less costly treatment than they would receive for an acute condition.

Nonetheless, today’s CMOs will have to prioritize building internal support for prevention and early detection, among other front-weighted expenses that will only yield savings over time. Some mandates are never recouped but are vital to patient care.

“[Unfunded mandates] are a huge challenge,” said Sheryl Gabram-Mendola, Chief Scientific Officer for the Georgia Center for Oncology Research and Education. These can include the cancer navigators who improve a patient’s care or are pursuing accreditations to highlight clinical standards.

“The CMO has to be on board with that because they really can cause a program to adhere to the requirements for those accreditations and improve the quality,” Gabram-Mendola added.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Modern Health Care Leadership

Gabram-Mendola said diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies are essential for modern health care leadership—especially because, on average, 30% to 35% of patients they serve in hospitals are minorities. And these patients, Gabram-Mendola said, should also see this diversity among the professionals who care for them, all the way up to the C-suite level.

DEI programs can improve a medical institution’s trust and communication with local communities. Such programs can also bring a revamped leadership style and insights that can benefit a larger organization.

The Role of Communication in Medical Leadership

The CMO may not always be able to expand their budget, but they can extend their reach. Focusing on strategic cooperation between peers within an organization or medical institution can facilitate the sharing of vital information. It can also leverage the clout of numbers, with multiple voices identifying the same trends and amplifying a message.

If there were any doubts about the power of communication in health care leadership, the COVID-19 pandemic laid them to rest. “During the depth of the pandemic, the systems across Atlanta really came together, honestly for the first time,” Peterson said.

In the beginning, CMOs met daily to discuss the core issues at hand and proposed responses. They traded best practices to protect staff and even signed group editorials in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Peterson said that collaboration is “something we can build on.”

Peterson would like to see this cooperation between health care systems continue, noting the benefits to health facilities and patients alike.

“Think about how CMOs are wired: [to] help people and lead. I think there are opportunities now that probably weren’t available before the pandemic for us to collaborate,” Peterson said. 

Sacks agreed: “[Collaboration] takes less time, less money, and less energy to do this well than it does not to be thoughtful and have to clean it up afterwards.”

Learn more about the Emory Executive Education Chief Medical Officer program—a 9- to 12-month immersive learning journey—or explore ways Emeritus Healthcare can upskill your team or organization through our learning solutions.

National Association Of Real Estate Investment Trusts (Nareit)

National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT)

Written by

CFI Team

Published May 13, 2023

Updated July 7, 2023

What is the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT)?

The National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts – more commonly known as NAREIT – acts as the voice for equity and mortgage REITs, REITs traded on all major stock exchanges, as well as non-listed and private REITs. NAREIT’s primary focus is to act as a representative for trusts in both real estate and capital markets.

Additionally, NAREIT seeks to offer its information and assistance to countries worldwide that are interested in introducing REITs. NAREIT is recognized around the world as the authority on REITs and the REIT industry.

Summary

NAREIT was formed in 1960 and was initially incorporated as the National Association of Real Estate.

NAREIT is focused on helping promote the earning of income from real estate investments.

What is a REIT?

A REIT – real estate investment trust – is actually a company. The company is required to meet various requirements to qualify and earn the REIT status. All REITs must either operate, own, or provide financing to real estate that produces some form of income.

REIT investors gain significant opportunities. They can eventually own an equity interest in lucrative pieces of real estate and earn access to total returns and income based on dividends. REITs afford anyone the chance to invest in portfolios focused on real estate assets. Investors can do it through mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), or simply through the purchase of a REIT stock.

Once invested in a REIT, investors earn a portion of all income generated by the real estate investments that the REIT holds. Investors get to participate without actually purchasing any properties, managing them, or financing them in any way.

REITs are historically good investments. Because they provide notably high dividend income – which comes in on a regular basis – and long-term capital appreciation, they offer total returns that are competitive with other investments. They are also excellent at diversifying portfolios because they are not closely correlated to other assets.

By diversifying a portfolio, they help reduce a portfolio’s overall risk. To date, nearly 87 million individuals in the United States have invested in REITs, typically through their 401(k) plans.

History and Composition of NAREIT

NAREIT was formed in 1960 after former U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower signed legislation that allowed for a different approach to earning income from real estate investments. The organization was initially incorporated as the National Association of Real Estate, later evolving into the organization that it is today.

NAREIT is more similar to a community, composed of individuals and companies that work together to promote the real estate industry as a whole, with a specific focus on investment in properties that generate income. It includes academics, individual investors, real estate agents, and organizations. NAREIT acts as a representative for some 200 member organizations, which collaborate to further the popularity, reach, and effectiveness of REITs.

NAREIT also works with several foreign bodies to further its political reach and efficacy in terms of REIT promotion. The most notable partnerships include the one with the British FTSE Group and the European Public Real Estate Association (EPRA). The trio’s partnership established the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Global Real Estate Index Series, a system that offers investors highlights of basic trends in potentially lucrative real estate equities around the globe.

Real Estate Sustainability Council

NAREIT created the Real Estate Sustainability Council (RESC) in October 2023. The subcommittee of the association was formed to increase focus on the promotion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) best practices when it comes to investing in the real estate industry.

The RESC is currently comprised of 50 active corporate NAREIT members whose organizations are focused specifically on sustainability when it comes to REITs.

Learn More

CFI is the official provider of the global Commercial Banking & Credit Analyst (CBCA)™ certification program, designed to help anyone become a world-class financial analyst. The following CFI resources will be helpful in furthering your financial education:

Schitt’s Creek Star Dan Levy Shares Memories Of The Award

Schitt’s Creek Star Dan Levy Shares Memories of the Award-Winning Show with BU Students

Ryan de Kock (CAS’22), BU’s Queer Activist Collective’s outreach coordinator (left), interviewed Schitt’s Creek cocreator, showrunner, and star Dan Levy February 19.

Film & TV

Schitt’s Creek Star Dan Levy Shares Memories of the Award-Winning Show with BU Students Actor, writer spoke about the importance of gay representation at Friday event

Students who stayed in on Friday night were rewarded with a virtual visit with Schitt’s Creek cocreator, showrunner, and star Dan Levy. The multi-Emmy winner, fresh off his Saturday Night Live appearance earlier this month, spent an hour chatting about topics like writing gay characters, the formative experience of being part of Schitt’s Creek, and what he’s working on next.

Speaking from his parents’ house in Toronto (“Notice the illustrations of fruit in the background?” quipped Levy, who was sporting his signature thick-rimmed glasses and scruff), he was interviewed by Ryan de Kock (CAS’22), BU’s Queer Activist Collective’s outreach coordinator. The event was hosted by the Student Activities Office and co-planned by the BU Arts Initiative and the Queer Activist Collective. About 800 students registered, organizers say.

Levy was funny and insightful and had much to say about his love for his costars, how the industry could benefit from more gay characters, and how he viewed working to make sure that kind of storytelling happened on Schitt’s Creek. “As a gay man, I wanted to tell a story that reflected the nuance of my own experiences that I hadn’t necessarily seen explored before,” he said about the quirky Canadian comedy. “For the sake of entertainment, sometimes [people’s] experiences get reduced or the edges get softened a little bit. So it was really important that the opportunity I was given be used for good…[and] I knew my younger self would have really benefited from seeing that.”

Levy cocreated Schitt’s Creek in 2023 with his father, well-known comedic character actor Eugene Levy (Best in Show, American Pie), who played his father on the show. Schitt’s Creek ran for six seasons on the Canadian Broadcasting Company before gaining popularity stateside when it started airing on Netflix. For the uninitiated, the show is about a wealthy family who loses all their money and moves to the small town of Schitt’s Creek (the father once bought the town as a joke because it had a funny name) to start over. The series was lauded by critics, and it picked up nine Emmys for its sixth and final season, setting a record for most awarded comedy series in a single year. Levy collected individual honors for supporting actor, writing, and directing.

Emcee de Kock kicked off the event by asking Levy what it was like hosting Saturday Night Live on February 6. Levy called it a mind game, something that you “don’t want to screw up,” and said he tried to not get in his own head too much and just have fun. One of the skits that night, a parody on the It Gets Better Project, went viral. The project, launched in 2010 to encourage those struggling with coming out, featured gay people talking about how their lives improved after they came out. The skit spawned promotional pins that have since raised $10,000 for the project.

Turning to Schitt’s Creek, Levy described the “family dynamic” among him and his costars and how they sobbed when it was time to wrap up a year and a half ago. “I didn’t know at the time how rare that kind of dynamic was—to work in a space where everyone felt really kind of valued and excited to be there,” he said. “It was truly the greatest seven years, give or take, of my life and truly the most transformative.”

Multi-Emmy winner Dan Levy said he aims to “continue to write interesting queer stories for queer characters and do my part to hopefully fill the space with opportunities so that actors can be hired.” Photo by Frank Ockenfels/ABC via Getty Images

Speaking about the series finale, “Happy Ending,” which (spoiler alert) culminated in Patrick (Noah Reid) and David (Levy) getting married, but not before David received an accidentally adulterous massage, Levy explained that its title was more than just a nod to the sexual act. “It was a proclamation that two men can have a happy ending at the end of a series, and a response to the majority of queer stories that are told in film and television ending in tragedy, sadness, or heartbreak,” he said. “It was really important that we stake that claim [referring to the “Happy Ending” title] that these characters deserved it, and the viewers deserved it.” 

Levy spoke of movies where queer characters are constantly struggling, and whenever they fall in love, there is a hiccup or tragedy. “So for me, it was really important that we tell a story, a love story that was completely free of the presumption that so many of us put on queer relationships that we see on screen, [where] we’re just like almost waiting for something bad to happen,” he said. “And it was a freedom for me to say that is [not] going to happen.”

For the same reason, he didn’t want those living in the small town of Schitt’s Creek to fall into the trope of stereotypical small-minded, ignorant characters. Instead, the town and its residents are accepting, progressive, and supportive. In fact, it was a decision by the writers to never show homophobia at all. He acknowledged that it was a risky decision, “because there is the discussion of, well, if you’re not showing it, are you erasing it? 

“And I kind of felt like there are films and television shows that I so admire that are handling the tragic side of queer relationships and queer people in a way that is so respectful and thoughtful and beautiful,” Levy said. “I wanted to take up a space that was only going to show a kinder projection of our world, a town where nobody had to worry about who they were in order to be accepted or to fit in… It was remarkable to see the response to that, because what we didn’t know at the time was that by holding a mirror up to people’s lives and saying, this is how it can be, this is how life can be when you are not judgmental of other people or bigoted or intolerant or homophobic or racist,  this is how people can succeed. This is how people can grow, this is how people can find love. And this is how ultimately, a community can be built around something positive.”

In 2023, Levy received GLAAD’s Davidson/Valentini Award, given to an LGBTQ media professional who has made a significant difference in promoting acceptance for the LGBTQ community. 

Levy, who most recently starred in the Hulu holiday romantic comedy Happiest Season, starring Kristen Stewart as a gay woman about to propose to her girlfriend when she realizes her girlfriend hasn’t told her family they are a couple, talked about how wonderful it was to be a part of something that “allowed someone the space and the confidence to come out, or vice versa, allowed a family a level of understanding of their own children that they then created a space within that home for those parents to apologize to their queer or gay child.”

In fact, during the run of Schitt’s Creek, Levy fought to have an image of Patrick and David kissing included in a promotional billboard. “I had never seen two men kiss on a billboard before. So if I have any power in this situation, I’m going to make that happen, not just for myself, but for everybody who drives by that billboard and sees themselves on it. So those are the kinds of things that you realize in a lot of executive positions: there are not queer voices, there are not voices of people of color. And that’s where things slip through the cracks.”

Although a multiple Emmy winner (he also shared the award for best comedy series), Levy said he hasn’t had many acting opportunities cross his desk post Schitt’s Creek, and he believes that’s because they just don’t exist for gay actors. For that reason, he is writing his own.

“You just realize that the parts aren’t there, in the same way that straight parts are there for straight actors,” he said. “So all I’m trying to do now with the opportunities that I’ve had, with the success that I’ve had, is to continue to write interesting queer stories for queer characters and do my part to hopefully fill the space with opportunities so that actors can be hired.”

On a lighter note, Levy was asked how the Schitt’s Creek characters would deal with the pandemic (not well, Levy admitted, noting that they would definitely miscommunicate about who was in which pod). He said he’s open to a future Schitt’s Creek special or movie. “We all are desperate to work together, so I think eventually when the dust settles on all of this, and if people might begin to miss us at some point, I do hope that maybe we’ll get an idea that that will bring us all back together again.”

Levy ended the chat by thanking emcee de Kock for the great interview, noting how thoughtful the BU junior’s questions were. 

“I just wanted to make sure I highlighted questions about being queer in Dan’s industry, since, as he mentioned, that’s not an easy thing to do,” says de Kock, a biochem major with no journalism experience. He says he started off the night feeling super nervous, but soon fell into a groove and the anxiety went away. It also helped, he says, that Levy was so pleasant and forthcoming and gave thorough responses. 

“I’m very happy with how the event went,” de Kock says, “and I’m glad to have had the opportunity to talk about queerness in film and TV with someone experienced in the topic.”

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Google Wins Keyword Trademark Ruling

Google Wins Keyword Trademark Ruling

Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Watch posts on a legal victory for Google (I totally missed it) that basically allows Google to permit companies to use their competitors’ brands as keywords (not as visible text or title tags). Barry points to a San Jose Mercury article and more technical legal analysis from Eric Goldberg that explain the ruling and its potential implications.

As Goldberg points out, the favorable ruling came at a low federal court level. Until there are federal appellate court consensus rulings or an eventual US Supreme Court ruling all this isn’t totally over. But for now, Google can sell “Pontiac” to “Mazda” and vice versa.

One of the Search Engine Marketing firms that presented on my “research” panel at the San Jose SES (I can’t remember whether it was iProspect or 360i) said that some of the consumer research they’d done found a “significant brand lift” benefiting those marketers who were appearing in the top results (organic and paid) on search results pages.

That plus everything else points to more branding dollars getting into paid search. Eventually we will have big brands who want to “own” categories in search, spending branding dollars there to ensure their position whenever one searches on “printer” or “digital camera” or “mp3 player” and so on.

In addition, you’ll have the same phenomenon regarding competitors’ products, as in Mazda buying keywords related to the Pontiac Solsitice, as mentioned, earlier this year. In that instance, when people were prompted by Pontiac’s TV campaign to “Google” the new Solstice an ad for Mazda came up.

This should eventually create more keyword inflation and drive more marketers into local (as a cheaper keyword strategy) and the tail. However, contradicting that is the apparent fact that, on average, keyword prices remain flat or are trending slightly downward although in any give category they may be more competitive and therefore costly.

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