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Imagine if you could improve — even double — workforce productivity in the warehouse or distribution center. Wouldn’t that be sweet? In their new book, “Warehouse Productivity,” authors Ron Hounsell and Pat Kelley present a blue-collar incentive plan that is designed to do just that. Their idea is to bring the corporate practice, common among many executives, of tying compensation to performance, down to all employee ranks. Their message: Extra pay is a reward for those who perform at high levels.

Imagine if you could improve — even double — workforce productivity in the warehouse or distribution center. Wouldn’t that be sweet? In their new book, “Warehouse Productivity,” authors Ron Hounsell and Pat Kelley present a blue-collar incentive plan that is designed to do just that. Their idea is to bring the corporate practice, common among many executives, of tying compensation to performance, down to all employee ranks. Their message: Extra pay is a reward for those who perform at high levels.

Although a common belief is that mass media has led to a homogenization of culture and markets, New York-based research company Simmons believes the opposite is true: The breakup of the mass market has turned American society into balkanized population segments that defy easy categorization. While Simmons’ flagship survey, the Simmons National Consumer Study (NCS), draws on a database of over 27,000 respondents nationwide to unlock the secrets of American marketplace behavior, the company now breaks that study down into SimmonsLOCAL. Drawing on the NCS database, SimmonsLOCAL provides hometown versions of consumer media and purchasing behavior in each of the nation’s 210 DMAs (Designated Market Areas). Simmons says that all companies, from small-scale shops to global corporations, can now pinpoint the customers for their products and services.

By direct marketing standards, most of the companies dubbed

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