But what is most interesting about the new online DTC sightholder directory is the detailed information it provides about Sightholders in South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia, which will no doubt help jewelers and manufacturers who wish to support beneficiation in those countries. This is more information than has ever been available before about these companies and their operations, although most of them are part of bigger international Sightholder groups. And it is all accessible to consumers too: an important milestone in the progress the industry is making to bring diamond cutting and downstream employment to diamond producing countries in Africa.

Many U.S sightholders made the new list, including Julius Klein, Lazare Kaplan, Louis Glick, Michael Werdiger, Premier Gem, and Stuller. Longtime U.S. sightholder Hasenfeld-Stein did not.

The latest evidence, which has been analyzed in depth by Chaim Even-Zohar, is a new DTC brochure announcing a support group for ex-sightholders. The “Sightholder Support Programme,” is a package designed to assist those clients who will no longer be Sightholders on March 31, 2008 by offering “high profile consultancy support in managing its reputation and relationships with key stakeholders.”

Any group that requires a program for support is likely to be large in size don’t you think? We’ll know soon enough.

As any gemologist knows, gemstones stimulate both the right and left brain. Their beauty may inspire poetry but they also serve as evidence of the patterns and structures to be discovered in the natural world. Bill Atkinson knows something about the intersection of art and science: at Apple Computer, he designed much of the initial Macintosh user interface and wrote the original QuickDraw, MacPaint, and HyperCard software. Today, he is a full-time nature photographer. His new book, Within the Stone, pairs 72 stunning images of ornamental gemstones with poetry and essays inspired by each mineral landscape. The contributors, who treat the intricate patterns in each stone as Rorschach blots, are a talented group of overachievers themselves: Diane Ackerman, poet and psychologist; Philip Ball, Nature editor and dramatist; John Horgan, science writer and philosopher; Andrew Revkin, New York Times reporter and screenwriter; Dorion Sagan, science writer and novelist; Tyler Volk, NASA biologist and architect; and David Zindell, science fiction novelist and mathematician. And the book has its own science to match the artistry of the photos: in an appendix, mineralogy experts Si & Ann Frazier and Robert Hutchinson provide mineral commentary for each specimen.

Sections include: Your Business, including strategic planning and using SWOT analysis; Your Customer, including motivation and a template for a customer database questionnaire; Staff Training, with a mystery shopping questionnaire; Branding, which includes seven reasons why it’s a good idea; Merchandising, including a guide to window display that recommends devoting 10 percent of your promotional budget to your windows; Public Relations and Events, including a template for writing a press release; and Advertising and Promotion, including a guide to working with an agency. In addition to business tool formats, the guide also includes case studies of retailers in the United Kingdom in many of the sections. Although all the examples and some of the recommendations are tailored to the U.K., there are plenty of tips that are helpful for U.S. retailers as well. The section on customers is based on De Beers research on customer motivations and how male and female customers have different needs and different expectations. It discusses the power of the “diamond moment” and tips for insuring that your customers achieve it. And, hey, the price is right.