Advisers to Sara Lee are selectively reaching out to companies and private-equity firms that might be interested in acquiring its North American bakery business, which makes bread under the Sara Lee, Earth Grains and other names, Anupreeta Das, Gina Shon and Anjali Cordeiro report. Sources say the business could fetch $1 billion. A Sara Lee spokesman says only that the company sees "tremendous potential" for its bakery business and is focused on running it. Michael Feder, a turnaround specialist from advisory firm AlixPartners, is the interim CEO of the business; its former CEO, James Nolan, left in April. …

Steve who? What is the iPod anyway but an "incredible talking machine" -- better known as the phonograph -- on steroids. Although Thomas Edison created the technologies behind three enormous 21st century industries -- electrical power, recorded music, and movies, managing editor Richard Stengel tells us, "His greatest invention may have been the modern method of inventing." In short, Edison's Menlo Park, N.J., laboratory was the world's first R&D operation. But as brilliant as he was, it turns out, Edison he didn't have Steve Jobs' -- or even Bill Gates' -- penchant for marketing. He may once have …

When Glascow's own Tommy Lipton arrived in America at the end of the Civil War, he was 17 and penniless. When he went home five years later, a series of odd jobs had taught him all he needed to know about how Americans ran their businesses, Michael D'Antonio, author of A Full Cup: Sir Thomas Lipton's Extraordinary Life and His Quest for the America's Cup, tells Guy Raz. "He learned that it was far better to scrub up your little store and light it brightly, and display your goods with some flair than to try …

Ever since its launch with images of rocks and trees 21 years ago, Lindsay Chappell writes, brand Infiniti has been swathed in mystery. Imagery aside, more than a decade of sharing vehicles and marketing resources with its larger sibling, Nissan, has left the image even fuzzier image in consumer's minds. Ben Poore, who has been vp of Nissan North America's Infiniti Business Unit for a year and a half, is out to sharpen the image with a new campaign, "The Way of Infiniti," that's burnishing its heritage as a "performance luxury" line. It's scheduled to run for five …

Scott Monty, global digital communications chief for Ford, likes to say that Ford subscribes to a combination Woody Allen/Yogi Berra theory for social media: 90% of its success may be due to just showing up, Mark Borden informs us at the beginning of his informative Q&A. But like the fork you take in the road, what's critical is what you do when you arrive. For Ford, that involves humanizing the company and connecting its constituents -- employees, customers, dealers, suppliers -- with each other. None of this is a panacea in and of itself, Monty says -- "it's …

Shan Li reports that a recent cut in the price of Amazon's Kindle is probably a major factor in the fact that, as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says, "The Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format." The more popular paperback books were not included in Amazon's announcement. Kindle sales tripled after the company lowered the price to $189 from $259 last month, Li writes. That move closely followed a similar one by Barnes & Noble, which cut its rival e-book reader, Nook, to $199 and intro'd a $150 version. Without more detailed financial information, it is difficult …