Jackson Library

Jackson Library is closed until January 2, 2007. Our bloggers are taking a holiday break and will resume blogging on January 2nd.

Wish you all a pleasant holiday season and a happy new year!

The New York Times (December 19) reports that eBay is expected to close its main Web site in China and enter into a joint venture with a Chinese company instead. eBay will take a 49 percent stake in the venture, with Tom Online Inc., an Internet company based in Beijing, taking the majority share and administering the venture, yet to be named. Analysts were not surprised. "It's an admission that they failed in China, on their own at least," said Tim Boyd of Caris & Company. "But I think that's something the market already knew." The decision was also seen as a sign of the pressure the government puts on foreign companies to set up joint ventures.

Fortune magazine (December 25) presents its Investor's Guide 2007, with 10 recommended star stocks, including ConocoPhillips, General Dynamics, RadioShack and Southwest Airlines. The magazine issue sidebars other potential investment instruments, such as trusty bond index funds and promising precious metals. Seven top mutual funds are reviewed, as well as the real estate market potential for the coming year. Lots of other goodies are included in the issue, such as a roundtable discussion by top investment strategists, highlights of star market analyst Dana Telsey, a talk with the venerable Leo Melamed of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a search for the next great Euro stocks, and advice to investors on China's hottest IPOs. Enough exciting tips to keep any keen investor warm with anticipation through the winter. Read it in Jackson Library, or check out the abbreviated online version.

Entrepreneur magazine's December issue brings you their 2007 Hot List -- the most popular predicted business trends for the coming year. Sizzling new opportunities range widely: Green Products , Teen Party Planning, Burger Restaurants, Wine, Social Networking, Baby Boomer Counseling, Nanotechnology, Home Automation and Media Storage, Bluetooth Gear and ... Chocolate! "Creative" funerals are on the rise, niche gyms geared to child fitness are here, radical new varieties of salad are tickling palates, and a surprising number of mature baby boomers need career guidance. Organic frozen baby food is hitting market shelves, while the National Science Foundation estimates that by 2015 the U.S. will command 40% of the $1 trillion worldwide market for nanotech products and services. Read more about it

Venture capitalist Heidi Rozen often seeks the advice of her daughter about new technologies. "Investors themselves are aging, the technology - including social networking Web sites and mobile gadgets - is designed for, used by and sometimes built by people half their age" , the New York Times reports.

The December 11 issue of Red Herring magazine introduces you to a list of top entrepreneurs likely to have long-range impact on business and society, while trying to save the world at the same time ('Cleantech shines'.) Each year, the World Economic Forum picks its 'Technology Pioneers', and this list includes the largest-ever contingent of "cleantech" proponents. Among them: Martin Roscheisen, CEO of Nanosolar, Rusty Schmit, CEO of solar cell maker Advent Solar, Kenneth Lazarus, CEO of micro fuel-cell system Lillaputian Systems, Tim Healy, co-founder of EnerNOC, which offers software to manage peak energy demand and other features, and Mark Crosier, founder and CEO of DeepStream Technologies, which makes digital sensors that allow embedded metering of electrical products. Four cleantech mavericks in particular are highlighted; a list of all the WEF Pioneers is included.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported on 12/6/06 that because of the rising cost of health care, firms are being more aggressive in encouraging their employees to "get fit". the L.L. Bean company for example increased the prices of burgers and lowered the price of salad in their cafeteria in an effort to push healthier eating alternatives. So stand up back away from your desk and give me "50"!

Company insiders can be among the most costly and damaging to a company's IT system and, by extension, its profits and reputation. InformationWeek magazine (Dec 11) targets 'Insider Threats', noting that nearly two-thirds in a survey of over 600 security pros say that company insiders account for some portion of the financial losses of their organizations because of breaches (7% of this group actually estimate that insiders account for a stunning 80% of financial losses.) The article lists some typical 'insider profiles', such as the Almighty Creator, the Mad Bomber, and the Paybacker. It describes the case of Roger Duronio of UBS PaineWebber, found guilty of causing havoc to his firm's IT systems in 2002; Duronio was never subjected to a background search when hired. Author Larry Greenemeier goes on to offer caveats and preventive advice to company CIOs everywhere.

From the Wall Street Journal (Dec 8) comes a piece by Katherine Rosman titled 'BlackBerry Orphans', about how the hand-held device is beginning to influence family dynamics. Parents now act like their children, the article argues, trying to hide their compulsive use of the device from the kids. And the kids are fighting back against this new 'sibling'. Is a BlackBerry the latest addition to your family?

No fixed schedules. No mandatory meetings. Heaven? No, Best Buy, whose new model is the cover story of the December 11 BusinessWeek. In a radical makeover of the work environment, Best Buy is experimenting with a 'results-only work environment' (ROWE). Performance is measured on output, not hours. You don't even have to physically get out of bed. "The official policy of this post-face-time, location-agnostic way of working is that people are free to work wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as they get their work done." And ROWE worker productivity is impressive. Doubters are waiting in the shadows to see if it all flies -- but if it does, a new workplace model may be coming to the company near you.

Do you know that you can now search for U.S. patents in Google? Google announced the release of Google Patent Search, which covers over 7 million patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). They expect to expand their coverage over time. This new search engine also offers an Advanced Patent Search page, which allows you to search by patent number, title, inventor, date, etc.

The cover story of December's Wired magazine proclaims "TV advertising is broken, putting $67 billion up for grabs. Which explains why Google spent a billion and change on an online video startup." Author Bob Garfield explains the power of YouTube with some stats: 'Noah takes a photo of himself every day for six years', a time-lapse documentary of Noah Kalina (who?) over 2,356 days -- 3 million viewers in six weeks. Or 'sweet tired cat', 27 seconds of a drowsy kitten dozing off -- nearly 2 million views in two weeks. Or 'evolution of dance' -- 35 million viewers in six months. The staggering ad potential may go a long way to explaining why Google forked out $1.65 billion in stock for YouTube -- the equivalent of what Target paid for 257 Mervyns department stores. Included in the issue are other stories relating to the YouTube phenomenon, such as the hit Lonelygirl15 Web cam. YouTube seems to have struck a nerve. Is YouTube the next boob tube? YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley: "Everyone, in the back of his mind, wants to be a star." The next Uncle Miltie may be out there somewhere .....

"This is the era of the undergraduate business student", pronounces James Danko, Dean of Villanova University's School of Business. "Employers are starting to look toward undergraduate markets when they're recruiting and hiring," Danko continues. "The reality is that undergraduate programs are really hot right now." Is he right? The article 'Bachelor No. 1' in the November / December BizEd argues that today's undergrad biz majors are taking trips overseas, getting hands-on learning, and developing leadership skills ... just like MBA students. Like the top MBA schools, undergraduate programs are also turning more to school rankings. Noting this, Daniel Smith of Indiana University's Kelley School of Business tells his colleagues, "Our lives will never be the same." But Smith feels it's all worthwhile: "MBAs can sometimes be jaded. But if you tell undergraduates that they could be the next Bill Gates or Martha Stewart, they actually believe it. It's awesome." Check it all out in Jackson Library.

Scrooge and donations -- check out this odd couple in the December issue of JacksonLine.

Want to hear some good news about teamwork? Our own GSB Professor Bob Sutton, in his blog, gives glowing praise to a Stanford d.school [design school] team on which he recently served. Sutton says he disagreed with at least a third of the decisions that were made, but since he respected everyone so much, he never felt any resentment about what the team decided to do. And he felt this was true of every member of the team. Sutton makes interesting observations on the dynamics of dispute in any team, then draws three conclusions on why this team excelled. Quoth he: "That just might be the best team I will ever be on in my life." Sutton concludes: 'Freud said something like "groups bring out the best and the worst in human behavior." This time I get lucky, and got the best!'

The December issue of The Japan Journal highlights recently elected Abe Shinzo, first Japanese prime minister born in the post-war era. Abe's political positions and challenges are described, as well as his cabinet. Other articles in the issue speak to larger economic and cultural issues facing Japan: 'Innovation Drive: Finding a Way From the Lost Decade', about the malaise following the burst of the economic bubble, 'New National Energy Strategy', noting mid-to-long term objectives of the nation's energy policy, 'The Wind in the Poplars', on Japan's struggling publishing industry, 'The Falcon has Landed', describing spacecraft Hayabusa and its mission, 'Love of the Common People', a memorial to film director Imamura Shohei (1926-2006), and 'In Praise of the Sun', on Japan's own 'Stongehenge', the Oyu Stone Circle. Check this and previous issues out in Jackson Library.

A recent Stanford Report article highlights the online video library of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) .

At the 'Educators Corner' of the STVP site, one can find brief video clips and podcasts by hundreds of industry experts offering advice and personal experiences on innovation and technological ventures. Most of the video clips are 1-3 minutes long. In her interview with the Stanford Report, Tina Seelig, the executive director of STVP, stated, "Each of these speakers has found a great way to identify opportunity, to create value and to leverage resources ... This is essentially what entrepreneurship is about."

Fortune (12/11/06) brings you up to date with the corporate lives of gays and lesbians. 'Queer Inc.' by Marc Gunther surfaces a little-known milestone in corporate America: Last June, for the first time, more than half of Fortune 500 firms offered health benefits for domestic partners. Many workers also get bereavement leave when their same-sex partner dies. Opines Joe Solomonese, President of the Human Rights Campaign: "Corporate America is far ahead of America generally when it comes to the question of equality for GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender] people." Companies are also taking support for gay rights into the political arena; last spring, Microsoft supported legislation to ban discrimination against gays. Said CEO Steve Ballmer, "Diversity in the workplace is such an important issue for our business that it should be included in our legislative agenda." The article notes opposition movements, but it would seem that corporate America is now moving in single direction.

Mainland China is overwhelmingly atheist. Or is it? 'Christianity Comes to China's Cities' is the title of a cover story by Leslie Hook in the December issue of Far Eastern Economic Review. The author claims that the number of Christians in China today is probably far underestimated; one Chinese pastor quoted even suggests that 1 in 10 Chinese is now Christian. More significant is the fact that the religion is spreading, and making major inroads for the first time among the middle classes and intellectuals in cities. The phenomenon has huge implications for China's social and political development. Serious debate is taking place in China about the links between Christianity and capitalism, Christianity and democracy. But perhaps a clue to the future lies in the response given by Communist Party members, "If you're a Party member like we are you can't believe in another religion ... But religion is just fine for non-Party members."

In 2003, the American Pharmacists Association estimated that in the United States, poor adherence to medication regimens was responsible for 11-20 percent of all hospitalizations and repeat visits to the doctor and for 125,000 deaths each year. A report by the National Pharmaceutical Council's Task Force for Compliance found that poor adherence adds $100 billion annually to US health care costs.

McKinsey recently conducted a survey of people with hypertension and suggests that "a better understanding of the attitudes of patients could improve programs designed to increase their adherence to treatment regimens ... Creating and implementing these programs will require the combined efforts of physicians, patients, pharmaceutical companies, payers, and other health care stakeholders." Read the McKinsey Quarterly article.

You've no doubt already heard about the revolutionary virtual world of 'Second Life', a place with its own economy and real estate. Learn a bit more from the iinovate blog. Included is a podcast with Second Life creator, Philip Rosedale of Linden Labs, who explains and describes Second Life, together with comment by the legendary Andy Grove. Also included is a narrated video primer on this virtual world.

'Create Jobs, Eliminate Waste, Preserve Value.' This is the name of Inc. magazine's December tribute to Ken Hendricks, their Entrepreneur of the Year. The article calls Hendricks a 'walking textbook on identifying and exploiting business opportunities', a man with ideas and the energy to make them happen who is now worth some $2.6 billion. "The money don't mean a damn thing", chuckles Hendricks, who lives in a 3,200 square foot house in the town of Beloit, Wisconsin, not far from his birthplace. He remains unassuming; author Leigh Buchanan recounts accompanying Hendricks to a friendly local tavern, where he and his wife Diane eat several times a week, for a Stump Burger. Included in the piece is the sidebar, 'How to Buy a Business', with Hendricks' 5 rules for a successful acquisition. Hendricks has the golden touch. He marvels: "I'm the 107th wealthiest person in the U.S., but getting here has just been step by step. I can't believe how easy it's been. What a country!"

As many know the Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to Muhammad Yunus this year for his work in establishing the Grameen Bank. India has become one of the most fertile grounds for social entrepreneurship in the world. So many people can be helped out of poverty with little financial backing. In the spirit of giving, Jackson Library has created a Hot Topics page devoted to Social Entrepreneurship and its benefits.

According to the New York Times Magazine (12/3/06), U.S. government agencies in the wake of 9-11 have felt that they need a better way to take the thousands of disparate pieces of 'intel' generated every day and divine which are important for national security. So the CIA started a competition, resulting in the selection of an essay by CIA officer Calvin Andrus, titled 'The Wiki and the Blog: Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community." Among other things, Andrus asked how the Internet became so useful in helping people find information. His ideas struck a chord with senior figures in national intelligence, who are now testing whether a wiki can help security analysts protect America.

It's been a tough day, and you're ready to turn on the TV, sink into the couch, and knock back an icy ... REEB. Huh? As James Fallows points out in 'Postcards from Tomorrow Square', REEB is a Chinese workingman's beer -- one of many brewed concoctions he samples and describes is this article in the December Atlantic magazine. While exploring the megalopolis of Shanghai, Fallows notes lingering Chinese post-WWII resentment toward Japan, the blossoming new transit system in the city, the powerful rising class of Chinese educated in America, dubious Shanghai air quality, and China's counterpart to 'the American Dream.' Writes Fallows: "I have not before been anyplace so controlled and so out of control. The control is from on high ... What's out of control is everything else." Check out this issue at Jackson Library.

Is your home smart already? Do your sprinklers turn off automatically when it rains? Do you get a text message when the windows or the doors in your home are opened? Well, these are just several functions which are now available to the home owners on monthly-fee basis from AT&T, iControl, and Nobu companies. More magic is coming from these and other companies-all striving to empower you with remote control over your home. And what you use for a magic wand? Just your cell phone. Find more in the article (full-text available on Stanford network) in Dec. 2006 issue of Business 2.0.

From Bloomberg Markets magazine December issue comes a sad expose of 'The Secret World of Modern Slavery', by Michael Smith and David Voreacos. The cover story argues that hundreds of thousands toil without pay in Latin America, producing timber, gold and the charcoal used to make steel. More disturbing yet, the authors say, is that these materials are bought by companies with household names -- including GM, Kohler, Toyota and Whirlpool. Despite the fact that slavery officially ended in the Americas by 1888, the International Labour Organization maintains that nearly one million workers labor for little or no wages as virtual forced laborers in Latin America. Perhaps the final word should rest with Nucor Corporation's Douglas Gunson: "Any amount that is sold with the use of slave labor is too much." Check out this issue at Jackson Library.

Jackson Library's magazine collection is full of happy surprises. Take the November issue of Ethical Corporation. Included in the issue: a piece on the 2008 Beijing Olympics and how China is responding to increasing scrutiny of its human rights record, what a sustainable global economy would look like, how British Petroleum's U.S. arm may be threatening the goodwill generated by BP's Lord Browne, how Dubai firms are beginning to encounter ethical concerns, highly sceptical views from George Soros on corporate responsibility, and 'BrandWatch', which tracks the latest big brand moves in ethical products (did you know Wal-Mart is helping MTV convert its flagship NYC store into a showcase for green living?)

This latest issue is on the Current Periodicals racks in Jackson Library. Stay tuned to this blog as we uncover other "hidden gems" in our collection.

The Bay area is churning out quite a few online shopping startups that boast new features with the goal to separate you from your money, ladies.

Need help finding the perfect pair of jeans? Try Zafu. Try Like shopping, it will show you pictures of celebrities wearing selected accessories, shoes and jewelry you can click on to find similar items mere mortals can afford. Do you have something specific in mind but have had troubles finding it? Try NearbyNow and find products, brands and sales at nearby stores via the internet or by using your cell. For all you procrastinators out there you can use LicketyShip and they'll ship any electronics item you need to you within 4 hours.

Ann Moore is one of the most powerful business women in the world as head of Time Inc. She oversees over 145 brands including Time, Sports Illustrated, People, Fortune. Over the past few years Time has undergone many changes, Moore is now in the process of revamping it's multiplatform model to draw more readers. Mediaweek's article entitled Moore's Code which give a great overview of how Time is maximizing all channels to communicate with its readers.

The Fall issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review includes 'A New Take on Tithing' by Tim Stone, President of the NewTithing Group, and NewTithing Chairman and noted philanthropist / GSB alum Claude Rosenberg. Be prepared for big numbers. The authors note that individual charitable contributions in the U.S. could increase more than $25 billion if affluent households donated as high a proportion to charity as do the middle / lower classes. "If affluent donors gave as much as we think they could afford, based on our conservative donation benchmarks, charitable giving in the U.S. would rise by about $100 billion per year." Warren Buffett's recent $31 billion commitment to the Gates Foundation is noted. The article includes tables on giving, as well as the authors' suggested giving benchmarks.

Also in the same issue are pieces on corporate social responsibility, the German ProFridA program to retrain sex workers, reshaping social entrepreneurship, and an interview with Alan Bersin, California Secretary of Education. To read these, or to subscribe to the SSIR, check out their Website.

Virgin Atlantic has volunteered to have 13 of the planes in its fleet be towed after landing. This will enable the company to save upto 2 tonnes of fule per flight. Simultaneously they will also be reducing carbon emissions. Read more about the logistics from the BBC.

It was a year of old scourges and new drugs, from the first vaccine that prevents cancer to a bug that spoiled an entire crop of California spinach. Check out this Time magazine cover story: The Year in Medicine From A to Z.

Is making a profit without bending your code of ethics the business world's Catch-22? What do you say?

BusinessWeek asked undergrads at the George Washington University's School of Business whether business-school ethics classes actually make students more ethical. Here is what they say.

Guy Kawasaki (The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, The Macintosh Way) revisits venture capital, a favorite topic, with a blog called 'The Venture Capital Aptitude Test'. In response to queries seeking advice on how to break into the 'VC biz', Kawasaki offers advice and a VCAT test, based on his own experience, to help young people decide if they are right for this line of work. Take the test online, if you wish. Word to the Wise? "Venture capital is something to do at the end of your career, not the beginning. It should be your last job, not your first."

'De-Globalize the Jihad'. Thus the provocative cover story of the Fall 2006 New Perspectives Quarterly -- with accompanying pic of Osama Bin Laden. And the contents don't fail to disappoint, with the usual NPQ all-star cast. Included are pieces such as 'Al-Qaida is Down, But Not Out' by former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, 'A More Humble US, A Better Europe for Muslims' by Senator John McCain, 'Muslims, the Pope and European Identity' by Oxford scholar Tariq Ramadan, and 'Only Democracy Will Break Pakistan's Terror Link' by former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Another section tackles the Lebanon War, with entries by Shimon Peres, Walid Jumblatt and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Finally, a mishmash of items on the recent Mexican elections, Darfur, global warming and Chinese pollution, by Carlos Fuentes, Paul Wolfowitz, Michael Milken, Daniel Kahneman, Stanford Professor Emeritus Myron Scholes and others. Where else do so many world opinion makers fit on so few pages? Read more about it in Jackson Library.