Are husbands and marriage going the way of the Pet Rock?
A recent New York Times study (January 16, 2007, read abstract) found, based on 2005 census results, that for the first time in American history there are more women (51 percent) living without husbands than with them. Unlike their forebears, women today have many options. They no longer need to depend on a man for economic support. More women are financially independent, well educated, and under less pressure to marry. Today the title "wife" is not viewed with the same reverence it once was; increasingly, women today are "single", with heads held high.
Stanford users can access the article online via the Factiva database.
"I do hold grudges. Am I motivated by that? Absolutely." So says Terry Garnett, former Oracle exec who felt he was fired without cause by boss Larry Ellison -- and proceeded to pursue his revenge by founding a competitor firm. The BusinessWeek cover story 'Sweet Revenge' recounts the power of spite and retribution in the business world. "It's one of the great undiscussables", says Kenneth N. Siegel, psychologist and coach to senior executives. "Put simply: Revenge is biologically, scientifically sweet," according to behavioral economist Ernst Fehr. Read more about famous feuds, from Commodore Vanderbilt to Katzenberg v. Eisner.
The U.S. looks like it's going to surpass France in wine consumption. Not far behind, and gaining on us, are China and Russia. So keep tipping those glasses. Cheers!
The SF Chronicle reports that after 5 years of "bust", Silicon Valley is booming again. The area has revitalized its economy, going more global and developing new industries such as "clean tech". A new study, called the 2007 Silicon Valley Index, details these changes, and is due to be published this week.
Stanford Biology student Katharine Jefferts Schori often spent nights sitting in Memorial Church, pondering her future career, her vocation, and her life. Thirty years later, she is The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the 2.4 million member Episcopal Church. In "Grace Under Pressure" Stanford Magazine covers her career as student, small plane pilot, oceanographer, and pastor, and the challenges she faces as the first female Presiding Bishop in Church history. Says friend Reverend Canon Britt Olson, "She has the scientist's gift for observation and collecting data, along with the humanistic perspective of relationships, and the combination is really tremendous."
Arts Reach magazine's latest lead story, 'What Can the Arts Learn from Sports?', highlights key lessons that art funding undertakings can draw from sports organizations. While noting the differences between these areas, the author points out key lessons for art organizations, such as capitalizing on community pride, how information creates accessibility, and knowing where the real money is. Arts Reach was founded and is published by GSB alum John Zorn. Read more in Jackson Library.
Guy Kawasaki (The Art of the Start) is at it again, with "Is a Business Plan Necessary?" Writes Kawasaki: 'Before you dedicate your life to crafting a business plan the length of a book, read from the 1/9/07 edition of the Wall Street Journal in an article called "Enterprise: Do Start-ups Really Need Formal Business Plans".' A study analyzed 116 businesses started by alumni who graduated between 1985 and 2003; comparing success measures, the study found no statistical difference in success between those businesses started with formal written plans and those without. If you are hip-deep in writing a plan yourself, you might want to check this out.
Donald Trump is the subject of a recent blog by Guy Kawasaki. "Ten Questions with Donald Trump" is the title of the blog, that answers, for example, what Trump does to relax, and that for which he'd like to be remembered. If you have any remaining shred of curiosity about Donald Trump that hasn't yet been satisfied by TV or magazines, check it out.
A new journal, the Journal of Industrial Organization Education, is making its debut. The journal publishes peer-reviewed lectures, experiments, and teaching advice for undergraduate, graduate, and professional courses on industrial organization. It is being launched by the Berkeley Electronic Press. Interested? Read more.
People desperately needing the organs transplants turn to online organ brokers, the intermediaries who for a hefty fee arrange for the organ transplant operations being performed in developing countries where the organ sources are not subjected to ethical or medical scrutiny. The article in Jan. 29, 2007 issue of Forbes, reveals the workings of the underground agents and filled with the real-life stories of those people who used the organ brokers services.
Shanghai is a shopper's paradise as you can find everything as if you were in New York, Beverly Hills, Paris, or Rome, and at the same time you can get good Chinese silk, embroidery, pearls, jade, etc. at deeply discounted prices, although bargaining is a must in the traditional markets in Shanghai.
Major shopping streets and centers in Shanghai are in Puxi, west of the Huangpu River. Starting from the Bund, the area along the west bank of the Huangpu River is the world famous Nanjing East Road. It's about three and a half mile long with the eastern side closed to car traffic. Here's the place for fashion shoppers, who can find any high-end brands imaginable. Equally delightful is Huaihai Zhong Road, parallel to Nanjing Road to the south where you find many bars, all kinds of restaurant, shops, and department stores. The infamous Xiang Yang Road noted for copies of named brands crosses Huaihai Road in Xuhui District. A third place is a traditional market at Yu Yuan (Yu Garden), south of the Bund on the east side. Here you try out your bargaining skills at purchasing silk goods, gold jewelry, and pearls. The fourth great center is Xujiahui to the west in Xuhui District where you find gigantic department stores ten times the size of our San Francisco department stores here. So there you have it, starting from the east end is Nanjing East Road and Yu Yuan in Huangpu District, in the middle is Huaihai Zhong Road in Luwan District, and to the west is Xujiahui in Xuhui District.
There are many more shopping places for specific items, more next time.
McKinsey Quarterly has an article on Shanghai Shopping and you can read about Nanjing Road in Wikipedia.
Jackson Library has recently added two new resources - Freedonia Focus and Economist.com.
Freedonia Focus has a collection of over 250 industry market research reports covering 18 industry sectors.
Economist.com allows access to full-text articles of the Economist magazine at its Website.
Both resources are accessible from the library toolbar FastJack (version 5.5). Freedonia is available only on the Business School network; Economist.com is accessible campus-side. GSB users can access both resources off-campus via WebApps.
In a ruling sure to make cheating spouses nervous, Michigan's second-highest court says that anyone involved in an extramarital affair can be prosecuted for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in prison. That is what a literal interpretation of sentencing law would bring to adulterers. Although a life sentence seems unlikely, this Court of Appeals opinion could be construed as a jab at the Republican majority that took over the Michigan Supreme Court, which decreed that judges must enforce statutory language adopted by the Legislature literally, whatever the consequences -- thus taking away a judge's ability to reject literal interpretation of the law if they believe it would lead to an absurd result. A literal interpretation of the law might send some of those same legislators to the Big House .....
Stanford Professor Bob Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule, will appear on NBC's Today Show at 8:32 a.m. (PST), Wednesday, January 24th. The segment will be about how to deal with jerks -- not just in the workplace but in other aspects of life as well. Sutton, along with staff at SuccessFactors, was interviewed at the company's all-hands meeting for this segment. To catch some background, see Sutton's blog.
With the departure of Paul Pressler from Gap retail is in the news this week just as the NRF wraps up their annual convention in New York. The NRF has posted a long list of handouts from presentations given at the convention on its website. Topics cover diverse areas such as:
Multichannel Retailers that Thrive Online
Apparel Innovation
State of Global Retail - Planting Seeds for Sustainable Growth
For a complete list go here.
Time magazine highlights a bold new experiment in wikis. By March, more than one million leaked documents from governments and corporations across the globe will be available online in a new collective experiment in 'whistleblowing.' Wikileaks.org claims that it will use the same software platform as Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, to let users anonymously post documents and analyze them. In theory, this system will protect identities while exposing corruption worldwide. Skeptics argue that this is a thinly-disguised front for government covert monitoring. Judge for yourself.
I watched the PBS documentary featuring Jim Collins talking about how his book Good to Great came to be after 5 years of research last week. It was a very interesting PBS documentary. It featured some of the 11 companies that his research deemed the "good to great" such as Walgreens, Southwest Airlines and Starbucks. So if you have a chance to see it on your local PBS station, please do!
For more about Jim Collins, go to www.jimcollins.com.
Hispanic Business December 2006 issue has a special report on the Media and their interaction with the Hispanic market through advertising, marketing and other participation. The section includes a list of the top advertisers / brands in the Hispanic market from July 2005 to June 2006, as well the top 20 independent Hispanic advertising agencies. Other articles target Terera Zubizarreta, founder of Zubi Advertising, soon-to-be owner of Univision, Haim Saban, participant in the Fox News Apprentice Program, Victor Garcia, and award-winning filmmaker / choreographer Kenny Ortega. Also included is a list of Spanish radio's 10 top-billers in 2006. Read the issue and learn more about this growing market, in Jackson Library.
How much pay should an executive expect to receive?
Is it better to work for a public or private firm in terms of compensation?
How will the stock options backdating scandal affect the way executive compensation is calculated?
To explore these issues, check out the articles, books, and Websites on our new Hot Topics page: Executive Compensation.
The editorial staff of Red Herring magazine came up with events or developments that most likely will happen in 2007. The predictions range from very bad such as large scale cell phone virus attack to very promising, such as the birth of a head implant that will fight migraines, depression, and possibly blindness. To learn about all 10 predictions read the article in Jan. 15, 2007 issue of Red Herring and watch for the next year score box on how true the predictions are.
An interesting New York Times article talks about the overfishing of groundfish to the point that these fish are almost non-existant in waters off the coast of Maine. This has affected the local fishing industry in many ways, even in the way they prepare their chowder.
Reported in inc.com, Jim Clark, the legendary technology entrepreneur who founded Silicon Graphics and Netscape Communications, has quit as chairman of the board of Shutterfly, the online photo ordering site. Clark cited the demands of Sarbanes-Oxley as the key reason for his departure. "As I understand it, Sarbox dictates that I not Chair any committee due to the size of my holdings, not be on the compensation committee because of the loan I once made to the company, not be on the governance committee, and it even dictates that some other board member must carry out the perfunctory duties of the Chairman," Clark wrote to the board. "What's left is liability and constraints on stock transactions, neither of which excite me. ... Mike Hofman reported.
The authors of Success Built to Last: Creating a Life that Matters, Stanford GSB professor Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery, and Mark Thompson published an article in winter 2007 issue of Leader to Leader magazine where they explore the nature of successful leaders who dedicate their lives to the causes that appeal to each of them, the causes they pursue with stamina and belief in its rightness. Based on hundreds of interviews the authors conducted for their book, they conclude that "success built to last" is composed of three components: meaning, thought, action.
There is a new breed of SF bay area philanthropists reports the SF Chronicle. Laura Arrillaga, 36, a Stanford Business school lecturer, has started her own foundation called Silicon Valley Social Ventures. She states that there are many people in their 20's and 30's who have amassed fortunes these days more quickly than a generation ago where it would take a lifetime to acquire such fortunes.
Looking for a new job? You're not alone. In a recent CNNMoney.com poll, almost 49% of respondents said they were looking to change jobs in 2007. Where to look? Seekers could start with the Fortune Best Companies to Work For 2007, or go straight to the favorite Google #1 on Fortune's list. Perks n' pay were the overwhelming motivation for a job change, though "yucky boss" also inspired desire for change. Read the full story from CNNMoney.com.
'The Very Model of a Modern Senior Manager' -- just one of the articles in the January 2007 special issue of the Harvard Business Review. Titled 'The Tests of a Leader', the issue includes other pieces such as 'Becoming the Boss', 'The CEO's Second Act', and 'How Leaders Create and Use Networks'. Read the latest in Jackson Library. Stanford users can read the issue online via EBSCO's Business Source Complete. (Off-campus access available via the proxy server or WebApps)
Ethical Corporation December 2006 issue tackles corporate social responsibility mistakes in their 'A How-Not-To Guide'. The magazine lists 10 common failings in firms, such as a lack of strategic vision, unsophisticated views of corporate responsibility, the inability to hear 'outside voices', a failure to customize approaches by region, and more. Social responsibility has become a major corporate concern, and a panel of experts has come together here to point out potential flaws. To learn more, check out the issue in Jackson Library.
The Stanford Graduate School of Business is one of the world's premier b-schools, with an outstanding faculty of internationally-known scholars and teachers. Their books make waves that capsize existing paradigms and re-shape business discourse across the nation. Want to have an easy introduction to their latest publications? Check out our new Featured Faculty Books page at the Jackson Library Website.
Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop (now owned by L'Oreal), talks about women in management and business. During her interview, she also speaks to wealth in business and what makes an entrepreneur successful.
'Tag Teams' is the name of an article by James Fallows in The Atlantic, where he describes how taggers -- people describing various Websites with their own descriptive labels, 'tags' -- are creating new online communities of those with common affinities. The tagging site del.icio.us is highlighted, with mention of Flickr, Technorati and Slashdot. Writes Fallows: "No site makes creating such communities as easy as it should be. But ... the process is under way." Read more in the January / February 2007 Atlantic.
China will have over 32 million mobile video users in 2008, driven by interest in the Beijing Olympics. About 27% of these consumers will use broadcasting technology, and 73% will use unicast streaming technology. Many are likely to use both.
Read more at AdAge China. Stanford users may inquire about access to the site at the Information Desk of Jackson Library.
The AdAgeChina Conference in Shanghai on Branding was attended by approximately 300 professionals. Major sponsors were GroupM and Sports Illustrated (Chinese version) with speakers from McDonald's, Motorola, Lenovo, P&G, JWT, NBA, Adidas, Pepsi, Ogilvy, and Visa.
Tom Doctoroff, CEO of JWT Greater China presented the 10 things to avoid for multinational managers:
- Don't take your global CEO to dinner at M on the Bund. The Bund view
from the M can be misleading as to the prosperity of China. China's middle
class: about 100 million making Rmb5,000+ (about $645/month).
- Don't get your company Chinese name wrong. For example: Rolex translated
into Chinese characters means muscular laborer; Lux means muscular warrior;
Google means valley song? The good ones are Coca-Cola, [good for the mouth
and enjoyable]; BMW, treasure horse; Budweiser, all powerful; and Ikea,
pleasant home.
- Don't ignore the mass market. Brands can't be too pricey at the
launch. Downward extensions enable the brand to achieve scale. Ignoring the
mass market can restrict your market share. Balance high price and mass
affordability. Mass market thrust is critical in building brand leadership.
- Don't support too many brands, don't spread yourself too thin. Mass
media in China is expensive. Beijing and Shanghai can be as expensive as
European markets. For example, Unilever, Nestle have worked into one master
brand.
- Don't start at the bottom. International brands still actively
preferred. International brands must come in at a premium level. Chinese
consumers want the cool factor in foreign brands, they want to be modern,
international, but not western. So start at the top and then go downward,
for example, Buick Regal to Buick Sail.
- Don't go national on day 1. Dominate a local market rather than
spreading yourself thin across the land. For example, Unicharm, master of
incrementalism.
- Don't give control to your JV partners, particularly of marketing and
control of your brand architecture. Otherwise they will have you for lunch.
- Don't impose western values such as cornflakes with cold milk. [Chinese
prefers something hot for breakfast]. Although western values work in public
products such as Starbucks.
- Don't become too Chinese. For example, Marlboro's "great wall"
commercial (1991, no cowboys). A local tweak can help but without
undermining the MNC character of your brand.
- Don't ignore local insights. Chinese has its own worldview.
Conference summary available at AdAge China. Stanford users may inquire about access to the site at the Information Desk of Jackson Library.
"What's Right -- and Still Wrong -- with Business Schools" is the title of the article written by Stanford Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer and published in Jan./Feb. 2007 issue of BizEd magazine. In 2002 Jeffrey Pfeffer and Christina Fong wrote an article which questioned the effectiveness of business schools. The 2002 article "The End of Business Schools?" created turmoil in the academic community and attracted massive media attention. Jeffrey Pfeffer continues to analyze the dynamics of business schools evolution. He states that many schools improve their curricula, offer students more experimental classes which prepare them for the hands-on world of business management; however, the still remaining challenge for b-schools is to instill the values thru the education process to build the integral character for future leadership. At the time of this posting, the article is available in print only.
Have you ever wondered why we all drive gasoline powered cars? Well, Chris Paine has. In his new documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?, he asks why electric cars disappeared after a good start in 1996. Who is responsible the car manufacturers or the oil companies? Stanford is showing a free screening Tuesday, January 16th of the documentary. Here are the details.
BusinessWeek tackles one of the great curses of our time -- Alzheimer's disease -- with its special report 'Decoding Alzheimers'. One in 10 people over the age of 65 develops this affliction; over 85, it's one in two. One hundred years after Dr Alois Alzheimer identified the disease, 4.5 million Americans are patients. But promising treatments are at hand.
Looking for a chuckle after a tough day at the Exchange? BusinessWeek highlights the blog of Amit Chatwani -- the 'Borat of Wall Street'. Chatwani's Leveraged Sell-Out Blog captures the quirky ambiance of the twentysomething Wall Street set. A strategy consultant by day, Chatwani pokes fun at the young Manhattan financial crowd. Launched in 2005, the blog is a runaway hit. Chatwani says advertisers now pay up to $10 a click to be on his site. Sample entry: "The [club] line is long, but the bouncer spots our ties (each of which costs more than his Kia) and ushers us to the front." Enjoy.
Born to shop? The shopping ritual begins shortly after birth, when mothers bring their babies along while shopping. Whether out of necessity or boredom, mother and child travel the grocery store aisles and mall shops together. By the time they are three years old, toddlers can be heard chanting "I want that" -- and thus their lives as shoppers begin. Shopping is part of the American Way of Life, both necessity and entertainment. In "The Psychology of Shopping" in the Fall 2006 Valley Life Quarterly, the author looks into how, what and why we buy. She delves into the differences between men and women when it comes to shopping, the 'shopping gene' and the inconsistencies in how and what we buy, and more. Look for the complete article in Jackson Library's Periodical Room.
Guy Kawasaki, whose blog has been noted before, has pronounced himself highly in favor of GSB Professor Chip Heath's book Made to Stick. Says Kawasaki, "My prediction for Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die is that it will join The Tipping Point and Built to Last as a must-read for business people." Recall that this hot new book is authored by Heath and his brother, Dan. Previously we noted GSB Professor Bob Sutton's high praise for the book. Included in Kawasaki's piece is an interview with the authors.
Ka-BOOM ! Or so says BusinessWeek, which highlights the 'Blowup at Home Depot' (January 15.) The article by Brian Grow describes the tumultuous tenure and final fall of controversial Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli. After some last-minute turbulence with stockholders, Nardelli topped things off with a galactic $210 million retirement package. Even with inflation, that should be enough to pay the rent for the next few years -- and keep the current debate about CEO compensation flaming hot.
Using the phrase "That's Hot" is probably passé by now, after having been overused by America's favorite socialite. However, Entrepreneur magazine has collected a list of ideas they think will hit hard this year in what they call their "Hot Center". Most of the ideas can be split up into two groups, baby boomers and the rest of us. With the first baby boomer hitting retirement at the beginning of this year anything to do with health, staying healthy and grandchildren seems to be a good place to start a business.
Peter Thiel, a Stanford University gradute, has turned his $60 million dollar payout from the sale of Paypal he co-founded into a growing financial empire. He runs Clarium Capital Management LLC, a hedge fund and The Founders Fund, a small but influential venture capital firm. Read about how this fund is changing how entrepreneurs find money for their new businesses.
The new book Made to Stick by Professor Chip Heath and his brother Dan is now available at Jackson Library. You may find one copy in the Popular Business Books section and one copy in the New Books section. The call number is: HM1033 .H43 2007.
For information about the book and reviews, please check Featured Faculty Books: Made to Stick.
"From Prominence to Prison: A Personal Case-Study in White-Collar Crime"
Date: January 9th, 2007
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Venue: Bishop Auditorium, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Patrick Kuhse will be talking about his experience with white-collar crime and will share with the audience his path from financial planner to entrepreneur, to fugitive, to convicted felon. The event is free and open to everyone. To read more on corporate responsibility and white collar crime, check out our Additional Reading page.
This event is brought to you by the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, the Center for Leadership Development and Research and the Center for Social Innovation of the Business School.
Guy Kawasaki on his blog delves into the hot career promotional tool LinkedIn. 'Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn' lists how you can turn this network to your advantage when considering a potential job change. Among his tips: checking references of a person to find out who worked at their firm at the same time, learning the tastes and background of the people you will be interviewing with, assessing the turnover rate of the firm in which you are interested, tracking folks who are initiating startups, and more. If you have been thinking of that job or career change, learn how LinkedIn can work for you.
Stanford Professor Bob Sutton continues to garner praise for his book 'The No Asshole Rule'. On his blog, Sutton notes that Publishers Weekly has done a very favorable review of the book. His next target? "I want to be able to say the word 'asshole' on the Dr Phil Show" Sutton says mischievously. Whether said or not, the fact that too many offices and boardrooms in America harbor the types Sutton describes remains the proverbial 'unmentioned elephant in the room.'
Thomas Carlyle famously pronounced economics the 'dismal science', at least partly because many economists of his day were, in his opinion, fruitlessly trying to measure human happiness. In the wake of research by Nobel laureate and Princeton psychologist Daniel Kahneman, however, many economists now feel that 'hedonimetrists' can achieve a degree of success. "The view that hedonic states cannot be measured because they are private events is widely held but incorrect," according to Kahneman. The article 'Economics Discovers its Feelings' in the Economist goes on to review the work of Robert Frank, Richard Layard and others to illustrate the way the 'dismal science' has been transformed. Feeling happier now?
Fast Company in its December / January issue offers the Social Capitalist Awards for 2007. Quoth the article's author Cheryl Dahle, "We are awaking to the idea that if business inevitably shapes the future, it has a responsibility to choose what that future will be." The fourth annual Awards honor leaders who combine savvy business models with solutions to pressing social needs in a way that challenge normal assumptions about making a profit. This year's winners include ACCION International, which trains banks to be microfinance partners, Aspire Public Schools, which builds and operates public charter schools in underserved neighborhoods, Citizen Schools, which recruits more than 2,000 professionals to provide after-school apprenticeships, Endeavor Global, which helps entrepreneurs in Africa and Latin America build businesses, and the Grameen Foundation, which creates links between large banks, microfinance partners, and impoverished individuals.
For those who missed it, here is the discussion of their book Made to Stick by GSB Professor Chip Heath and his brother Dan, from this morning's NBC Today Show.
The November 20 - December 3 issue of Canadian Business targets 'The Stem Cell Revolution', its cover story on the future of stem cell research and its possible commercial impact. Embryonic stem-cell research has become a cause celebre -- and an ethical / political hot potato. But it holds tremendous financial potential. How big? Author Erin Pooley notes that that oral diabetic drug market alone was worth $7.5 billion in North America last year, and the stem cell therapy market in the U.S. could total as much as $30 billion by 2015. The stem-cell mobilizer drug Mozobil alone, now in trials, could command annual sales of nearly $300 million within 3 years of its launch.
You can read an online summary about this fascinating technology and its potential to change the political and economic landscape.
The December 18 issue of Red Herring highlights "Tech Tots", under-35 Titans in Waiting. Twenty-five young fire-eaters who may be shaping our world in the coming years are listed, including Elizabeth Holmes, who quit Stanford University at 19 to launch a startup that monitors people's blood status remotely, Weina Scott, a 17-year old CEO with three successful Internet startups under her belt, Amir Hasson of India, who has brought email to unconnected villages in his country, and Olaf Stiller of Germany, whose plan is to allow people to freeze their own stem cells. Other stars of the future include Jeremy Stoppleman and Russel Simmons of Yelp, a local site that hosts thousands of user-generated reviews, 25-year old Dai Zhikang, whose new company is China's leading provider of Internet community software, and Jon Johansen, 23, creator of software that permits iTunes on all devices. Fasten your seatbelts and brace for the Future ...
GSB Professor Chip Heath and his brother Dan, co-authors of the hot new book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, will be making an appearance on the NBC Today Show, tomorrow, Wednesday January 3. Their book is being released next week, and the Heaths hope to get in some last-minute national coverage. To catch them make their new book "stick", tune in between 7:30 and 8:00 AM PST Wednesday.
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