As a child of television I have to comment today on an article in the New York Times called Coming Online Soon: The Five-Minute ‘Charlie’s Angels’. Sony Corporation and Sony Pictures who own the rights to many shows from the 70s and 80s have decided to shrink down those hour episodes to "minisodes" which are 3-5 minutes long. "Sony Television is planning in June to introduce an Internet-based service called the Minisode Network, initially offering the mini-shows for an exclusive run on MySpace. (The company may consider establishing a separate Internet channel called the Minisode Network later.)" At least you don't have to watch the commercials!
We've blogged before about legendary Stanford Psych Professor Philip Zimbardo, who recently retired, loaded with honors and accolades. Guy Kawasaki on his blog presents '10 Questions With Dr Philip Zimbardo', centering around the perennial issues of good and evil. Dr Zimbardo recently wrote The Lucifer Effect, in which he explores why 'good' people do bad things. Kawasaki's questions target in particular lessons learned from the (in)famous Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by Zimbardo in 1971, and their application to the recent debacle at Abu Ghraib -- reminding us of the eternal relevance of this topic. But for those who like a ray of light at the end of the tunnel: Dr Zimbardo is now turning his attention to moral heroes, and implanting the 'heroic imagination' in today's youth.
Yair Goldfinger, a successful serial entrepreneur and co-developer of instant messaging service ICQ (acquired by AOL for $407 million in 1998), is now serving in the capacity of a founder, investor, and CTO of the new company, Dotomi. Dotomi’s business is personalized and targeted advertisement over the Internet with the idea of bringing the customers back to the retailers’ sites; Dotomi’s revenues are totaling in millions of dollars since the launch of the company in 2003. Read the article in March 19th issue of Red Herring to learn more about Dotomi and to find out which companies constitute Yair’s present investment portfolio.
Thomas Friedman in the New York Times Sunday Magazine (April 15, 2007) pens a compelling article titled 'The Power of Green', on how the price of oil and amount of freedom tend to move in opposite directions. Soaring oil prices are currently strengthening anti-democratic regimes around the globe. Elected or self-appointed leaders of countries like Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Sudan have just used oil windfalls to ensconce themselves more firmly in power. America's refusal to do anything to curb our oil and gas usage is, according to James Woolsey, former C.I.A. Director, "funding the rope for the hanging of ourselves."
Friedman believes the power of "green" can change the playing field. Less need for oil means less money in the pockets of the mullahs. Friedman believes "green" can mobilize liberals and conservatives, evangelicals and atheists, big business and environmentalists alike behind less oil -- and thus change the landscape from divided 'red' and 'blue' states into a united new Green Nation.
Business 2.0 April issue brings you "The 11 New Coolest Products on the Planet". That's the name of their cover story, highlighting the 2007 Bottom Line Design Awards. The awards, a collaboration between Business 2.0 and the consultancy Frog Design, considered 75 submissions. Winners include the WinePod, a winery for your kitchen, that ferments, presses and ages wine; the QR5 wind turbine for your backyard, that can power your house; and FogScreen, a veil of water vapor that can serve as a screen for computer-generated images. Read all this and more in the issue in Jackson Library, or an abbreviated version on the Web.
This week I would like to start the first in a series of blog entries I will write on the ethical questions surrounding natural resources. I’m going to begin with oil and the multinational corporations that are operating in the Niger Delta. Nigerian militants have slowly been focusing attention on themselves by blowing up oil pipelines and platforms in the Niger Delta. According to the World Bank approximately 80% of the oil wealth in Nigeria is owned by 1% of the population, this while most of the population live on less than a $1 a day.
The following three articles give various points of view of the cost in human, political, environmental and business terms.
Sebastian Junger author of The Perfect Storm has written a very detailed article entitled Blood Oil in February’s edition of Vanity Fair. He chronicles the rise of the MEND and discusses the role multinational oil corporations, and the US government are playing in the lives of Nigerians living in the delta region.
Simultaneously the February issue of National Geographic has an article entitled Curse of the Black Gold: Hope and Betrayal in the Niger Delta.
The International Herald Tribune wrote an article which discusses many of the problems facing those companies trying to extract oil from the Niger Delta: Oil companies in Niger Delta face growing list of dangers.
The MBA curriculum at the Stanford Graduate School of Business is undergoing a major change – and a shift is underway at many peer schools as well. According to a new article by Anne Fisher in Fortune, MIT, Wharton, Tuck, Chicago, Darden and other top biz schools are responding to needs voiced by corporate recruiters -- and their own students -- to increase the emphasis on analytical and interpersonal skills. Read more about this important transformation.
The New York Times posted an article about a new company in San Francisco called "Obvious". Are you wondering what this company does? They created Twitter which is a heady mixture of messaging; social networking of the sort associated with Web sites like MySpace; the terse, jittery personal revelations of “microblogging” found on services like Jaiku; and something called “presence,” shorthand for the idea that people should enjoy an “always on” virtual omnipresence. So if you always want to be on, Twitter!
From the Jackson popular book rack: Five Minds for the Future, by renowned author Howard Gardner. The famous creator of a theory of multiple intelligences, Gardner, the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard, addresses the cognitive abilities that will command a premium in a future world of global interconnections and advanced technologies. These include 5 types of 'mind': the disciplinary mind, the synthesizing mind, the creating mind, the respectful mind, and the ethical mind. Armed with these, one should be able to cope successfully in a brave new world; without them, the individual will be overwhelmed. To quote the book jacket, "The world of the future will demand capacities that, until now, have been mere options. Have you begun to develop those capacities -- in yourself and others?" Check it out in Jackson Library.
The April 2007 issue of Far Eastern Economic Review opens a window on the swirling sociopolitical currents within contemporary Asia. Articles include "The Rise of China's New Left", suggesting that China's tolerance of a Western market economy may be dwindling; "Do or Die for Japan's Radical Right", looking at Japan's right wing extremists and the rise of mainstream conservatives; "Have China Scholars Been Bought?", questioning how independent Mainland academics really are; "Bombay's Growth Gets Shanghaied", on how Indian democracy is shaping Mumbai's rapid development in imitation of Shanghai; and "The Curse of the Chinese Internet", about reasons foreign Internet firms are struggling in China. Read all this and more in the issue on Jackson Library's periodical racks.
Feel yourself in a 'dip'? Guy Kawasaki targets a new book by Seth Godin, The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (And When to Stick), writing "I think it will definitely get people to think about life." Kawasaki interviews Godin with ten questions about the topics of perserverance and quitting, asking how to know when it's time to throw in the towel, how one knows if it's worth toughing it out when one is in a 'dip', and how a company can quit a product without signaling it's quitting the whole market. Kawasaki goes on to ask specific questions about Microsoft, Apple ... and the Iraqi War. Quoth Godin: "The Dip is actually an ally. Because when the Dip shows up, you’re know you’re close to a breakthrough, to getting to the other side, to mastery, and to being the best in the world."
Who is the real force behind much of the evangelical movement? According to the new book The Jesus Machine, by U.S. News & World Report Senior Editor Dan Gilgoff, it's not Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, or the usual names in the media, but a relatively quiet man: James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family organization. Dobson's group has developed into perhaps the most powerful organization in the so-called Christian Right. Few people outside evangelical circles know his name or have seen his face, yet he influences millions of Americans through his daily radio broadcasts and Focus on the Family. Consequently, Dobson has emerged as powerful force in American politics. Gilgoff ties together the races and issues in which Dobson has had a hand -- the defeat of Tom Dashchle, the Republican sweep in 2004 and the nomination of Roberts and Alito -- to name a few. The book is being critically acclaimed by both the Left and Right. A refreshing look at Dobson and the evangelical influence on America and its politics.
A new study by Stanford Professor Mark Z. Jacobson suggests that pollution from ethanol could be even more harmful to health than traditional gasoline.
Jacobson ran a series of simulations of atmospheric conditions around Los Angeles in the year 2020 comparing two scenarios: all vehicles running on gasoline versus all vehicles running on E85 (an 85:15 mixture of ethanol and gasoline). The finding is that "E85 vehicles reduce atmospheric levels of two carcinogens, benzene and butadiene, but increase two others - formaldehyde and acetaldehyde... as a result, cancer rates for E85 are likely to be similar to those for gasoline. However, in some parts of the country, E85 significantly increased ozone, a prime ingredient of smog." The increased ozone would result in more respiratory-related deaths and hospitalizations.
Read more about Professor Jacobson's study, go to Environmental Science & Technology Online, Chemistry World, or listen to NPR's interview with Jacobson.
Forbes.com reported that China added $135.7 billion to its reserves between January and March, taking the total to $1.2 trillion. The increase was more than half the total growth of $247.3 billion in reserves during 2006. Economists calculate that the trade surplus and foreign direct investment should have boosted reserves by $73 billion in the quarter. The other $63 billion was explained away by Bank of China. One was that major state banks raised $42 billion in offshore IPOs in the past couple of years. The funds have flowed back into China in expectations of yuan appreciation. The rest may be the unwinding of currency swaps between the central and commercial banks in which case the central bank gives out US Treasury Bonds to the commercial banks. The commercial banks in turn are putting money into foreign bonds as a result of the falling value of US Treasuries and last year's clampdown by the authorities on domestic lending to avoid an overheated economy. Yet another explanation was that the central bank wants to pull back onshore as much as it can of the country's foreign currency holdings ahead of the establishment of a new state investment fund. The fund is intended to put $200 billion to $400 billion of China's foreign exchange reserves to work to earn better returns than it does from investing in U.S. Treasuries.
Tuesday at midnight was the deadline for everyone to file their taxes. Why are taxes due on a Tuesday? Well it’s Emancipation Day in the District of Columbia. The Tax Foundation, based in Washington D.C., puts out a report each year entitled What Does America Think About Taxes? (PDF version). The report originated with Gallup, however the Tax Foundation asks similar questions. Among them are: Is the federal income tax you pay too high? How high should taxes be?
The Mercury News published the annual listing of the SV150, the largest publicly traded companies in the valley. The number of public companies is shrinking, down 28, including 13 that were on last year's SV150 list. Is this a sign of things to come? Most of the 28 vanished through acquisitions, but in the past as soon as a company dissapeared a new company was created. Economist are saying that the valley will remain healthy because of new techologies and new companies generated here. In fact I was watching a news program the other day that touted alternative energy as the new focus of companies in Silicon Valley. See the news story.
IBM is donating $45 million of software and 1,000 laptops to the U.S. Army in Iraq. They are hoping that the software will be used in medical services and with aid groups. The biggest question is how exactly will the donation be accepted? This is the biggest gift ever givent to the Army and for that reason sets precedent for gifts in the future. Read more about how this donation came about.
Atlantic magazine (May 2007) brings us Eataly, a Turin food market created by Slow Food, the international food movement founded in Italy. Is this the supermarket of the future? Replete with artisanal cheeses, organic veggies and grains, and rare beef and fish, Eataly seeks to embody Slow Food's principles -- preservation of local foods, environmentalism, social justice for growers, etc. As author Corby Kummer puts it, "Eataly is an irresistable realization of every food-lover's gluttonous fantasy, paired with guilt-cleansing social conscience -- a new combination of grand food hall, farm stand, continuing-education university, and throbbing urban market." Oscar Farinetti, founder / owner of Eataly, is hoping to open a new Eataly across the pond in New York City. Of course, there's a worm in every apple: Eataly does have its critics. Read more in the issue in Jackson Library.
Worried your brain is getting soft ... even flabby? Never fear, there are techniques to whip it into shape and get it back in the zone. The SharpBrains site offers FAQs on brain exercises, as well as other information to keep you sharp. Pick up some helpful tips on the care and feeding of this most critical organ.
McKinsey Quarterly has devoted their 2007 'Special Edition' to Latin America. The issue ponders questions about Latin American economy, political risks, poverty, educational needs ... and bureaucratic red-tape. Although the region isn’t growing as fast as other emerging markets such as China and India, it does have high-growth industries. Commodities and financial services are particularly attractive. Articles from top Latin American scholars will give you new insights into the future of business in this part of the world. Browse this special edition of the Quarterly on our Current Periodicals rack in Jackson Library.
An hour drive north of Shanghai makes Suzhou a popular weekend getaway for Shanghainese. Noted for its picturesque gardens, watertown, the nearby Taihu Lake, and Su silk embroidery (suxiou), Suzhou has been a tourist attraction since antiquity. Today, the city has become a popular manufacturing base for multinationals based in Shanghai. In 2005, the city's gross domestic product (GDP) reached nearly $50 billion. The ownership of mobile phones and DVD/VCD/LD players is at 79% and 61% respectively. Personal computer ownership at 42% still has room to grow, said ACNielsen's director of client service in Shanghai, Rita Chan.
Story and Fast Facts at AdAgeChina. (Stanford users may obtain access at the Information Desk of Jackson Library.)
Google has teamed with Echostar to offer a national, auction-based ad-sales system for inventory running on 120-plus cable TV networks. The advertiser will bid for inventory on that particular daypart and channel. All bidding will be based on household cost-per-thousand viewers, or CPMs.
Twenty-four hours after bidding closes, Google will report back on the bids that won, the ads that ran, and the audience for those specific ads. Unlike TV-reporting -- in which a marketer is given the overall rating for the program -- Google will report a rating for that specific ad. If a program generated 1 million viewers, but 50,000 tuned out before the commercial break commenced, Google would only report an audience of 950,000 for the ad. The system will provide the first second-by-second rating for each ad so a marketer can see how well the ad held the audience through its 30 or 60 seconds -- and how many tuned out.
Story at AdAge.com. (Stanford users may obtain access at the Information Desk of Jackson Library)
Question: Who was fired from a firm he loved, started an information company no one thought had a chance, watched it change the landscape of Wall Street, and eventually became Mayor of New York City? (Hint: it ain't Ed Koch.) Michael Bloomberg is the focus of the Fortune (April 16) cover story. Bloomberg's current success as Mayor mirrors the triumph of his eponymous company. There are now 250,000 installations of The Bloomberg around the world (including the GSB), and Bloomberg L.P. is quite profitable (2006 pre-tax operating profits were about $ 1.5 billion.) The future? Peter Grauer, Bloomberg Chairman, aware that some project the world's financial assets to hit $ 214 trillion by 2010, beams "The markets are growing deeper and deeper, and that plays right into our strength."
As noted by GSB Professor Bob Sutton on his blog ( Is Your Future Boss an Asshole? ), he has teamed with Guy Kawasaki and the staff of LinkedIn to produce a checklist to assess whether one's prospective boss is a, well, you know. Quoth Sutton: "I focus here on the ten 'reference check' questions that you can ask people who have worked with and for your prospective boss -- or perhaps had him or her as a client -- to help determine if you are at risk of going to work for an asshole." The list builds on the ideas in Sutton's book ( The No Asshole Rule ), and can be used in concert with LinkedIn tools. Read more, and save yourself a lot of grief.
GSB Alum Alvaro Fernandez (GSB '01), CEO of SharpBrains, blogs about an interview of one of his favorite teachers, GSB Professor Emeritus Michael Ray, on 'How To Reach Your Highest Goal'. In the interview in Motto magazine, Ray, who taught a legendary class on creativity and innovation at the Stanford Business School, offers advice on exercising one's own special brand of creativity. "Virtually all people who say, 'I'm not creative,' are getting into a very bad habit of comparison. They are not seeing that their own creativity is worth something," Ray admonishes. "The point is, creativity is a way of life. It’s not a media event."
Where can you find data on the Healthcare marketplace, data on socially responsible companies, and a place to find any other data you are seeking? In the April JacksonLine, of course! Check it out!
Stanford Beyond Bars is presenting The Nicholas Yarris Story, Tuesday, April 10th, 7:00 to 9:30 PM in Cubberely Auditorium, Stanford campus. Mr Yarris spent 23 years on Death Row for a crime he didn’t commit -- fourteen of those years in solitary confinement. He is now a vocal opponent of the death penalty and speaks frequently of his prison nightmare, before DNA testing exonerated him. Admission is free.
'Let's Die Together' -- name of a startling article in the May 2007 Atlantic, describing the contemporary cult of anonymous group suicide in Japan. Disparate groups of people are killing themselves, after making arrangements over the Internet. And many of them are taking instruction from The Perfect Suicide Manual, an infamous 1993 book by Wataru Tsurumi that details how to off oneself by various means: hanging, electrocution, drug overdose, asphyxiation (this last method seems most popular.) "There's nothing bad about suicide" the author intones. Japan has a long history of families committing suicide together, as well as dishonored samurai perfoming seppuku (ritual disembowelment), but anonymous groups meeting to kill themselves is something new. Read more in Jackson Library
'How to Get the Attention of a Venture Capitalist'. That's the name of a new blog by Guy Kawasaki (The Art of the Start, The Macintosh Way.) Inspired by a question he fielded at a retreat, he decided to flesh out his answer on his blog with 6 tips on how to inject yourself into the VC jet stream. These include ... well, perhaps you should check them out for yourself.
Has Wal-Mart been taken over by Big Brother? According to a Wall Street Journal article (4/4/07), Wal-Mart employees, as well as critics, stockholders and the consulting firm McKinsey & Co, have often been under surveillance by Wal-Mart security operations. Using the latest electronic surveillance techniques, the company allegedly monitors all email (including private accounts) and phone calls from Wal-Mart phones and computers. Stockholders, civil rights groups, unions, employees, beware -- is Big Brother watching you ?
Internet technologies, such as web services, peer-to-peer networks, collective intelligence, social networks, podcasts, blogs, RSS, wikis, and mash-up, are used by companies to communicate with customers and business partners and to encourage collaboration inside the company. Early adopters are satisfied with the results of their investments. Executives who made the decision to invest think that the technologies are of strategic importance for maintaining the company’s market position. This global survey of executives is available at The McKinsey Quarterly.
I read an article today about "The National Library Service for
the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), Library of Congress, produced its last analog cassette book machine on February 17, 2007, signaling the advent of Digital Talking Books." Read more about it!
The Los Angeles Times and The New Orleans Times-Picayune have both written stories about Stanford GSB students working directly with the New Orleans-based nonprofit organization Idea Village to support the growing community of entrepreneurs contributing to the region's redevelopment.
For example, in the LA Times, the story of the Community Book Center, a longtime fixture on Bayou Road in the city's Esplanade Ridge neighborhood; the building and contents sustained wind and water damage not covered by insurance. Stanford students brought hope, physical labor and business savvy to this firm, and many others. The Times-Picayune tells a similar story of the Driscoll family's Oak Street antiques shop (no relation.) The students offered sweat labor, but more importantly they offered a Stanford trademark -- brain power. They consulted with the family and helped them develop a marketing plan to get them up and out from under the rubble. Congratulations for a job well done !
We've blogged about the New Perspectives Quarterly before, and the Winter 2007 issue looks like another treasure trove of provocative "big ideas". The theme is 'Making Globalization Work', and the roster of writers is led by Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel-winning economist, with his "Rich Countries, Poor People?" Other pieces include "China: The New Global Model for Development" by Wei-Wei Zhang of the Center for Asian Studies in Geneva, "President Bush: Talk to Kim Jong Il" by former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, "US holds key to Non-Proliferation" by former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, "Back to Realism" by Dr Henry Kissinger, "The Last Hope for the Republic" by commentator Gore Vidal, "Taking on the Pro-Israel Lobby" by former President Jimmy Carter, and a recap of the famous 'Clash of Civilizations' by Ayaan Hirsi Ali of the American Enterprise Institute and Harvard Professor Samuel P. Huntington. Read it all in Jackson Library.
Real estate legend Sam Zell, the self-styled 'Grave Dancer', will be on campus tomorrow, Thursday, April 5. Fresh from his takeover of the Tribune Company, he will speak on bidding wars and challenges of corporate control at the Rock Center for Corporate Governance, Stanford Law School, at 5:30 PM. For further details and registration, as well as some introductory articles, see our special Webpage for this event.
Seth Godin in his blog talks about a coming sea change. "Zero is the new black," he opines, contemplating a growing turn in attitudes toward contemporary excess. He talks about people now looking with pity and suspicion at clueless drivers of mammoth Chevy Suburbans. (Frankly, a healthy reaction long overdue, in this author's opinion.) Godin's blog is inspired by a newspaper article on 'No Impact Man' -- a person reducing his and his family's intake to local foods and his output to a fraction of the typical American. Is a new sense of proportion at hand?
Authors Bill George and Peter Sims will be at the GSB Thursday, April 12 to discuss their book True North and related issues, from Noon to 1 PM in Bishop Auditorium. All are invited.
GSB Professor Bob Sutton is full of praise for Bill George and his new book (co-authored with Peter Sims) True North. The book by George -- a professor at Harvard Business School -- is based on 125 interviews with leaders and executives, and argues that leaders that create humane environments that really care about people and customers can thrive financially. During Mr George's tenure as head of Medtronics market cap rose from $1 billion to $60 billion. As Sutton says, "Not bad for a guy who puts people first and believes that employees need a balance between life and work." Genuine concern for employees also translates into greater commitment and corporate loyalty. In his blog Sutton highlights from his own knowledge the toll that abusive management can exact from a company and its people. Read more in the copy at Jackson Library.
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