UrbanLand magazine's July 2007 issue focuses on urban regeneration in the major cities around the globe. A new building boom is shaking up Tokyo, world's largest metropolitan center (2003 population, 35 million), in a way that hasn't been seen since the 1980s, as the city seeks to compete with Singapore, Shanghai and other Asian boomtowns. Berlin is using its new Hauptbahnhof, largest train station in Europe, as a catalyst for other projects in the center of the city. And jolly old London is a sea of cranes amidst an exuberant wave of construction -- perhaps in anticipation of the 2012 Olympics. Other topics in the issue are current water systems being explored by China, an interview with 'green' businessman Paul Hawken, and sustainable cities of the world. Looking for tomorrow's urban planning? This magazine is for you. Read more in the issues in Jackson Library.
Olympic sponsors Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Lenovo celebrated the start of the one-year countdown on Aug. 8 with marketing initiatives. Coca-Cola has 50+ billboard designs featuring Chinese athletes like Yao Ming, the N.B.A. basketball player, with a Coke. McDonald’s introduced the China Mac, which resembles a Big Mac but is adapted to appeal to Chinese tastes. It also sponsors an international competition for children to win trips to the Games. Lenovo partners with Google to use the Internet to find three “new thinkers who symbolize the ideals of the Olympics” to take part in the torch relay. Candidates must submit 50-word essays online to show they are such thinkers. Finalists will create 30-second videos for posting on YouTube.
A report from Group M underlined the importance of the Beijing Games to the global advertising economy. China is set to take over from the United States next year as the biggest source of growth in global ad spending. Although the United States remains a much larger advertising market over all, China will account for 24 percent of new spending worldwide, compared with 20 percent for the United States.
Reported in The New York Times
The August 2007 edition of Wall Street & Technology lists the best IT managers on Wall Street on the Buy Side and Sell Side as well as the Exchanges. Each profile covers IT priorities, budgets and predictions on the newest trends and technology which will emerge in the next few years. You can also read some of the profiles online.
In keeping with business trends toward performance management and accountability, much leadership theory today still promulgates vision-led, top-down control by CEOs—a mindset whose basic assumptions and orientation are remnants of the Industrial Era. But according to organization science scholars Mary Uhl-Bien, Russ Marion, and Bill McKelvey, the knowledge economy of the 21st century is reshaping the way we think about leadership, innovation, and the fitness of firms.
Preluding their proposal for a heterogeneously “adaptive” and “enabling” leadership model, these authors claim that leadership theory has focused extensively on the actions of individual leaders as opposed to examining the dynamically interactive and interdependent processes comprising leadership. “The vast majority of leadership research has studied leadership in formal, most often managerial, roles and has not adequately addressed leadership that occurs throughout the organization.” “Much of leadership thinking has failed to recognize that leadership is not merely the influential act of an individual or individuals but rather is embedded in a complex interplay of numerous interacting forces.” Although researchers have studied the potential of “shared leadership”, “distributed leadership” and “flexible forms”, “None,” the authors say, “have developed a model that addresses the nature of leadership for enabling network dynamics ..." None until now, that is. Learn more about this engaging, enabling leadership model (called “Complexity Leadership Theory”) and of the new era forces behind it in the August issue of The Leadership Quarterly, available at Jackson Library [Stanford users may read the issue online].
GSB Professor Bob Sutton ( The No Asshole Rule, Hard Facts ) has made BusinessWeek's top 10 list , an honor roll of business school professors "who are influencing contemporary business thinking beyond the halls of academia". Is he happy? Sure. Is he flattered? Yup. But he is simultaneously dismayed that of all 10, nary a one is female. Read his musing on this and other considerations in the latest entry on his blog.
I heard that Krispy Creme franchise is sinking or drownin' instead of Dunkin' donuts! Are donuts and highly proccessed sugary bakery items doomed to be extinct? Read an article written in 2005 that talks about the rise and fall of Krispy Creme.
Interstate Bakeries the company that makes Wonder Bread and Hostess Twinkies is also going down for the count. Healthwise it may be better for the average consumer not to eat these items but still these companies employ workers and it they shut down these workers lose their jobs.
August issue of HFM (Healthcare Financial Management) features an interview with Jim Collins, former GSB professor and the author and co-author of five books including Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t. Jim Collins lately turned his attention to the social sector and applied the concept of Good-to-Great to the not-for-profit organizations, including the healthcare. His research is concluded in the monograph Good to Great and the Social Sectors where he shows that building a great organization includes four basic stages: Disciplined People, Disciplined Thought, Disciplined Action, and Building Greatness to Last. For more details, read the article online or in print copy in Jackson Library’s Periodicals Display area.
Scientists are finding that industrial pollution over China can reach as far as the U.S. West Coast. The U.S. government and NGOs are assisting China to tackle environmental issues. According to Judith Ayres, assistant administrator for international affairs at EPA, China has shown keen interest in learning from U. S. and other countries’ experiences, with the 2008 Olympics providing a strong incentive. However, a U.S. priority will continue to be better enforcement of China’s environmental laws and regulations. EPA’s China counterpart, the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), lacks sufficient regulatory powers. As many essential environmental decisions are made at the provincial or local level, the EPA, with support from the Asian Development Bank, is helping the Chinese agency to establish six regional supervision centers. The centers are expected to improve oversight and serve as platforms for better enforcement at the regional and local levels.
State Department Release
OECD Environmental Performance Review of China (2007)
There is a new Jackson Library "hot topics" page called "Going Green". Companies and industries in the United States are attempting to be more sustainable to protect our natural resources. Are some companies adding "green" options just to attract more consumers or are they trying to be more environmentally responsible?
The September issue of Jungle has a list of the top 20 corporate websites according to a survey of 4,996 candidates. Among the top 10 were General Electric, J&J, and the top three spots, in descending order, were held by McKinsey, Proctor & Gamble and Goldman Sachs. Additionally, the article entitled Web Sight also has five strategies to help you when you search the web for jobs. Most jobs usually come via employee or peer referrals, however Fortune 500 recruiters reveal that an astounding 25% of job offers come from applicants via the Internet.
GSB Professor Bob Sutton ( The No Asshole Rule ) on his blog describes downsizing at Harvard Business Online. After a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bob was inspired to go back and review old and new research on organizational decline, a personally poignant topic for him (the subject of his doctoral dissertation.) Tying the topic in with his book The Knowing-Doing Gap (co-authored with Professor Jeff Pfeffer), Sutton highlights four key principles for implementing organizational change -- prediction, understanding, control and compassion.
Magazines come and go not all because they are good or bad but simply because they cannot meet their bottom line. In the Business Week article When Mags Meet the Reaper the writer gives some insight into what goes into magazines but also what ultimately leads to the demise of a magazine. The writer recommends the Magazine Death Pool site as a good indicator of which publications might soon go belly up.
Beijing will spend $526 million upgrading its subway system before the Olympics. The system has 4 lines totaling 114 km, carrying 2.1 million passengers daily, but it will have 9 lines totaling 200 km by 2008. The average waiting time will be reduced from 3 to 2.5 minutes. By 2020, the city plans to complete 19 lines totaling 561.5 km.
Source: XinhuaNews, McCann Worldgroup, posted at AdAgeChina
Like Mark Twain, the reported death of libraries has been exaggerated. Libraries once purported to be dead or dying, classified by Dewey Decimals and filled with musty old books and dustier old librarians, are now hot, hot, hot. Libraries are young, hip and cool. Patrons are lining up 200 - 300 strong, according to an August 12th 2007 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, to get inside the San Francisco Main. Why are libraries suddenly the New Cool? Libraries are great places to log on to the Internet, browse new books and magazines, research just about anything, or just hang out. If you need help you can always ask a librarian in person -- and they too are hot -- or go online. Library websites offer research help, homework help as well as traditional information such as catalog searching, library hours and book requests. So if you haven’t checked out your local library (including Jackson Library) it's time to get down with the star of the 21st Century. Drop on by !
Free, interactive music sites like Pandora and Last.fm are a hybrid of radio station and jukebox. They provide a selection of streaming music to match your tastes, reported at washingtonpost.com.
You start at each by creating a profile telling the site which artists or genres you like. For example, at Pandora you customize a radio station by naming an artist you like. The site then serves up music with similar traits, which you can approve or reject by clicking thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons. Last.fm uses a different tactic by asking you to download a small program that hooks into iTune and other music software, analyzing your collection and figuring out which artists would fit.
Both sites incorporate social networking so that you can also listen to your friends' stations. Put in enough time at these places, you probably will find yourself discovering new artists.
A newer site, Musicovery, invites users to pick music by genre, tempo, date and mood which can result in it segueing from a West Coast R&B band to a folk-rock group from Algeria.
And what about making all these portable? Imagine a site like this becomes available on your shuffle!
Carlos Slim. Who?? Not registering? Curious -- considering he is now the richest man in the world. According to Fortune (August 20), thanks to his telecom investments this Mexican businessman is worth $59 billion -- more than his impoverished friend to the North, Bill Gates. Slim controls companies that make up one-third of the Mexican stock exchange. His net worth jumped $12 billion just this year. And Slim's wealth is growing, while Gates is selling his off to fund his foundation. Read more online.
The Summer 2007 New Perspectives Quarterly has arrived at Jackson Library, with the usual fascinating mix of provocative pieces / interviews by a stellar cast of global authors, including Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk, former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, eminent Princeton historian Bernard Lewis, French futurist Jacques Attali, Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The focus of the issue is the national struggle between secular and spiritual in today's Turkey: "The Two Souls of Turkey". But there are other topics as well. Read all about it in the issue in the Jackson Library current periodical racks.
In the NY Times there is an article about Silicon Valley executives and why having about 5 million dollars in the bank is not enough to quit working. Some millionaire executives are still logging 60-70 hours a week at their jobs and they say they must because a million dollars doesn't go as far as it used to especially in the wealthy neighborhoods of Atherton, Palo Alto and Menlo Park. It begs the question what is enough?
A one stop shopping for news open to the public where one can Search and browse 4,500 news sources updated continuously. Its News Archive made available free and for-fee articles, with premium archival items such as the New York Times going back to 1851. For example, I got 206 hits when I searched for Leland Stanford Junior University in NYT and limited the search to 1851-1980 time period. Here’s a citation and the first paragraph:
IN THE FOOTBALL WORLD; Trip to Pacific Coast Proposed for Columbia's Eleven. Matches with California and Leland Stanford Contemplated -- Hogan Favored for Yale Captaincy.
November 24, 1903, Tuesday
Page 10, 1396 words
For the first time in Columbia's history the football eleven may undertake a Western trip this year, according to a rumor which was prevalent on the campus yesterday. The team will, it is said, go West during the two weeks' vacation at Christmas, and play the University of California and Leland Stanford Junior University.
For $4.95, I can purchase the article. $7.95 gets you 100 articles (8 cents/article) and $49.95 for 1200 articles (4 cents/article) from the archive. Isn’t this neat? Try Google News Archive Search.
Corporate Dealmaker is a new addition to the Library’s Periodicals Collection. The journal is a publication of Deal company, popular with our students for its The Deal magazine and also TheDeal.com website. Corporate Dealmaker focuses on the practical issues, highlighting real-life cases, best practices, new trends, and providing metrics in the world of corporate dealmaking.
The July-August issue features the topic: private equity. The Thinkery section includes an article called "The World is Even Flatter" which looks at the concept of ‘around sourcing’ introduced by Thomas Friedman. You can browse the section of recommended books and check out the new worthy titles on M&A. If you look at the classical titles on the same topic, you will find that Good to Great by Jim Collins (former GSB professor) is one of the five recognized classics on the list. Read more in Corporate Dealmaker located in the periodicals display area.
Tom Peters blogs about a book by his 'Cool Friend', author and columnist Penelope Trunk : Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success. Trunk muses that management is buying mass orders of the book to understand how to recruit Generation Y. She is full of counter-intuitive advice, and her own career choices have been featured in Time magazine. On Peters' blog you can read an interview with Trunk, who in former phases of her life slaughtered chickens in France, worked at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and answered fan mail for 1940s swim star Esther Williams. Now if all that doesn't qualify one to write about success, I don't know what does. (NOTE: Jackson Library has a copy on order.)
It is believed that tuberculosis has caused 3 billion deaths in human history. TB has been known by a number of descriptive names: phthisis, White Death, White Plague -- and consumption, because it seemed to "consume" people from within. Traditional treatment and diagnosis has not stopped the scourge. The August 2007 issue of Wired profiles a little known company, Akonni Biosystems, that is working to develop a new tool called TruDiagnosis. The tool combines microfluidics, microarrays and engineering into a handheld device that uses a small sample of spit or blood to reveal, in a matter of minutes, the presence of bacteria or virus. A quick test that would identify the particular strain of TB would help doctors target the strain and treat it before it had a chance to take hold its human host. Akonni has developed test for many pathogens many drawn from the CDC’s list of bioterrorism agents. This new tool should move diagnosis into the 21st century.
Private Equity, a term most of the public have probably never heard, went mainstream last week. Cerberus (Greek for Hellhound) went in and bought Chrysler from Daimler, making the American company American owned again. Who is Cerberus? Well one name is in control Steve Feinberg. The big question is will Feinberg be able to turn Chrysler around? The firm takes in about $60 Billion a year and employs about 250 million people.
Read a well written detailed account of Cerberus and the Chrysler deal by Fortune in an article entitled Cerberus: Inside the Wall Street power-house.
There is a news story on CNN today which talks about how Brazil has produced enough sugar cane to make ethanol. "Brazil, a nation that between its oil reserves and the burgeoning ethanol industry has attained energy self-sufficiency." The article also goes on to say that this cane will probably never reach the United States. Read about it.
“In an ecologically threatened Springfield, Homer fouls the local lake with the refuse of a pig he’s fallen in love with. The place is declared a disaster area, and an evil government bureaucrat orders that the town be domed. Having alienated everyone with his idiocy, Homer must prove himself a hero: risking his life to save people he hates for reasons he doesn't understand.”
A good review in Time magazine and it topped the weekend box office sales, reported in Variety.
Why is this man smiling? The August 6 issue of U.S. News & World Report features the beaming face of multibillionaire Warren Buffett, legendary moneymeister and investment idol. The issue states that if you had invested $1,000 with Buffett in 1956, you would have $27 million today. 27 million reasons to smile. Included are 'Six Keys to Investing Buffett Style', a dramatic graph of Buffett's record, classic books on Buffett, and highlights of WB's disciples -- as well as (gasp) 'The Anti-Buffett', Glen Fogle of American Century Vista, who has his own way of doing things. If you are one of the millions who didn't plop down their money in 1956, there are still lessons to learn from the Oracle of Omaha (and he doesn't even have a Bloomberg on his desk!) Read the piece in Jackson Library, or online.
Technology Review magazine (July / August 2007) in its cover story argues that the Web and the Sim (the simulated world) will soon merge into a combination of mapping applications and social virtuality they call Second Earth. Second Life, which started a mere 4 years ago with a one-square-kilometer patch of 'virtual earth' has grown to 600 square kilometers and almost 7 million users. Author Wade Roush observes the parallel development of mapping technology, and suggests a coming convergence into a single new 'Metaverse'. He cites David Rolston, CEO of Forterra Systems, who coined the term '3-D Internet' to describe this scenario. Also discussed is David Gelernter's Mirror Worlds, with its detailed vision of a virtual earth. Check out the article in Jackson Library (or, one can register for free access on the magazine site.)
Wal-Mart is no longer on the defensive when it comes to environmental issues. In 2005, President and CEO Lee Scott announced to employees and suppliers a strategy to reduce their impact on the global environment. Declaring "being a good steward and being profitable are not mutually exclusive," Scott committed Wal-Mart to three ambitious goals: to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy; to create zero waste; and to sell products that sustain the environment. He recognized this new 'green' philosophy would need to be embedded in Wal-Mart culture and operations to meet these goals, so in 2005 he hired Blue Skye Sustainability Consulting to help with the process. They in turn built a network of stakeholders including environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club and others. Such groups felt torn between working with a traditional antagonist and the advantage of collaborating with the retail giant. In the July / August 2007 Issue of Supply Chain Management, GSB Professor Erica Plambeck takes Wal-Mart’s environmentalist temperature in 'The Greening of Wal-Mart’s Supply Chain.'
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