In a new book written by Judy Estrin “Closing the Innovation Gap,” which will be in bookstores next week, she writes that the Silicon Valley is facing an innovation crisis and that the problems are symptomatic of a crisis in innovation facing the country as a whole.
Ms. Estrin traces Silicon Valley’s troubles to the tech boom. She said that’s when entrepreneurs and venture capitalists started focusing more on starting companies to turn around and sell them and less on building successful companies for the long term.
Read more about it.
The Library has ordered a copy of this book. Check our library catalog for the latest status.
GSB Professor Jeff Pfeffer is the object of a recent blog by his colleague Bob Sutton. After reading a draft of a new book on power by Pfeffer, Sutton notes Pfeffer's ability to artfully digress on the subtler techniques of gaining power while remaining a non-practioner himself. As Sutton put it to him, "You write about many ways to gain power, but don't actually use most of them in your life. Why is that?" Pfeffer has an interesting response. The blog goes on to comment on the perils of power, for those who dare seek it.
HP, Intel and Yahoo are building a cloud computing global project that will consist six distributed computing centers around the world. The trio has partnered with the Infocomm Development Authority in Singapore, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the U.S. and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany each of which will host one of the six “centers of excellence.” The other three will be hosted by Yahoo, Intel and HP.
The idea of cloud computing is that large-scale computing tasks can be handled as efficiently, if not more so “in the cloud” meaning by thousands of Internet-connected servers stationed in data centers around the world. Instead of spending truckloads of cash for servers and the space to house them and the personnel to run and maintain them, why not lease the capacity you need from providers in the cloud?
Story at businessweek.com
Watch YouTube's What is Cloud Computing?
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the country's largest lender, said on August 21 its first half after-tax profit totaled 64.88 billion yuan (9.47 billion U.S. dollars), which made it the world's most profitable bank.
The earnings marked a year-on-year increase of 56.75% during the first six months, ICBC, the world biggest bank by market value, said in a statement.
The bank said the biggest profit came on greater fee income and better operations to evade risks from the U.S. subprime crisis, which had ravaged profitability in many of ICBC's international competitors.
news.xinhuanet.com 2008-08-21
Apparently the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.) keeps a list of banks they consider to be financially troubled. The specific names of the banks are not released to the public, however the number of banks on the list is. At the end of the first quarter the number of banks on the list hovered around 90 this month the list comprises 117 banks. Let's put this in perspective, at the height of the S&L scandal of the 1980’s the number of banks on the list reached 1,500 according to Money magazine.
A short article written by Dan Heath and GSB Professor Chip Heath in July/August issue of Fast Company magazine talks about how to make your ideas heard. According to the distinguished authors, all you need is to “anchor and twist”. In other words, first, relate your new idea or product with existing one that will be the “anchor”; then add the features which differentiate your product from existing one-that will be the twist. So simple and so efficient! To learn how this principle succeeds in a number of real-life situations, find the journal in the Periodicals display area in the Library or read it online.
And to learn more, check out Dan Heath & Chip Heath's book: Made to Stick : Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.
Google.org—the charitable wing of the search engine giant—has chipped in nearly $11 million for a renewable resource: so-called geothermal power, or tapping the Earth's heat to make electricity. According to an article in Scientific American, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology believe geothermal energy has the potential to pump out more energy than coal powered plants with no air pollution. Google goes green !
What is globality? According to the authors of a new book titled: Globality: Competing with Everyone from Everywhere for Everything, globality is not a new or different term for globalization it's what comes next.
The Boston Consulting Group has put together a webpage highlighting the book. Take a look.
Trouble at the office ? That's the cover story for the August 25 issue of BusinessWeek. GSB Professor Bob Sutton notes in his blog that much of the content of the issue was generated in collaboration with readers, including a series of blogs the magazine established. The online version includes interviews with Rainn Wilson of TV's The Office, former GSB teacher Jim Collins (Built to Last, Good to Great), and an essay by Sutton himself, "Are You Being a Jerk, Again?". Sutton continues in his blog: "The weirdest part for me is that the story contains a huge artists rendering of me, which makes me nervous ... . Please do not hesitate to let me know if you notice that I start acting like a jerk."
The SEC announced today that it will migrate all its historical SEC filings from the old system named EDGAR to a new system to be named IDEA. IDEA stands for Interactive Data Electronic Applications, the idea (no pun intended) is to updated to a brand new architecture separate from the EDGAR system developed in the 1980’s. At first IDEA will function as a supplement to EDGAR with the idea of eventually replacing it. Read more about IDEA in the SEC press release SEC Announces Successor to EDGAR Database.
There are four main components that make up the retail price of a gallon of gasoline. EIA reports the percentages as of June, 2008:
1. Crude Oil: 74%
2. Taxes: 10%
3. Refining: 9%
4. Distribution & Marketing: 7%
OPEC reports crude oil REFERENCE PRICES that include Daily Basket Price and Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly Average Prices.
The new OPEC Reference Basket (ORB), introduced on 16 June 2005, is currently made up of the following: Saharan Blend (Algeria), Girassol (Angola), Oriente (Ecuador), Minas (Indonesia), Iran Heavy (Islamic Republic of Iran), Basra Light (Iraq), Kuwait Export (Kuwait), Es Sider (Libya), Bonny Light (Nigeria), Qatar Marine (Qatar), Arab Light (Saudi Arabia), Murban (UAE) and BCF 17 (Venezuela).
The last few days the US dollar has risen in strength compared to other currencies, hitting a six month high compared to the Euro. Sounds good, right? Well perhaps not. It’s looking more and more like the rest of the world is following in the economic doldrum steps the US has been taking. Speaking on the Wall Street Journal Report this weekend Jason Trennert, Chief Investment Officer Strategas Research Partners sees Europe encountering challenges such as high short term interest rates and no tax cuts.
The Tesla, the 100% electric car by Tesla Motors, opened a store last month in Menlo Park at 300 El Camino Real, just north of the Stanford Shopping Center. It's designed as a showroom and partly as a museum type exhibit, showing prototype models used in designing the company's electric car. -- San Francisco Business Times
The car was conceived by Martin Eberhard, and was named after Nikola Tesla, an eccentric late 19th century genius inventor. Driving the streets of Palo Alto in 2003 when Eberhard was looking for his next project, he began to notice that the same driveways that held a Prius often also had a Porsche 911 or other luxury sports car. "It was clear that people weren't buying a Prius to save money on gas - gas was selling close to inflation-adjusted all-time lows," says Eberhard, "They were buying them to make a statement about the environment." So why not, he reasoned, allow this deep-pocketed clientele to make that statement driving a car that exceeded the performance of a Porsche?
Read the Tesla story in Fortune Magazine
Watch YouTube's Tesla Electric Car with Eberhard and Elon Musk, Chairman of Tesla Motors.
Also, The unveiling of the Tesla Motors Electric Car and Interview With Elon Musk Tesla Motors
There is a company headquarterd in San Francisco called "Cleanfish". This company is trying to do with Niman Ranch did for beef trying to build that same kind of brand recognition for fresh, sustainable seafood from small fishing operations around the world.
Read about their company.
Also take a look at the Marine Stewardship Council for more information on sustainable fisheries.
Can Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, influence a presidential election? According to a Wall Street Journal story, Wal-Mart store managers, department heads and supervisors around the country have been summoned to mandatory meetings to warn that if Democrats win power in November they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart. Company executives argue that voting for Democratic hopeful Barack Obama will be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and elsewhere. The message was clear to all who attended the meetings : a vote for Senator Obama will negatively impact Wal-Mart -- and their jobs.
WTO talks came to a close on July 29, 2008 over a disagreement in agricultural subsidies. China and India’s farmers would have a difficult time competing with US and European farmers. In the Business Week article Why India and China Said No to U.S. it is mentioned that soy bean imports to China increased 53%. Both China and India are under pressure from famers to represent their interests. Reuters produced a comprehensive timeline of how the Doha talks have unfolded over the years in the article Key dates in WTO's Doha Round. To address additional rising trade cost issues the WTO has put out the World Trade Report 2008 subtitled Trade in a Globalizing World.
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