Hi MBAs! Are you prepping for OCR? Have a telephone interview scheduled? Jackson Library has a resource call First Research that can help you with that. They provide a section with questions on conversation starters, customers, marketing questions in any given industry, as well as an industry overview. For more information visit the library Resumes, Applications and Interview Techniques guide.
A settlement has been reached in lawsuits between Google and author and publisher groups after two years of negotiation, regarding the company's scanning of copyrighted books. Under the terms of the settlement, yet to be approved in Federal court, Google will pay $125 million to resolve a suit brought by authors and the Authors Guild. In return, Google will now show up to 20% of a book's text to users at no charge, with the entire book online for a fee. Partner schools such as Stanford, MIchigan and UC announced their support for the settlement, though Rick Prelinger of the Internet Archive mused on the danger of having a single access point develop for world culture. Read more in the magazine American Libraries.
Kiwibox, the first social networking destination and online magazine where teens produce, discover, and share content while connecting with friends, announced that the company has signed a deal with Burst Media to launch the Kiwibox Teen Network, a premier online advertising network for marketers looking to reach teens. The network is comprised of a select group of teen focused web sites - and is anchored by Kiwibox. Publishers within the Kiwibox Teen Network have the opportunity to share ideas, content, tools, partnerships and marketing opportunities across both the web and mobile.
PR Newswire 10/29/08
Related news: Ypulse Interview: Lin Dai, CEO, Kiwibox
An article in the SF Chronicle talks about how Alex Gould who teaches a course at Stanford on money, banking and the financial markets is using the current financial crisis to impart real-life lessons about the economy.
Educators across the Bay Area are using the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression to teach everything from behavioral finance and social justice to the recasting of capitalism.
"What's happening now affects every one of us," Gould said. "It provides an unparalleled laboratory of real-world applications upon which to test theories."
    
Fall is falling. Rather leaf through a book than rake leaves? Time to move indoors, get comfy, and catch up with your reading. Check out the Jackson Library New Books rack (near the Trader's Pit) for some treats with no tricks. For example, Blown To Bits : Your Life, Liberty and Happiness After the Digital Explosion by Hal Abelson et al. As digital reality engulfs us all the authors ask, among other things, whether email can be truly 'confidential' anymore, whether it is a federal crime to download music, how Google and Yahoo provide the results to your searches, and whether we still have free speech in the digital world. Or Iconoclast by Gregory Berns, a neuroscientist who reveals the brain science behind truly innovative thinking, and proposes ways for you to overcome psychological barriers. Steve Berkman's The World Bank And The Gods of Lending argues that mismanagement, inefficiency and hypocrisy have plagued the World Bank for years. Berkman, with 16 years of experience at the Bank, presents evidence of decades of deception, and offers a new perspective on ways to make public organizations live up to their goals. Leading With Kindness : How Good People Consistently Get Superior Results by Baker and O'Malley defies convention and makes the case for kindness as one of the crucial attributes to some of the most successful business leaders. Based on interviews with executives from John Deere, Disney, Citibank, Smuckers and other firms, the book identifies the qualities that help the best leaders motivate employees, adapt to change and prepare future leaders. Finally, Wonder Woman : Marketing Secrets For the Trillion-Dollar Customer by Ellwood and Shekar asserts that women are the real 'boss' in households when it comes to consuming, and examines key biological and brain differences between the genders to help marketers re-tune their brand experience specifically to women. And be sure to check the upcoming JacksonLine for more book picks.
In a race to unlock the mobile platform market, Google's Android software used on G1 is a variant of Linux, a free open-source operating system which will allow programmers to write future applications for Android. G1 costs $179. The good news is that consumers are expecting handset-makers in the very near future to come up with Android-based phones at much lower prices.
View related WSJ announcement on YouTube
The current credit crisis has impacted every aspect of American life. The Rock Center for Corporate Governance, together with the Stanford Federalist Society and the Stanford American Constitution Society, recently presented a panel discussion featuring three Stanford professors: Michael Boskin, the GSB's Darrell Duffie and Joseph Grundfest. If you are having trouble understanding the crisis and how it might be resolved, this panel can help -- starting with Professor Grundfest’s analogy of the 'obese man'. Listen or view the full panel discussion.
Traders are keeping a nervous eye on an obscure index known as the VIX. The Fear Index or other wise known officially as the (Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index) measures volatility, the technical term for those wrenching market swings. A rising VIX is usually regarded as a sign that fear, rather than greed, is ruling the market. The higher the VIX goes, the more unhinged the market looks.
The VIX had its origin in 1993, when the Chicago Board Options Exchange approached Robert E. Whaley, then a professor at Duke University.
Read more about it.
In the welcoming address by premier Wen Jiabao to the World Economic Forum Summer Davos in Tianjin last month included the following questions posed to him in the Q&A session:
Question 1: You have a very integrated, comprehensive policy and you have here in front [of you] 1000 business leaders. What is your advice to the business leaders? What would you like to see from the business leaders assemble to you? What could they do better?
Question 2: Some of the shared challenges the world faces today from financial crisis to environmental degradation, what are the most significant global issues that you feel are not sufficiently addressed or adequately addressed among the international decision makers?
Question 3: You have confronted, as you mentioned in your speech, a number of challenges. The natural disasters including the snow storm, the earthquake, we all admire your decisive, fast leadership action you have taken. You have very positive events like the Olympic Games, the launching of the 7th space mission; you have to confront now, the last 10 days, the financial crisis. What is the profound and unanticipated lesson which you took out of this crisis management?
Replies at YouTube starting at 33:00, Question 2 starts at 38:50, and Question 3 starts at 42:00.
GSB Professors Jeff Pfeffer and Bob Sutton have added another feather to their caps : the Prix du livre Ressources Humaines. The French version of their book Hard Facts was recently given this award in Paris for the best business book published in France the past year. The three sponsors of the prize are the HR Chair of "Sciences Po", France's prestigious political science school, Le Monde, the national daily newspaper of record, and a headhunter firm called Syntec. Read more at Bob's blog. Vive le Evidence Based Management !
Neel Kashkari was hand picked by Henry Paulson to oversee the U.S. Treasury’s economic rescue plan, now called TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program). Kashkari was brought to Washington and the Treasury as assistant secretary for international economics by Paulson, after both worked at Goldman Sachs. Kashkari began his career as an engineer for a NASA subcontractor. The Bailout Czar, as he is often called, spoke about what TARPs goals and objectives are for the foreseeable future. The speech can be viewed here. Money published an article entitled List Of Cos Planning To Participate In U.S. Govt's TARP. Companies must notify the federal government by November 14 if they plan on participating in the bailout plan.
The Wall Street Journal is by far the most popular website for high net-worth individuals according to the Luxury Institute. This as reported by Market Watch, spots two and three are taken by Fox Business News and Harvard Business Review respectively.
Clean living could be the catalyst for a particularly virulent form of brain cancer, malignant glioma. This cancer leaves victims with a two-year life expectancy and seems to affect well-educated individuals from a high socioeconomic class. Charles Cobb, a California Pacific Medical Center neurosurgeon, believes our modern super hygienic lifestyle leaves us more susceptible to common viruses such as CMV, a herpes virus that infects 4 in 5 Americans. His discovery and the resulting possible cure is outlined in an article in the October 5th issue of the San Francisco Chronicle. A fascinating article about the discovery of this killer.
 Paul Krugman, the Princeton University faculty and NY Times columnist, won the Nobel prize in economics today for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect trade patterns and the location of economic activity. To learn more, read today's NY Times article, his column, his blog, or check out his books at the Jackson Library!
Courtesy of AFP
"Tactical philanthropists" are a part of a growing group of socially conscious givers in the Bay Area. These philantropists log into Paypal and and then donate online and redirect their wealth to their favorite charities.
Otherwise known as "charitable checking," or "giving while living," donor-advised funds are quickly becoming the most popular way to invest social capital.
Read more about it.
The United States tops the overall ranking in The Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009. The rankings are calculated from both publicly available data and the Executive Opinion Survey, a comprehensive annual survey conducted by the World Economic Forum together with its network of Partner Institutes (leading research institutes and business organizations) in the countries covered by the report.
Rank Country Score
1 US 5.74
2 Switzerland 5.61
3 Denmark 5.58
4 Sweden 5.53
5 Singapore 5.53
6 Finland 5.5
7 Germany 5.46
8 Netherlands 5.41
9 Japan 5.38
10 Canada 5.37
learn more ...
There is an interesting article in the NY Times comparing the roles of JP Morgan and Warren Buffett in times of financial upheaval.
Their times and personalities are vastly different, of course. But J. Pierpont Morgan’s role in the Panic of 1907 has its echo in Warren E. Buffett’s actions during the current financial troubles.
“What Buffett is doing is similar in ways to what Morgan did in 1907,” said Richard Sylla, an economist and financial historian at the Stern School of Business at New York University. “It’s what you might call profitable patriotism.”
Read more about it.
The credit default swap market is not a very familiar term to the general public, however many in finance shudder when conversation turns in that direction. Credit default swaps are complicated insurance mechanisms for stocks, as shown by Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes in his report Wall Street’s Shadow Market, some contracts can be hundreds of pages long. Kroft also speaks to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association about their members and the current financial crisis in the United States. The credit default swap market is also discussed in the Fortune (October 13, 2008) article The $55 Trillion Time Bomb indicating that the market in default swaps, although having lost value, has not hit rock bottom yet.
If you are wondering what CDSW -GO- is, its page in Bloomberg where credit default swaps are evaluated.
The October posting on Forbes website, talks about the present situation in VC environment. Though VC companies don’t operate on borrowed capital, the raging financial crisis leaves no financial institution intact. In practical terms, VC firms are facing very hard time finding LPs, and start-up companies are less likely to raise additional financing. Warren Weiss of VC firm Foundation Capital predicts that there will be an increased number of fire-sales and much less mergers. For more details, read the article online.
The latest issue of the New Yorker recounts the life and times of Lionel Trilling (1905 - 1975), famous critic, Columbia professor and all-around intellectual about town. The article goes a considerable distance in helping resolve the confusion some of us have had, over the years, in situating this famous figure on the sociopolitical spectrum. Trilling, one of those handful of names to inevitably pop up in any cultural discussion of the Twentieth Century, is all too easily adopted these days by warring philosophical camps. So it is with relief that we now learn (to use the Trilling royal "we") that this obfuscation may have been an intentional ploy on the great man's part. Indeed, it may just have been part of a subtle game Trilling played with himself and others around questions of identity and discontent. Or so author Louis Menand suggests. Take a break from our current financial woes and read more online or in the issue in Jackson Library.
A marketing research system that studies the emotions expressed by facial muscles has been used to analyze presidential campaign ads. The system is the subject of the new book, "Face Time," by Dan Hill. Mr. Hill heads Sensory Logic, a consulting firm that has been using "facial coding" methods to study second-by-second consumer reaction to TV commercials. But during the primaries, the company began analyzing audience reactions to the major candidates' ads. The result?
View the result at a 3-minute AdAge video
 Sure the US economy is hurting however the rest of the world is feeling the pinch too. Three European countries had to step in over the weekend to save Fortis bank the major consumer bank in Belgium also used in the Netherlands and Luxemburg. Benelux had to come up with $16.4 million to bail out Fortis in return each government will hold 49% of the company in their respective countries as mentioned by Bloomberg. All three countries are not interested in long term involvement in private banking as mentioned by DW (Deutsche Welle).
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