Five companies: Cisco, Corning, IBM, Intel, and Schwab are the topic of the feature article in June issue of Fast Company magazine. All big five are pursuing strategies that are focused into the future, in after-recession time. Find out which action plan each corporation is following now, and what the rationale behind its strategic choices is. Read the article in the magazine in Jackson periodicals section or online.
Are you feeling stressed about job search? What matters most when you evaluate job offers? Andy Chan at our MBA Career Management Center has advice for you. Read Andy’s blog - Heart of the Matter.
One of the first IPOs of 2009 was Opentable.com trading under the ticker OPEN. Originally called EasyEats.com this company allows people to make restaurant reservations online as well as through any mobile device. Investors seem to like the fact that OpenTable is not dependent on advertising for revenue instead pulling in revenue from the restaurants participating in their service. Read more about some of the challenges facing OpenTable in the San Francisco Chronicle article. Analysts are hoping this IPO is an early indication that Silicon Valley and the IT industry are showing some signs of life.
Congratulations to Professor Garth Saloner, who has been tapped to be the next Dean of the Graduate School of Business. Read more.
I learned something new today about the telecommunications market. There is a deal in the works announced in the NY Times today to create the third largest telecommunications company.
Bharti Airtel of India and MTN Group of South Africa would create an entity that would have $20 billion in annual revenue and 200 million subscribers.
It's interesting to note that while many companies in developed economies are focused on cutting jobs and costs, some firms that rely on developing economies like India or Africa for the bulk of their sales are still prospering. Both Bharti and MTN crossed the 100 million-customer mark in recent weeks.
Read more about it.
A Palo Alto pedestrian mall? One idea being floated by some Stanford students is the idea of turning University Avenue in our neighboring Palo Alto downtown into a no-auto walkway. Students have been interviewing local police, city officials, merchants and others to get a sense of receptivity to the idea. Interested? You can join a Facebook group. Read more at Professor Bob Sutton's blog.
Talk is cheap. So says Chip Heath, GSB Professor in Organizational Behavior. In the June 2009 issue of Fast Company, Heath and his brother Dan suggest that your best bet in reviewing job candidates is to skip the interview. Interviews are less predictive of job performance than work samples. So instead of sitting down with a prospective candidate, check out what he/she can do. A graphic designer should design something, a sales person should sell something and a librarian should research something. Would the 2008 election been different if John McCain had not relied so heavily on his 90 minute interview with Sarah Palin?
Hot dogs, social networking, Joseph Campbell, and the Federal Reserve – all in this month’s JacksonLine.
Mike Spence (retired dean of the GSB) talked to Maria Bartiromo about the economy and bank stress test results on May 7. Both go on to discuss what the results mean now and for the future and what steps might lead to an improved economy. There is also a follow up discussion about predictions Spence made in February on the show as highlighted in the Spence on the Economy blog.
Do you dread that Monday morning wake up call to work after your glorious weekend? Well Stanford Business School Professor Jeff Pfeffer says epidemiological studies show that holding a lower-level position where one does not have much control over job activities and decision making puts employees at a higher risk of having—or dying from—a heart attack. "There’s nothing more stressful than being in an environment in which you have a lot of pressure but relatively little power," Pfeffer says. Read more about it.
The June 2009 issue of Fast Company has published a list of the 100 Most Creative People in Business 2009. In constructing their list staff looked for "dazzling new thinkers, rising stars and boldface names that could not be ignored". Jonathan Ive, for example, Apple Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, who took the Numero Uno spot. In the past Ive brought flash and sass to the clunky computer, then moved on to music with the iPod. Apple’s success today is the result of blending business with design, and Ive is the design part of the equation; he was instrumental in designing the iMac, iPod, iPhone and -- the first titanium laptop. Result: Apple design recognition is now the gold (titanium?) standard. Check the issue in Jackson Library to see if you agree with the other 99 choices.
Courtesy of Michelle Gutman, Assistant Director of the GSB Corporate Governance Research Program, comes this interview of legendary Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger by Stanford Professor Joseph Grundfest. Munger weighs in on Bernie Madoff, Ponzi schemes, market regulation, China and more.
Stanford Professor Bob Sutton has blogged about an article he has written for the June Harvard Business Review on how to be a good boss in a bad economy. Among his points is the observation that subordinates hyperfocus on the leader of their group. He likens this to primate behavior, noting that members of a baboon troop typically glance at their alpha male every 20 - 30 seconds to check what he is doing. Quoth Sutton, "Start thinking about when you go to your next meeting or when you observe your next meeting -- it is an insight with hundreds of implications, as it reveals the power and communication patterns ... ." Just don't offer the boss a banana.
Social networks have been transformed by Facebook, Twitter, etc. These new technologies are lettting individuals and companies interact at the speed of light and sound. Read more about it in a SF Chronicle article.
For those ready to take the leap, Guy Kawasaki blogs about how to quit your job and start a company. He links to an interview with Pamela Slim of Cubicle Nation, who explains how to change careers and start a company that will change the world. Read it and see if you still have the urge to fly the coop.
"It always struck me that being in the right place at the right time was important in career paths," said Paul Oyer, an associate professor of economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business who studied the long-term career choices and salaries of more than 35 years' worth of the School's graduates. From surveys conducted in 1996 and 1998, Oyer concluded that random factors play a large role in determining the kinds of jobs that MBAs take upon graduation. Specifically, the proportion of graduating MBAs who manage to get hired into lucrative investment banking positions shrinks or expands depending on how well the stock market is performing in a given year.
Read more about it.
Wanna co-author a book? You don't even have to write it ! Just join John Winsor in updating his book Flipped: How Bottom-Up Co-Creation Is Replacing Top-Down Innovation. In the spirit of the title, Winsor is inviting people to join in revising and updating his book on a wiki. He apparently already has had at least 75 'co-authors' enlist. Stanford Professor Bob Sutton, who mentions all this on his blog, asks "Is this the first crowdsourced book?" (Apparently it's not).
It was announced this week that the SEC is filing charges against Aldus Equity for allegedly being involved in a kickback scheme with the New York State Common Retirement fund, the fourth largest retirement fund in the U.S. According to Pensions & Investments website. Liberty Mutual just announced a 92% loss due to losses in their Private Equity division. RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) now owned by the government of Great Britain, has eliminated the role of Private Equity (PE) manager at the bank.
There are however signs of life in PE, KKR (a private equity firm) is in talks to purchase Oriental Brewery Co, which is part of Anheuser-Busch InBev. Additionally TheDeal.com ran an article yesterday entitled PE Fundraising Ends April Strong espousing the strength of future leverage buyout activities due to larger fund-of-funds.
The McKinsey Quarterly in an article entitled The Future of Private Equity says it best in that Private Equity “must adapt to thrive.”
I'm talking about small businesses in California. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle has reported that, since 2001, the state has lost about 500,000 manufacturing jobs because those jobs were being outsourced overseas.
A small plastics factory in Santa Rosa have been getting inquiries from other "small U.S. companies looking to bring some manufacturing back from China."
Read more about it.
This posting is a reference to Seth Godin’s blog. Seth is GSB alum, entrepreneur, bestselling author, and a renowned speaker. He also writes for his blog on daily basis. His posts are concise, to-the-point, witty, and covering a wide spectrum of topics. business and ethical. The post Why aren't you (really) good at graphic design? contains a compilation of print and online sources which can help every student or a business person to develop skills for creating better visual presentations of a slide show, or handout, or any other type of printed materials.
Who will be First Lady, and Second Lady, and ... ? That is the question in South Africa these days. The newly elected President of South Africa is an avowed polygamist with two wives and a third wife to be. The practice of polygamy is legal in the Zulu culture, but gender activists view the practice as "unconstitutional", since men are allowed to have more than one wife while women aren't allowed more than one husband. However, the issue has not been tested. Will this legitimize the practice of polygamy in South Africa? Will others be willing to move to a country that accepts this life style? Stay tuned.
|
