So often today our "service economy" is anything but. Stanford Business School Alum Seth Godin blogs about the abdication of responsibility in once great corporations, noting how a firm can deteriorate into a pixelated mosaic, with every employee eager to push 'interruptions' (i.e. legitimate requests for service) to others. Nor is this unique to companies; it can represent the decline and fall of any organization. Haven't we all experienced this when trying to get service from once great brands? The old saw still applies: "If not you, who? If not now, when?"
With a new administration in Washington, government regulation is back. In the United States., industries and sectors representing more than a third of the nation's economy -- including financial services, automobiles, health care, and telecom -- are being reshaped. Many are asking how regulations will impact those businesses. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich offers his perspective in the July / August issue of the Harvard Business Review on how the government will manage and regulate business in the foreseeable future.
GSB Alum Tom Peters (MBA '72, PhD '77) on his blog offers comments he made to the American Hospital Association. Calling his outline "Principal Management & Leadership (as opposed to Policy) Issues", he argues that while hospitals face constraints, management and leadership 'miracles' can still happen. Peters draws attention to the fact that on a recent Fortune list of the top 100 places to work, 13 are healthcare institutions. Of course, opportunities for improvement remain; he notes that surveys indicate that the patient is still often not considered the proper focus of concern and attention.
The annual San Francisco marathon was held this past Sunday. Over 20,000 runners competed in the full marathon and the half marathon. In the effort to be more green and have less of an environmental footprint a number of leading edge "green" initiatives were adopted. In 2007, the event made a conscious effort at "going green," when most road races were still figuring out how to preserve precious natural resources.
Read more about it.
A report recently published by the Center for Public Integrity , in conjuction with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, entitled Tobacco Underground gives a good overview of the black market for cigarettes. Among the statistics cited is the fact that up to one billion dollars in revenues are lost every year in cities like New York, with an estimate of $40 billion worldwide, from an underground tax evading market in cigarette sales. Additionally it is estimated that up to one-third of the world’s cigarettes are sold on the black market and that much of the selling is done by organized crime groups to support terrorist activities. As reported by David Kaplan, editorial director at The Center for Public Integrity and editor of the report all under the watchful eye of the tobacco companies.
No, this is not the 1800s, this is July 2009 in West Bend, Wisconsin, a city 30 miles from Milwaukee. A huge battle has erupted that has divided the city. Residents have battled for months on blogs, airwaves and at meetings -- including one where a man told the city's Library Director that he should be 'tarred and feathered'.
It all began when West Bend couple Jim and Ginny Maziarka objected to some of the content in the City Library's young-adult section. Mrs. Maziarka asked the Director to remove items from the shelves. He refused, she hit the blogosphere, and the battle began. Outside West Bend, the fight caught the attention of Robert Braun (President of a Milwaukee group called the Christian Civil Liberties Union) who, with three other Milwaukee-area men, filed a claim against West Bend calling for one of the library's books to be publicly burned. Read the whole story
Womenomics is the title of a book written by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay just added to the Jackson Library collection.
Excerpt from Publisher's weekly review:
The authors assert that after decades of trying to outdo men or fighting the Mommy Wars in the office trenches of the 1980s and 1990s, women have gained enough corporate clout to start changing the workplace to suit their needs. Shipman and Kay review the depth of women's influence as consumers and earners, maintaining that their power gives them the right and the ability to ask for flexibility in their work lives, to negotiate assertively and effectively, to say no and to give up the guilt associated with getting their needs met. Through Shipman and Kay's own stories of struggling with demanding work and home lives and anecdotes from other working mothers, the authors make a convincing argument that with some mental and emotional effort, women can create their ideal work and home lives.
Also take a look at an article written by Claire Shipman on "What Is Womenomics?" to find out more about this concept.
Yesterday the Department of Treasury as part of a massive reform push set forth draft guidelines before congress to assist in making independent compensation committees truly independent. As part of the press release the Treasury pointed to research done by Stanford GSB professor David Larcker together with Chris Armstrong and Christopher Ittner of the University of Pennsylvania on companies' use of consultants to justify executive compensation rates. Read more about the draft legislation and Larcker’s research in the Fact Sheet put out by the Department of Treasury.
Ed Batista, GSB Alum and instructor, reviews a recent presentation in San Francisco by Chris Anderson about his new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Especially interesting is the idea of the promotion of celebrity, and of 'quantifiable reputation', something which may now be possible with social networking, where one can constantly track "friends" and "followers". Ed goes on to reflect on his experience as an executive coach, and how that relates to these developments.
In my 2007 Blog Pets Indeed I highlighted an article discussing how much is spent on household pets each year. Now there is something completely new an airline just for your pet called Pet Airways. It seems like spending on pets will certainly increase over the coming years as you can already see from the statistics mentioned in the article American Pet Ownership Statistics.
Need a break? Note the storefront signs that Guy Kawasaki photographed while in the city of Edinburgh. No doubt every city has fascinating shop marquees, but this is a pretty good collection to scope out. And eating the haggis is optional. VERY optional.
Are you interested in purchasing the new iphone 3GS? Then make sure you are on the AT&T network -- or are prepared to switch. And if you are thinking of purchasing the new Palm® Pre™, you must be a Sprint customer. Cell phone service providers have exclusive agreements with manufacturers that seem to be detrimental to the average consumer looking for the best service and best phone for their needs.
According to an editorial in USA Today, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Communications Commission and the Congress are currently looking into whether these agreements violate U.S. antitrust laws. FreePress.net is currently sponsoring a petition directed toward members of Congress and officials at the FCC, hoping to show public support for the freedom to choose network providers, phones and services.
No this is not the name of the hottest new band! It is the name of the new venture capital fund started by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. This fund is $300 million in size and "aimed purely at investing in the best new entrepreneurs, products, and companies in the technology industry."
So dust off those business plans and apply today!
If you are interested in how an organization incorporates social networking into its operation, check out an interview that Guy Kawasaki conducted with Lee Aase of the renowned Mayo Clinic. Aase explains the history of the Clinic's use of social media and how effective it has proven.
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