Strategy & Management
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The Best Third-Grade Teacher Ever
One of the most important economic issues we face today is how much to spend on education, both individually and as a society. As tax revenues decline due to demographic changes and deteriorating business conditions, municipalities have to make tough choices about which programs to cut, and education is often an early victim. Because we don’t yet have good measures of all the future benefits produced by better education today, school programs are easy targets for cost-cutting measures, especially in lower-income regions where parents are focused on meeting more basic needs and less likely to put up a fight. But experiments like Geoffrey Canada ’s Harlem Children’s Zone hint at the enormous impact that early educational support can have on lifetime achievement. I have my own example: Mrs.
Are you making the most of your company's 'software layer'? - McKinsey Quarterly - Marketing & Sales - Digital Marketing
The past 15 years have created a very different business environment, which has empowered consumers, commoditized many products and services, and dramatically compressed margins. Not surprisingly, these changes have forced businesses to operate differently. But exactly what kinds of companies have successfully transitioned to the digital age? How have they regained and retained competitive advantage at a time when location is no longer a barrier to transactions, brands alone aren’t a proxy for quality, and pricing is increasingly transparent?
Here's a business riddle: Divine Google Inc.'s intentions for its largest-ever acquisition, the $12.5 billion purchase of the once-great, now-faltering Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. Motorola represents one of the thorniest strategic and operational challenges in Google's 14-year history. Oddly, few seem to be paying attention. When investors parsed Google's deal announcement in August, they focused on how Motorola's 17,000 patents will protect Google's market-leading Android mobile operating system from legal assault. But what of the 20,500 Motorola employees working in 92 major facilities across 97 countries, from Horsham, Pa., to Jaguariuna, Brazil?
Google's $12 Billion Toy
Frugal innovation: Green ink
BY 2017 printing presses around the world will lap up 3.7m tonnes of ink, worth some $18 billion . Most of it will contain hydrocarbon-based solvents resulting in emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), an undesirable by-product of the manufacturing process. But not all.
By LESLIE KWOH and RACHEL EMMA SILVERMAN Prasad Thammineni, the chief executive of a file-sharing start-up called OfficeDrop in Cambridge, Mass., was no fan of Steve Jobs after Apple Inc. AAPL -2.08% took a long time adding one of the company's apps to its iTunes Store. Since the publication of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography, some executives have read the book as a management bible, Leslie Kwoh reports on digits. Photo: AP.
Bio as Bible: Managers Imitate Steve Jobs
Burnout isn't the result of too much work. It's the result of not getting what you want. So says Google Vice President Marissa Mayer, 36, the company's first female software engineer and its 20th employee when she joined the company in 1999.
How Google's Marissa Mayer Manages Burnout
Federal Reserve Economic Data - FRED - St. Louis Fed
More Services Events Information on conferences, seminars, and workshops sponsered by the Research Division. Page One Economics Offers the data behind the economics, including a newsletter and a data "starter set" from our popular FRED database. Careers Job Opportunities offered by the Research Division
Inside the Chinese Boom in Corporate Espionage
Last June, three men squeezed inside a wind turbine in China’s Gobi Desert. They were employees of American Superconductor Corp. ( AMSC ) , a Devens (Mass.)-based maker of computer systems that serve as the electronic brains of wind turbines. From time to time, AMSC workers are required to head out to a wind farm in some desolate location—that’s where the wind usually is—to check on the equipment, do maintenance, make repairs, and keep the customers happy.
An Open Letter to Forbes Re: the Leadership Mistakes of the Galactic Empire
Dear Forbes , In your recent article of 13 February 2012, you detailed the Five Leadership Mistakes of the Galactic Empire . Whilst we could strongly question the sanity of a business news website willing to suggest that the people with the ability to kill you with Force lightning or telekinetic choking powers have made several errors in judgement, especially when those people own a gigantic planet-exploding laser, we have decided to refute your claims to keep us occupied whilst we’re charging up said laser en route to your planet.
5 Phrases That Can Boost Employee Morale
They're small things--but they can completely change someone's day. Getty Image 3,977 in Share Connect with Evernote:Executives speak in a language of their own
AFrench diplomat recently shrugged at news that Tunisians were rejecting his language and enrolling in English classes. “You can’t be in this globalised world without being able to speak English,” he said. How will these eager new English speakers fare?Description If you can be a product manager, you can acquire the experience of acting as a CEO. The skills gained in product roadmapping, prioritizing tasks, interoffice communications, customer understanding, and product marketing are absolute necessities for being an effective enterprise lead.
Mark Pincus, Zynga - Bing Gordon, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers - Product Management as CEO Training
Retailers and the internet: Clicks and bricks
<a href="//ad.doubleclick.net/jump/teg.fmsq/pfw6/a;subs=n;wsub=n;sdn=n;!c=21548241;dcopt=ist;pos=ldr_top;sz=728x90,970x90,970x250;tile=1;ord=720193792?" target="_blank"><img src="//ad.doubleclick.net/ad/teg.fmsq/pfw6/a;subs=n;wsub=n;sdn=n;!c=21548241;dcopt=ist;pos=ldr_top;sz=728x90,970x90,970x250;tile=1;ord=720193792?" width="728" height="90" border="0" alt=""></a>Given the vast proliferation of VC-backed emerging technology companies in southern California and the current state of the economy, serial entrepreneurs, investors and board members of these companies are revisiting their strategic objectives and considering an exit strategy involving a sale of the business rather than an initial public offering (IPO). Executives must be mindful of the potential pitfalls that exist when pursuing a strategic sale and should be ready to address the key issues that will come up in the mergers and acquisitions transactions for these technology companies. Failure to adequately address key issues may lead to disruption in both businesses (buyer’s and seller’s) or the delay or even derailment of bringing good technologies and products to an eager marketplace. Deciding to be Acquired For most technology companies, pursuing an IPO may not be the most effective manner to address their principal business concerns.
M&A Primer for Tech Company Directors | Directorship | Boardroom Intelligence
Tony Fernandes says he is living a "boy's own dream." Last summer, the Malaysian-born entrepreneur was running Asia's biggest budget airline, a Formula 1 team and a global hotel chain. Clearly, this wasn't demanding enough, because in August the self-confessed sports fan paid around £35 million ($55.4 million) for a majority stake in English Premier League soccer team Queens Park Rangers. For a shy boy who, at the age of 12, was dispatched on his own from Malaysia to a private school in England, Mr.