July 2005

The Startups True Secret Sauce?

Startups have unique advantages for creating innovative products. Now, many established companies have created internal startups - sometimes called "Intrapreneuring" or "Spin-ins" to come up with innovative products. (Audio)

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Palm: What PDA problem?

Executive Paul Blinkhorn talks about a $30 million name change and how to deal with a smart-phone onslaught.

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WonderBytes

From DVRs to casino gambling, women are buying and using more products and services than you might think.

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Researcher looks to clear the air about cow emissions

California is home to more than three million cows, with the vast majority grazing in the heavily polluted Central Valley. What's their effect on air quality?

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Net addresses come to Earth

Net addresses are starting to reveal how they are linked to the real world.

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A Day in the Life - entrepreneur.com

Tag along with these three franchisees for a day, and see what it's really like to own a franchise.

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The 50 plus workforce

The mirror image to 50 plus marketing is 50 plus human relations. The effects of the aging population on the workplace are just as, if not more, dramatic than to the marketplace.

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TV Meets the Web

Web video finally goes mainstream. Will marketing ever be the same? (Subscription required!)

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Got a baby? It's time to call the 'bank'

If you have the inclination, and the money, you can ‘bank’ your baby’s umbilical cord blood.

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Design's New School of Thought

1 Aug 2005 from businessweek.com | Read the full story»

IDEO's David Kelley is building a "D-school" that aims to put students in direct contact with the people they're designing for ...

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Leading Ideas: Culture Drives Success

"I came to see in my time at IBM that 'culture' isn't just one aspect of the game - it is the game." -- Lou Gerstner Culture is your organization's DNA - the blueprint for everything you do. To be better at innovating - your culture must expect and foster innovation. To improve customer satisfaction - your culture must expect and foster great service. Great leaders realize this. They know that "culture" isn't a single item on a task list. And it can't be delegated to a committee. It's all encompassing. It's the real work - and legacy - of leaders.

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Join the Circus

July 2005 from fastcompany.com | Read the full story»

In 21 years, Cirque du Soleil has grown from a funky band of street performers into a half-billion-dollar global company. It's a high-wire act of smart risk-taking, innovating around the clock, and staying uncomfortable. [See also this blog.fastcompany.com entry.]

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Globalization Spreads to Punctuation

11 July 2005 from news.yahoo.com | Read the full story»

WASHINGTON - When it comes to phone numbers, dashes are SO 20th century.

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'Free' Danish beer makes a splash

Students in Copenhagen have created what they are calling the world's first open source beer recipe.

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DaimlerChrysler CEO Schrempp to Step Down

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- DaimlerChrysler CEO Juergen Schrempp, architect of the controversial merger between Daimler-Benz and Chrysler Corp., will step down and turn the top job over to Chrysler head Dieter Zetsche, the company said Thursday ...

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Feed Me, Academia

Need more ideas and insights for your work? The University of Saskatchewan Library offers an online directory of academic journals that offer RSS feeds. [via Infectious Greed] ...

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Downloading 'myths' challenged

People who illegally download music spend much more on legal downloads than average fans, a study shows.

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Designing Meaning, Creating Value

John Maeda of MIT's Media Lab wrote a delightful post about meaning and design, and how deep meaning can be embedded into a designed offering. And as he tells the story, meaning can even be designed into something as mundane (yet vitally important) as a restroom door ...

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House Approves Cafta After Tough Debate

The House narrowly approved a U.S. trade pact with Central America after a drawn-out debate that proved much tougher and more passionate than the White House expected.

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Awards to applaud women in tech

Top women in technology are to be recognised in the first Blackberry Women and Technology awards.

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Main Street in the Cross Hairs

The nation's 5 million retail stores are proving to be an easy target for data thieves.

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Starring in your own movie

Market researchers want to know what you buy and what you return to the shelf. What if they could watch over your shoulder all day? Or ride along on your lapel? They can. Jocelyn Gonzales reports. (Audio)

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When Good Enough Isn't

A few months ago I met Firefox co-creator and Stanford University undergrad Blake Ross at a Churchill Club event. In asking him for an interview, I told him that I write for AlwaysOn, a website and "blogozine" created by the person who founded the Churchill Club and Red Herring. ...

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Microsoft wipes Apple off the map

As software rivals, Microsoft wants to wipe Apple Computer off the map. With Microsoft's new Web service for satellite photographs, ...

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Privacy Guru Locks Down VOIP

Phil Zimmermann, the man behind the Pretty Good Privacy encryption program for e-mail, is launching a new program that aims to provide the same security for internet phone calls. By Kim Zetter.

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GM to End Employee-Discount Program

General Motors Corp. said it plans to end its successful "employee discounts for everyone" promotion next week. The company also signaled that it will embark on a new pricing strategy for 2006 models that will attempt to focus on permanently lower sticker prices instead of big rebates.

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The Netflix Paradigm

In a recent focus group at the Digital Media Summit, we asked a group of college students and young adults whether they regularly download unlicensed music or copy it from their friends' hard drives. Affirmative, all eight told us. And do they also download or copy full-length movies? Rarely, the anonymous youths said. It takes too long. And why bother, when for around $20 a month they...

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Periodic table's design gets an elemental challenge

The new design has the elements spiral out from the center of neutronium in increasing atomic number. The elements form spokes ...

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The Revolutions Continue

The Seven Futures project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, DC, offers its Seven Revolutions report. The study looks at how factors such as population, technology, and governance will affect life and work ...

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Week in pictures: Le tour de tech

Roundup: Lance Armstrong takes a high-tech trek and the military unveils a "less lethal" weapon. Also: Robots kick it up.

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Digital music is going mobile

While the iTunes phone plays a waiting game, cell phone networks are building their own download stores.

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Fool vs. Jerk: Whom Would You Hire?

You are the hiring manager with a nasty decision to make. Would you hire the lovable fool or the competent jerk? This Harvard Business Review excerpt suggests that the decision is complicated. By HBS professor Tiziana Casciaro and Duke University's Miguel Sousa Lobo.

Via Harvard Business School Working Knowledge

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Salesforce.com's new gamble

The company, seen as a leader in the movement toward so-called software as a service applications, is making a bet on a new development system--called Multiforce--that lets partners and customers custom-tailor the software and build their own services.

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The Personal MBA 40

19 Jul 2005 from joshkaufman.net | Read the full story»

My goal was to reduce the PMBA [books to read to gain the equivalent of an MBA] list to no more than 40 titles. Here are my editing criteria:

Valuable Content
Acceptable Time Commitment
Reference Value

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Nanotech Moves Closer to Cure

Dr. James Baker and his lab at the University of Michigan are turning tiny, tendril-covered particles into weapons against disease and illness. By Howard Lovy.

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We are sailing...

A West Midlands councillor briefly proposed that Land of Hope and Glory should be replaced by Rod Stewart's Sailing at Remembrance Day celebrations. Everyone knows Sailing, so what does it mean?

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Teamsters, SEIU Bolt AFL-CIO Federation

CHICAGO (AP) -- The Teamsters and a major service employees union on Monday bolted from the AFL-CIO, a stunning exodus for an embattled movement already struggling to build its ranks and cope with a rapidly changing work environment ...

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Very Old Labor

The AFL-CIO, the giant union consortium formed in 1955 by George Meany and Walter Reuther, is breaking apart this week in a dispute over how to revive labor's lagging fortunes. The tragedy is that neither faction is offering an agenda that will make workers more prosperous in our increasingly competitive global economy.

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Longhorn Or Long Wait?

Interview between Walter Mossberg and Bill Gates. Mr. Mossberg is a technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Bill Gates is ...

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Cheaper Health Insurance

Republicans haven't been getting much credit on the health policy front, despite their misguided 2003 drug entitlement masquerading as Medicare "reform." That could change soon. Last week the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a bill that could dramatically reduce the ranks of the uninsured and spur general economic growth -- all without costing a dime to the Treasury.

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A new plan for the World Bank

The World Bank, now under Paul Wolfowitz, has a new mission: fighting global warming. But commentator and policy analyst Daphne Wysham thinks that's not the best idea. (Audio)

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Video games lacking a woman's touch

Tara Teich enjoys nothing more than slipping into the role of a female video game character. But the 26-year-old software programmer gets annoyed by the appearance of such digital alter egos as the busty tomb raider Lara Croft or the belly-baring Wu the Lotus Blossom of Jade Empire.

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Bard accent

Ever been baffled by the bard? Vexed by his verse? Or perplexed by his puns? London's Globe theatre thinks it has the answer: perform Shakespeare's plays in Shakespeare's dialect.

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Scrubbing Bubbles Hit the Streets

A joint Swedish-Finnish venture is working to develop catalytic concrete products that will dissolve pollutants. The technology for self-cleaning surfaces already exists, but can it be applied on a large enough scale to combat pollution?

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Nissan Shows The Power of Marketing By Design

Did anyone notice that in June, the month that General Motors wiped out the industry with its "employee pricing" promotion (which garnered GM a 40%+ sales gain over the previous year and added almost 7 points of market share) that...

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Classical Theory vs. the Real World

After extensive jaw-boning by the U.S., China has let its currency strengthen by about 2% against the dollar -- its first official appreciation in a decade. The Bank of China said that the move would help "bring exports and imports into balance." Most observers said that the 2% revaluation was an important symbolic step -- the currency would have to appreciate by as much as another 30%. Should the Bush administration continue to press China for a more substantial revaluation? Would the elimination of China's trade surplus with the U.S. do the U.S. any good?

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What Consumers -- and Retailers -- Should Know about Dynamic Pricing

According to a recent study, 64% of consumers who shop on the Internet do not know that "it is legal for an online store to charge different people different prices at the same time of day." Yet dynamic pricing is not new. Retailers have been using it for years in ways that benefit not just themselves but also their customers.

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A Radio Program Turns to a Blog to Cull Ideas

A new public radio program — Open Source from PRI — draws on the collective intelligence permeating the Web to make smart radio.

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Best Global Brands by Value for 2005

In the new special report, BusinessWeek and Interbrand rank the companies that best built their images--and made them stick in 2005.

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Drug Industry Proposes Limits on Advertising

The pharmaceutical industry released draft guidelines that endorse a period of informing doctors about new drugs before running ads for them. (Subscription required!)

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Waking Up to Warjacking

It's a scammy world, and consumer Wi-Fi connections could be the next security pain point.

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Credit Line Goes Here

Design is essentially a collaborative enterprise. That makes assigning credit for the products of our work a complicated issue.

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10 Steps To An Irresistible Brand

The methodology of crafting brand strategies, defines ten steps on the “yellow brick road” to an irresistible brand, each complete with its own tools, and all composing a comprehensive and well structured work process.

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The Podcast as a New Podium

The best of the downloadable audio shows fall into three categories: the appallingly personal, the technically useful, and podcasts from abroad. (Subscription required!)

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Tour de Lance

Lance Armstrong may be finished with bike racing. But this hot marketing property will ride on.

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Driving Success: How You Innovate Determines What You Innovate

18 JUL 2005 from Wharton School Publishing | Read the full story»

[Excerpts from the book: Making Innovation Work by Tony Davila, et. al.]
As innovation leaders like Apple, Toyota, Dell, Nucor Steel, Sony, and others have shown, making important changes to key parts of the dominant business model or the essential technology can redirect the competitive vectors of an entire industry. Innovation provides the opportunity for a company to put its mark on the evolution of business. By setting the rules of the game in their industries, these companies have taken a leadership position and play the game that favors them the most.

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Tattooed Fruit Is on Way

19 JUL 2005 from NYT > Dining & Wine | Read the full story»

A new technology being used by produce distributors employs lasers to tattoo fruits and vegetables with their names, identifying numbers, countries of origin and other information that helps speed distribution. The marks are burned onto the outer layer of the skin and are visible to discerning consumers and befuddled cashiers alike. (Subscription required!)

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Studies Fault Hospitals on Basics

21 JUL 2005 from The Washington Post | Read the full story»

U.S. hospitals are improving the quality of the care they provide, but even the best fail too often to offer the right treatments, such as immediately giving aspirin to victims of heart attacks and properly administering antibiotics to pneumonia patients, according to the two most comprehensive analyses of the issue. The studies of more than 3,000 hospitals nationwide found that despite overall improvement, care varies dramatically around the country, with those in the North and Midwest generally outperforming those in the South and West.

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can consumer creativity become mass?

19 JUL 2005 from Influx Insights Weblog | Read the full story»

The idea of consumer participation has been in the headlines in the last couple of weeks; first with the rise of the citizen journalist and yesterday with the announcement that key Google investors would also be investing is Zazzle.com (a site that allows users to put their art on stuff). Also, Business Week has a whole piece on consumer-created advertising... If one was to join all the dots and one could easily be led to believe that the gates have been opened and a torrent of consumer creators have been unleashed.

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Interview With Régine Debatty Of WMMNA

20 JUL 2005 from IF | Read the full story»

We Make Money Not Art must be one of the most popular blogs on the web. Written by Régine Debatty, its anarchic mix of products, gizmos, new-age-cool-stuff and seems to be read and loved by everyone from Birmingham culture-jammers to New York ad execs. We thought we'd ask Regine a few questions about the success of her site.

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From Web-Savvy Patient to 'Cyberchondriac'

19 JUL 2005 from The Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

Recently a patient contacted our practice after convincing herself, based on some Internet research, that her child had Attention Deficit Disorder. She wanted us to start the child on a medication typically used for seizure disorders, instead of a more commonly used medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration for ADD. In addition, could we call a prescription in to the pharmacy for her today without examining her child? No. Not on this planet. Not today or any other day. (Subscription required!)

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Helping Hands for Women's Startups

18 JUL 2005 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

Launched in 1988, Women's Business Centers have a fantastic track record of efficiently getting female entrepreneurs up and running.

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Former Bush official to get RFID tag

18 JUL 2005 from CNet News.com | Read the full story»

Tommy Thompson, the Health and Human Services Secretary in President Bush's first term and a former Governor of Wisconsin, is going to get tagged. Thompson has joined the board of Applied Digital, which owns VeriChip, the company that specializes in subcutaneous RFID tags for humans and pets. To help promote the concepts behind the technology, Thompson himself will get an RFID tag implanted under his skin.

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What's the Next Big Thing on the Web? It May Be a Small, Simple Thing -- Microformats

Ever since the world wide web exploded in the mid-1990s, attempts have been made to extend its basic presentation format to create a richer, more meaningful network of information. Most efforts, however, have gained little traction. These initiatives have been bogged down by complexity and over-ambitious goals. Now, a grassroots movement has emerged that seeks to attach intelligent data to Web pages by using simple extensions of the standard HTML tags currently used for web formatting. These so-called "microformats" may change the way the web works, according to participants at the recent Supernova conference in San Francisco.

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Inside Chinese business

Recent acquisitive moved by Chinese companies are stirring emotions here in the U.S. But what do Chinese companies really want? Beijing Bureau Chief Jocyelyn Ford takes a look. (Audio)

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Buzzwords slow to grab surfers

Buzzwords to describe the latest trends on the net are largely unknown to US web users, according to a survey.

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U.S. Will Offer Doctors Free Electronic Records System

In an unprecedented move, Medicare plans to give doctors free software to computerize their medical practices. (Subscription required!)

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Most Vote "No" On Mobile Video

In-Stat reports that only about one-eighth of mobile phone subscribers are interested in purchasing some kind of mobile video content from their provider. Some two-thirds said they weren't interested.

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Going private

What do Cablevision, Neiman Marcus, Double Click and Polaroid have in common? They've all gone from public to private. Marketplace's Amy Scott reports on the recent surge in going-private buyouts. Amy Scott reports. (Audio)

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How To Inspire Women's Market Investment

So...when people can search the Net and find the lowest price in minutes, what DOES keep women connected to, and shopping with, their local retailers?

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billboards - more interesting than ever

20 JUL 2005 from Influx Insights Weblog | Read the full story»

In the digital age, with new technology sprouting ever more elaborate media vehicles to challenge the traditional media mix, one of the oldest media, out-of-home, (American billboard advertising started in the 1830s) seems to be holding its own.

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Recruiting for the Global Talent War

Never mind the touchy-feely stuff -- international diversity is essential for companies that hope to thrive in today's economy. (Subscription required!)

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Blogs Taking Off in Cambodia

A Cambodian nonprofit worker traverses the country, teaching students to publish blogs. The project promotes democracy and spurs internet use in a land where few people have access to the web. Matt Reed reports from Phnom Penh.

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New Potter was online in 24h

JK Rowling reportedly refused to release the new Harry Potter as an ebook, citing "piracy" fears. Less than 24h after the book hit the shelves, it had been scanned in, run through optical character recognition software, proofread and posted.

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The Startup Factory

How a little-known Israeli telecom became the world's most successful incubator. (Subscription required!)

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Canada Senate backs gay marriage

The Canadian Senate approves same-sex marriages, making it the fourth country in the world to do so.

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Broadband's bargain hunt

As the market matures, consumers are reaping the benefits of a growing discount war among the phone and cable companies.

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Time A-Wastin'.

A new survey finds that the average American worker wastes over two hours a day — much of it online — costing industry billions a year.

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Wal-Mart Applies for Banking License

Wal-Mart Stores, the retail giant, has applied to establish a Utah industrial bank that would process credit card, debit card and electronic check transactions from its retail locations, the bank's chief executive said Tuesday. (Subscription required!)

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Woman to Lead Baltimore Symphony

Marin Alsop will be the next conductor of the Baltimore Symphony, making history as the first woman to be named the musical director of such a major orchestra. But in the final days before the decision, there have been dissenting voices from the musicians on the search committee. Joel Rose of member station WHYY reports. (Audio)

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This Is Your Brain on Advertising

By taking neuromarketing out of the lab and into the mall, a small British firm is helping world-class advertisers make their pitches more effective. (Subscription required!)

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You Are Where You Eat

Need a place to eat while on a business trip but don't want to do a lot of research? Turn to Dinnerbuzz, a social guide to dinner and drinks.

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How Effective Is This Ad, in Real Numbers? Beats Me

The results of a survey confirm that everyone complains about the inability to determine the return on investment from advertising spending. (Subscription required!)

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Making the EPA look good

The Environmental Protection Agency is looking to hone what it calls its "corporate image." Does it make sense for a government agency to spend millions on PR? Marketplace's Scott Tong reports. (Audio)

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IBM Shares Up After Reporting Bigger Profit

BOSTON (AP) -- Shares of International Business Machines Corp. jumped Tuesday after the technology bellwether's second-quarter earnings beat Wall Street's expectations, providing evidence that Big Blue has rebounded from difficulties early in the year....

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Hewlett-Packard to Cut 14,500 Jobs

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. on Tuesday said it will cut 14,500 jobs, about 10 percent of its full-time staff, as part of a restructuring plan designed to save $1.9 billion annually and boost business performance....

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Design – the New Competitive Difference

The CEO of Procter & Gamble, A.G. Lafley, after running P&G's Asia operation from Japan for four years in the mid-1990s, came to a very un-Procteresque conclusion:design, not simply price or technology, should be P&G's key differentiator.

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The Crybabies on Wall Street

Thanks to Jim Sinegal, the bigwigs down on Wall Street have their undies in a bunch. Jim is the CEO of Costco Wholesale, now the fifth largest retailer in the country. He loves his job, his employees and his customers. While creating a retail giant he's also, as they say in New York, "created such a scandal you never saw."

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UN at odds over internet's future

A UN group set up to debate how to run the net has failed to reach a decision.

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Identify Emerging Market Opportunities

Yes, you understand your company needs to compete in emerging markets. But which country is the best fit for you? A Harvard Business Review excerpt by Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu, and Jayant Sinha.

Via Harvard Business School Working Knowledge

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Slate starts podcasting

Online mag Slate now offers podcasts of editors reading pieces aloud. Even more unusual and adventurous fare is coming soon, and from what I hear through the pod-vine... should be pretty amazing stuff. -Xeni Jardin

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Examples from Abroad by Todd S.

For a book filled with examples and anecdotes from outside the United States, try Made in China: What Western Managers Can Learn from Trailblazing Chinese Entrepreneurs by Donald Sull with Yong Wang. The authors have built the book around some interesting ideas about how Chinese start-ups get their start.

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TOP EDITOR LEAVES 'FAST COMPANY'

19 JUL 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Just weeks after John A. Byrne, editor at Fast Company, helped save his magazine from the dustbin by recruiting Joe Mansueto to buy it, Mr. Byrne is leaving to become executive editor at BusinessWeek, a newly created post. (Free subscription required!)

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Mix, Match, And Mutate

25 JUL 2005 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

Suddenly, hordes of volunteer programmers are taking it upon themselves to combine and remix the data and services of unrelated, even competing sites. The result: entirely new offerings they call "mash-ups." They're the Web versions of Reese's ("Hey, you got peanut butter on my chocolate!") Peanut Butter Cups.

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Sharing the Data Bridge in Cincinnati

19 JUL 2005 from HealthLeaders.com | Read the full story»

Delivering on the promise of collaborative technology, HealthBridge is redefining how competitive hospitals can share data with their physicians. Formed in 1997, the group enables four local Cincinnati IDNs—encompassing 17 hospitals that comprise the bulk of the region's care delivery—to push out lab results, radiology reports and other clinical documents across a community-sponsored platform. Launched with the goal of facilitating physician access to hospital IT systems, HealthBridge also serves as a common physician portal. By cooperating on HealthBridge, the hospitals have streamlined physician access to their data and reduced distribution costs.

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WHY PRODUCT PLACEMENT DOES NOT EQUAL BRAND BUILDING

18 JUL 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Here’s a chaos scenario for you: What if the advertising industry spends billions of dollars to build an elaborate infrastructure of new-media technology to chase down the elusive consumer, and suddenly the consumer isn’t so elusive anymore? (Free subscription required!)

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Interview With David Gensler Of The KDU

17 JUL 2005 from IF | Read the full story»

David Gensler is considered one of the leading marketers for the youth and young adult market. He coined the now widely used term MASH CULTURE and has applied his thinking to brands across fashion, music, cars and beyond. Last week, IF managed to tempt David into Manhattan from his native Brooklyn to discuss with us the impact of Mash Culture on branding, marketing and society as we know it.

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Is BLOG going to be an industry term?

15 JUL 2005 from BuzzMetrics Mouthpiece | Read the full story»

One of my favorite pieces of data from the WOMMA Metrics Conference... Charlie Buchwalter, Head of Research for Nielsen//Netratings, delivered the results from a brand new study they did on blog readership.

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Managing for Creativity

JUL-AUG 2005 from Harvard Business Review Online | Read the full story»

A company’s most important asset isn’t raw materials, transportation systems, or political influence. It’s creative capital—simply put, an arsenal of creative thinkers whose ideas can be turned into valuable products and services. Creative employees pioneer new technologies, birth new industries, and power economic growth. Professionals whose primary responsibilities include innovating, designing, and problem solving—the creative class—make up a third of the U.S. workforce and take home nearly half of all wages and salaries. If you want your company to succeed, these are the people you entrust it to. That much is certain. What’s less certain is how to manage for maximum creativity. How do you increase efficiency, improve quality, and raise productivity, all while accommodating for the complex and chaotic nature of the creative process?

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10 Tips for Packaging That Sells Products to Boomers

15 JUL 2005 from NewsReleaseWire | Read the full story»

Boomers are a prime and growing target audience. Does your product speak to them? Does your product's packaging compel them to buy it? If not, you are missing a very important market segment. According to Rick Adler, founder of The Senior Network: "Simply based on population growth trends, if a product is marketed to the 50-plus audience and maintains its market share, it should increase in sales by 35 to 50 percent in the next 20 years. Conversely, a brand targeted at the zero to 50 age groups will be flat in sales." These 10 tips are adapted from DESIGN YOUR PACKAGING FOR THE ULTIMATE TARGET AUDIENCE - BOOMERS

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The rise of the corporate blogger GUIDE TO BLOGGING

15 JUL 2005 from FT.com | Read the full story»

Welcome to the blogosphere - home to those informal, frequently updated online journals that people create to share their thoughts and opinions. Web logs, or blogs, have for the most part remained the domain of millions of independent bloggers who want to talk politics, trade tech ideas, share their daily lives - or criticise corporations. Now those same corporations are trying to figure out how they can take advantage of this new medium to attract attention, cultivate customer relationships, respond to criticism - and perhaps sell a few more computers, cars or aircraft along the way.

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Pitchman for the Gray Revolution

28 JUN 2005 from Fortune | Read the full story»

Ken Dychtwald has a message for aging boomers and the corporations that sell to them: Retirement as we know it is over. Thank goodness for that. (Subscription required!)

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The Passion of the Marketers

Mainstream Hollywood, after decades of ignoring the pious, is adjusting to what it perceives as a rising religiosity in American culture. (Subscription required!)

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Samuelson: The World Is Still Round

Yes, some engineering jobs and data centers have moved to India and China. More will go. But the process isn't endless and can be exaggerated.

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From public relations to public relationships

Tim Bray has a terrific post on the Old and New public relations. Here's how I [David Weinberger] think about what's going on with PR. (Note: Sweeping generalizations ahead.)

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Painting the glass ceiling with a little green

Women executives do a better job of narrowing the gap between salaries of men and women. Hillary Wicai reports on the findings of a new study. (Audio)

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Study Finds Wired Hospitals Are Safer

Hospitals that have invested significantly in health information technology have lower mortality rates than other hospitals.

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A Cellphone, a Movie Lobby and a Message

This summer, moviegoers walking through theater lobbies in three cities might have felt a sudden vibration in their cellphones, the work of a nearby Bluetooth promotional kiosk. (Subscription required!)

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Branding in China (free download)

Last month, Christopher Liechty, president the AIGA Center for Cross-Cultural Design, moderated a panel on branding in China. The transcript from the session has been published and is available for free download. It's a long transcript but worth a read.

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Brain Drain in The Tech World?

The number of tech workers has dropped in recent years. What's behind the plunge?

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Accounting firms complain to watchdog

The big four accounting firms are trying to water down plans by the US regulator to hold their staff responsible for violations of securities laws.

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Marrying Maps to Data for a New Web Service

Yahoo, Google and Microsoft are creating map services that offer contextual advertisements tied to specific locations. (Subscription required!)

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Could Googling become illegal?

12 JUL 2005 from The Globe and Mail | Read the full story»

Could it be possible that Canada will make Google or any other Internet search and archiving engines illegal? Bill C-60, which amends the Copyright Act and received its first reading in the House of Commons on June 20, suggests it could be illegal for anyone to provide copyrighted information through "information-location tools," which includes search engines.

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Retailing: What's working online

15 JUL 2005 from The McKinsey Quarterly | Read the full story»

Today's successful online retailers, depending on their underlying economics and whether or not they have physical stores, choose one of four strategies. (Free subscription required!)

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Interview With Niku Banaie, Director Of Innovation At Naked (Part I)

13 JUL 2005 from IF | Read the full story»

Over the course of a 2 part interview IF discusses with Niku Banaie, the director of innovations, about advertising, Naked and their approach to creativity. In Part I we focus on the changes in the marketing landscape and what issues marketing and brand managers should now consider.

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Food Industry Defends Marketing to Children

As the marketing of unhealthy food to children comes under increasing fire, food companies have often expressed their view that they would be better off regulating themselves. The government, apparently, could not agree more. (Subscription required!)

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Flexible Color Paper Computer Screen

Fujitsu have announced the development of the world’s first flexible color paper computer screen. The new electronic paper features vivid color images that are unaffected even when the screen is bent...

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The Rush to Let Others Relax

The weekend turnover, where rented houses are made ready for their tenant, is a marvel of efficiency. (Subscription required!)

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Lawmakers, others object to mobile calls on aircraft

Three U.S. government agencies raised safety concerns Thursday about efforts to allow mobile phone calls on airplanes inflight, with law enforcement officials saying high-power mobile systems could allow terrorists to better coordinate their efforts with cohorts on the ground.

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H20 - Watering the tree of knowledge

On Wednesday, about 75 people crowded into a seminar room at Harvard Law to talk about H20 playlists, a Berkman project in beta that lets people build and share "lists" of online and offline resources. It grows out of projects started in 1998, including a structured forum ("Rotisserie") for mutliple classes to discuss shared readings. ("H20" originally stood for "Harvard 2.0." Hence, the 0 is a zero, not the letter O.)

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Tying One's Pay to Performance. What a Concept.

The recent corporate trend of handing out rich severance packages to speed the executive out the door for poor performance is a dangerous phenomenon. (Subscription required!)

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Delta's Memo to Employees

14 JUL 2005 from Wonderbranding | Read the full story»

Say... sorry about not being able to pay your pension. But look on the bright side... you'll look smashing in those new uniforms we just paid a major designer to create for you.

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Is 'Curated Consumption' A Marketer's Lie?

When in London, it's always a pleasure to wander around the hundreds of boutiques that dot the back streets between West Soho and Endell Street - you find such creative energy and individual style, they ache with signs of what could be next in retail, design, branding, marketing. What you'll notice in many of them is a selection of items that goes beyond a core line: you'll get your clothes, but maybe some books, magazines, films, beauty products, art and even food. These stores have been commonly termed as 'Lifestyle Stores' - stores that sell a defined and often niche lifestyle. Larger stores do this too: Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie for example. The trend, that's been suggested is called, 'Curated Consumption': time-starved consumers [driven] into the arms of a new breed of 'curators' and editors, who pre-select for them what to buy, what to experience, what to what to wear, what to read, what to drink and so on.

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Co-opting the creative revolution

Digital technology is providing people with the tools to produce and share content like never before.

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Think Different

Stanford's Jeffrey Pfeffer,... has some new research out that confirms one of Fast Company's long-held beliefs: that competing differently in a marketplace is strategy.

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Blog Pioneer Hits Hard Times

Even his Robot Wisdom Weblog can't keep Usenet legend Jorn Barger off the streets. By Paul Boutin from Wired magazine.

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Rick Valicenti: This Time It's Personal

In his newly-published monograph Emotion as Promotion: A Book of Thirst, Rick Valicenti provides a glimpse into a designer's life that is at once accessibly seductive and brazenly idiosyncratic.

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Will the U.N. run the Internet?

11 JUL 2005 from CNet News.com | Read the full story»

An international political spat is brewing over whether the United Nations will seize control of the heart of the Internet.

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Technologies 'to aid the poor'

13 JUL 2005 from BBC News | Technology | Read the full story»

The best way to help developing nations is to recognise that development is "of the people, by the people and for the people", says a Bangladeshi entrepreneur. Iqbal Quadir, Grameen Phone founder in Bangladesh, told experts gathered for TED Global in Oxford that aid strategies for the last 60 years had failed. Technologies such as mobiles empowered people because they connected them. This, he said, fuelled productivity much more than the top-down aid approach.

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FDA halts expansion of network to monitor medical device safety

14 JUL 2005 from The Boston Globe | Read the full story»

Despite its plans to closely monitor deadly malfunctions and misuses of medical devices through a new computer reporting system, the FDA has frozen the project in place well short of its goal. The system, known as MedSun, allows doctors to directly report to the FDA problems with pacemakers, stents, and defibrillators. The FDA had aimed to connect 500 of the nation's 5,000 eligible hospitals, but is stuck at 350.

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BUZZ MARKETING MOVES INTO HISPANIC COMMUNITY

14 JUL 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Buzz marketing, or grass-roots word-of-mouth promotion, which has become a standard technique for mainstream marketers, is now being deployed in the U.S. Hispanic community. (Free subscription required!)

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Free Lunches

JUL 2005 from FastCompany | Read the full story»

When companies offer us, of all people, something for nothing, we wonder: What's the catch -- or, for that matter, the business plan? So we asked actual experts -- Ben McConnell, author of Creating Customer Evangelists (Dearborn, 2002) and Jennifer Rice of Mantra Brand Consulting -- to assess a few high-profile giveaways. How do we know they're working?

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Two New Studies Look at Mothers -- and Smokers -- in the Workplace

Many parents love to brag about their children. Some even note their children's existence on their resumes. Perhaps they shouldn't. According to research presented by two Cornell University sociologists at a recent Wharton conference, mothers suffer when competing for jobs against similarly qualified fathers and childless men and women. Additional research discussed at the conference -- organized by Wharton's Center for Human Resources -- offered interesting observations on another workplace group: smokers. Scholars from Columbia University and Barnard College conclude that smokers are paid less on average than other workers because they may be less willing to invest time and effort in career advancement than nonsmoking colleagues.

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Why GM Is High on Hydrogen

The automaker is looking past hybrids to new fuel technology. By Lucas Graves from Wired magazine.

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Why voices in your head are usually male

Auditory verbal hallucinations, the "voices in your head" that schizophrenics often hear, are usually male. The reason is that female voices are harder for the brain to spontaneously produce, report University of Sheffield psychiatrists in the journal NeuroImage. Dr. Michael Hunter and his colleagues came to that explanation by scanning the brains of a dozen males listening to male and female voices. The female voices lit up the brain's audio cortex where sounds are "read" and analyzed, but the male voices activated a very different region.

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Eco-designs on future cities

Architects are looking at creating urban centres that are in tune with the environment.

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Jeff Bezos Reaches for the Stars

This past fall, Amazon.com's founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, sat down for an interview with Josh Quittner of Business 2.0. The meeting was part of the Churchill Club's annual "Dinner with Jeff Bezos." At this year's event, Mr. Bezos talked about how he went about building up Amazon.com, and why he's taking an entirely different approach with his new venture. Part Six of nine.

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Looking to Make a Sale or Get Promoted? Emotions Will Help Determine the Outcome

High emotion contributes to great opera. It does not, however, serve us well when making judgments about others. This is the argument advanced in "Feeling and Believing: The Influence of Emotion on Trust," a new paper by Maurice E. Schweitzer, Wharton professor of operations and information management, and PhD student Jennifer Dunn. The two researchers show how incidental emotions -- emotions from one situation that influence judgment in a following, unrelated situation -- affect our willingness to trust others, and thus our responses in certain business and social contexts. As Schweitzer puts it: "Did you give someone a big contract because of his reputation for dependability or because he told you a funny, uplifting story prior to making the deal?"

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How Long Can Workers Tread Water?

The wages of typical workers are growing roughly at the same rate that inflation eats into their buying power, while income gains are going mostly to the affluent. (Subscription required!)

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IBM Previews Workplace Blogging Tool

IBM is throwing more weight behind blogging as an enterprise collaboration application with a new Weblog tool that is part of its Workplace collaboration platform. IBM is previewing the tool on its alphaWorks developers Web site, where it is a free download. Known now as the Weblog Preview, the tool is expected to become a more "fully-built" blog component available as part of the Workplace Designer 2.5 release in August.

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IKEA To Move Into Groceries

Ikea has said it will move into the grocery market with its own-label products next year. Ikea has been selling food since the 1980s, when it launched in-store restaurants and began selling some food products - the restaurants are successful and the company's food markets division now stocks about 150 products, most of them from Sweden.

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Technorati: A New Public Utility

Blogging is often depicted as a reaction to failures of mainstream media. But it can also be complementary, as shown after the bomb attacks in London, when news agencies and web users alike turned to blogs and photo-sharing sites. Commentary by Adam Penenberg.

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Time to switch off and slow down

A hi-tech conference in Oxford is told it is time to switch off, unplug and slow down.

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Neighborhood-wide Capture the Flag in NYC [to]night

"Massive Capture the Flag in NYC's West Village, [to]night 7:30 PM, by NYGames (not sure who they are). Free and 'cell-phone enabled,' though I'm not sure how. Looks like fun, map included on the site." Link

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LEARNING FROM HILTON'S MARKETING MISTAKE

11 JUL 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

What’s your brand? If you can’t answer that question about your own brand in two or three words, your brand’s in trouble. (Free subscription required!)

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We're gonna make you a star

8 JUL 2005 from Guardian Unlimited | Read the full story»

Today, if you want to make it in rock, you won't get far without building your own brand. Just ask Keane, who hired a consultant before they'd even made a record. But are the UK's finest stylists really capable of successfully turning Alexis Petridis, journalist, into Alexis Petridis, cool and credible singer-songwriter?

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Children's roundabout solves the water problem in remote areas

12 JUL 2005 from Roundabout Outdoor | Read the full story»

Cavorting on a roundabout has always been fun for children. Now pure, clean borehole water can be pumped into water storage tanks while the playground roundabout equipment is in use. The Play-Pump is a specifically designed and patented playground roundabout that drives conventional borehole pumps, keeping costs and maintenance to an absolute minimum, while entertaining the children.

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Summer Reading for B-Schoolers

5 JUL 2005 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

Whether they're on the beach or on the subway, MBA students are filling the off-season with books. Here's a look at some of their choices.

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solving the problem of tv waste

12 JUL 2005 from Influx Insights Weblog | Read the full story»

With shortening product lifecycles and rapidly declining prices, we seem to be churning though consumer electronics at an ever-increasing rate.

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Globalization spreads to punctuation, as dots replace dashes in phone numbers

11 JUL 2005 from Yahoo! News | Read the full story»

The difference between 202-383-6008 and 202.383.6008, image consultants say, is like ... the difference between tap water and Pellegrino. Or flipping channels to avoid commercials vs. using TiVo.

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INSIDE TIMES SQUARE'S REUTERS SIGN

11 JUL 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Crawling up the side of the Reuters building at 3 Times Square, the Reuters sign at 43rd and Broadway is 23 stories of high-tech equipment demonstrating daily how the old concept of billboards can dramatically -- and literally -- connect with the new digital age. (Free subscription required!)

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Venture to Put Live Shows on Internet and Radio

America Online and XM Satellite Radio are backing a venture that will deliver live performances to Internet, satellite and wireless customers and through other media. (Subscription required!)

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Blogging + Video = Vlogging

Got room for one more online media trend? Here come the vloggers, who have added video shorts to the user-created media mix. Part 1 of a three-part series. By Katie Dean. PLUS: The Vlog World's Greatest Hits.

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The Health Benefits of Working for a Lifetime

Many Americans are working well past the age of retirement. Dr. Robert Butler, founding director of the National Institute on Aging and CEO of the International Longevity Center, talks about why people choose to keep working. Butler says work gives older people's lives meaning, control and an income. (Audio)

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Skype and Boingo announce VoIP Wi-Fi partnership

Skype International and Boingo Wireless announced a partnership Tuesday that will allow users to access Skype's VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) technology from 18,000 Wi-Fi hot spots worldwide.

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(Almost) ready for retirement

A growing number of Americans are postponing retirement. From the Work and Family Desk, Marketplace's Hillary Wicai reports that phased retirement is a trend many employers are happy to see. (Audio)

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The CBS Evening Blog

CBS News is turning its eye on itself, introducing a Web log to comment on CBS newscasts, whether broadcast or online. (Subscription required!)

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Producing More Better Paying, 'Quality' Jobs

Researchers say it's not how many jobs are created, but how good the jobs are that's important. Some research suggests there are signs of growth in higher wage jobs. The problem is that wages aren't rising as quickly in lower paying industries like manufacturing. (Audio)

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Diapers Revive Dead Dot-Com

The former chief technology officer of defunct delivery service Kozmo.com launches a new business that brings diapers, baby food and assorted groceries to Manhattan dwellers' doorsteps. By Rachel Metz.

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CBS to launch broadband news service

CBS News, a unit of Viacom, announced plans to launch a 24-hour broadband network in an effort to compete with traditional cable news channels and grab a greater share of the booming online advertising market. (Subscription required!)

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ARE YOU BECOMING IRRELEVANT TO YOUR CUSTOMERS?

12 JUL 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Why marketers, agencies and media execs need to understand disintermediation. (Free subscription required!)

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The New Face of IBM

China's biggest IT brand wants to go global. So it bought the PC division -- and the world-class management -- of an American icon. Who says being 'oceans apart' is a bad thing? By Kevin Maney from Wired magazine.

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My Favorite Book is Not About Design (or Is It?)

Act One, the autobiography of playwright and director Moss Hart, is the best, funniest, and most inspiring description of the creative process ever put down on paper.

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My Way or the Web Way

Internet searches are overtaking personal recommendations as the preferred means of obtaining travel information.

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The New International Style of Management

Today's transnational road warriors and the businesses they work for are forging an international style of business, say Harvard Business School faculty and alumni. Do you speak their language?

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Mark Cuban: Been there, heard that

The man who became a billionaire capitalizing on the Internet's ability to deliver radio programs has some advice for the thousands of people producing podcasts: Trying to make a business out of it is a mistake.

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Forget Legroom. Our Backs Are Killing Us.

So just how uncomfortable is the average seat in economy class? It is clear that conditions in the back of the plane have never been worse. (Subscription required!)

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Mobiles 'quadruple crash danger'

Using a mobile phone when driving quadruples crash risk, and hands-free devices are no safer, say experts.

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Book Report: Enlightened Power: How Women are Transforming the Practice of Leadership

A wide sample of contributors explore women's paths to power.

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I.B.M. and Partner May Offer Broadband From a Wall Plug

I.B.M. will announce a partnership today with CenterPoint Energy, a utility based in Houston, to develop broadband services to be delivered over electric power lines. (Subscription required!)

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New Models for Design Efficiency: Introducing Otto

Based on the broadway play by William Merchant, Desk Set dramatized the notion of computer efficiency as a harbinger of dystopian doom. The computer, dubbed the "Emerac" (clearly modeled on the Eniac) becomes a kind of silent fall guy, big and impersonal and impervious to the subtleties of life, love and the Dewey Decimal system. Of course, nearly half a century later, none of us really believe computers are running the show. Unless the computer's called Otto.

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Whole Foods shuns ads, sells lifestyle

10 JUL 2005 from Austin American-Statesman | Read the full story»

Spending sparingly on marketing, grocer thrives by creating a shopping experience. (Free subscription required!)

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Airlines hope new fashions make financial statement

6 JUL 2005 from USA TODAY | Read the full story»

Six international airlines, including Delta Air Lines, have hired high-profile designers to revamp uniforms for thousands of flight attendants, reviving a nearly dormant industry tradition. In earlier decades, Christian Dior, Bill Blass and Calvin Klein dressed the industry's most visible employees.

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Lean Consumption

9 JUL 2005 from Edge Perspectives | Read the full story»

A few months ago, Harvard Business Review published an article on "Lean Consumption" (purchase required) by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones, two of the leading champions of the concept of lean management... The HBR article is interesting, both for what it says and what it neglects to say. It reflects a broader trend in business management to apply many of the same management techniques that have worked well in other business processes to customer relationship management.

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Diners Walk Through One Door and Visit Two Restaurants

Yum Brands is one of several restaurant companies that are combining two different restaurants under one roof. (Subscription required!)

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Banks talked via secret chatroom

A secret internet chatroom helped keep London's financial markets open after the bomb attacks, it is revealed.

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Life Expectancy is Still 50 Years According to Madison Avenue

Everybody looks at the youth market, but it's 50-plus that's going to drive the auto industry and incremental sales" for the next 10 to 15 years.

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Cul-de-Sac Cred

How Marc Ecko, a proud New Jersey boy and hip-hop fan, created an urban-clothing brand that speaks to the suburbs. (Subscription required!)

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Why Do So Many Consumers Choose Frills When Plain-Old Will Do? Pure Laziness

We are too busy to spend time on every decision we face, so we take the first option given. (Subscription required!)

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Levy: How Telcos, Cable Kill Low-Cost Wi-Fi

Guess who wants to stop you from getting universal, citywide wireless cheaper than you get it now?

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In Store for Wireless Customers: Apple-like Stores

Some pretty important people -- Mort Rosenthal, the founder of Corporate Software, at one point the world's largest PC software distributor, and Staples founder Tom Stemberg -- are plotting a new kind of a wireless venture. A wireless reseller that would revolutionize the wireless industry, to be exact.

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Optic Nerve

Turning reading glasses from a marker of aging to a marker of style. (Subscription required!)

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Feds Fear Air Broadband Terror

Law enforcement officials want to eavesdrop on air passengers' internet use with a court order. The federal agencies are concerned that terror attacks could be coordinated using new in-flight broadband connections. By Kevin Poulsen.

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Mobiles get net home of their own

A net domain for mobile phones, .mobi, has won official approval.

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No Rest for the Weary

Just what's so wrong with the 35-hour week? (Subscription required!)

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This is Cambridge calling...

The rise of podcasting is allowing bidding pop stars to reach a global audience through the internet. Even the man behind the Beatles senses a shake up in the old order.

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Sparkler art made with long exposures

These sparkler artists left their cameras' shutters open while drawing elaborate pictures in the air with their Fourth of July sparklers. The results are fantastic. Link

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IMPLICATIONS OF LATEST BABY BOOMER MILESTONE

4 JUL 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Two decades after Thirtysomething, get ready for 50-something. Boomers will reach a milestone at the end of the next TV season: More than half of baby boomers will be age 50 or older. They will leave the 18-to-49 demographic so coveted by advertisers. And they will qualify for membership in AARP. (Free subscription required!)

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Some US women cannot afford medicine, survey finds

7 JUL 2005 from Yahoo! News | Read the full story»

Two-thirds of women who had no health insurance and more than a quarter of young and middle-aged U.S. women went without medical care last year because they could not afford it, according to a survey released on Thursday.

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Online Shoppers in India

Consumer e-commerce sales in India are projected to top $550 million by 2007.

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Sprint Offers High-Speed Wireless Service

The Sprint Corporation has begun selling high-speed wireless services, betting that the fast-growing market for mobile data will offset falling prices for phone calls. (Subscription required!)

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63% of large companies employ or will employ people to audit outbound e-mail

63% of large companies employ or plan to hire people to read or audit sent e-mail, Forrester Research says.

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Wannado City

7 JUL 2005 from Next by Ramla | Read the full story»

Kids play out their fantaises in style by role-playing with imaginery objects and imaginary settings... But in Wannado City, brainchild of Mexican-born entrepreneur Luis Javier Laresgoiti, kids roleplay in real-life settings and carry out virtually real tasks.

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SCHOOL DISTRICT TO SELL BUILDING NAMING RIGHTS

5 JUL 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

A school district in suburban Detroit has decided to sell naming rights to its buildings -- including a new elementary school -- as a way to offset the one-two punch of rising education costs and decreasing public funds. The Plymouth-Canton school board voted unanimously June 28 to consider commercial naming opportunities for everything from the new school to athletic fields to events such as the prom. (Free subscription required!)

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Man Charged With Stealing Wi-Fi Signal

6 JUL 2005 from Yahoo! News | Read the full story»

Police have arrested a man for using someone else's wireless Internet network in one of the first criminal cases involving this fairly common practice.

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EYE-TRACKING TECHNOLOGY DRAWS NEW INTEREST

4 JUL 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Agency tests methods for measuring eye movements across online pages. New technologies, as well as increased demand for measuring results, are leading some agencies to take another look at the use of eye-movement tracking devices. (Free subscription required!)

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the science of trends

7 JUL 2005 from Influx Insights Weblog | Read the full story»

French scientists Michard and Bouchard spent some time examining the numbers behind phenomena like birth rates, cell phone growth and clapping. Their paper looks at the data in detail to find herding effects. To do this they looked at mathematical theories for magnetic behavior and applied them to social phenomena.

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MCDONALD'S PLANS TO REINVENT EMPLOYEE UNIFORMS

4 JUL 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

McDonald’s is recruiting Russell Simmons, P. Diddy and Tommy Hilfiger to perform a miracle makeover: Turn its employees' mundane uniforms into hip street wear. (Free subscription required!)

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At Sony, Rivalries Were Encouraged; Then Came iPod

29 JUN 2005 from The Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

A year ago, Howard Stringer watched helplessly while Sony Corp. fumbled the launch of its online music business. As head of Sony's U.S. operations, Mr. Stringer had championed a plan for a service, dubbed Connect, to compete with Apple Computer Inc.'s popular iTunes store. But he ran into a problem that was all too common at the electronics giant: Different groups within Sony handled different parts of the service, and they didn't work well together. (Subscription required!)

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London rocked by terror attacks

At least two people are killed and many more injured in terror attacks on London's transport network.

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Blogs respond to London blasts

News of explosions across central London has quickly spread across the net as people try to get information.

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Just a Minute, Boss. My Cellphone Is Ringing.

The workplace is the last frontier in the great American debate about cellphone etiquette. (Subscription required!)

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London beats Paris to win Olympic gold

London will host the 2012 Olympic Games after pulling off a spectacular come-from-behind victory to snatch the biggest prize in the world from favourites Paris.

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Disney targets families with new wireless service

Walt Disney Co. said Wednesday it will start a wireless phone service next year designed for parents and their kids. The entertainment giant aims to leverage its powerful brand name to create a service, Disney Mobile, tailored to meet the "unique" communications needs of families.

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When Entrepreneurs Risk It All and Lose

Instead of cracking down on consumers who cannot pay credit card bills, a new bankruptcy law threatens to hobble untold numbers of entrepreneurs caught in financial setbacks. (Subscription required!)

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Judge Orders Reporter Jailed

Divided by circumstances and against a backdrop of constitutional drama, two journalists took different paths yesterday -- one to jail, one to testify before a grand jury about a confidential source. (Subscription required!)

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Stuck in Traffic? This Navigator Tool Finds a Detour

Tell Magellan's RoadMate 760 navigation system how much you can stand, and when your speed drops below 15 miles an hour for long enough, the device will offer to reroute you. (Subscription required!)

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Interview With Björn Jeffery Of Manolo.se

Björn Jeffery runs one of the most popular web-blogs in Sweden, Manolo.se. In a short period of time the Swedish language site has picked up traffic, admirers and awards.

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Spam Blockers Duel for Backing

Amid an avalanche of spam, scams and viruses, a group of technology giants is struggling to restore trust and order to email. (Subscription required!)

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Out With the Old Phone, in With the Cash

RipMobile.com is one of many Web-based companies willing to pay consumers in cash or merchandise for their old cellphones. (Subscription required!)

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An Introduction to E-Voting

More Americans are casting votes using computerized systems that store results on memory chips and cards. But critics say the systems can't be trusted unless they provide a paper trail. Here's a synopsis of what's at stake. By Kim Zetter.

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Should You Outsource Your Marketing?

Few companies own all the marketing expertise they need, especially of the left-brain, analytic variety. Professor Gail McGovern outlines the pros and cons of turning over your marketing activities to outsiders.

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Live Surgical Webcasts Play to Potential Patients

Medical advertisers are offering live Webcasts from hospital operating rooms to show potential patients what to expect.

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Who's Stingy?

Last year U.S. bilateral aid to Africa was $3.2 billion compared with $1.1 billion in the final year of the Clinton Administration. The Treasury Department says nearly one-quarter of every dollar in development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa last year came from the U.S.

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European Parliament Rejects Software Patent Law

6 JUL 2005 from The Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

STRASBOURG, France – The European Parliament on Wednesday rejected a proposed law to create a single way of patenting software across the European Union, a blow to big companies who had pushed hard for its adoption.

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Getting New Managers Up to Speed

The usual employee-orientation process needs to be retired. In this article from Harvard Management Update, savvy companies explain how to jump-start the success of new managers. Tip: Set up meetings, use technology, and coach newcomers.

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Modern Thrills in 'Lethal Secrets'

Lethal Secrets, by Pete Earley, is a thriller that brings together the Cold War, present-day terrorism, U.S. inter-agency turf wars, the new Russia, and post-9/11 America. (Audio)

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Getting the Lead Out

NPR's Morning Edition recently had an excellent story on the "Comeback Kid" of small business, General Pencil. Founded in 1864, this New Jersey-based, family-operated pencil manufacturer still uses machinery from the beginning of the 20th century to create high-end pencils.

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The Buttonwood column: carbon-emissions trading

Europe's first-mover disadvantage: Europe and its new carbon-emissions trading system are doing their bit to make pollution history. Where is everyone else?

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Umbilical cord is new source of stem cell

Scientists in Singapore have found a new source of stem cells used to create new tissues—the umbilical cord.

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M&S considers breast cancer lingerie line

Marks and Spencer is considering a range of lingerie designed for women who have had breast cancer surgery. The idea is part of the retailer's drive to position itself more effectively as a responsible business.

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See If You're a Good Friend

Using avatars and a mobile device, The Social Fabric shows you at a glance just how well you're tending to your personal relationships. By Daniel Terdiman.

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Cycling: Armstrong leads Tour

Lance Armstrong takes the overall lead after stage four of the Tour de France.

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Do Something

One of the earliest business rules I can recall that made a HUGE difference in my professional style was ...

Never present a problem to your boss without having a suggested solution ready. Don't be part of the problem, be part of the solution.

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Blackberry backlash

At a recent technology conference, addiction to Blackberry, the handheld e-mail device, was all the rage: "crackberry," they called it. Commentator Tom Standage has more. (Audio)

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Internet given election verdict

The web was more important at this year's [UK] election but failed to make a breakthrough, says a report.

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The Congo Case

Sending all the money in the world won't accomplish much without peace, security and functioning states in Africa. And the nation at the continent's core has none of the above.

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The Glory of France

It's fitting that France was chosen last week as the site for an experimental nuclear fusion reactor being built by an international consortium. The French have been a glowing example (no pun intended) of the benefits of nuclear power for decades.

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Deep Impact Scores Bull's-Eye

NASA's probe completes its suicide mission, slamming into the Tempel 1 comet late Sunday. Images from the mothership show the impact hurled debris into space and caused the comet to shine six times brighter than normal.

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A Founder's Advice

Thomas Jefferson's 19th-century advice would undoubtedly forestall much contemporary misconduct.

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Marketers See Opportunity as a Web Tool Gains Users

Google, Pheedo, Feedster and Yahoo Search Marketing are all peddling advertising options for R.S.S.

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'How to Be Idle': Being and Do-Nothingness

Tom Hodgkinson, the founder of the magazine The Idler, provides lessons in the art of laziness.

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Skipping Stones for the Win

Michele Norris talks with Eric Steiner, play-by-play announcer for the Mackinac Island stone-skipping contest, about the pro division of the 31st annual Mackinac Island stone-skipping contest. Russ "Rock Bottom" Byars of Franklin, Penn., bested the 10-person field with a record-setting 30 skips. (Audio)

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Making Art With God's Little Toys

Confessions of a cut-and-paste writer. By William Gibson from Wired magazine.

"Who owns the words?" asked a disembodied but very persistent voice throughout much of Burroughs' work. Who does own them now? Who owns the music and the rest of our culture? We do. All of us.

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Explaining Differences in Twins

A genetic survey has showed that identical twins, as they grow older, differ increasingly in what is known as their epigenome.

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We Are All Editors Now. Or Are We?

The fact is that many designers fancy themselves in the role of editor. Why wouldn’t they? They work with editors all the time. At least they should be working with them. If a designer is handling text and there is no editor in sight, then things are probably already starting to go wrong ... Usually there is an editor and sometimes more than one. Designers see this person, envy the power he or she has — to decide on content, to make final decisions, to boss the designer around — and think to themselves: “I could do that. I’m practically doing it already!”

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Computing aids to track cancer

Regional bodies that monitor cancer in the UK are looking to a new computer system to help them. But whilst gathering the information is hard enough in itself, much publicised new computer systems being put in place throughout the NHS will mean a substantially larger amount of information coming their way.

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The Written Word Still Thrives

Authors contributing to a new essay collection on 'writing in unreaderly times' say the literary world is holding up well in today's media-saturated culture. By Susannah Breslin.

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Secrets of the Dinosaurs

With the help of new fossil discoveries and new technologies, scientists are learning how dinosaurs lived—and died.

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Web Calls Are Becoming More Than Just Talk

Why VOIP Matters to Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, and everyone else (and introducing the Gizmo Project).

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A Coming Dark Age for Innovation?

A provocative view from Jonathan Huebner, a physicist at the Pentagon's Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California, holds that that technological innovation has actually been slowing down for more than a century.

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Sizing the Emerging Global Labor Market

30 Jun 2005 from McKinsey Quarterly | Read the full story»

The topic of offshoring generates extreme differences of opinion among policy makers, business executives, and thought leaders. Some have argued that nearly all service jobs will eventually move from developed economies to low-wage ones. Others say that rising wages in cities such as Bangalore and Prague indicate that the supply of offshore talent is already running thin.

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Supercomputer for Dodgy Tickers

Boston's sick and infirm may soon have a new treatment tool at their disposal: one of the world's fastest supercomputers. By Mark Baard.

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Temptation Island

Chocolates are divine and heavenly, but hey they’re also dark and sinful. Whatever the adjective you prefer, you sure can’t resist them.

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Weblog Watch

At Glastonbury this year, one of the realities of weblogging became apparent: it's now easier to photo-blog than it is to post text.

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Hewlett Cites Progress on Quantum Computer

Hewlett-Packard has developed a new strategy for designing a quantum computer composed of light beams that could be more powerful than today's electronic computers.

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Time Inc. to Yield Files on Sources, Relenting to U.S.

Norman Pearlstine, Time Inc.'s editor in chief, said that he concluded after much reflection that, "We are not above the law."

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Women of the Lodge

There's only one thing more mysterious than freemasons, and that's women freemasons—known as 'brothers'.

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Bloomsbury prepares for latest Harry Potter

Bloomsbury, the publisher transformed by a schoolboy magician, is poised to launch its biggest advertising campaign to coincide with the launch of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. (Subscription required!)

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Consumers, Long the Targets, Become the Shapers of Campaigns

Involving consumers in advertising choices is another way to reach viewers who tune out traditional advertising with TiVo and other digital video recorders.

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What science knows it doesn't know

David Pescovitz: Scientific journal Science is celebrating its 125th anniversary by asking 125 big questions that science can't answer ... yet. The ground rule in the selection process was that "scientists should have a good shot at answering the questions over the next 25 years, or they should at least know how to go about answering them." Here are the top 25 ...

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Kotler’s Top Five Marketing Tips

From the marketing culture purveyors at Agenda by way of CNN.com, we present Professor Kotler’s Top Five Marketing Tips. (Nothing revolutionary here ... just simple, sound, and super-smart marketing thinking.)

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Burger King Opens First Outlet in China

SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- Burger King opened its first Chinese outlet in Shanghai on Monday, hoping to take a bite out of rival McDonald's profits in the booming Chinese fast-food market ...

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What Bill Says CEOs Should Be Reading by Todd S.

Bill Gates held his annual CEO Summit last month.

We have a little inside scoop for you.

There were five books recommended to the attendees ...

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Mobile Video: The Last Eyeballs

Television comes to the tiny screen.

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Opening Up Data (Kinda, Sorta)

For years, open-source advocate Tim O'Reilly has excoriated some companies such as Mapquest for failing to open up their storehouses of data to creative outside programmers who could create new services on top of that data. The benefits can be...

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The Skype Brand - Vital and Viral

Malthe Sigurdsson, from Skype, did a talk at Reboot 7 about how they built the brand and the basic principles behind their way of working: do simple things really well; release all the time (ie keep updating the application in small bites); evolve; open up; and viral features. A good illustration of the idea of simplicity is their preference for plain language—so talk about sharing and calls, not peer-to-peer and VOIP or telephony.

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PeopleSoft boosts Oracle sales

Oracle's acquisition of rival PeopleSoft and strong demand for business and database software helped the world's second-largest software maker report better than expected fourth-quarter net profits and revenues. (Subscription required!)

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Follow the Leapin' Leprechaun

Germany and France need to face reality: either they become Ireland or they become museums.

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BellSouth hastens fiber rollout

BellSouth said that it plans to accelerate its deployment of fibre-optic network technology following recent positive regulatory and court rulings. (Subscription required!)

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