Americans have more leisure time than before. But why do Americans feel so harried? Weirdly, prosperity may be to blame in two ways. First, thanks to rising real incomes, an American’s time is worth more now. A walk in the park is more expensive than it used to be. (When people complain to him about being too busy, Mr Hamermesh tells them that their real problem is too much money.) ...
The Economist on Business Continuity Planning. The effect on Ericsson, a Swedish mobile-phone company, of a fire in a New Mexico chipmaking plant belonging to the Dutch firm Philips, has become a legend. The fire, in March 2000, started by a bolt of lightning, lasted less than 10 minutes, but it caused havoc to the super-clean environment that chipmaking requires. Ericsson, unable to find an alternative source of supply, went on to report a loss of over $2 billion in its mobile-phone division that year, a loss that left it as an also-ran in an industry where it had once been a leader. ...
The Economist: Americans get better service because they complain more. (subscription required)
Saddam captured. He looks pretty cool, unshaven.
i2 may have to delist. And delisting may be good for them.
The Economist on Sony’s strategy. via emergic
The Economist on how copyrights aren’t really helping creativity, which is what they were intended to do in the first place. via andersja
An interesting legal conundrum. When Nike was accused of running sweatshops in Asia, it responded with press releases and ads claiming that it did not. Marc Kasky filed a case saying that Nike was advertising unfairly, and won. Now corporates are raising the question of whether corporate statements are free speech, and can be similarly protected.
The Economist argues that in making ’ethical practices’ and ‘social responsibility’ prominent, corporates create a vicious cycle of guilt-until-proven-innocent. I agree with that part. But I wonder if the incentives in companies are aligned to benefit all stakeholders. Sure, in the long-run, everything is factored into the stock price. But the short (not even the medium) run is what managers need worry about, given the dynamic job market.
Microsoft (2002) vs IBM (1982). An article on whether Microsoft will go the IBM Way. Microsoft’s ability to adapt and prosper hinges on meeting a third main challenge: creating trust.
Interesting Economist article by Drucker about The Near Future. The usual stuff about megatrends, which is, as always, a good read.
America’s population ageing seems to be less than was expected, thanks to more kids per couple. kuro5hin has a good discussion.
Good summary of what Microsoft is up to at the Economist.
The Economist Technology Quarterly. Great tech news, a little infrequent though. (Thanks, Markose!)
Looks like the US has interfered a lot in all kinds of things. The Economist wants them to “… try again”.
The Economist Style Guide. The part on inverted commas is insightful, especially in contrast with brackets.
Interesting article on which industries have benefited from Sep 11th.
Brain map.
The Economist website looks more like a newspaper now.
The Economist has an article on The failure of new media – about how the Internet’s a disappointment. In fact they have lots of articles on the Internet.