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Sunday, June 29, 2014

Harvard Business Review: Patents Are Eating the World and Hurting Innovation

Patents Are Eating the World and Hurting Innovation

It's been a busy month for intellectual property. In late May, the U.S. Senate failed to pass a reform bill aimed at curbing the influence of patent trolls. In early June, Elon Musk announced that Tesla would not initiate lawsuits with any firm that used its patents "in good faith." Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling limiting the scope of software patents. The backdrop for all of it — and the reason why so many companies ought to be paying attention — is the explosion of patent litigation since the 1980s, illustrated below: That chart is also key to understanding Tesla's decision to share its patents in order to grow the electric vehicle industry, as I discussed today with Orly Lobel of University of San Diego and James Bessen of BU. (You can watch the recording of our ...

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Harvard Business Review: The Hidden Costs of Cash

The Hidden Costs of Cash

Cash – by which I mean paper currency and coins — has many benefits. It's safe from hackers. It doesn't require any special hardware or software. There is no fee charged to retailers who use it and no exorbitant interest rates lying in wait for consumers. It's accepted almost everywhere and it offers anonymity. While it has been steadily displaced by a variety of competitors, such as credit and debit cards, mobile payments, and cryptocurrencies, there are many good reasons paper money has stuck around. There's an assumption that cash is best when money is tight – best for the poor, and best for small businesses running on tight margins. And yet cash does carry costs. My colleague Benjamin Mazzotta and I have been studying the costs of cash across a wide range of countries: U.S., Mexico, ...

http://d12wy5ngtjjtak.cloudfront.net/ipad/blogs/a1zPShzLtrU.html

Harvard Business Review: Win Over an Opponent by Asking for Advice

Win Over an Opponent by Asking for Advice

What do an inflated surgical bill, a fuming real-estate developer, and a dreaded performance appraisal have in common? All can be mitigated with one simple gesture: a request for advice. We seek advice on a daily basis, on everything from who grills the best burger in town to how to handle a sticky situation with a coworker. However, many people don't fully appreciate how powerful requesting guidance can be. Soliciting advice will arm you with information you didn't have before, but there are other benefits you may not have considered: 1. Advisors will like you more: Arthur Helps sagely observed, "We all admire the wisdom of people who come to us for advice." Being asked for advice is inherently flattering because it's an implicit endorsement of our opinions, values, and expertise. Furt...

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Harvard Business Review: Proven Ways to Earn Your Employees’ Trust

Proven Ways to Earn Your Employees' Trust

Trust is often talked about as the bedrock of a company's success. Most people think about the issue in terms of customers: They have to believe in you and your products and services. But trust within the organization is just as important: Your employees must believe in each other. When they don't, communication, teamwork and performance inevitably suffer. After New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger fired the newspaper's editor, Jill Abramson, in May, he explained that he'd repeatedly warned her that she was losing the trust of the newsroom. But how do you build trust in the workplace? What the Experts Say Trust is an "evolving thing that ebbs and flows," says David DeSteno, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and the author of The Truth About Trust. And yet it's ess...

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