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Sunday, June 29, 2014

Article: The Story About Amazon's Jeff Bezos Eating Octopus For Breakfast Is Symbolic Of His Business Strategy

The Story About Amazon's Jeff Bezos Eating Octopus For Breakfast Is Symbolic Of His Business Strategy
http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-matt-rutledge-profile-2014-6?op=1

How Africa Is Challenging Marketing

For the first time, Western stereotypes associating Africa with death, disease, poverty, and war are being replaced by the reality of demanding, brand-conscious consumers who happen to live in a challenging environment. For too long, "Africa" has been considered a homogenous mass rather than a multicultural continent of diverse citizens. The media-generated image of passive beneficiaries of international charity and financial aid is now giving way to one of active customers voicing their opinions on product performance, service quality, and advertising. After all, the emerging affluent African consumer is as connected as the rest of the world, smartphone always in hand. As this untapped market captures global attention, it also offers marketers a chance to leapfrog the legacy of mass marke...

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

Harvard Business Review: Investors Always Come Back … Even to Argentina

Investors Always Come Back … Even to Argentina

Argentina lost big to a group of American "vulture" hedge funds in court last week, when the Supreme Court declined to reconsider an appeals court decision that the funds had the right to demand that the country make good on a bunch of old bonds they owned even though it long ago renegotiated the terms of that debt with most creditors. (For explanations of the case, see Felix Salmon in Foreign Affairs and Matt Levine at Bloomberg View.) Short-term, this represents a crisis for Argentina, which has until June 30 to either pay out or default. Over the long run, though, it may be a step toward removing such cases from unsympathetic American courts and letting countries like Argentina battle it out with creditors on friendlier turf. This is an outcome that Laura Alfaro, a professor in the Busi...

http://d12wy5ngtjjtak.cloudfront.net/ipad/blogs/3sfso88PTNM.html

Harvard Business Review: When to Schedule Your Most Important Work

When to Schedule Your Most Important Work

If you work with a team, chances are your inbox is often flooded with invitations. Internal meetings, client conference calls, the occasional lunch request. Assuming you have some control over your calendar, how you respond to these offers generally depends on two factors: the value of attending the meeting and your availability. Rarely, however, do most consider a third factor in our decision-making criteria: the time of day when you are at your most productive. By now, you've probably noticed that the person you are midway through the afternoon is not the same person who arrived first thing in the morning. Research shows our cognitive functioning fluctuates throughout the day. If you're like most people, you'll find that you can get a lot done between 9:00am and 11:00am. Not so at 2:30...

http://d12wy5ngtjjtak.cloudfront.net/ipad/blogs/uYxJz68HefQ.html

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 ...

http://d12wy5ngtjjtak.cloudfront.net/ipad/blogs/suFTrT6rvdc.html

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...

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

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...

http://d12wy5ngtjjtak.cloudfront.net/ipad/blogs/QFcV940x5Cg.html