W. P. Carey MBA - Executive Program - Arizona State University

Innovation and success in business

They aren't the same thing, of course. As a case in point, Apple has just made the public aware that there will be a new extended line of iPods the first of next year, in colors and different designs, each containing 2 to 4 GB, or enough memory to store 400 to 800 of your favorite songs. And they will start at about $100. What is it that keeps Apple and Steve Jobs always at the forefront of innovation in computing but never at the forefront of business success? Fast Company investigates the links between innovation and business success using Apple and Jobs as an extended example.

Carb-counting bagels

There is a new breakfast food available at most breadfast bars: a "carb counting" bagel that has 30% fewer calories and 40% fewer carbs. This new creation is in response to the shift in public eating preferences resulting from the popularity of the Atkins Diet -- a popularity based on having convinced millions of Americans that the real dietary threat from a double-bacon-and-cheese-burger is the bun.

From the front lines we have this report on the new "carb counting bagels:"

Mars Ho!

Multiple probes are headed to Mars landings in the next week. Some great pictures are comimg back.

Zipcoded

Here is an interactive zipcode map -- type in any code and watch as the map home in on the location. Called by some "the coolest zipcode map ever."

The value of happiness

Some accidents involve not only the loss of income or reputation, but make one's life less happy, as well: "hedonic damage" is the legal term. How to value happiness (and, by extension, its loss)? Chicago-based economist Stan Smith has made a career of placing an economic value on happiness as an aid to juries in determining how much to compensate those who have lost it. How happy are you in dollars? This article might help figure that out.

Alarming news

Cars with theft alarms are no less likely to be stolen than cars without them. Worse, before being stolen they pollute the neighborhoods they inhabit with "noise pollution." New York City is evaluating a ban on car alarms -- it would be against the law to have an active anti-theft alarm on your vehicle. If your car is stolen and there is evidence that there was an alarm system active, both you and the car thief would be charged. It might be safer to just find the car on your own. (The link requires registration but no fee.)

The impact of the internet on political movements

Frank Rich of the New York Times is writing on politically-significant cluelessness when it comes to understanding the impact of blogging, the internet and grass-roots movements in the political campaigns this year. How does this cluelessness manifest itself among mainstream media in general and Washington media more particularly?

First, it takes the form of cultural backwardness. The Washington press corps--along with those it interviews most--are an elite lagging in Net time:

In Washington, the Internet is still seen mainly as a high-velocity disseminator of gossip (Drudge) and rabidly partisan sharpshooting by self-publishing excoriators of the left and right. When used by campaigns, the Internet becomes a synonym for "the young," "geeks," "small contributors" and "upper middle class," as if it were an eccentric electronic cousin to direct-mail fund-raising run by the acne-prone members of a suburban high school's computer club

Second, the cluelessness is tonal, a hearing and speech problem, which causes journalists to dismiss what they have not struggled to understand, and then to advertise that lack of effort. Here things become comic.

The condescending reaction to the Dean insurgency by television's political correspondents can be reminiscent of that hilarious party scene in the movie "Singin' in the Rain," where Hollywood's silent-era elite greets the advent of talkies with dismissive bafflement. "The Internet has yet to mature as a political tool," intoned Carl Cameron of Fox News last summer as he reported that the runner-up group to Dean supporters on the meetup.com site was witches.

There's more. Read the whole thing.

Mechanical anti-biotics

Among many of the new nanotechnology advances is an antibiotic that operates mechanically:

peptide nanotubes that kill bacteria by punching holes in the bacteria's membrane.

Because these select out the bacteria cells but don't puncture the host cell, developing resistance to the antibiotic is much less likely. There are other advances, too: high-strength metals (by a factor of 10 to 50!), metallic cells that clean up contaminating chemicals, and nano-motors.

How big is Wal-Mart?

This big:

Out of every dollar spent in a store in the U.S., seven and a half cents go to Wal-Mart

Nearly ten percent of China's exports to the U.S. go to Wal-Mart

It does more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway, and Kroger combined.

a McKinsey & Co. study concluded that about 12% of the economy's productivity gains in the second half of the 1990s could be traced to Wal-Mart alone.

Wal-Mart has 21,000 suppliers

How does this kind of size impact their business model? Here's one recent take on that.

More PowerPoints

What if Lincoln had used PowerPoint for his Gettysburg address? Wonder no more. Here's the background on the presentation and some discussion.