Fast Company Features - on Pinterest, Windows 8, Uniqlo and Coursera

After not reading Fast Company for a few months, I went through three issues recently and found several features that stood out.

The Aug issue had "Cheap, Chic, And Made For All: How Uniqlo Plans To Take Over Casual Fashion" with Jeff Chu writing on the fast-growing Japan-based casual apparel retailer. Very interesting company that recently opened it's first West Coast store in San Francisco and next week is launching it's US online store.

The Sept edition of FC had a piece on a topic of interest in "How Coursera, A Free Online Education Service, Will School Us All." Written by Anya Kamenetz, it's an excellent look at the company teaching hundreds of thousands online, for free. Fascinating topic that I've previously linked to pieces about under the tag online education.

The Oct issue focused on Design and included "Can Ben Silbermann Turn Pinterest Into The World’s Greatest Shopfront?" by Max Chafkin and "Windows 8: The Boldest, Biggest Redesign In Microsoft’s History" from Austin Carr. Interesting pieces both on a new company and an established coporation doing something different.

Businessweek Pieces - on Workday, Nuance, MemSQL & Microsoft Surface Tablet

There's been several pieces of Businessweek writing that stood out lately with the largest a feature by Ashlee Vance on the Pleasanton, CA based company Workday. Titled "The Two Horsemen of the Enterprise Software Apocalypse" it's a detailed look at the fast growing company (and noted Oracle competitor) in the internal business and employee management software space.

Also from Vance recently was "Why Microsoft's Surface Tablet Shames the PC Industry" on the latest hardware entry from the technology giant and "Enterprise Technology: Revenge of the Nerdiest Nerds" on data center software company MemSQL.

Final BW piece from the last few weeks to note was the interesting "Why Nuance Is Giving It Away" by Olga Kharif. Nuance is a company I'd heard of years ago and they're now perhaps best known for providing the voice recognition software used in Siri by Apple.

Businessweek Pieces: Nokia / Subaru of Indiana Plant / Stuck in Jobs

Couple of different pieces of note from the June 6 issue of Businessweek.



Cover story was "Stephen Elop's Nokia Adventure" written by Peter Burrows and looks at the turnaround efforts at the mobile phone maker. It's pretty fascinating given the various elements around Nokia right now. The Finnish company has been floundering in recent years and some 6 months ago hired an outsider in Elop, former head of Office products for Microsoft. Pretty drastic action he's taken thus far in the scrapping of Nokia's internally built phone software in favor of Microsoft Windows Phone 7. It may or may not mean success for Nokia as it battles Apple and it's proprietary software, HP and it's Palm-acquired software and a host of other hardware manufacturers running free Android software from Google, but it is certainly a bold move.

Another interesting corporate view piece from this issue of BW looked not at a company struggling, but one thriving. Subaru sales last year increased at twice the rate of the rest of the automotive industry and the feature "Subaru of Indiana, America's Scrappiest Carmaker" looks at operations at Subaru's sole US plant. Pretty remarkable stuff detailed in this Roben Farzad piece with the facility operating at a level of high efficiency as well as minimal waste generated.

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Interesting as well from BW lately was "Stuck in Jobs: The New Swing Voters" from the June 20 issue. The notion put forth by Mike Dorning deals with employee's having the confidence to willingly switch jobs. He looks at it as a comparative measure with a larger number of employee's willing to switch being a positive indicator for the economy... and for people voting for politicians based on their feelings of our economic track. What got me wasn't the political implications, but just the general idea around the import of this willingness to move.

Perhaps an obvious thing, but people who are employed not liking a job, but feeling trapped in it is certainly something that can have big ramifications of the economy, as well as of course the happiness of people working in it.

Politics Frozen Cover Story from Time

A few interesting pieces in the Mar 1 issue of Time Magazine... highlighted by "Why Washington Is Tied Up in Knots" by Peter Beinart.



Prior to reading this cover story, I saw the David Von Drehle article "Why the Tea Party Movement Matters"... and the order in which I read them led to some interesting thoughts (you know, for myself).

Von Drehle writes of how this loosely organized political movement is gaining traction with people frustrated with government and feeling there has to be a better. Contained within this group of people are those ranging from former Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo and his "Barack Hussein!!! Obama" references to much more measured non-wack job types.

From this, I found myself wondering a bit as to why exactly it's been so difficult for Obama to gain traction (not with The Crazies types, but with people who have legitimate frustration as to why it's hard for Washington to get stuff done)... and this is where the Beinart piece comes in.

It's a fascinating look at how difficult it is to get anything accomplished in a two party environment where one party contains the power (the Democrats right now) and the other party (the Republicans) is intent on blocking anything not proposed by themselves. This blocking is achieved through the tactic of a filibuster and Beinart writes that "in 2009, Senate Republicans filibustered a stunning 80% of major legislation... and GOP leader Mitch McConnell led a filibuster of a deficit-reduction commission that he himself had demanded."

Beinart closes his well written piece with his recommendations for what may help get past this political gridlock situation. Less caucuses... open primaries, a larger number of talk shows and blogs that consider both Democratic and Republican viewpoints and another legitimate 3rd party candidate (ala Ross Perot)... all things that seem like they would be a benefit.

All in way, Beinart gives some compelling writing... which may well repeat itself in much longer form in the June 2010 release of his book "The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris."

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Way way unrelated to the topic in these two articles above, the product review "Shout Hallelujah, Come On, Get Appy" is some more interesting content from this issue of Time. All about the Windows Phone 7 Operating System from Microsoft... it makes me very curious to see (after a Christmas 2010 release) phones with this OS.

They may not be quite as great as the iPhone, but new handsets with this WP7 may also have access to a better wireless network than AT&T is now providing.

BusinessWeek Pieces - Apple Tablet & Other Tech Products

Very interested in what Apple may (or may not) announce as a new product entry in the computer tablet/reader category. Apparently I'm not the only curious party as the recent BusinessWeek piece "Five Ways Apple's Tablet May Change the World" shows.

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Not to completely shun the PC world... there's also been a good amount of (mostly positive) press around the recent Microsoft launch of the Windows 7 operating system. Two different product review pieces were from the (now departed from BusinessWeek) Tech & You writer Stephen Wildstrom. From the Oct 26 issue was "Win 7: Microsoft Gets It Right (Finally)" and the Nov 9 issue "Multitouch Moves to the Big Screen: PCs"... about how Win 7 enables multi-touch capabilities.

Going back to the "maybe forthcoming" Apple tablet, Wildstrom wrote "The Hypothetical Apple Tablet: User Input Will Be the Key" a few weeks ago on his personal blog.

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Also related to said hypothetical Apple tablet was this BusinessWeek piece on the Nook e-reader from Barnes & Noble. Will be very interesting to see how products such as the Nook, the new e-reader from Plastic Logic or Kindle from Amazon compare and compete with whatever Apple may bring to the show.

Workplace Culture Blog Posts

Last month I did a blog post with the business topics most frequently covered here and within those topics, have now aggregated posts done around touch-screen technology (as a part of aforementioned business topic blog post) and Social Media links and commentary.

With this leaving Cloud Computing, Workplace Culture and Customer Service as other business areas of note covered here... I wanted to tackle first Workplace Culture... but, with the statement that it closely links to Customer Service.

The concept behind this coupling notion is that the helpfulness and attitude of a company's employees in many ways can be an indicator of how well those employees feel treated. Someone simply doing their job is one thing, but to do it exceptionally well often requires a combination of personal excellence (pardon the cliche) and a desire to exercise that on behalf of the company. This is going to be particularly true in a customer facing role where someone may not necessarily have to "delight the customer" in order to fulfill their job function.

So... blog posts done around workplace culture:

The most recent was last month and my post about Best Buy included pieces both about the retailer's success and it's People Management. The two things related? Probably...

In Nov 2009 I did a post titled "Employer / Employee Relationship BusinessWeek Pieces"... containing several links from the Nov 16 BW issue. These included both one about the (seemingly outstanding for both the employee and company) Microsoft health coverage and one about the pending talent exodus from companies where employees feel mistreated.

From Sept 2009, I linked to the annual BusinessWeek "Best Places to Launch a Career" and then in Jan 2009, did a post on Fortune Magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For".

Getting outside the realm of "best places to work" lists, I did a March 2009 post around the Fast Company 2009 "50 Most Innovative Companies" List. Does a company being innovative mean that it's employees have a good work environment? Nah... definitely not, but it sure doesn't hurt as it's going to be tough for a well-intentioned and employee friendly firm to hold onto it's best employees if they're bored.

Two different blog posts about People Management at IBM... from Nov 2009 was a post about the 401K... and IBM's program offering to employees and from Mar 2009 was a post with two different pieces on IBM... one on training and one mentoring.

Finally, in October 2008 I posted a blog entry titled "Corporate Workplace Culture: the Good (Not the Bad or Ugly)." Within that was multiple links about (positive workplace example) companies like Microsoft, Netflix, REI, Costco and Google).

Lots of posts, even more links within those and I think it all comes down to a basic concept... companies that want to do well over the long run have to offer a solid product or service AND have employees that feel valued.

Short-term positive results can certainly be achieved without these employees, but sustainable excellence... not so likely.

Employer / Employee Relationship BusinessWeek Pieces

Two brief interesting pieces around employees and the companies they work for from the November 16 issue of BusinessWeek.

The longer of the two is titled "The Return of the House Call" and details the Microsoft program that let's employees request an in-home doctor visit. From a financial perspective, it can actually reduce Microsoft expense in helping to bring down company costs for any unneeded emergency room visits by covered employees (should probably be noted that the Microsoft health care plan is apparently noted for being low-cost to it's employees).

The secondary, but still important impact of the program is in showing employees how valued they are by the company.

Very much tied to this latter concept, I thought the point raised in the extremely short "Are Your Employees Just Biding Their Time?" was a solid one. The concept is that there's a number of companies out there taking the current recession as an opportunity to squeeze employees and that could turn out to be counterproductive when the economy turns around. If an employee doesn't feel valued or treated fairly, it could well be a mass exodus of talent once other opportunities present themselves.

I find this whole idea of the employee / employer relationship to be a fascinating one and (keeping in mind things are always as they appear) it's interesting to read about and reflect upon the approaches taken by some large corporations.

I did a blog post in Oct 2008 titled Corporate Workplace Culture: the Good (Not the Bad or Ugly) which featured some positive employee treatment stories from companies such as Costco, Netflix, Google and yep... Microsoft and then another post in March of this year on People Management at IBM.

Just interesting... I think the point is that companies can squeeze employees under certain conditions, but I really question how sustainable the practice is over the long haul.

Microsoft Pieces from BusinessWeek

Couple of interesting articles on Microsoft (and the PC business as a whole in the last) in the last few BusinessWeek issues.

The July 6 issue cover story is titled "Microsoft Defends It's Empire" and is an interesting look at how the company seems to have recognized where business (as well as the consumer market) is headed and adapted it's business model accordingly. Rather than simply expecting that everyone will maintain status quo and purchase software as they always have, Microsoft is now making more it's suite of the ubiquitous Office software available online. Additionally, the equally universal Exchange e-mail server program and Sharepoint Data Collaboration services are now available on a monthly per use basis.

This isn't a shocking move on the part of the software behemoth, but also seems to be a very solid and necessary one as IT moves more and more in the direction of this per use Cloud Computing model.

Just when you think all is well...

In what seems to be almost a complete 180 degree move from this customer-friendly approach, a second BusinessWeek article talks about the pricing stance Microsoft is looking to take with it's new Windows 7 operating system (out later this fall). "Windows 7: Microsoft vs. the PC Makers" details how company wants to roughly triple the cost of the O/S.

This is setting up a large showdown with PC manufacturers who would likely have to pass those costs along to end users (for which now is not the greatest economic climate). As Phil McKinney, Hewlett-Packard CTO for it's PC group says in the article "these are issues we still need to work out." I would think that's especially the case with the market push towards low-cost netbooks on which margins are much thinner than traditional notebook PCs.

Well, two different stories on Microsoft... one in which they seem to be the right track, the other... somewhat questionable.

Fast Company Magazine - Nov 2008 issue

There was a couple of very different articles of interest from the November 2008 issue of Fast Company Magazine.

First was a profile of Microsoft Live Labs head Gary Flake and his efforts to innovate at the software giant. While it will take years to measure the true legacy Flake leaves at Microsoft, early returns have been interesting with the 3-D photo application photosynth as an example.

Also from this Nov 2008 issue was a Q&A session with Costco cofounder and current CEO Jim Sinegal. Among other things, it feature's Sinegal's views of how a big publicly-traded retailer can (as some assert) be overly generous to it's employees and still prosper (perhaps due in part to said generosity).

Corporate Workplace Culture: the Good (Not the Bad or Ugly)

While Corporate America often gets a bad rap (justifiably so) for the environment (not CFC-type environment, but employee mattering-type environment) it's people work in, there are some stories out there of companies that do it right...

In a September 2007 article, BusinessWeek ran "Netflix: Flex to the Max" about the efforts at Netflix to both attract and retain the best employees... through extreme "flexibility and responsibility" provided from CEO Reed Hastings on down.

Also, from September 2007, BusinessWeek published "How to Make a Microserf Smile" about the efforts at employee responsiveness done at the tech behemoth. Led by HR chief Lisa Brummel, Microsoft has fought gamely over the last few years to keep both it's star employees and overall moral up.

It's probably not necessary to point to Google as a company that treats it's employees well (given the legendary free cafeteria, child care, laundry, etc), but in it's March 2008 "50 Most Innovative Companies" issue, Fast Company has a piece about the perks enjoyed at Google, including an author and Presidential Candidate speaker series (pretty good stuff).

Finally (and more recently), Fred Kiel in his October 6, 2008 BusinessWeek opinion piece, tears apart the notion that employees are motivated only by self-interest. Kiel argues that rather than this, employees greatly value a workplace culture that trusts it's people (REI as an example) and gives them opportunities to advance (i.e. Costco Wholesale).