Businessweek pieces of note - by Stone, Faris, Stein, Paskin & Brustein

There were some interesting pieces of writing on a variety of different subjects from recent issues of Businessweek.

From the April 24 issue, Brad Stone wrote the short pieces "Twitter Wants to Be Your TV" on Twitter Amplify and "Google and Facebook's Fight for the Future of Tech" about acquisitions strategies.

The May 1 issue had two interesting features by excellent writers with "Greenland's Prime Minister Looks on Global Warming's Bright Side" by Stephan Faris and "Blue Bottle Coffee and the Next Wave of Artisanal Coffee Shops" by Joel Stein.

 Additionally, the May 10 Design issue contained the interesting piece "Sha Hwang, the Designer Hired to Make Obamacare a Beautiful Thing" by Janet Paskin and a really solid feature from the May 15 issue was "Font War: Inside the Design World's $20 Million Divorce" by Joshua Brustein.

Businessweek features - by Featherstone, Faris, Greenfeld & Vance

Four different Businessweek features that struck me as particularly interesting over the past few weeks were on nuclear cleanup, unemployment in Greece, that well-know electric car maker and a new 24-hour sports channel.

Most recent piece was from the Aug 5-11 issue with "The Plutonium Gang: CH2M Hill Dismantles the Hanford Nuclear Site" by Steve Featherstone. One great detail from Featherstone about this dangerous task was the $33,000 per day cost of protective gear for cleanup workers at the Plutonium Finishing Plant and the story made it feel fortunate there hasn't been a larger nuclear disaster (planned or unplanned) than we've seen.

Another great BW feature that dealt with potential calamity of a different sort was the cover story from the July 29-Aug 4 edition. "Greece's Unemployed Young: A Great Depression Steals the Nation's Future" was written by Stephan Faris and brought to mind his earlier this year piece "Screwed in Cyrus". The detail that stood out the most from this recent story was Faris noting youth unemployment rates (fairly certain the criteria for inclusion is ages 18-25) as above 35% in Italy and Portugal and above 50% in Spain and Greece. These statistics somewhat mind-blowing and scary, especially in conjunction with the xenophobia (that's at least partially related to economic hardship) I've been reading about in various parts of Europe.

The last two Businessweek features to note here both came from the July 22-Aug 8 issue and were on decidedly less serious subjects. "Fox Sports 1's Strategy vs. ESPN: 'Jockularity'" was written by Karl Taro Greenfeld about the Fox Sports cable channel debuting August 17th and "Why Everybody Loves Tesla" was the cover story by Ashlee Vance. Interesting content in both features and related to the Tesla piece was a two-minute video shot inside the Tesla factory in Fremont, CA.

Writing on economies in trouble - by Joel Stein & Stephan Faris

Two excellent pieces of writing from Businessweek recently shared the common theme of being about economies in trouble and what's being done in them. Published a little over a month ago in was "Screwed in Cyprus" by Stephan Faris and more recently, was the BW feature story "How Jerry Brown Scared California Straight" by Joel Stein.

Good writing in both and definitely interesting to read about how bad things have gotten in at least one area of Europe and what Brown working to avoid in California. Very reminiscent of the Michael Lewis book Boomerang which I noted in a Nov 2011 review as covering financial trouble for the cities of San Jose and Vallejo.

Time Magazine Pieces: Facebook timeline / JC Penny pricing / GOP Presidential Race / Mediterranean diet

There's been some excellent writing from the past few issues of Time Magazine. In the Feb 6 edition, the excellent David Von Drehle wrote "Who will be the GOP Candidate?" on the current slate of Presidential nominees.

More recently, the Feb 13 issue had two interesting business related pieces with "This Is Your Life (According to Your New Timeline)" by Allie Townsend on Facebook and "The Price Is Righter" by Brad Tuttle about pricing strategies at J.C. Penney under new CEO Ron Johnson, former head of Apple retail stores.

Finally, the latest issue of Time contained "Eat like an Italian" on the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet. It was an excellent piece by Stephan Faris that really hammered home how good it is to eat fruits, vegetables, nuts and bean.