BusinessWeek Magazine - Various Stuff

Below are some various and sundry stories of note I've come across in BusinessWeek over the last few months... no common theme to them other than I found each interesting.

Dec 8 Issue

- Book Review of "Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World"... written by Don Tapscott. Discusses examples of companies like Best Buy that use a company wiki to gather employee insights as well as platforms for social interaction and connection like Facebook. Sounds interesting...

- Piece titled "User-Friendly Finance for Generation Y" on PNC Bank's new "virtual wallet" consumer account offering. Designed by IDEO, the program sounds as if it utilizes a really solid user experience based on the desires of this young banking market.

Dec 1 Issue

- "Facebook's Land Grab in the Face of a Downturn" about the social networking company's efforts to expand it's user base.

- Book Review of "Outliers"... written by uber-insight guy Malcolm Gladwell, the book contains Gladwell's views on what causes some to succeed greatly in life. One concept from the review... Gladwell's idea of a "10,000 hour rule" (practice anything long enough and you'll get good at it).

Nov 17 Issue

- "LinkedIn and Reid Hoffman: Recession Ready" about both LinkedIn founder Hoffman's views on what Web 2.0 companies need to do to survive (invest/grow even in hard times) as well as what LinkedIn is doing to position itself.

- "How Nike's Social Network Sells to Runners" about www.nikeplus.com and how the company is using the site as a social networking tool... and increasing sales as a result. Really interesting from a marketing perspective...

Nov 10 Issue

- "Dell Bets Splashy Design Will Sell It's New Laptops" about the design efforts (led by former Nike industrial designer Ed Boyd) at the computer manufacturer.

Oct 13 Issue

- "The Power 100: The Most Influential People in Sports" featuring the list itself (compiled by panelists including Paul Swangard of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon) as well as features on Yahoo! Sports, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, and Gatorade's Sports Marketing head.

BusinessWeek Magazine - Oct 13 Issue

Three different (and completely unrelated) features from the recent BusinessWeek that stood out as interesting...



1. "Dangerous Fakes: How counterfeit, defective computer components from China are getting into U.S. warplanes and ships" is a downright alarming piece that exposes a systematic problem... with potentially devastating impact on our military servicemen and women.

2. "The Power 100: Most influential people in sports": as compiled by experts from all sides of the industry... including the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon.

3. "Nokia's Bid to Rule the Mobile Web" is an interesting look at some of the efforts and strategies under way at the phone maker. While not as sexy as Apple with the introduction of the iPhone, Nokia has a huge influence due simply to it's large share (half a billion handsets expected to ship this year) of the market.